Best Kept Secret (Rochester Trilogy 3)

“Wait for what?” Mateo asks, his tone biting.

“I don’t know,” Emily fires back. “I don’t know. Maybe I was waiting for Joe to fuck up so badly the rest of the police force would notice. But that never happens. They protect their own.” Her laugh is bitter and sad. “What was I going to do, walk into the station and tell them he’d tried to kill me? They’d think I was crazy, and then I’d never have a chance to get Paige back.”

Her voice cracks on Paige’s name, and that’s it. That’s what made her do all this shit. She wants Paige back. “You could have come to me.”

Emily’s eyes shine with tears. “No, I couldn’t have. What if Joe had discovered me? How would it be better to get killed in front of Paige? I had to stay out of sight.”

“But you didn’t,” Mateo points out. “You stalked them. And then you followed Jane to Houston.”

“With a goddamn gun,” I say, because I’m not going to forgive that so easily. I believe that Emily’s telling the truth, but the thought of a bullet in Jane’s body makes me see red.

“Yeah. I did. And maybe it wasn’t a good plan, but you’re here.” Emily looks back at me. “I miss Paige so much that it hurts to breathe. Every day—” Her hands go to her chest. “I miss her. I want her to be with me. If we can fix all this, I want her to be with me.”

I have the same sensation I did when I slid down the cliff, only my leg doesn’t break on impact. It’s worse. Because what this means is that I’m going to lose Paige. It’s been so goddamn difficult, trying to figure things out with her, trying not to fuck it all up. But what Emily’s suggesting is an end to all that. A return to the way it was before.

Except there is no going back to how it was before.

“I’ll help you,” I say, my voice tight. “I’ll help you, and Jane will help you, but you’re not going to get Paige back. Not right away. We have to make sure you aren’t in danger first. No more watching us. No more haunting the beach at night.”

“If there was any hope of even seeing Paige again, I had to—” She looks down at the floor. “I didn’t have to do that. I regret it. I just want my daughter. You have—” She’s choked up. Struggling. “You have to understand that.”

Emily doesn’t take her eyes off me, and Mateo’s watching her like he’s a human lie-detector test. And according to his expression, she’s failing.

“Well,” he says. “You got us here. What’s your new plan, Emily? What do you have in mind to fix all this?” The skepticism in his tone verges on derision, but there’s something more complicated in his eyes. No idea what.

“I need help.” Emily’s hands fall to her sides, hanging uselessly.

It feels wrong to see her like this. Rattling around a barely furnished cabin in the woods. Defeated and begging for help. It never would have gotten this far if I’d listened to her back then. If I’d done something about Rhys back then. I should have. I know that. But my long history with my brother clouded my judgment. I knew what it would mean to pick a fight with him. Rhys didn’t lose fights, and she’d chosen him, but none of that excuses my inaction. “Nobody’s going to believe me if I speak against Joe. They’d believe you, though.”

“The police department isn’t going to listen to a word I say.”

“But you can go above the police department.” Hope has come back into Emily’s eyes. It must hurt like hell. I can see that it does. She looks like I felt when Jane was gone. Fucking wretched. And she’s been separated from Paige for months.

“In a place like this, there isn’t anybody above the police.” Mateo’s not buying any of this. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me expectantly. I’m supposed to be the one to shut this down now and kill the hope in Emily’s eyes.

“There are a few people I could talk to.” Mateo scoffs. Emily holds her breath. “But it’s not a guarantee. I don’t know how this all shakes out.”

“But you’ll try?”

Leaves rustle outside the cabin as the breeze picks up. It almost sounds like rain, but there’s not a cloud in the sky today. Jane and Paige will be on the strip of beach by the inn or walking in the yard with the sun in their hair. I want to be with them, and strangely enough, I want Emily to not be in this murky piece-of-shit house. Not because I want her with me. Only because I know how happy it would make Paige. She’s missed her mother just as desperately as Emily has missed her.