Page 4 of Deathtoll
This time, Emma’s face remained humorless. “He proposed three months ago, and you didn’t say a word all those times we talked on the phone. I guess while you weredead, you forgot that we weresisters.”
“I’m sorry.” Kate reached the conveyor belt and began unloading their cart. “I know you must have felt abandoned when I…left,” she ended up saying instead offaked my death.
“You’re the one with abandonment issues.” Emma’s response was quick with impatience. “I don’t even remember anything before Mom and Dad.”
Kate had been in middle school by the time they’d been adopted. She’d gone through several foster parent transfers. Emma had been a toddler. She’d been spared some of the trauma, at least, and Kate was glad for that.
The cashier, a previously bored-looking high school kid, rung up their purchases, openly listening. Openly checking out Emma too. Age gap or no, Emma looked like a comic book heroine with all that hair, piercing dark eyes, her body trim in the right places, curvy in others. She wore high boots, chunky heels, with her short skirt. Her current, stormy I-don’t-take-shit-from-no-one expression made her into a Comic-Con Kick-Ass Babe, and apparently teen boy catnip.
“That’s a lot of cookies,” she told Kate, in a tone that made it clear the conversation was not over.
“Betty is coming over tonight for a cup of tea.”
“Your neighbor?”
“She had me over a bunch of times when I was moving and didn’t have the kitchen fully set up yet. My turn. She’s sweet. I get her prescriptions filled, she signs for my deliveries, if I’m not home. We’re both women living alone. We watch out for each other.”
Resentment tightened Emma’s eyes again.
Kate felt like a ten-thousand-pound elephant tiptoeing through a minefield. “What?”
“You’re making friends here,” Emma said with as much disgust as if Kate were kicking puppies.
“Give me a break. I have a long list of things I feel guilty about, but I refuse to feel guilty about putting down some roots for the first time in my life. I live here. I work here. I bought a house here. Broslin is my home now.”
“Thousands of miles from yourfamily.” Emma’s gaze hardened another notch. “I could see it when you were with Murph. You deserve love. I was happy for you. He’s a great guy. But you aren’t even with him anymore. Why can’t you come back to LA?”
Kate paid the openly listening cashier. “I have responsibilities here. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or care about you, or miss you like crazy.”
Emma flashed a cold look before she turned away to finish loading their bags into the cart.
“I’m so glad you came up to see me,” Kate said to start their disastrous conversation over. “I don’t want to fight the whole time you’re here.”
Emma marched forward, the lovelorn checkout boy casting a heartbroken look after her. “It hurts when you don’t tell me things,” she said when Kate caught up with her. “I don’t like being treated like a stranger. We used to share everything.”
“I didn’t tell you about Murph because I feel like I’ve made a mess of things.” The glass doors slid aside, and they walked out into the crisp fall air. “I’m still so unsure about so many things.”
“Murph is in love with you. How obvious can a guy be?”
Kate stopped short to let a blue minivan go by. “I’m thinking about going back to therapy.”
“You should.”
“It’s not all in my head. We do have real issues.”
They loaded the groceries into Emma’s white Honda Civic, an airport rental.
“Like what?”
Kate didn’t respond until they were in the car, Emma driving.
“I was running for my life when we met, hiding in a stranger’s house. Murph had no idea his brother rented out the place behind his back while he was overseas with the Reserves.”
“Imagine that. Siblings keeping secrets from each other,” Emma said in a loaded tone, then added, “When Murph came home, he took it all in stride because he’s a good guy. He let you stay, and he protected you. He freakingshotthe idiot who was after you. Here is a man whokilledfor you. He is movie hero material. How are you having doubts about him? You lived like an engaged couple for three years in Ohio, in witness protection.”
“Because we had to. How do I know what we felt was real and not some codependent bullshit due to forced proximity? Or Stockholm Syndrome.”
“You do not have Stockholm Syndrome. Murph wasn’t keeping you captive.”
