Page 155 of We Are All Guilty Here

“What’s that?”

Emmy summoned her best Myrna. “From whom do women need protection, Vanna?”

Vanna obviously knew the answer. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “Emmy, don’t be silly.”

“It’s sheriff,” Emmy said. “That’s my title now. I was the chief deputy before. Now, I’m the sheriff.”

“All right, well I see you’re not in the right mind for talking.” Vanna’s smile was tight across her face. “You have a blessed day,sheriff.”

The sting to her parting salvo was somewhat lessened by her struggle to rise from the chair. Vanna left the office door open. Emmy got up to close it. Instead of going back to her own desk, she pushed her laptop over to Gerald’s side. She gave herself a moment before she sat down in her father’s chair.

When Emmy was a child, Gerald would often bring her to the station to give Myrna a break. He would set up Emmy at his desk with crayons and coloring books. He would turn on the radio so she couldn’t hear him talking about cases with Virgil.

She’d always hated coloring. Myrna hadn’t raised her to sit still. Emmy had spent most of her time spinning herself around in her father’s chair until she was dizzy. Then she had gotten older and started spending all of her free time with Hannah. Then Jonah had come along. Then Emmy was wearing a deputy’s uniform and sitting out in the squad room. Then she was sitting across from her father as his chief deputy.

Now, she sat in Gerald’s chair because she needed her back to the wall. Emmy didn’t want anyone to accidentally see what she was doing. She opened her laptop. Went to the cloud backup for her phone. Selected the video from two days ago that she’d recorded on the street outside Adam Huntsinger’s house.

Emmy tappedplay.

Dervla Culpepper’s face was pinched with self-righteousness as she filmed the mob of people with her iPhone. Ashleigh Ellis was looking at her watch. Brandi Norton was kneeling down to tie her shoe. The crowd was starting to grow restless again. Moms in leggings. Men in factory coveralls. A few stragglers in business casual. Twenty-six volatile, unpredictable people with more on the way.

By the time Emmy had started the recording, Hannah was already there. Gerald was still inside the house. Emmy had wanted to capture the faces in the crowd because sometimes, occasionally, violent criminals tried to insert themselves into investigations. They pretended to be witnesses or concerned citizens or spectators, or sometimes they volunteered to come out of retirement to help with the case.

There was a cough from the squad room. Emmy waited to make sure no one was heading toward the office. She tapped down the volume when Hannah asked—

Do you think Adam took Paisley?

Emmy touched the trackpad and scrubbed past the conversation. She could still remember how jarring it had felt to hear Hannah ask her a direct question. Their shared agony of watching Gerald slowly, painfully, make his way up the driveway. The comforting warmth of Hannah holding onto Emmy’s hand. The sweat pouring off her father when he’d leaned against the mailbox to catch his breath.

The sight of Gerald’s frailty had been so disconcerting that Emmy had tucked the phone into her vest pocket without stopping the recording. The camera had continued filming for sixteen minutes. By the time Emmy had stopped it, she was covered in blood and sitting inside her cruiser beside her son.

She tapped the key to slow the video back to normal speed.

Gerald was holding onto the mailbox like a crutch. He wasso visibly failing. His skin was pale. He couldn’t stand up straight because of the fractures in his spine. His voice was gravelly when he told the crowd—

Paisley Walker is not here. Go home. Let us do our job.

Emmy skipped a few moments ahead. Gerald had pushed himself away from the mailbox. Summoned the ice water in his veins. Stood straight and tall. The tactic had worked. Most people were dispersing, but Dervla Culpepper had shoved her phone into Gerald’s face. He looked exhausted when he responded to her vacuous question.

Ma’am, the case against Adam Huntsinger is—

Hannah screamed Paul’s name.

The camera turned along with Emmy.

The sequence of events happened so fast that now, sitting alone in the office, Emmy had to slow down the playback to quarter speed to understand what had really happened.

Paul aimed the revolver at Emmy’s heart. The crowd scattered. Panic ensued. Screaming. Crying. Pushing. Shoving. Cole was running in the distance. His vest flapped behind him. Then Hannah lunged into the frame, her hands flailing as she reached for the gun.

Emmy leaned closer to the screen. Slowed down the video to a crawl.

She watched the index finger of Hannah’s left hand accidentally slip through the trigger guard at the exact same moment that Paul fired the revolver. The muzzle jerked up and over, which changed the trajectory of the bullet so that it bypassed Emmy and went straight into Gerald’s chest.

Emmy stopped the video. She took a breath. Sat back in her father’s chair.

Hannah had saved her life.

Sherry Robertson would’ve said that Hannah had also helped take Gerald’s.

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