Page 56 of Beneath the Poet's House

Saoirse clicks on the “Contact” page of Piper’s website, cursor hovering over the first field of the form. But before she can decide if she wants to do this, if she wants to actually reach out to this woman and hear her crazy theories, there’s a pounding at the front door.

Saoirse freezes. Emmit, at her door, meeting her newfound wariness with an unannounced visit to her house. Suddenly, Saoirse is more than wary. She’s more than annoyed. She’s furious. Emmit is ruining everything, proving Jonathan right, proving he’s too good to be true. She stomps across the living room, through the foyer, and yanks open the front door.

But it’s not Emmit on the stoop, backlit by the streetlights, his shadow spilling across the threshold and into the foyer, as if he’s already entered, already forced himself into her home.

It’s Aidan Vesper. His lips are pinched. He’s wearing the same black trench coat from the graveyard and holding what looks like a burner phone in one hand.

And the look on his face is one of grim satisfaction that they are finally, after all this time, going to have their talk.

Chapter 34

At first, Saoirse thinks she speaks. She thinks she says his name, threatens him in her take-no-prisoners voice, demands he get off her stoop. It takes her a moment to realize she’s made no sound, that she’s simply stared at this specter from her past, this link to her husband, as stunned and unnerved as if she were seeing a ghost.

“Aidan,” she finally whispers. “Wh-why ... What are you doing here?”

It happens so fast she can’t do anything. One moment, Aidan is on the stoop, staring back at her, and the next, he’s shoved past her into the house. Fear shoots up her spine and down her limbs. Her fingers tingle with adrenaline. She scuttles backward, hits the wall of the foyer, and turns, ready to run. The front door bangs against the frame, closing them off from the outside world, but doesn’t latch.

“Saoirse, wait! I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sorry I barged in here, but this is insane.The way you’ve been avoiding meis insane.”

Saoirse pauses. “How did you find me?”

He has the good grace to look sheepish. “Your MyChart medical records. I wasn’t supposed to access it, ethically speaking, but as a doctor in the same network, I was able to look up the address change you filed with your cardiologist.” Saoirse gapes at him, and Aidan raises his hands. “I’m sorry, it’s just ... we have to talk.”

“No,” Saoirse says. She tries to shout the word, but it comes out half wail, half sob. “No, we don’t.”

“Just listen,” Aidan insists. “I understand. I know everything. You can’t run anymore. You don’t have to. You found Jonathan’s body, right? That’s what you told the police. That you came home after spending four days at your mother’s house, and he was already dead. But I got a text from Jonathan. The night he died. He said your car had just pulled into the drivewayand you were home!”

Saoirse shakes her head. “No. That’s not true. It’s a mistake. Maybe he thought I was, but I wasn’t. I stayed in Connecticut.”

Aidan advances on her, his shoulders hulking in the narrow black coat, eyes fixed intently on hers. “Don’t you understand? I know he wanted to have a baby, and you didn’t. I know what was going on.I’m an obstetrician, Saoirse. Jonathan was confiding in me. I don’t get why you—” He pauses, groans. “Oh, god. It makes me sick.”

He lunges at her, and Saoirse’s vision goes dark around the edges. She screams, ducks. The cherrywood stand falls, sending the potted fern crashing to the ground in an explosion of dirt and terra-cotta. Aidan wheels around, a startled expression on his face. But before Saoirse can run through the front door, it’s flying open. Emmit rushes into the foyer and grabs Aidan around the waist, tackling him to the ground.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Emmit growls, lifting Aidan toward the open door and tossing him through it. When Aidan stumbles onto the stoop, Emmit pushes him again, and Aidan falls to the sidewalk. “I’m calling the police.”

“Please don’t do that,” Aidan cries, at the same time Saoirse says, “No.” She can’t let Emmit call the police, can’t have anyone else knowing what Aidan knows.

Emmit looks back and forth between them, his expression hard.

Please,Saoirse mouths to him.

Emmit relents. “Get the fuck out of here,” he says again. When Aidan scrambles to his feet and jogs off, Emmit slams and locks the door. “Are you okay?” he asks. He is staring at her like he can’t quite believe what he’s just seen. And why should he? Angry men don’t usuallybarge through the front doors of women’s houses. Women who live alone. Women who harbor secrets. “Who the hell was that?” he asks.

“A friend of Jonathan,” Saoirse says quietly.

“What did he want?”

“I have no idea,” she lies. Because she does know now. She knows what she’s feared since that moment under the willows in Rosedale Cemetery. “He just got aggressive out of nowhere,” she adds, when Emmit’s eyes continue to bore into her.

Finally, he turns from her to shoot a look of disgust at the locked door. “I should have called the police. We shouldn’t have let him get away.”

Maybe weshouldn’thave let him get away.The thought fills her with renewed dread.It’s been almost ten months, and Aidan hasn’t given up yet. How much longer until he does something drastic? Something from which there’s no coming back?

Saoirse closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about this now. It’s too much for one night. It’s too much for one lifetime. “I just want him gone,” she says. Even to her own ears, she sounds exhausted. “And now I want to go to bed.” She opens her eyes and looks at Emmit. “What were you doing here, by the way?”

His mouth jumps up in a nervous twitch. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, while it was certainly advantageous that you were here, we didn’t have plans to see each other tonight.” Sheisgrateful he was here, that much is true, but Saoirse can’t quite wrap her head around having to deal with Emmit at present. She may not want to think about Aidan, but she has to. Has to come up with some sort of plan. Has to speak with her mother.

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