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“What if Bridgett was working together with Theo this whole time!?” he suggests. “Think about it…We don’t know her. They just moved here. She comes from California where Theo used to live up until recently. What if he knew the Hendersons would steal everything away from me!? And he’s working with her to try and get Jameson Automobiles back!”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I groan as my head starts throbbing, trying to figure it all out. The only clear and resounding conclusion I can come to is that Theo is right about Emmett. My dad and Bridgett aren’t the enemies, he is. No matter how much my heart wants to believe otherwise.
“I overheard
something when I was locked up,” he explains. “These detectives were talking about what they found in the car and said some of your DNA was there too. I think whoever framed me was trying to pin this on you too.”
“What?” I ask in disbelief. “You’re lying. I know you’re lying. You’ll say whatever it takes to get back into my head, but I’m not going to let it happen this time. And anyway…I know who killed Malcolm, and it had nothing to do with Bridgett or my father.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Just because he didn’t do it, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t take it as a chance to bring us down.”
“You’re not making any sense!” I scoff, wishing this decapacitating headache would go away. I curl into myself across the seat, shielding my eyes from the lights as they whiz past.
“He framed me so he could get his hands on my designs without having to give me any credit or money for them,” he proposes. “And when that didn’t work, maybe he thought he’d try to go after you. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I know they didn’t find your DNA until their second sweep of the car. And doesn’t Theo have friends in the Jameson police force? He used them to help make sure none of us were blamed for my father’s murder.”
“But you were,” I insist. “You were to blame. It was your idea to kill your father.” I cling to Theo’s words, but there is some possibility to what he is saying. Theo is one of the only ones who could have gotten both our DNA into that car after it had already been retrieved from the wreckage. “Why would he do it?” I ask again. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
He grows quiet again. I try to open myself up to this possibility that Emmett isn’t behind all of this. Could Bridgett or Theo have drugged me? Maybe to make another attempt at pinning Malcolm’s murder on me or something worse?
“You swear you’re not the one who put something in my drink?” I ask. My voice cracks from the dryness in my mouth and I wish more than anything I had some water. I spot a bottle in the drink holder up front.
Emmett’s eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror. He sees what I’m staring at and picks up the water bottle, offering it to me in the back seat.
“I would never do that,” he says firmly.
I grab at the bottle and frantically twist off the cap before chugging it down. Some of it spills out of the corner of my still partially numb mouth and drips down my neck.
“Theo’s one and only goal was to come back for everything he feels the Elites stole from him,” he suggests. “He went from being one of the main guys behind Jameson Automobiles, having almost as many shares in the company as my father, to having nothing. No job, no money. They ran him off to the other side of the country and then they made sure to rip you and your mom away from him too.”
“Yeah,” I nod, thinking we can definitely agree on that much. I relish in the lingering cool feeling in my throat from the water and start to wonder where Emmett is taking me. “Where are we going anyway?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I needed to see you and talk to you. I tried to come back and find you, but you were passed out. I just knew I needed to get you away from the school and whoever did this to you.”
“And what’s your plan now?” He shakes his head cluelessly. “Keep going,” I add. “If I’m going to be trapped in here with you, you might as well finish your idea of what’s really going on here.” My voice is dripping with bitterness, causing him to hesitate as he continues staring me down in the rearview mirror, darting his eyes back and forth rapidly between me and the road. “Emmett, I want to believe you,” I say softly. And it’s true. Every piece of my heart would rather believe his version of things. “But I can’t until you start making more sense of this.”
“He tried to start this new car manufacturing company, right?” he continues. “But how was it ever going to be a success if everyone within range of the Elites still hated him?”
I stare out into the trees flying past the window, lighting up under out headlights. “But why offer you a job?” I wonder. “Why bring you into it at all if he didn’t want to share the profits or give you credit for your ideas?”
“All he knew was that he needed to get back into everyone’s good graces,” he suggests. “First, with you and your family. Then Jameson. Bringing me into it obviously won me over, and it helped win your mom and stepdad over. The only person it didn’t convince was you.” A wave of sadness washes over his face. “I’m so sorry, Ophelia. We should have listened to you. You were the only voice of reason the whole time.”
The sincere regret in his voice hits up against my heart, begging me to fall back into the trap of believing him. It’s starting to work, but I’m so afraid of caving in and regretting it all later when I realize Theo was the one telling the truth. And there’s still so much that doesn’t add up.
“If he did win us all over…why frame you? Or me for that matter? And when that didn’t work, why drug me?” As I fire off questions, some of it starts to click into place. “To win the town of Jameson back over,” I mumble to myself.
“Huh?” he grunts.
“Maybe if everyone felt sorry for him…”
“He could rise back to the top. People might support his company,” Emmett finishes my sentence for me. “A man grieving the death of his daughter. People might pity him and with no one left in town who remembers the old Elites’ grievances against him…what could stop him from winning everyone back over?”
I go through it all again like a checklist. A timeline of events in my throbbing head. First Theo comes back into town and strikes this deal with Emmett to get rid of Thomas. Everything becomes up for grabs. The Elites are weakened. The future of Jameson Automobiles is uncertain. He uses it as a window to sneak back into our lives, building the foundation of Jameson’s new competitor as he goes. He gets his hands on Emmett’s expertise and ideas while worming his way back into our family.
“Family,” I blurt out before I even fully realize why it’s important. “Family!” I yell again, even more confident than before. “Theo didn’t just lose Jameson Automobiles. He lost me and my mom. Maybe he really was trying to come between my mom and Brendan the whole time. If he got us back, and started a successful company, he’d feel like everything was made right again.”
“But you wouldn’t budge,” he reminds me.
I wonder if it could really be true. Theo had gotten as much as he could out of his relationship with Emmett, so he could have used Malcolm’s murder to get rid of him. It not only left him with all of his designs, it gave him a window to get into my head. When that still didn’t work, maybe he did plant that evidence on the car, trying to take me down too. Maybe he panicked when Emmett was bailed out, not knowing who would have stepped in to help him.
