Jamie climbed up the stairs, throwing a look back down at Allen. What had Emma seen? Something about him. It couldn’t be about Allen himself. He was way too young to have had anything to do with Emma and what had happened to her. Was it his eyes that had cued her? Their color or shape? Something about his looks, or being? Her reaction was definitely different than anything Jamie’d seen before.
She knocked on Emma’s closed bedroom door. “Emma? Can I come in?”
No response.
“Emma?”
Footsteps, and then Emma cracked open the door. “Is he still there?”
“He’ll be gone soon.”
“He’s not the guy.”
“The guy? I know he’s not.... He’s the repairman, Emma. Just the repairman.”
“He’s not the guy,” she repeated.
“Good. I’m glad. He’s just the repairman. Can I come in, Emma?”
Emma stepped back from the door and pulled it open, then she latched it behind Jamie quickly. “I don’t want him here, but he’s not the guy.”
“I agree. But . . . what guy do you mean? The one . . . with the . . . eyes that scare you?”
She shivered.
“Is it the man who hurt you whose eyes you see?”
Her teeth started chattering and she shoved her knuckles in her mouth. It took a few moments, but then she was able to pull her fist back and say, “It wasn’t Cooper Haynes. It was the other one.”
This was more than Jamie had ever heard before. Mouth dry, she asked, “Was it one of Cooper’s friends?” When she didn’t answer, Jamie asked, “One of your classmates from high school?”
“No.”
“No?”
Emma went to her bed and Duchess followed. She patted the comforter and the dog jumped onto the bed beside her. Emma then practically buried her face in Duchess’s fur. Duchess licked her hand and settled down.
“Emma . . . ?”
“I don’t want to talk, talk, talk,” was the muffled answer.
“Could I ask one more question? Just one more? Are the eyes you see, the eyes of the man who came after you when you were babysitting?”
Emma didn’t respond. Jamie hesitated, wondering how far she should push. Her cell phone dinged that she had a text. She ignored it for the moment, deciding to try once more.
“Emma, when you ‘see his eyes’ are you talking about the man who stabbed you?”
“You should leave me alone now. Mom knew.”
“What did Mom know?”
“She knew.” Emma heaved a deep sigh, then slowly lifted her head. “She has money for me. For when I go to Ridge Pointe.”
Emma had said something like this before. Jamie hated to break it to her, but their mother did not have enough money to send Emma to the nearest assisted living facility to their home in River Glen.
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” Jamie began.
“Goodbye.” Emma cut her off.
Jamie knew she wasn’t getting anything further out of her sister. She stepped back into the hallway, closing Emma’s door behind her. Back downstairs, she was glad to see Allen was making real progress. She wanted to apologize again for her sister, but decided enough had been said.
Remembering the text, she plucked her phone from her back pocket and saw it was from Cooper.
See you in thirty?
Yes, she texted back. Thirty minutes would give her enough time to let Harley know that she was heading out and to make certain Emma was aware of what was going on as well.
* * *
Bette Kearns poured herself a glass of Pinot Gris and let her tears fall into the light gold depths. She drank the wine with the tears. Why not? What good would it do to pour herself another only to have the same thing happen?
She wandered back into the living room. Joy had run away to a friend’s house overnight and Alex was with his buddies, doing their “garage band” stuff, which Bette thought was cute but Phil believed was a waste of time when you could be involved in sports. Bette knew her friends felt the same way, though they’d never said so. If your son wasn’t in football, what good was he?
She snorted and swiped at her rainfall of tears. She’d started to dry up, but then she thought of Phil with that whore and she wanted to throw herself on the floor and beat her fists or pull out her hair or take a fistful of Valium or . . . drink another bottle of wine. She was almost through the first.
She wandered to the sliding doors that led out to the back patio. They had a nice view of one of the rivers that fed into the Willamette, East Glen River, from which River Glen derived its name. Their house wasn’t in a new development, but it had character.
And if you divorce, you lose all this . . .
And that whore gets it all.
There was some faulty logic in there, Bette recognized, though she was starting to feel distinctly fuzzy. Good. She wanted to quit thinking about Phil on top of that whore with the big boobs and lush, golden-brown hair and catlike eyes. That woman just oozed sex. And Dara, the little slut, was going to be just like her.
Bette allowed herself a moment of supreme jealousy.
You fuck around, too....
“That’s what happens when your husband stops looking at you that way,” she said on a quiet sob.
She gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror. There were hardly any wrinkles. Victoria had far more than she did, although Botox did for her what nature could no longer provide. But Bette believed she looked ten years younger than any of her friends and, well, she could still turn the heads of younger men. Case in point: Ted Ryerson.
“Call me Teddy,” he’d whispered to her when he’d been pounding into her against the wall of his bedroom. She’d been worried the kids would come home, but his sister had taken them out to a movie and he’d assured her they would be alone for a while. She’d learned he had quite a sexual
