Page 162 of Kings & Corruption

I used it to choose the date Emma had gone missing, starting around eleven p.m.

It was stupid. I’d been suspicious of Oscar after I’d gotten the pictures from my stalker, and I’d been suspicious of Neo after he’d found me in the woods the night of the quarry party, but the Kings had proven themselves when they’d pulled me out of the burning cabin.

Hadn’t they?

I let the feed from the night of Emma’s disappearance play.

I might have thought it was a static image if not for the clock ticking at the top of the screen: 11:00, 11:10, 11:20.

Nothing changed, and I was almost ready to turn it off — Reva would be waiting for her flour, and I didn’t want the Kings to think I still doubted them — when something moved into frame at the top of the driveway.

A second later, Emma spilled out into the parking area in front of the Kings’ house.

My heart stuttered in my chest, and I had to force myself to keep breathing as I watched her walk unsteadily toward the house, her face getting clearer as she neared the camera.

I felt like my chest was being gripped by an unseen hand. I’d looked at Emma’s pictures thousands of times since she’d disappeared, had even looked at some of the videos I had of her on my phone, but those things were part of a past that hardly seemed real.

This was Emma on the night she’d gone missing, possibly the last image ever captured of her, and it felt like it was shattering my heart into a million pieces.

She hesitated as she got closer to the door, and then, from behind the camera, I saw the broad shoulders of a man I would recognize anywhere, even from behind.

Neo.

She stopped when she saw him. He bent to say something to her, his profile coming into view, expression stern, then grabbed her arm. There was no audio, but she winced from the force of his grip.

A moment later she was pulled forward, her image disappearing from the screen.

I wound it back to the moment Neo had grabbed her and paused the video to get a better look at her expression. It was an easy one to identify, probably because it was one I’d so rarely seen on Emma’s face: fear.

Looking at my sister’s face on the screen, I had absolutely no doubt that she was scared.

No, not just scared.

Terrified.

I stared at the screen, feeling like I was in a never-ending nightmare as the truth crystalized in my mind.

The Kings had told the police they hadn’t seen Emma that night, but that had been a lie.

They’d been lying all along.

Epilogue

Neo

Ijogged in place in the corner, my eyes on my opponent (Julio?) across the sparring ring, my mind on someone else.

Willa.

It was always her. Always Willa Russo.

It always had been.

She didn’t know that. Could never know that.

I’d seen the way she’d watched her sister, like Emma was a star, like Willa had been nothing more than a shadow passing behind her. It had been that way for as long as I could remember, Emma front and center, everyone acting like she was the fucking second coming while Willa stayed in the background, reading her books.

Watching.

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