Page 76 of We Are All Guilty Here

“You wanna dial back on barking at me like I’m an ignorant toddler?” Dylan was obviously pulling back at his temper, too. “Hannah’s fucking devastated. You know she worshipped your father. He was there when her own father died. And her mother.”

Emmy knew. She had been there, too.

He said, “I can’t even get her to tell me what happened. She just keeps saying she needs to know you’re okay.”

“So I should slip her a note in the cells with the GBI watching?”

“I know it’s a stupid idea, but I’m trying to get a resolution that doesn’t put Hannah on death row for being a cop killer.”

Emmy felt like an ax blade had lodged into her heart. She hadn’t let herself think past Sherry Robertson’s questions.

Dylan laid it out for her. “The GBI will use the same strategy they used against the father of that school shooter. The revolver that Paul brought to the scene is registered to Hannah. She kept it in a safe that she knew Paul had access to. She knew that he’d made death threats toward you and your father. She knew he was volatile and unpredictable. And unlike the father, Hannah was there at the scene standing beside a cop and said nothing. Eventually, they’re gonna find a witness who’ll testify that she was touching the gun when it went off. That’s going to be all the jury needs to send her down.”

Emmy had broken out into a sweat. She’d made Hannah buy the gun for protection when she’d moved back home after college. “She was trying to stop him. She yelled to warn me. I told that to the investigator.”

“What else did you say?”

“That I’m a shitty witness. I was freaked out. I panicked. I didn’t see whether or not Hannah touched the gun.” Emmy knew she was giving him too much information, but she didn’t care. “They can’t send her to prison if they don’t know who pulled the trigger.”

“Babe, you know how felony murder works. There doesn’t have to be an intent to kill. Just knowing about the gun, about Paul’s intentions, is enough to charge her.” Dylan’s words were stark, but his tone was soft. “Your father was lionized in law enforcement. Every eye in the county is on the prosecutor rightnow. She’s got an election coming up in November. You know what she’ll do.”

There was no air left in Emmy’s lungs. She hadn’t put the pieces together because she hadn’t wanted to. “Hannah’s a schoolteacher. A mother.”

“She might get a plea deal if she testifies against Paul, but even with that, the legal fees, losing her job, fighting it out in court—she’ll be destroyed.”

“Is that why Hannah is reaching out to me? She’s worried about being charged?”

“She’s reaching out to you because she’s swallowed up in grief. And she’s worried about you. We’re both worried.” Dylan’s voice grew even softer. “Your father died in your arms, Emmy. Where’s Cole? What about Celia and Tommy?”

“Cole’s working. Celia and Tommy are looking after Mom.”

“Who’s looking after you?”

She covered her watch with her hand. She thought about the blood caked into the crown. Gerald had looked after her. From the moment she was born, she had always been sure of her father.

“Babe.” Dylan’s tone was filled with kindness she didn’t deserve. “It’s not a bad thing to admit that you’re mourning. I’m mourning, too.”

Emmy felt her spine stiffen. “There’s a fourteen-year-old girl who’s probably dead right now. You want me to go cry in a corner when I’m the only one holding this entire department together?”

“God forbid you show any weakness.”

“God forbid you let me process shit in my own way.”

Dylan looked out into the street. They both knew the argument they weren’t going to have right now was the same argument they’d already had a million times before. Sometimes discussing it calmly. Sometimes screaming at the top of their lungs. Emmy was too closed off. She never talked about things. She didn’t express herself. She was too independent, too go-it-alone, too self-isolating, and Dylan was too tired of waiting for her to change.

She asked, “Why did Hannah call you?”

He huffed out a frustrated sigh. “I work in family law, chief. What do you think?”

Of all the emotions Emmy wouldn’t allow herself to feel, she couldn’t stop the need to feel sorry for Hannah. “She’s divorcing Paul?”

“She filed for a legal separation two months ago. He refused to leave the house.”

“Her mother put that house in a trust for Hannah. The law says—”

“Laws don’t matter if you’re not willing to enforce them. Hannah doesn’t want to be responsible for putting her son’s father in jail.”

Emmy was intimately familiar with the trap. Jonah had made their divorce as excruciating as possible. “How is Davey doing?”

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