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“He didn’t want people to know, but maybe you figured out—” Emmy’s mouth had gone spitless.

She could barely form words. “That’s why he’d lost so much weight.

It started in his lungs—the tumors. We found out last year.

He was getting treatment, but then six weeks ago, he got a biopsy and he was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer, and there was nothing else that could be done.

I mean, there were things that could be done, but he didn’t want to do them.

Didn’t want to spend what time he had left going back and forth to the hospital.

Not when Mom still needed him. So … that’s when he wrote everything out. ”

Milo looked as grieved as Emmy had felt when she’d first heard about the cancer.

This was why Gerald had been talking to her about taking over his job as sheriff, and why he’d arranged for Myrna to be moved into a care facility.

He’d sat Emmy and Tommy down last month and told them both that he’d decided to let the cancer run its course.

You kids just keep your heads down and do your jobs. You’ve got your lives to live. Your mother won’t know I’m gone.

Milo put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey. I knew he wasn’t well, but he was a private man. We only talked about college football and our kids. He was so proud of you and Tommy. You were the light of his life.”

Emmy wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“The doctors wouldn’t pin down how long we had.

They said it could take three, six, maybe twelve months, but you know, there was still a seven percent chance that he could survive.

If he’d gotten treatment. I mean, he didn’t want it.

He made that clear when … But I had hoped he would …

you know he was a fighter. He always beat the odds. ”

“He did.” Milo was nodding, but she could see the sadness in his eyes.

She wiped her nose again, tried to straighten up.

Maybe the cancer was the reason that Emmy wasn’t on her knees right now.

She’d had a month and a half to get used to her father dying.

They’d sat around in his office for hours talking it out.

She’d learned more about Gerald Clifton in the last six weeks than she had in all the days that had come before.

“Anyway, the cancer. I don’t know if they have to do anything different during the—” Emmy couldn’t bring herself to say the word autopsy . “I thought you should let the medical examiner know. In case there are precautions.”

Milo nodded, but he probably thought she’d lost her mind. Cancer wasn’t contagious. You couldn’t catch it like the flu. He asked, “Do you want a moment with him?”

Emmy didn’t trust herself to speak. She could only nod.

“I’m here if you kids need me.” Milo gave her arm a squeeze before letting go. “Always, Emmy Lou. Until I draw my last breath.”

Emmy nodded again. Then it was time. Milo opened the door to the embalming room.

She took in another shaky breath. The door silently clicked closed behind her.

Gerald was lying on a table in the center of the floor. A white sheet was draped over his body, tucked under his chin. Emmy knew that Milo had done this for her benefit. She’d never seen him cover a victim like that before.

Victim.

Emmy shook her head, telling herself that she was wrong. Her father was not a victim. He’d been an innocent bystander. The gun had been pointed at Emmy’s chest. For the last twelve years, Paul had glared at her, sneered at her, mumbled nasty words in her direction.

And then he’d brought a revolver to Elsinore Meadows to try to kill her.

The compressor on the walk-in freezer switched off.

The room went so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat.

Emmy willed her legs to move as she walked toward her father.

Gerald’s face was slack. Eyes closed. Lips almost completely black.

The blood had been cleaned from his mouth.

The tiny scrape that Myrna’s fingernail had left yesterday morning looked more like a stray mark she’d made with one of her grading pens.

“Dad.” Emmy let out a long breath as she stood over the body.

She had never before understood what it meant to say that the life had gone out of somebody.

Now, she got it. There was no life left in her father.

Just a cancer-ravaged body, an arthritic spine, knees that were so worn down his legs had bowed.

She reached under the sheet. Held onto his cold hand.

Waited to feel something, anything, that told her this was their final moment alone.

It felt nothing like what she’d read about in books and seen in movies.

The sense of closure. The feeling that his spirit had stuck around long enough to say goodbye.

That he would still watch over her. Listen to her. Hold her in his gaze.

She closed her eyes, tried to summon the sound of his voice.

Emmy Lou? What are we missing?

“You,” she whispered into the silence. “I’m missing you.”

She let her hand fall away from his. She couldn’t go back into the office with Milo. Didn’t want to talk about obituaries or caskets or arrangements or processions. She wanted to be alone.

Emmy walked around the body, went through the viewing room, then the chapel, then stood in the front lobby with its bright overhead lights and vases of flowers and boxes of tissues discreetly placed in corners.

Her vision blurred again, but not with tears.

She was going to pass out. She leaned her shoulder against the wall.

She was back on the street outside Adam’s house.

Hearing Hannah scream. Watching the gun go off.

Seeing Cole run with his vest flying out behind him.

Feeling the great cleaving behind her; an iceberg breaking off, a giant limb splitting from a tree.

She was set adrift. She was falling. She was completely lost without him.

“Emmy?” Jonah knocked on the glass door. “Are you okay?”

“Shit,” she whispered. These men just kept pecking at her. “What do you want?”

“I want you to open the damn door.”

Emmy twisted the lock. The dank smell of weed preceded him into the lobby. His bar closed at two, which meant he’d spent a good while drinking before getting behind the wheel.

He asked, “You all right?”

She stepped back to get away from the smell of him. “I’m fine, Jonah. What do you want?”

“You ain’t gotta be a bitch about it. I wanna know if our son is okay. He’s not answering my calls. I was heading to the house when I saw you through the glass.”

Cole didn’t pick up Jonah’s calls on a good day. “Maybe give it until the morning. We’re all having a hard time right now.”

“I get it,” he said. “I felt like I was hit by a damn freight train when my dad died.”

Emmy leaned back against the wall. She silently begged him to leave.

“You remember the funeral?”

Emmy remembered Jonah being so drunk that he’d passed out in the back seat of the car.

“I wish Dad had lived to see me get on my feet, you know?” Jonah had a sad smile on his face. “Running my own bar. Playing gigs every weekend. I think he would’ve finally been proud of me. But he didn’t live to see it.”

Emmy reminded herself that it was no longer her job to stroke Jonah Lang’s ego. His father would’ve been disgusted. The money to buy the bar had come from Emmy being forced to sell her grandmother’s house so she could pay him to go away.

“Em, will you call Cole for me?” Jonah asked. “Tell him he needs to talk to his daddy.”

Emmy struggled to swallow her irritation. “I’m not getting in the middle. He’ll call you when he feels like talking. There’s no good that’ll come from pushing him.”

Jonah laughed. “If I waited until that boy felt like talking, he’d never open his mouth. Me pushing him is the only reason he didn’t turn into some damn robot like you.”

Emmy couldn’t do this again. “Did you try the station?”

“Jesus Christ, girl. Did you make him go back to work?”

“He told me that’s what he wanted.”

“And you let him?” Jonah sounded indignant. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m sure you have a list somewhere.”

“The whole town’s gotta list.”

“Cole is an adult. He’s entitled to his space.”

“He’s a fucking Clifton is what he is. You made damn sure of that.”

“Jonah.” She had to get him out of here before she lost her shit. “For the millionth time, I didn’t have anything to do with Cole changing his last name. He did that for Dad when he found out about the cancer.”

“What about my dad? He died, too. Do you know how that would’a made him feel? His own damn grandson won’t carry on the Lang family name? It’s gonna die with me. Is that what you want?”

Emmy pushed away from the wall. What she wanted was to punch him in the kidneys until he pissed blood. “Can you please for once not make every goddam thing about you? My father was murdered less than twenty-four hours ago.”

“He was gonna die anyway.”

Emmy didn’t realize how furious she was until it was too late.

Rage shot adrenaline into every cell in her body.

Her vision sharpened. She could taste blood in her mouth.

She didn’t punch him, but she slapped him so hard that he fell back into a chair.

Then she slapped him again, and again, screaming, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

He shoved her away. His lip was bleeding. “You fucking bitch.”

She saw his hand clench into a fist. “Please hit me. I dare you.”

“You wish I would.”

“You wanna know what I wish?” she yelled.

“I wish I could dig up your father and tell him the only reason you’ve got that fucking dive bar is because I gave it to you.

It was my hard work that paid for that bass guitar you don’t know how to play, and my life savings that got you into that traveling band that kicked you to the curb the minute the money ran out. ”

“That ain’t how it fucking happened!” Jonah bolted out of the chair and stomped across the lobby. He swung open the door so hard that it popped back on the hinges. “Fucking bitch.”

“Cocksucker!” Emmy screamed after him. The sight of him jumping into the truck that she’d paid for made her phosphorescent with rage.

She shoved her hand in her pocket, gripped her phone.

She should call a patrol unit to search his car.

Ticket him for the joints she knew would be in his console.

The open bottle in his cup holder. Send his ass to jail overnight.

Emmy forced her hand to release the phone.

She couldn’t do that to Cole. Neither could she get the rage to dissipate.

She started pacing back and forth across the lobby.

Took in deep breaths, shushed out the air between her teeth.

At some level, she knew her anger was misdirected.

Not that Jonah didn’t deserve to have his ass kicked, but her body was forcing out the grief through the only emotion Emmy knew how to express right now.

“Hi.”

Emmy swung around. An older woman was standing in the entrance to the chapel.

She was wearing a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and lace-up motorcycle boots.

A suede purse was slung across her shoulder.

Smokey eyeliner. Shaggy, shoulder-length brown hair.

It was almost three in the morning, and she looked like she was about to go on stage with Courtney Love.

Emmy struggled to compose herself. She was still in uniform. The best she could manage was to pretend the woman hadn’t seen her lunge at Jonah like a rabid dog. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“I’m Special Agent in Charge Jude Archer. Well—not so special anymore.” She gave a quick smile. “That’s a longer story.”

Emmy almost laughed. “You don’t look like an FBI agent.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Your people are back at the station.” Emmy would let Seth Alexander deal with this imposter. Right now, her jaw was so tight she felt like it was going to lock up. “That’s three blocks down on the left. I’ll join you there when I’m finished.”

“Actually, I’d like to speak with you privately.” Jude indicated the chapel. “Why don’t we sit down in here?”

If she was stupid enough to think Emmy was going to sit in a church pew and pour out her heart, she had more issues than impersonating an FBI agent. “Listen, lady, I don’t want to talk to you. I want you to turn around, go back to wherever you came from, and leave me alone.”

“Okay.”

Emmy waited for her to leave, but she didn’t move.

She stood there like she hadn’t said okay in agreement, but to acknowledge that she’d heard a request had been made.

The cadence, the lilt at the end, was so familiar that it was almost like Gerald had gotten up off the table in the embalming room and was standing in the chapel doorway.

Emmy’s nerves started to go haywire, sending a pulsing electricity from the top of her head into her toes. The tickle. The bad feeling. The Don’t Feel Right . She knew who the woman was. She was far from a stranger.

“Please don’t do this,” Emmy begged. “Not now.”

“Ah,” Jude said. “They told you.”

The glass door opened before Emmy could respond. Tommy walked into the lobby. He was looking down, trying to work the zipper on his jacket. He glanced up, then did a double take. The shock on his face was almost comical. He was momentarily dumbstruck.

He whispered, “Martha?”

Jude smiled at her brother. “Hey, Tommy.”