Open House(31)

The door creaks opens, and I whirl around. Josie’s standing there with an expression I can’t read. I curse myself for not closing Noah’s email. Josie’s still wearing her coat, and the smell of the clove cigarette she just smoked wafts into our room.

“Are you reading my emails?” she asks, her voice strangely calm.

I swallow. “You’ve read mine,” I say, trying to stand up a little taller.

“True,” she says. She steps all the way inside and slams the door behind her. It feels too aggressive, and every inch of me tightens. We’ve never fought before, and I don’t want this to be the first time, and maybe that’s why, instead of asking about her email to Noah, I blurt, “I’m pregnant.”

Josie’s hands fly over her mouth. “What?” she says through her fingers.

I burst into tears. I still can’t believe it’s real. I start crying harder, feeling like I can’t breathe. “I don’t get it,” Josie says, but I can’t imagine what it is that she doesn’t get. “Oh my God,” she goes on, and there’s a hint of fury in her voice. It sets me on edge. “Is it that teacher’s?”

It takes me a minute to realize she’s talking about Brad. I never told her about him, which means she gathered it from the emails she read, which is kind of impressive considering he and I mostly texted and barely ever emailed. “Who?” I ask, playing dumb, trying to stall.

“Who?” she echoes back, mimicking me.

I purse my lips and make myself stop crying. I don’t want to be weak in front of her. I don’t know whether to be mad at her for knowing all along about Brad and not saying anything, or for the snooping itself, but mostly I’m mad that she’s not hugging me right now and trying to make me feel better.

She sees it on my face. That’s the thing about Josie: she’s eerily good at sensing what other people are thinking. “Come here,” she says. She unzips her coat, revealing a camisole and bare skin. She tosses the coat onto her bed, and I can see the effort it takes for her to open her arms to me. But in that moment I’m just so relieved that I do what she says—I fold into her hug, my face in her hair. “Emma?” she asks softly. She smells like cigarettes and rosewater, and I start to relax a little.

“Yeah?” I answer against the soft skin of her shoulder.

“It’s the teacher’s baby, isn’t it,” she says, her voice almost cooing, like how you’d talk to a child. “Did he hurt you, Emma?”

“What?” I say, pulling back. “No—not at all. And it isn’t even . . .”

Knock, knock, knock . . .

We both turn to face the pounding on the door. “Coming!” Josie says, and then she drops my embrace like a stone. She leaves me standing there all alone like I’m nothing to her, and then crosses the room and flings open the door. Noah’s massive frame takes up nearly the whole doorway. He doesn’t seem to see me at first; he looks at Josie, his features narrowing. Their email exchange curls through my mind like smoke.

“Emma here?” he asks pointedly, and then he looks past her, and his eyes find me.

“Noah,” I say, and for the first time in a very long while, I have the fleeting sense that everything might turn out all right.

“Hey,” he says, not breaking my gaze. He has workout clothes on, and he’s still sweaty.

Josie’s turned toward him, and I’m glad for that: I don’t want to see the look on her face. She reaches both arms up to tighten her ponytail, and I watch as her taut back muscles contract and loosen.

“You guys ready?” she asks suddenly, and then she turns around to look at me, smiling like all is forgotten, but there’s no way that’s true. “The woods tonight, right?” she asks.

I swallow. “The woods tonight,” I echo back, trying to ignore the sweep of cold over my skin, trying to focus on Noah, on his bright eyes holding mine.





TWENTY-FOUR

Haley

At the police station, Haley waited inside an empty interrogation room that smelled vaguely like tomato soup. She was still shaky, trying hard to distract herself with the details of the room: the bare cream walls with paint peeling in some spots and reinforced in others.

The door finally opened, and a fifty-something blond woman made her way inside. Her gaze was buried in a folder filled with paperwork.

“Haley McCullough?” she asked, still not glancing up.

“Yes,” Haley said, taking in the woman’s neatly pressed uniform.

“I’m Detective Peters,” she said, and Haley immediately felt nervous. She had to remind herself she hadn’t done anything wrong and neither had Dean. She thought of her fiancé in a similarly stark room, antsy without his phone to distract him.

The woman finally took her eyes off the paperwork and set them on Haley. She scanned Haley’s face, clothes, and bloodstained hands, and Haley fought back the urge to cry. “Is Josie all right?” Haley asked, her voice trembling.

“She’s alive from the last I heard,” the woman said, sitting in the seat across from Haley. Her eyes were light blue and clear like Josie’s, and Haley couldn’t help but imagine Josie lying on the kitchen floor. “Any idea of anyone who would want to hurt her?” the detective asked.

Haley sat up straighter, determined to be helpful. “I don’t know her as well as I used to,” she said, “but I certainly don’t know anyone who wanted to hurt her.”