Page 57 of Calling All Angels
“No… No,” he said, repeating the words Emma spoke. “You’re not. Listen to me. Emma says she knows you didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“Emma says…what?”
“She knows that you care about her. That ye didn’t mean it. The car…”
Kinsey shook her head, tears burning in her eyes, searching the empty space beside him for signs of Emma. “How did you—? How can you know about—?”
“I’m speakin’ for her, ye see? She knows it was you.”
Kinsey’s expression crumbled. “I didn’t. I didn’t mean it. It was all a mistake.” A sob broke her words. “A h-horrible mistake.”
“She knows that,” he told her. “She knows you’d never mean to hurt her—or Aubrey, either.”
Kinsey lowered her head. “I did, though. I did hurt her. I was s-so mad about everything. At Emma not believing in me. Aubrey just walking into every opening so easy. Aubrey has everything…I have no one. I just…I don’t know what happened. I just lost control.” She pressed her fingertips to her skull. “Why am I telling you this? There’s no changing things. I did what I did.”
“What’s done is done, you’re right. But, Kinsey, ’tis wrong to think Emma didna care about you. She did. She does.” He glanced at Emma, who motioned for him to go on. “She’s sorry for not payin’ better attention to what you wanted. She knows it’s hard for you to accept help. But things can get better. And they will if you’ll try.”
“It’s too late for me. I even went to her house to tell Aubrey what I did, to apologize, but she was already gone, and then…I couldn’t help it. I messed up her house because I’d ruined everything. Now Emma’s…she must bedeadbecause if you’re an angel—? It’s all my fault.”
“She’s not dead. And the part of her that loves ye is right here beside me. But this here…this is no answer.”
Beside him, Emma nodded, encouraging him as Kinsey inched toward the edge.
“She says she forgives ye, Kinsey, for what happened. She wants to help ye.”
For the first time, there was a shred of hope in Kinsey’s eyes. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Aye. She does. She said so herself. Right here.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Connor tipped his head as Emma instructed him what to say. “She asks if ye remember the time it was just the two of you workin’ late and she ordered a pizza with pineapple and Canadian bacon—your favorite—and ye told her about your third foster mom. How she’d read ye stories at night? How she was the only one who ever did that for ye?”
Kinsey gaped at him.
“How she’d read ye the story of King Arthur pulling that sword from the stone, and how ye said that someday you’d do that? That she told ye—”
“I could be anything I wanted to be,” Kinsey finished. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I told you. Emma’s right here wi’ me. If ye have somethin’ to say to her, say it now. Go on, lass.”
She swallowed thickly, tears running down her cheeks. “This is crazytime. But…I’m…I’m sorry, Emma. If you can hear me, I’m so sorry. I wish I could take that night back. I’d give anything if I could.”
Connor held his hand out to her as a siren sounded in the distance. “Take my hand, lass. Come away from here. You’ll sort it out. It’ll be all right, ye hear?”
Kinsey glanced one more time at the rocks below, then reached for his hand just as the sandy ground beneath her foot began to crumble.
With a wide-eyed look of terror, Kinsey gasped, but Connor snagged her arm and caught her, pulling her almost effortlessly back up beside him. With a sob of gratitude, she crumped to the ground, shaking. The simple act of trust sent a rush of relief through Emma. It gave her hope that Kinsey would get through this somehow. That she’d come out the other side.
Connor disappeared from sight as two uniformed police officers—a man and a woman—appeared around the bend in the trail.
Kinsey saw them, too, but made no move to run. She glanced behind her to find Connor gone. A look of disbelief crossed her expression.
“Kinsey Abbott?” the woman called, approaching her gently with her hand out. Reluctantly, Kinsey nodded. “We’d like a word with you.”
Chapter Ten
The next day,as Aubrey clicked off on her cell-phone call with the detective, she leaned her head against Jacob’s shoulder outside the private room Emma had been moved to. Still shaken with disbelief that it could have been Kinsey all along, she wrapped her arm around Jacob’s waist as Aaron leaned against the wall nearby beneath a Fourth of July banner and photos of the staff’s celebrations from years past. Little red, white, and blue flags were strung across the nurse’s station. The nurses were already passing out slices of a patriotic flag cake someone had baked.
