Page 30 of We Are All Guilty Here

Emmy wiped away tears she hadn’t known were falling. “Hannah, please.”

“You always chose Jonah.” The anger had left Hannah’s voice. She was talking as if it was already over. “Even back in high school, I would ask you to go to the movies or hang out at the mall or listen to me whine about my mom, and all Jonah had to do was snap his fingers, and you’d be gone. You always chose him over me. Always.”

“That’s not—” Emmy caught herself, because she couldn’t say it wasn’t true.

“If I could get back all the hours I spent listening to you obsess over that prick. All the excuses you made. All the lies you told yourself. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“You’re right,” Emmy said. “You’re right about all of it—about Jonah, about Madison. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry. Tell me how to fix this.”

“How can it be fixed?”

Emmy was stopped short by the question.

“Even if Madison is alive, even if by some miracle she’s brought home to me and Paul, what is her life going to be like? How the hell is she ever going to recover from it? And how on earth can you be in my life if all you do is remind me of losing the most precious thing I’ve ever had?”

Emmy shook her head. It was too much. It was all too much.

“Paul will never forgive you for this,” Hannah said. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive you, either.”

“Please,” Emmy said. “You’re my best friend in the entire world. I don’t even know how to live my life without you.”

“Figure it out,” Hannah said. “You chose your husband. Now I’m choosing mine.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Emmy walked down the stairs into her mother’s kitchen, squinting at the slice of early morning sun cutting through the window over the sink. Her head was pounding from grief, heat exhaustion and sleeplessness. After leaving Hannah’s, she’d made herself keep moving forward, swallowing her emotions as she knocked on door after door of sex offenders from the List.

There were 128 total perpetrators registered in the county. Eighty-seven had been convicted of some form of offense against a minor. Emmy had been assigned to the team covering Clayville. She was sickened by the details in their arrest records. Sexual exploitation of a child. Child molestation. Solicitation of sex with a child. Sodomy against a minor. Aggravated sodomy against a minor. Statutory rape. Incest.

Madison. Cheyenne. Madison. Cheyenne. Madison. Cheyenne.

None of the offenders appeared to be connected to the kidnappings, but every disgusting man she’d come across had made her skin crawl. Not because they looked like grotesque monsters, but because they looked like what they’d been in their former lives: an elementary school janitor, a fast-food restaurant manager, a Sunday school teacher, a volunteer at the children’s hospital. Thick glasses and chubby bodies and nervous smiles and grandfatherly crinkles around their eyes, and by the time Emmy had gotten to her parents’ house, all she could do was stand under the hottest shower she could tolerate, then curl up into bed beside her beautiful son.

That was when it had really hit her. The fear for Cheyenneand Madison was a constant simmer on her nerves, but the fight with Hannah had scalded her to the bone.

How on earth can you be in my life if all you do is remind me of losing the most precious thing I’ve ever had?

She was right. She was right about everything.

“Morning.” Her mother padded into the kitchen wearing her house dress and matching slippers. She stopped in front of the empty coffee maker. “You didn’t make coffee?”

Emmy didn’t answer because the answer was obvious.

“No, please, allow me.” Myrna gave her a disapproving frown before grabbing the carafe and filling it with water. Her long gray hair was down around her shoulders. She had a lost look on her face when she turned back to Emmy, asking, “How many scoops?”

Emmy cleared the grief from her throat. “Twelve.”

“I don’t know where my brain is lately.” Myrna shook her head as she grabbed the cannister. “Your father already left for the station. No news to report from overnight. He left the keys in your car. The FBI has sent a team down from Atlanta. He said he’ll call you later, but you should go to the school this morning as discussed.”

Emmy cleared her throat again. “What time does the staff show up?”

Myrna looked at her watch. “Not for another thirty minutes, but if you wish to speak with your sister-in-law, Dr. Clifton will breeze in when she pleases.”

Emmy stared all of her irritation into her mother. Myrna had never gotten along with Tommy’s wife, mostly because they were both strongly opinionated women with dueling English degrees, but tempers had boiled over four years ago and neither had spoken a word to each other since.

Myrna stared back. “What’s wrong with your face? Have you been crying?”

“Mom—” Emmy didn’t know where to start. The fight with Hannah was an open wound, but Myrna had never been the kind of mother who held you while you cried. She wanted to make plans. To take action. To do something about it.

---