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She turned back to the monitors, wondering what other fuckery Jack was up to.

Emmy had worked really hard to forget all the kinky shit teenage Jack had kept hidden under his mattress, particularly when it came to her son.

She guessed this was what Elijah Walker meant when he’d said his wife wasn’t adventurous enough.

Emmy studied the man’s face. He was chewing his lip.

Seth had already cut Belinda loose. Elijah was alone at the table.

Emmy reached behind the DVR and disconnected the power.

Elijah startled when she walked into the interrogation room. Jumped up from his chair. Did the whole “what the fuck” thing again like the righteous husband and father that he was.

Emmy said, “You were paying Jack Whitlock for sex, right?”

Elijah’s mouth gaped like a fish out of water.

“Jack stopped fucking you when his podcast hit last year, right? He didn’t need the money anymore?”

Elijah’s mouth snapped closed.

“Before that, you met him the last Friday of every month at the Dew Drop Inn.” Emmy paused. “I can get the FBI back in here and put all this on the record, or you can tell me right now if what I’m saying is the truth—yes or no?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “But I’m not—”

Emmy slammed the door behind her. At least she knew how Jack had managed to support himself while he was making the podcast. Despite what Emmy did for a living, she wasn’t one to judge people for using what they had to make money, but it took a set of brass balls to fuck over three generations of law enforcement.

“Malignant prick,” she mumbled, leaving the station through the side exit, bypassing the squad room. Emmy texted Seth Alexander to let him know she was fine with kicking Elijah Walker loose, if only for the sake of his grieving wife.

She tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs refused to expand.

The moon was low in the sky because this hellacious night was never going to come to an end.

She walked in the opposite direction from the parking lot, pushing through the stand of trees along the back.

Her arms went up to block low-hanging branches.

She hadn’t made this trek in six months, but her body remembered the way.

The lights were on inside Dylan’s house.

She could see him leaning against the kitchen counter while he read the Herald on his iPad.

He was a man who liked a routine. She knew that he’d already gone for his run, had breakfast, taken his shower, and was checking the news before heading in to work.

Emmy opened the gate to his backyard. She could see her Burmese cat in the living room window.

Bap-Bap’s face was buried in his paws. Emmy had asked Dylan to keep him because she was afraid that Myrna would do something bad.

Giving up the cat was almost harder than giving up Dylan.

She had cried in the car all the way back to her parents’ house.

Emmy wiped her eyes. The exhaustion was unrelenting. Her bones felt like they were trembling inside of her body. She could see two of everything. Emmy blinked, trying to clear her vision. She stood at the stairs to Dylan’s back deck, willed him to look out the window and see her.

He was still a good-looking man. Dark hair combed to the side, face clean-shaven.

Already dressed for court in his suit and tie.

Twelve years ago, Dylan Alvarez had been on Emmy’s periphery, her what if .

What if she wasn’t married to Jonah? What if she asked Dylan out after the divorce?

What if she waited until Cole was out of high school?

What if Dylan wasn’t dating someone else?

What if Emmy wasn’t good enough for him?

What if she only knew how to be with a bad man?

That it had happened at all was still a mystery.

She’d run into him at the grocery store, the movie theater, the park.

He’d bought her a drink. Then it was a meal.

Then it was a nightcap. Then he was cooking her breakfast. Then he was introducing her to his daughter Jenna and she was introducing him to Cole.

Two years had rocked on before Emmy had worked up the nerve to tell him that she loved him.

And still, Emmy hadn’t moved in with Dylan so much as started staying over.

First on the weekends, then for a few more days, then for a total of four years.

Then Myrna had taken a turn.

The day Emmy had left Dylan, she had told him she would still see him, but she didn’t.

She had told him she would call, but she hadn’t.

By all rights, he should never speak to her again.

But a few hours ago, outside the jail complex, Dylan had asked her to let him be there for her.

She wasn’t sure if the offer was still good, but right now she was desperate, and he was standing inside the house that part of Emmy still thought of as home.

And he still hadn’t looked up from his iPad.

She felt her nerve start to break. She took out her phone to text him.

A sharp pain shot through her chest. Emmy couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

Her body had processed the information on the screen before her brain had.

It wasn’t anything about Paisley. There weren’t any updates.

The time is what caught her. Six twenty-four in the morning.

At this same time yesterday, Emmy had been sitting at the kitchen table with her mother.

They were going through the routine they’d gone through over the last six months.

Then Cole had come downstairs. Then they had gone to Gerald’s office to run down Adam’s case.

All of that, every single second of that morning, would never happen ever again.

“Emmy?” Dylan had opened the back door. He came out onto the deck. “You okay?”

She could feel tears rolling down her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “I’m really great.”

“Looks like it.” He was smiling, but he was clearly worried. “What do you need, Em?”

She knew exactly what she needed. The same as before.

To curl into him. To disappear. To feel his arms protecting her.

To let out the breath that she had been holding since her father had fallen to the ground.

She would do anything to get to that moment of exhale. Anything except tell him the truth.

She asked, “Do you want to have sex?”

“Sure.” Dylan knew that’s not what she really wanted, just like he knew the part he was supposed to play. “Why don’t you take a bath first?”

“Okay.”

He held open the door so she could go inside. Emmy started taking off her things as she walked to the bathroom. Her duty vest. Her belt. Shirt. Her fingers felt numb as she unbuttoned her pants. Her head was swimming. She nearly toppled over when she bent down to untie her boots.

“I’ve got it.” Dylan took off his suit jacket. He closed the toilet lid so she could sit down. He started to work on the laces. His head was shaking. He was clearly annoyed. “If I’d pulled you over for distracted driving, you’d be arrested by now. You can barely stand.”

“You can handcuff me if you want.”

He laughed, but not like it was funny.

She said, “I’ve got to be back at work in three and a half hours.”

“That’s a lot of sex.”

“We’ve done it before.” She leaned over and turned on the taps in the bathtub. “My sister rose from the dead.”

“I know.” He pulled off her boots. Then her socks. Then everything else.

“She calls herself Jude.” Emmy watched Bap-Bap saunter into the bathroom to see what was up. “She told me to get some rest.”

“That’s crazy.” He helped her climb into the tub. “Who does she think she is?”

“My sister, apparently.”

“What an asshole.” Dylan turned her wrist so he could unbuckle her watch.

Emmy touched her fingers to the back of his hand. Waited for him to look at her. “Dad’s blood is in the crown.”

Dylan’s face changed. He stared at the watch for a moment. Angled it to the light to see the blood. His chest rose and fell. He had loved Gerald, too.

She watched him stand up and carefully place the watch on the shelf above the sink.

Then he got a towel and washcloth from the cupboard.

He scratched Bap-Bap behind the ears. Knelt beside the tub.

Rolled up his sleeves. Tossed his tie over his shoulder.

Wet the washcloth under the faucet. Worked the soap into a lather. Started to wash Emmy’s back.

She let her eyes close. The tremble in her bones dissipated.

Her heartbeat started to slow. The soothing feel of his touch.

The warmth of the water enveloping her body.

Her muscles relaxed. She’d felt like she’d been holding the world together all night, but only now could she feel herself start to release her grip.

“Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“I would’ve married you if you’d asked me to.”

He rinsed the soap off her back. “I would’ve asked you if you’d wanted me to.”

She let him lift her arm, run the washcloth along her skin. Emmy studied his face again. He was still annoyed, but she knew he was also concerned. She said, “I wanted you to be mad at me.”

“Oh, believe me. I’m mad at you.”

“Not for the shitty way I left.” She reached over to turn off the taps. “I mean twelve years ago with Madison.”

Dylan hung the washcloth on the faucet. Sat back on his heels. Waited for an explanation. Emmy occasionally did this when they were alone, just the two of them, the woman who never talked to anybody but her father talked to the man who was desperate to hear what she had to say.

She asked, “Do you remember when I met you at school the morning after the girls were taken?”

He nodded.

“I told you that Madison wanted to talk to me before the fireworks show, and that I blew her off, and you said you hate when that happens, like it happens all the time.”

“It does happen all the time.” He put his hand over hers. “Why would I blame you for something so fleeting and out of your control?”

“Because.” Emmy forced herself to keep going. “Jonah beat me down so hard. I chose him over Hannah. I chose him over Madison. I didn’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“Babe, you were a year younger than Madison when you first met Jonah. You guys were together for almost twenty years. You can’t choose something if you don’t know you have a choice.”

Emmy wasn’t going to let herself off so lightly. “If I had stopped to listen to her …”

“You don’t know what would’ve happened.” He wiped away her tears. “Kids pretend like the important things don’t matter, and that the things that don’t matter are really important.”

“I’m too tired to understand what you said.”

“I know, mi cielo .” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll set an alarm for nine thirty. You’ve still got a uniform in Jenna’s old room. I put your things in a plastic container on the top shelf. I need to get ready for court, and you need to get some rest.”

“Is Hannah being arraigned already?”

“Not yet. They’ve got another twenty-four hours.

You know how it works. Either they have to charge her or let her go.

” Dylan shrugged, but she could tell it was wearing on him.

He was used to handling divorces, not capital cases.

“The GBI is re-interviewing witnesses to see if anyone will say that Hannah was touching the gun when it went off.”

Emmy felt her stomach pitch. Sherry Robertson wasn’t playing around. She was trying to build a felony murder case. “What about Paul? Can’t he say Hannah wasn’t touching the gun?”

“I think when he sobers up and realizes he’s looking at the death penalty, he won’t have any qualms about flipping. You know how it works. They’ll take the death penalty off the table so he’ll testify against Hannah. First rat gets the cheese.”

Emmy wanted to believe he was wrong. “She’s the mother of his child. He wouldn’t do that.”

Dylan dried his hands on the towel. “I hope you’re right, babe. We’ll see.”

Emmy leaned back in the tub, rested her head on the edge.

She looked up at the ceiling. She could hear Dylan in the kitchen.

Loading the dishwasher, getting his keys, walking out the front door.

Bap-Bap jumped onto the closed toilet lid.

He turned in three circles, then lay down.

She watched him blink, then blink again, then his eyes closed, and he was asleep.

She was desperate to do the same, but Emmy didn’t think it would happen.

She had spent the last six months on edge every time her head hit the pillow.

Waiting for Gerald to call for help. Waiting for Myrna to start screaming.

Worrying about Cole. About Tommy. About Celia.

About Dylan. About Bap-Bap. About work. About the podcast. About Adam.

About a noise she’d heard and whether she should get up to investigate, and now that she was up, she might as well stay up since she had to go to work in a few hours anyway.

So then Emmy would sit alone at the kitchen table, and her mind would race as she searched for new things to stress about, new situations to catastrophize, until the tension wound up and she heard Myrna creaking at the top of the stairs, and Emmy’s stomach clenched while she wondered if her mother would fall down the stairs again, or if she would manage to reach the kitchen, and would she recognize Emmy or would she call her Martha or would she scream at the stranger who was sitting alone at her kitchen table?

Emmy heard the faucet drip. Bap-Bap started to snore. Her eyelids fluttered. She couldn’t fight it.

For the first time in six months, Emmy let herself fall asleep.