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Her mind racing, she scans the area, thinking she might actually be able to spot the police vehicle headed in the direction of the house and flag it down. And then, as her gaze briefly settles on the ferry parking lot, she sees the taxi she called pull up.
She breaks into a run, crazily waving her arm, afraid the driver will take off if no one is waiting. He spots her after a moment. He’s the same one she had on the way here, surfer boy.
“Changed your mind?” he asks through the open window with a smile as she reaches the car.
“Look, I just need to get back, okay,” she says, then yanks open the back door and jumps in. “But take me all the way to top of the hill.”
“Got it.”
Emma holds her breath as they eventually make the turn onto Bayberry, wondering if she’ll spot Kyle on his bike, butwhat she sees instead, parked in front of the house, is a police SUV, white with a dark horizontal stripe. She presses her hands to her face in relief.
“You going to be okay?” the driver asks, having obviously seen the SUV as well.
“I hope so.”
As she leaps from the car, thrusting a twenty-dollar bill at the driver through his open window, two male police officers step into view from around the side of the veranda, both young, brown-haired, and dressed in dark pants and short-sleeved shirts.
“I’m Emma Hawke, the woman who called 911,”‘ she shouts, not giving them time to speak first. “Is my husband okay?”
“Can we please see some identification?” one of them asks.
She fumbles through her purse for her wallet, nearly tears out her license and passes it over. As the officer who made the request takes a look, she glances anxiously around. She sees that the office is dark now, but lights are on in the house, more of them than when she left. And Tom’s car is still in the driveway, on the other side of the house.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, handing it back. “Can you please tell us what’s going on?”
“Yes, but first I have to know—is my husband here, is he okay?”
“We’ve checked the interior of the house, but there’s no one inside.”
Has Kyle taken him someplace?she wonders in despair. But he couldn’t have, not on a bike.
“My husband has to be heresomeplace,” she insists, tryingto sound calm. “That’s his car. We need to check his office, too.” She flings her arm in the direction of the outbuilding.
“We’re going to do that, but we need you to tell us what’s going on.”
Emma blurts out an answer—about being on the ferry and seeing her former brother-in-law when he has no business being here, about having good reason to think he killed her first husband and was on his way to the house to hurt her and Tom.
She watches as their expressions morph the tiniest bit, as if they’re finally seeing how serious the situation is. Or they’re wondering if she’s unhinged.
“All right,” the cop says, “we’re going to clear the rest of the property now. What does your husband look like?”
“He’s forty-five, in good shape. Silver hair. Please, can’t I go with you?”
“No, it’s important for you to remain in one place,” the other cop says.
It makes sense, she knows, but the idea of waiting is unbearable. She nods in acceptance and parks herself next to their vehicle, her bags at her feet. The two cops move off toward the office, their hands lightly resting on their service weapons.
She directed them there, but she doesn’t actually see how Tom could be inside. Since the lamp is off, it means he must have finished his calls and returned to the house, snapped on a few more lights, and then wondered where she was. Did he decide to go out searching for her?
After barely a second inside the tiny office, the officers emerge, shaking their heads.
“I think he must be outside,” she calls out and thrusts a finger to the left. “In the garden over there or in the back of the house.”
The cops nod and after one activates a flashlight, they cross the veranda and descend the steps into the garden on the other side. She hears rustling as they tramp through the brush and then the sounds of them moving off toward the rear of the house. After the longest five minutes she can remember, only one of the officers returns.
“Ma’am, can you come with me?” he calls out.
Emma tears in his direction, her heart in her throat. There’s light being cast from the house, and as she rounds the house right behind him, she sees the other officer crouched on the ground and cries out. To his right are a pair of crumpled legs. Kyle’s shot Tom, she realizes.Killedhim.
