Page 151 of The Secrets We Hide
Heat rushed into Emmy’s cheeks, but it felt good to finally confess. “Mom had a really bad day. I drank too much wine. Ace drove me home.”
“Oh my God.” Hannah dropped to one knee. “You’re a cousin-fucker.”
Emmy started laughing. Then she stopped when the flames ignited in her belly. “Please don’t make me laugh.”
“You and Taybee can be Clifton-Cliftons together.”
The comment was sobering enough to stop any laughter. “It was a one-time thing. Cole’s the only man I need in my life right now.”
Hannah took the hint. “I heard Cole’s thinking about joining the GBI?”
Emmy had seen an application on his laptop. “Jude told me if I give him more responsibilities, he’ll stay. But if he stays, he’ll want more responsibilities.”
“If you give a mouse a cookie.”
Emmy couldn’t talk about it anymore. “You’d better find a seat.”
Hannah started to go, but she turned back and squeezed Emmy’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
Emmy nodded. The watch went back into her pocket. Shelooked across the stage. Brett was in the wings bouncing like a boxer ready to fight. His wife was there with a baby on her hip and another in her belly. She looked at Emmy like she wanted to strangle her. No one was talking about sharing the sheriff’s job anymore. Everybody knew that Brett had gotten everything wrong. Especially Brett’s wife. She kept looking at him like she wished he’d been shot, too.
Emmy was conflicted. Not about Brett. Obviously, she would’ve been fine with him getting shot instead. At the very least, he wouldn’t have had to listen to the surgeon brag about how he’d managed to save his uterus. Emmy didn’t want Brett to win the election because everybody felt sorry for her. She wanted to win so she could keep doing her job.
The murder of Allison Vickery had been solved, but nothing about the case felt closed.
The district attorney was still mulling charges against Mandy Vickery. All the evidence Sherry had collected at the scene had proven Emmy’s theory of the shooting. Mandy’s palm prints were sealed in Allison’s blood onto the Glock. The touch DNA found on the black nitrile glove had belonged to both Allison and Mandy. The blood on the access panel to the attic was solely from Allison. Ballistics, forensics, spatter and splatter analysis, all told the same story.
The extent of the damage to the girl’s brain was still undetermined. Mandy’s memory loss was pronounced. She recalled only sparse details about what had happened at the house over the two days that led to the murder of her mother. She’d confirmed the important pieces about Bill and Russell, but for now, the rest was lost.
Jude had said the memories could eventually return. That with therapy and intensive work and an unblinking eye, Mandy could come to terms with what had happened. Usually, Jude was right about these things, but Emmy hoped this was one of those instances where she was wrong. She hoped that the afternoon at the house remained a blank. That Mandy wouldn’t remember the fighting. Or the fury. Or the desperation. That she would only know that she had lost her mother, who was complicated and sometimes selfish but often funny and kind.Mandy Vickery would live the rest of her life knowing that she had murdered Allison. It would be a blessing if she also remembered that Allison had spent the last few moments of her life showing her daughter that she was loved.
There weren’t many more blessings as far as the rest of the case was concerned. The Rawleys were still slinging drugs and selling women. Bill’s family had bailed him out of jail and brought him back into the fold. Reggie was riding out the scandal despite the mountain of evidence that pointed to him being a dirty cop. Only Bernadette had been punished. She’d been forced to resign, but that was hardly surprising. Whenever an example had to be made, that example was usually a woman.
That left Ezekial Gilchrist. If the man had lived in a trailer park, the Mitch Bellingham video alone would’ve been enough for the state to charge him with conspiracy to commit murder. But Ezekial lived in a mansion, so the state had claimed the evidence was flimsy, and the job of holding him accountable had fallen to Taybee.
She was suing him for $50,000,000 for the wrongful death of Ruel Clifton. Civil cases were easier to win than criminal ones. You only needed a preponderance of evidence, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Mitch’s video was a lot of evidence. Gilchrist was finally going to face his biggest nightmare: a woman who had more money than he did.
As for Ezekial’s wife, Emmy seemed to be the only person interested in finding out whether Neil Delano reallyhadkilled Evelyn, but so much time had passed she couldn’t find any threads left to pull.
There was a burst of applause when the children stopped singing. Nothing bonded a group like collective relief. Mayor Carly Clifton stood at the podium. She instructed people to turn off their phones, to refrain from cheering or booing, then explained the format. Emmy would read her prepared remarks. Then Brett would go. Then the questions would start. Then Emmy would pray for the clock to run down before she projectile vomited.
“Emmy!” Carly was waving furiously from the stage. Brett had already taken his place behind one of the podiums. “Let’s go!”
Emmy grabbed the ornate cane that her son had foisted on her. All she needed was a monocle and a hat. She felt ridiculous limping toward the podium. Every eye in the house was following her. This was the first time in a month that she’d put on her uniform. She should’ve felt more confident. She should’ve felt more like herself. Instead, she felt like a terrified carrot.
Carly started clapping her hands again, so there was another round of applause just for Emmy. Classic Clifton chicanery. Emmy rested the cane against the podium. The lights were too bright to see the audience, but the first few rows were visible. Politicians. Business owners. North Falls people. Emmy and Hannah had come up with nicknames for some of the county commissioners. The Sexy Idiot. The Distinguished Potato. The Handsome Farmer. The Small Town Butter Queen.
The rest were Cliftons by blood or by marriage. She spotted Penley taking a nip from his flask. Celia doing a crossword puzzle. Tommy looking like somebody had nailed his feet to the floor. Millie scowling. Taybee pointing at her own lips, encouraging Emmy to smile. Cole grinning at Emmy’s discomfort. Jude holding Emmy in her gaze.
The feeling of wrongness in her body had not returned since the shooting. Emmy thought maybe it was the blissful, blessed sleep during six hours of anesthesia. Or being forced to lie in bed for two weeks. Maybe the bullet had killed it. Maybe some of the weight of her suffering had been lifted by Jude.
“Emmy!” Taybee whispered, but not really, because her voice boomed to the back of the auditorium.
The crowd had gone silent. They were waiting for her to start. Emmy took her note cards out of her pocket. They were damp from her sweat. She moved them around like a slide puzzle on the podium. Her fingers left streaks across the wood. Taybee had helped her prep because there was no way Taybee wasn’t going to help her prep. Emmy found the set of cards with her opening statement. She put her mouth close to the microphone.
“Hello.”
The speakers squelched. Everybody groaned. Emmy backed off a few inches. She heard someone cough. This was going great.
