Page 118 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Because fucking is for pleasure. Rape is for control.”

He stared at her for a second, then barked out a loud laugh. “Oprah Fucking Winfrey here, ladies and gents.”

Jude took four twenties from her wallet and fanned them out on the bar. “Next bottle’s on me.”

Her knees were shaky as she headed toward the door. Jude was suddenly fifteen again, feeling Adam’s predatory gaze following her across the crowded room while she ignored the blood rolling down her legs and pooling into her boots, and wondered if he’d broken a rib when he’d punched her, and trying to think how she would manage to climb the trellis up to her bedroom, and whether she could take a shower immediately or would she have to wait until the morning so that the rattling pipes didn’t wake up her parents?

Outside, Jude blinked at the sudden burst of sunlight. Her eyes watered. She wasn’t deluded enough to deny there were tears, too. The black eyeliner was probably running down her face. She found her sunglasses in her purse. Slid them on as she approached Cole and Brett. She’d come here hoping to get answers, and stumbled into a sweet moment of revenge.

She told Brett, “Adam Huntsinger is in violation of the terms of his bail. He’s drunk and there’s a loaded sawed-off shotgun under the bar. Call his probation officer and see if you can get him violated and put back inside.”

Brett gave her a funny look. “Are you serious? Everybody knows about the shotgun.”

“Then you’re some kind of goddam dipshit for not busting him sooner.” She turned to Cole. “Take me to the station.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Emmy drove down a long dirt track that spoked off the backroads. Her chest was still hurting. The tightness was back. She hadn’t made it to Dylan’s nine thirty alarm. Her three hours of blissful unawareness had been broken by a series of texts. Seth hadn’t made any progress on finding Paisley Walker. Tommy was with Myrna in room 612 at the Azalea Place Memory Care Center. Sherry Robertson had relayed that Gerald’s autopsy would be performed at four this afternoon. Cole was driving to her ex-husband’s bar with her risen-from-the-dead sister, who was making the kind of trouble that Emmy didn’t need.

All of it mattered, but only one part of it felt real.

Emmy had spent six long, fretful years awaiting the awful day of Myrna’s final transfer to a care home, and the last six weeks dreading the arrival of Gerald’s slow death. Then suddenly, in the blink of an eye they were both gone. Emmy was effectively an orphan. Her father would never again act as her rudder, gently steering her in the right direction. Myrna would never again put the wind in her sails. She was on her own now.

Dylan would’ve argued the point. He had long told her that she needed to learn how to set her burdens down. The truth was, Emmy was afraid if she set them down, she would never be able to pick them back up again. Particularly now. Paisley Walker was counting on her. The squad was looking to her for direction. The town needed some kind of resolution. There could be other vulnerable children in danger. Emmy knew what her parents would want her to do. Myrna would tell her to makeplans, take action, do something about it. Gerald would tell her to keep her head down and do her job.

She turned down the long driveway to Virgil and Peggy’s farm. The couple had kept horses for as long as she could remember. Emmy had ridden with Virgil when she was a kid, then they’d both taken Cole out on the rolling fields behind the house. Thinking about those moments took some of the tension out of her shoulders. It was nice to have a good memory among all the bad that was piling up on her.

Emmy did a quick turn at the end of the drive and backed her cruiser onto the parking pad. Virgil’s truck was backed up to a horse trailer. She could smell manure when she got out of the cruiser. A breeze had kicked up. The clouds were growing dark. A storm was coming. She was heading toward Virgil’s front door when she spotted him coming out of the barn. Emmy navigated the steep hill toward the back of the property. She could feel her feet sliding inside her boots. She’d spent the entire three hours of sleep in Dylan’s bathtub. Her skin was more wrinkled than Millie’s.

“Hey.” Virgil swung the door closed. He took the heavy chain off his shoulder. “Any news on Paisley?”

“Nothing.” She saw the disappointment on his face. “Thought I’d pick up those boxes Dad asked you to get from storage. Jude wants to go through the Huntsinger case back at the station, see if we missed anything.”

Virgil looked surprised. “They’re in the basement. I thought your dad didn’t want it getting out that we were reopening the case.”

“He didn’t,” Emmy said. “But I can’t think of anything else to do and Jude’s been more right on things than she’s been wrong, so here we are.”

“Sounds reasonable.” He fed the chain through the hasp on the door, then tied it into a loose knot. “Let’s see if the squirrels figure that out.”

Emmy made herself smile at the joke, if only to acknowledge he was trying. She walked alongside Virgil back toward his house. Cole had already told her that Jude was asking questions about Emmy. She figured Virgil was the only person in townwho would honestly answer questions about Jude. “You knew Martha when she lived here, right?”

“I knew her as Gerald’s daughter. I was starting my own family when she went off the rails. Made me glad we had boys. Raising girls can kill a man.”

Emmy couldn’t bring herself to smile at his joke this time.

“Your sister was what we called a hell raiser. Loved a party. Loved a drink. I pulled her over on a couple of DUIs before I realized Gerald wasn’t gonna do anything about it.” He shrugged at the look she gave him. “You could say things were different back then. DUIs weren’t that big a deal. Plus, Gerald had his own issues with drinking, so I think he was more inclined to cut her some slack. No matter who ended up getting hurt.”

Emmy felt her eyebrows go up. She’d never heard Virgil even lightly criticize her father.

He said, “Sorry, sugar, it was a frustrating time. Martha caused a lot of problems for a lot of people.”

“You mean the car accident?”

“That was a big part of it, but everything that led up to the crash made folks want to see her punished. Martha was drunk out of her mind when she hit Bubba Rawley. He almost lost his arm. Still has nerve damage to this day. Tommy had such a bad concussion he couldn’t hardly walk straight.”

This was new information to Emmy. “Tommy was in the car accident, too?”

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