Page 66 of Blade
And then I hold my breath until Dawn disappears in the rearview mirror and I reach the end of the driveway, past the fork that led to the guest cottage where Emile lived. Her last words still swimming in my head. About all of the things Emile might know.
The girl inside me flies from the closet, tears streaming down my cheeks. Another lesson I’ve learned from my work. Revisiting a source of trauma outside a therapeutic setting is not cathartic—it just inflicts a new wound. But there’s no time for that. I think about the things Emile might know—not just about her but also about us. The Orphans. Three of us, all nearby the night he disappeared.
One of us, at least, wanting him dead.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Excerpt from Testimony of Hugo Aguilar
Ada Olson: Looking back now, Mr. Aguilar, do you have any regrets about your relationship with Ms. Montgomery?
Hugo Aguilar: I loved Jolene.
Ada Olson: But you left and never looked back. Without saying goodbye. You went on and lived your life—went to college, got married. Had two children ...
Hugo Aguilar: That’s not true.
Ada Olson: What do you mean?
Hugo Aguilar: I wrote her a letter explaining everything. How I lost my funding to train at The Palace. I found out when I went home for the holidays. I couldn’t afford to come back. And then, I just—I just quit while I still had time to go to college. It wasn’t what I wanted. But I didn’t have a choice.
Ada Olson: That’s not what you told everyone at The Palace.
Hugo Aguilar: No—I didn’t tell anyone but Jolene about the money. I wanted to leave with my head held high.
Ada Olson: But Jolene never got the letter. She never heard from you after you left.
Hugo Aguilar: But—no. I wrote her a letter. I sent it to Emile and asked him to give it to her.
Ada Olson: You sent a letter to Emile Dresiér? To give to Jolene?
Hugo Aguilar: Yes.
Ada Olson: Are you aware that Emile never gave it to her?
Hugo Aguilar: I had no idea. My God ... Jolene.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ana
Before—One Year at The Palace
The story unfolded as Emile walked Ana back inside, through the snack bar, around the boards to the ice, where the session was about to end—the session Ana was supposed to be on—and finally into the girls’ locker room, where Jolene was still hugging the toilet.
Emile said Hugo was going to start college and get married to a girl named Isabella—the girl he’d left behind in Spain. They’d been together for eight years, having met when she was a mediocre skater at his rink, and he was the almighty Hugo who’d placed third at Europeans one year. His claim to fame that meant nothing outside the skating world.
At twenty-one, and without a World medal, he decided to move on—from skating, and from Jolene. Another skater from Spain was coming to The Palace in the spring, taking Hugo’s room and the government sponsorship money. Emile had scouted him, and Dawn was thrilled.
“What did you expect?” Emile asked that day when it was snowing and Ana had fallen outside The Palace. “That they would live happily ever after?”
Still, it was Emile, once again, who came to the rescue. Just as he’d done with Kayla. Like he was one of them. Still a skater. A friend. He protected Jolene’s secret. Told the school she was sick with the flu, and convinced Edie of the same. “It’s going around, very contagious”—so it was best if she left her alone.
Ana stayed with her whenever she could. Sneaking ginger ale and crackers from the kitchen, cleaning puke from the trash can, wet towels, dry towels. Stroking Jolene’s hair while she cried. “He said he loved me.” And Ana’s reply, the only thing she could think of. “I know.”
Emile came to check on them every day at four o’clock. And every day, she found herself watching the time, checking it every half hour, every fifteen minutes, until she heard his footsteps on the hard floor outside their room. She came to know them because they were uneven from his limp, like the distinct rhythm of a song. Boom-boom, boom-boom. And sometimes they made her think of her mother’s feet on that floor just over a year ago. Down the hall. Down the stairs. And away. Clip-clop, clip-clop.
Emile made an appointment for Jolene at a clinic in Colorado Springs. The same place he’d brought Kayla after she was raped in the woods.