Page 16 of After the Accident
Emma:As everyone was finishing, Julius went to take the girls upstairs into the hotel. I told him I’d be up in about twenty minutes but that I had to grab a few things from the cottage first. Really, I wanted to wash my face and have a little rest.
Mum said she hadn’t finished eating, so I left her at the table with Liz, and then headed past the pool towards the cottages.
Liz:Left her Mum all alone. Tells you something, doesn’t it?
Emma:I had let myself into the cottage and was on my way into the bathroom when I heard footsteps from the back…
…
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I don’t think itwasfootsteps. There was grass at the back and I don’t think I’d have heard someone walking unless they were being really loud. I heardsomething, though – which is why I let myself out the sliding door at the back. That’s when I saw Daniel peeping into Mum’s cottage.
Chapter Nine
TINA
Daniel:That’s slander. Or libel. Or both.
Emma:Daniel was peering through the window at the back, but I wonder now if the sound I heard was him trying the door.
Daniel:Absolutely, one hundred per cent, not true.
Emma:When he saw me, it was like he was a kid caught in the fridge after midnight. He held up his cigar, which he hadn’t lit, and said he was looking for somewhere to smoke. It might have been more believable if the hotel’s only smoking area wasn’t in the opposite direction. He knew that because he’d gone there the night before.
Daniel:I asked one of the little server fellows where I could smoke – and that’s where he pointed me. If you want to take it up with anyone, take it up with him.
Emma:I told him the smoking area was in the same place it had been the night before. The same place he’d gone that morning. He stared back at me for a second and I know he was trying to think of a better explanation for why he’d been snooping. In the end, he disappeared off towards the place he should have been.
Daniel:You should be asking her about why she was staying in that cottage in the first place. Her dad had an accident and, somehow, she benefitted from it. There’s a whole lot of questions I’d have for her, if it was me.
Emma:I watched him go and followed him around the front. He kept turning and looking at me and it definitely felt good to have him on the run.
Daniel:There’s something wrong with that girl.
Emma:I waited until Daniel had gone and then went back into the cottage. I was trying to think why he’d be snooping around, but it didn’t feel like something I could simply ask Mum, or tell her. She had enough going on, plus I doubt she’d have seen it the way I did. She’d have waved it away as something innocent. But Daniel knew Mum was still at dinner, so it felt like something he’d done on purpose.
Either way, I found myself inside and scrolling through my phone. I knew I was going to have to be up and invested in looking after the twins, but it had been such a long couple of days that I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
I checked the time and, even with the difference, I knew Tina would have just shut up the shop back at home.
Tina (friend of Emma McGinley):I was driving home but pulled over as soon as I saw that Emma was calling.
Emma:I work in Tina’s clothes shop. After I was released, I thought the only job I could get would be with Dad – and that was if he’d have me. It would have meant working with him and, more importantly, Daniel, every day. It would never have lasted and I would have ended up breaking my probation. It was Tina who saved me.
Tina:I wouldn’t go that far.
Emma:When my husband had divorced me and everyone else thought I was a monster, Tina was the one who said I could come and work with her. I’d have done it for free, but she set up a proper schedule where I’d get paid more after a certain length of time, or if I was opening up, that sort of thing. On the first day, she gave me a key for the shop and it meant so much that she trusted me. I was holding this little door key and I wanted to cry. I was pinching my thumb, trying to stop myself because it was such a silly thing.
Then she started encouraging me to go to these trade fairs where people buy vintage clothes in bulk. She said I had a better eye than her and that…
…
Sorry, I need a minute.
Julius:They should have come out as a couple. It’s ridiculous. Everyone knows anyway.
Emma:We’re not a couple. It’s not like that. I can’t believe someone would say that. She just… she means a lot to me.
Tina:Couple?! Ha! Who told you that? I think my girlfriend might have a thing or two to say about it.
