Page 78 of Always Be an Us

"That was weird," Amelia comments watching their retreat.

"That was Poppy," Emma says.

Emma's Grandpa's hospital room is packed with basket flower arrangements lining each side of his bed and leading a trail right out the door. Despite the frosty welcome from his visitors, Grandpa's smile stays as sunny as ever when he sees us.

"Emma! And little Amelia is with you too."

"Hi, Grandpa," she says and goes to him avoiding the obstacles in her path. "You're okay!"

"Of course, I’m awake. What, you thought a little heart attack was going to take me out? Please. I'm made of tougher stuff than that." He's sitting up in bed and holds out his hands for a hug, which Amelia obliges. Then his eyes shift to me, and he says, "Ah. Declan you're here too."

"Nice to see you still with us."

"I have a question," Amelia blurts out, clearly over the niceties. "It's about the journal."

"Of course." Grandpa taps his bedside, and Amelia hoists herself to sit beside him. "And I didn’t finish the story I was telling you last time about the missing pages, did I?"

Amelia shakes her head looking all too eager to hear it.

"Alright, then let me remedy that." Grandpa takes a deep breath. "Well, to make a very long story short, I think the pages are missing because Madam Thornley may have run after one of the thieves as they fled. After they shot her fiancé, she lost her mind and ran after them, ripping off pages from her diary and pelting the thieves with the pages as she went. And then finally she just threw the entire diary at them and kept running right out of the hotel. The diary then ended up in that dusty corner where I found it.""Wait, you think she ran after the thieves, making a scene and throwing paper at them, but no one saw her?" Amelia frowns doubtfully.

Grandpa shrugs. "Well, I don’t know. It’s only a theory. Anyway, what was your question about the journal?"

Amelia takes a deep breath. "So, Madam Thornley wrote about everything that happened the day her fiancé was...you know..."

She glances at Emma, as though seeking permission to say a bad word.

"The day of the gala," Emma finally states, saving her.

"Right. The day of the gala. Anyway, she says she had an early evening picnic with V, her fiancé, and they visited Angel Oak. But that's miles from the hotel, and they would have needed to get back in time for the ball. Plus, why was she eating so close to dinnertime anyway, knowing there was a huge feast coming?"

"That's a good question," Grandpa frowns and scratches his chin. "I don't recall seeing her at the start of the ball now that I think about it. Maybe she didn’t plan on attending it. You know, she was always a strange one. She would sometimes emerge from her room when the other guests were gone, and then she would wander off and do her own thing. Once, her fiancé returned from a hunting trip and she wasn’t there. He was livid. We searched everywhere for her, and she later returned nursing a dying bird."

"Really?"

"Yes. I remember it like it was yesterday, one cool summer afternoon..."

"Not a dark stormy night?" Emma quips but Grandpa shakes his head with all sincerity.

"Not this time."

While Grandpa tells the story, I step out for a little bit to make phone calls for work. And then soon enough, visiting hours are over and we're saying our goodbyes and heading back to the hotel.

Amelia yawns on the ride back, and I suppose she's going to crash early enough thanks to jetlag.

But even after she retires to her room with mumbled words, Emma still hangs around the living room, sitting on the couch and staring out the window apprehensively.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Nothing Just...did you want me to do anything else? For Amelia? I could start unpacking."

"No, that's not necessary. You can go home if you want."

"Oh." She doesn't look any happier than that, as she laces her hands in front of her. If I didn't know better, I would think she was dreading it.

"Unless you don't want to go home," I ask. "Do you?"

Chapter Twenty-Three

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