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As he takes out his phone to see if there are any messages from her, Emma advances into the room. The closet door is wide open, revealing that it’s empty, too, and when she checks the bathroom, she sees that all Brittany’s stuff has been cleared out.
“Okay here’s a text from her I missed, sent over an hour ago,” he calls out and begins to read. “Tom, because of what happened, I don’t feel comfortable staying in Westport any longer. My dad drove down and picked me up. Thank you for your hospitality.”
He drops his hand to his side and looks at Emma in dismay.
“We knew she was upset about Taylor’s death, but I had no clue it was this bad.”
“Me either.... Oh, Tom, gosh, this must sting.”
“Yeah, for sure. She couldn’t even wait to say goodbye in person.”
Emma reaches out to touch his arm, and when he pulls her to him, she sinks into his embrace.
“I didn’t think the week could get much worse,” he says.
“Me either.”
When they break apart, Tom’s blue-gray eyes meet hers.
“Look, here’s a crazy idea,” he says. “There’s no one renting the Block Island house this week. What if we went there for the weekend, got totally away from it all? We don’t have Brittany to worry about now.”
The suggestion intrigues her, but the timing doesn’t feel quite right. Plus, though Tom has a landline in his office, cell service can be spotty in certain parts of the house. “I mean,I’d love to, but do you really think it’s a good idea to take off in the middle of all this?”
“Since the police are almost done interviewing my staff, I plan to close shop early again tomorrow. I might have to talk to a couple of key people this weekend, but mostly I want to stay out of everybody else’s hair.”
“Let’s do it then,” she says, smiling.
Emma follows Tom downstairs, and after a lingering kiss goodbye, he exits through the door to the garage. Instead of returning immediately to the studio, Emma ends up pulling out a chair at the kitchen table.
She wants a couple of minutes to savor her relief, to let it sink in that her lingering questions about Tom have been answered and that her marriage is on solid ground.
That doesn’t mean there still isn’t plenty of crap to deal with. Taylor’s killer is out there. And so is Derrick’s, though maybe the information about the painting will prove to be a valuable lead and Webster will shift attention from her and Tom.
But right this second in the kitchen of her wonderful home, none of that matters to Emma. Though she’d stupidly allowed the crazy, worrywart part of her brain to take hold for a while, to project and to borrow boatloads of trouble, things will be okay. Tom is exactly the man she thought he was. And her life with him is not about to be hijacked.
She’s glad he suggested Block Island, a spot they’ve visited only once together. Tom had purchased the cottage as a summer weekend retreat after Diana died, and though he’d considered selling it once he and Emma became involved, sheencouraged him to keep it, with the idea that they’d spend more time there once they were settled in together in Westport. It will be exhilarating to escape the mess all around them, if only for a few days, and more importantly, to be alone with her husband, in a quiet place far away from anyone.
