Lovely Girls(63)

“No, I know. The thing is . . .” Emma stopped and sighed. “I like to think that I’m an independent woman with my own thoughts and opinions. And I am, for the most part. But sometimes, I think I let my friends have too much influence over me.”

“You mean Genevieve,” I said flatly.

Emma nodded. “Yes, but Ingrid too. I’ve just known them for so long that sometimes they feel like an extension of me. If they’re angry at someone, I get angry too. Even when I have no reason to be. It’s like a hive mentality, and I just let myself get swept along in it.” She looked at me. “I’m not making excuses. I know it’s not a great trait. But I am sorry.”

I nodded, accepting her apology. It didn’t really change anything. It’s not like I could ever trust her, or any of them, ever again.

“But that’s not the only reason why I came here today,” Emma said. “Although I did owe you an apology, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Something in her tone made me brace for whatever it was she planned to say.

“What’s that?” I asked cautiously.

“I know the police believe Alex has knowledge about what happened to Callie on the night she died. And that they spoke to her yesterday.”

“How do you know that?” I asked sharply.

Emma shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how I know. I just do. And I came here today to ask you, as a friend, to urge Alex to do the right thing. If she knows what happened to Callie, she needs to tell the police. Ingrid is devastated. She deserves to bury her daughter with the peace of knowing what happened that night.”

I blinked. “You came to me as a friend?” I repeated.

Emma nodded and reached out to place her hand on mine. “I am your friend, Kate. I hope you believe that.”

I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. Emma’s daughter and her friends had bullied Alex. Emma and her friends had bullied me. It was one thing to accept her belated apology. It was an entirely different matter to agree to expose my daughter to possible harm for their benefit. I pulled my hand free.

“Alex doesn’t have any information that would help the police investigation,” I said.

“If she knows something, anything at all, she should come forward. And not only for Ingrid’s sake. But for Alex’s sake too. It can’t be good for her to bottle this up. She’ll feel better once she comes clean.”

I drained the last of the wine from my glass, set it down, and stared at Emma, who was looking so earnest, I could almost believe that her motives were pure. That she really did have Alex’s best interests at heart.

Except that I knew it was absolute bullshit.

I stood abruptly, and Emma looked up at me, blinking with surprise.

“There’s somewhere I have to be,” I said.

“Oh. Okay.” Emma stood too. She looked uncertain. “Please pass on to Alex what I said.”

“No.” I shook my head decisively. “I won’t. I already told you Alex doesn’t have any information. In fact, when the police questioned her, she told them they should speak to Daphne and Shae. She thought they might know something about what happened to Callie.”

Emma’s face hardened. “Shae would have told me if she knew anything. And, unlike Alex, Shae was home that night.”

“Then I guess neither one of our girls has any useful information,” I said.

I stood and waited while Emma picked up her handbag. She gave me one last searching look and then turned and walked to the front door. I followed behind her.

Emma glanced back at me. “Think about what I said. The best thing for everyone would be for the truth to come out now, before things get ugly.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN




* * *





KATE

Three days after Callie’s body was found, the police returned.

It was Monday morning. Alex had gone to school. I was home, cleaning out the refrigerator. We’d only moved in a few months earlier, and we were already awash in expired dairy products. I pulled everything off the glass shelves and put on yellow rubber gloves to scrub them clean. I knew it was busywork, but I couldn’t settle my mind to do anything more productive. It was swirling with thoughts of Callie and Alex and the police investigation. It was almost a relief when the doorbell rang at nine thirty.

Almost.

This time, the two detectives standing on my front porch both looked stern. I don’t think the younger detective, Gavin Reddick, had cracked a smile during our first conversation. But now, his more genial partner, Mike Monroe, had dropped the pretense that they were just here for a friendly chat. The point was punctuated by the six additional uniformed police officers that accompanied them.

“We have a search warrant,” Detective Monroe said, holding a paper out to me.

I was still wearing the yellow rubber gloves when I took the warrant from him. I sensed some movement to my left and looked over to see Lita standing on her paved driveway. She was staring open mouthed at the scene unfolding at my house—the squad cars parked in the driveway, the officers spilling down the front walkway. Lita lifted her phone and snapped a picture of the chaos. I looked down at the warrant. The words on the paper swam in front of me.

“Please step aside, ma’am,” Detective Reddick said. And then he and the other policemen walked right into my house without waiting for an invitation.