Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

A smile flickers across her face. A blink and it’s gone. “Maybe,” she murmurs.

I try to keep my tone soft and casual. “Do you still care about him?”

“No.” The answer comes so quickly I know she’s lying. Or she’s not telling the full truth. “And he doesn’t care about me. This isn’t about that.”

I don’t say anything, but my doubt must be in my face.

“I’d been watching you, mostly to make sure Paige was okay. Then when I saw how Beau cared about you, I realized I could use you. That if I approached you, if I could just explain what happened, you could help me convince Beau. Then you left.”

“I was fired.”

“You got too close to him. He cared about you too much, and he’s running scared. That’s even better. I need all the ammunition I can get.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Even if he does care about me, I don’t see how that’s ammunition. I’m not a weapon. And Beau isn’t your enemy.”

“He’s not my friend. I know he’s told you about me. I know you’ve heard the infamous story of the white knight Beau Rochester turning me away because it was the honorable thing to do. He’ll turn me away again.” Her face turns pale. “That’s why it’s such a bad idea, Jane. It’s a terrible idea to go to him alone. He would tell Joe. He’d tell the police department.”

The plane accelerates, engines getting louder. We speed down the runway and lift off. Emily folds her hands in her lap. When the landing gear loses contact with the ground, she takes a deep breath. Her hands tremble. “I hate this.”

“Flying?”

“Everything being so out of control.” Her eyes come back to mine, huge and blue and rattled. More so the higher we get into the air. It’s like when she was in my apartment. She was wild. Unpredictable. That will be even worse if it happens thirty thousand feet above the ground. “All I want is my life back. I want my baby back.”

“We’ll get her back.” It isn’t a promise I can make, but I say it anyway.

Concern splashes itself along the inside of my chest. Emily seemed composed when I saw her in my apartment, but she’s not. She’s barely holding it together. The shaking hands. The gun. All of it points to a woman so desperate she’ll do anything.

Emily’s life has reduced her from the elegant woman I saw in those photos to a wild-eyed, shaken person. It had to have been horrific to see her husband murdered in front of her. Horrific and complicated. Maybe there was a moment when she felt relief, knowing that Rhys was dead. But his death had also left her vulnerable. Her brother had proven himself to be capable of killing in cold blood over money. She survived with heartbreakingly limited options.

And for what?

For Paige.

“You might not be enough,” she says, almost to herself. “You might not be enough to convince him. We’d have to come up with another plan, then.”

“Even if we can convince Beau, how can he help?”

Her chin trembles. She looks so much like Paige in this moment. She looks lost and angry and hopeless, and I understand that. I felt that way in the foster homes with Noah. The difference between us is that I could cry on Noah’s shoulder and let him tell me silly jokes and live to face another day. Emily doesn’t have anyone. She’s been hiding, trying to stay alive, and now her secret has been blown wide open. It must feel like she’s running out of time. “My brother has the whole police department wrapped around his finger. They’ll never believe me, and they’ll cover for him when he kills me. Beau can stop them. He has power, connections, money.”

“You have money,” I point out, gesturing toward the private plane.

“A bunch of dirty money I don’t even want. And can’t even use. What am I going to do? Book a room at the Four Seasons? Joe would find me for sure. I’ve been living on canned beans and rice in a friend’s cabin. The only reason I booked the plane was because you left.”

“Emily, are you sure—is there any chance there hasn’t been a misunderstanding between you and Joe? Something he kept back from you?”

“He shot Rhys in the head. He would have done the same to me if I hadn’t jumped off the boat. I know, Jane. I saw it in his eyes.”

She’s so sure of it. But then Emily’s also sure that Beau cares about me. If she’s wrong about Beau, she could also be wrong about her brother. I don’t know if I want her to be wrong on both counts or right. What I do know is that the plane is cresting the clouds. We’re going back to Maine, and to Beau, either way.