“Trust me.” Lee gave him a steady look that eased the cramping in Zane’s gut. “I’m pretty good at my job. Emily’s going with me because I think she can help convince your mother to tell the truth.”

“Then she won’t go to jail. But—”

“A lighter sentence if she tells the truth, cooperates. But she’s not going to be able to take you away from Emily or your grandparents. For one thing, both you and Britt are old enough to choose; for another, we’re going to prove she’s unfit. You don’t need to worry about this.”

“Will you come back and tell me what happens?”

“Yes. Are you prepared to go to court, to stand before a judge or jury and tell what happened?”

“Yes. I want to.” It rushed through him, that want, like a wave of strength. “I want to look him in the face and say what he did. I want to.”

“Good, because you’re going to get your chance. I’ve got to get to it now.”

“Sir? Thank you. Thank you for getting me out, for keeping Britt safe. I’m never going to forget it.”

“You take care of yourself, Zane. Let’s get you inside so your grandparents can fuss over you.”

“They’re good at it. Sometimes I’d imagine we could live here,” he said as Lee helped him up to the porch. “After one of the times, I’d think what it would be like to live here.”

“Now you will.” He opened the screen door. “Can you make it the rest of the way?”

“Yeah. I can make it.”

I bet you can. I bet you will, Lee thought.

“Tell Emily we gotta get moving.”

 

* * *

 

They talked about it from every angle on the drive to the station house in Asheville, and while Lee’s impression of Emily as a tough woman who handled herself only strengthened, he still hesitated at the door of the interview room.

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Lee.” Emily laid a hand on his arm. “I am doing it. It may not do any good other than getting it out of my own craw, but I’m doing it.”

“When you’re finished, or you’ve just had enough, bang on the door.”

“Got it.”

He opened the door, signaled the cop in the room to come out. Emily walked in, and the door closed behind her.

Eliza sat at a small table, back straight, cuffed hands folded on the table. Her face carried the night’s violence, but her eyes, Emily noted, burned with angry pride.

“It’s about damn time.”

Her stomach hurt. Emily noted it with a detached interest as she sat across from her sister. “It really is, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been in this hellhole for hours. I’m being treated like a criminal, and they won’t tell me where Graham is, what’s happening. I need you to find out. My lawyer assures me he’ll have all these ridiculous charges dismissed, and at the very least we’ll be released on bond until we can clear our names. But in the meantime, I need some of my things. I’ll give you a list.”

Fascinating, Emily thought. She’s exactly the same as she’s always been.

But I’m not.

“No, you won’t. You’re under the mistaken impression I’m here to help you. I’m not. And the fact you haven’t asked about your children only cements that.”

“My children—and they’re hardly helpless babies—are conspiring against me, against Graham. Zane’s dangerous, Emily. You have no idea what—”

“Shut up.” Eliza’s head snapped back when Emily lashed out with the two words. “Another word against Zane, one goddamn single word against that boy, and I walk away. You’ll have no one. I know what happened last night, what happened over Christmas year before last. I know everything, so don’t bother with the show, Eliza.”

To help push her temper under control, Emily sat back. “They’ve allowed me to come in and speak with you. It’s just you and me. They can’t listen. It’s against the law. I need to know why. Why you’d do this to Zane and Emily. Why you’d let Graham do this to them, to you. I need to know why.”

“Stop being an idiot and do something useful for once! I need my skin care products. The fact that you’d take the word of a couple of recalcitrant teenagers over your own sister just proves what a fool you are.”

“Cut the crap. I’m not getting anything for you, doing anything for you. Worried about your face, Eliza, your skin tone under the black eye and bruises? Just think what it’s going to look like after a few years in prison.”

“I’m not going to prison.” But her lips trembled.

“You are, how long and what kind depends on what you do, what you say when the police come in.”

“Our lawyer—”

“Stop right there.” To push the point, Emily shot up a finger. “That’s your first mistake, and it’s a big one. You’re not stupid, so think a minute about sharing a lawyer with the man who gave you that eye. You’ve got a chance—but it won’t hold for long. You better get yourself your own lawyer, and the one thing I will do is give you the names of a couple of good criminal lawyers I found when I thought I’d need them to help Zane. He won’t need them now.”

“Zane needs to be locked up. He—Don’t!” As Emily pushed to her feet, panic rang in Eliza’s voice for the first time. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Then stop the bullshit.”

“How do I know you’re not recording this?”

Rising, Emily took off her shirt, turned a circle. “You and me, Eliza. Graham pays the lawyer, and who do you think he’ll represent if it comes down to choices? Make yours, and when I walk out of here, I’ll contact one who’ll represent you.”

She put her shirt on, sat again. “We were raised in the same house by the same people. We were raised to respect ourselves. Why have you let Graham abuse you, your children? Why didn’t you come to me, to anyone, for help?”

“You don’t understand anything, and it’s our business. Our marriage. We love each other.”

“A man who hits you doesn’t love you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Eliza actually cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “Always so ordinary. Always.” Face alive again, Eliza leaned toward her sister. “I am not ordinary. Graham and I have passion, something else you don’t understand. You married a loser, then couldn’t even keep him.”

“His so-called passion put you in the hospital.”

“Things went too far. He isn’t allowed to hit me in the face, that’s the agreement.”

Honestly, Emily thought, she’d honestly believed she couldn’t be shocked again. Yet she was.

“You—you have an agreement about where he’s allowed to hit you?”

“And when we put this mess behind us, he’ll have to make breaking the agreement up to me. But there were circumstances.”

She hadn’t believed it, not really, hadn’t believed Britt, not in her heart, about that single, sick, sorry thing.

“You like it. You get off on it.”