He decided to wait fifteen more minutes, just to be sure, but still no one approached. A woman wearing a thick coat with the hood pulled up against the cold was the only other person in the area. She’d walked past him a few minutes earlier, and although he couldn’t see anything other than her face, he could tell she was too old to be Heidi.
He pulled out his phone to let Ethan know he was calling it off. First he was going to turn off the app Emery had told him to download that would record the audio part of whatever happened, but right in that moment the woman approached. He assumed she needed directions, some change for a bus ride or a light for a cigarette, but she surprised him by pulling a bag out of her coat and tossing it at his feet.
“Here’s what you want,” she muttered before pivoting abruptly and hurrying back up the pier.
Scooping up the bag, Dallas shoved his phone in his pocket and took off after her.
She could obviously hear his footfalls on the wooden planking, which frightened her. Crying out, she started to run in earnest, but he was younger and quicker and was able to head her off.
Holding his arms out in front of him in the classic stop position, he got in front of her every time she tried to turn a different direction and yelled, “Come on out!” to Ethan.
“It’s about damn time.” Ethan appeared from behind a retail booth about twenty feet away and hurried over. “I was just about to give up.”
With Ethan on one side, it was easier to keep the woman from getting away. Her eyes were wide with fear but now she stood perfectly still.
“Who is she?” Ethan asked.
“Hard to say. But she showed up and tossed a bag at my feet, which I assume has the money in it.”
She was keeping her hood up and her head down, but Ethan ducked so he could see her face and shocked Dallas when he cried, “Mom! What are you doing here?”
Dallas’s jaw dropped as he looked from one to the other. “This is your mother?”
“Yes, but... She’d never... I mean...” Ethan shook his head, momentarily speechless, until he managed to say, “Mom, please tell me you had nothing to do with that cowboy—Terrell Something—who choked Emery.”
She glanced behind her as though she wished running was still an option. But she’d already been identified; it was too late for that. “He wasn’t supposed to hurt her,” she said, finally removing her hood as tears welled up. “I just... I wanted to make her leave you alone. I couldn’t let her cost you money you don’t have, humiliate you in front of your fans and...and threaten your job. You were so relieved when you were able to get it back.”
“Oh my God,” Ethan whispered. “I set a trap for my own mother. I told her about the lawsuit and Emery going to Silver Springs and about when you called and demanded that I bring five hundred dollars hush money to this pier. I was so freaked out, knew I didn’t have anything to do with it. But I never dreamed that... Oh my God,” he said again.
Dallas remembered Emery mentioning that Ethan and his mother were unusually close, and that she was overprotective, but the fact that it could be her had never even crossed his mind. “You’re in some serious trouble,” he told her as he opened the sack he’d grabbed before giving chase and pulled out a stack of twenty-dollar bills. He didn’t bother to count; it looked like about five hundred dollars to him.
Ethan frowned when he saw the money. “Please. Don’t drag her into this.”
“Drag her into this?” Dallas echoed, putting the money back in the sack. “She’s the one who’s responsible for what happened to Emery.” He pulled out his phone, which had recorded the entire conversation, and flashed it at them. “And now I’ll be able to prove it. Who was the cowboy you hired?”
“Don’t answer,” Ethan advised, but it was too late. She spoke at the same time. “The brother or brother-in-law of a friend of mine from work. I don’t really know. I never even talked to him. She arranged it all.”
“For how much?”
“Three hundred for her and three hundred for him.”
“I’m calling the cops,” Dallas said.
Ethan caught his arm. “No, please. She did it for me. She was wrong, but her intentions were good. I’ll take the fall.”
“Leave Ethan out of it,” his mother cried. “It was me. I’m the one who did it.”
Dallas shoved the bag under his arm so he wouldn’t drop his phone. Even though Ethan’s mom and the cowboy deserved to be prosecuted, Dallas knew they probably wouldn’t do much jail time since Emery hadn’t been seriously injured.
If Ethan confessed to the cyberattack, however, Emery would be able to get a sizable settlement—both from him and the station—and that would be punishment enough for his mother, too, since protecting him was all she cared about.
While Dallas hated letting “Terrell” off, after taking a moment to weigh his options, he thought gaining the confession served the greater good.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll make you a deal.”
Tuesday, December 22
Emery was glad she’d come to Boston. Connie had broken into tears the moment she walked out of the airport into the freezing cold of a Boston winter, and when she got in the car and greeted her grandmother, Adele had actually remembered her. Connie said it was the first hint of clarity Adele had had all day—that it must be a Christmas miracle.
After they arrived home, they’d visited for an hour or so, but then her mother had helped her grandmother to bed and retired herself. Emery wasn’t
