Cut to the Bone(46)
“Yes, you do!” Emily said, spitting her righteousness like buckshot. “You’re a hypocrite, Marty. You could beg off from being a witness because of your precious convictions, and nobody would care. But you want to see Trent die. That makes you a lousy damn hypocrite.”
“I don’t ‘want’ to see him die,” Marty snapped. “I need to see him die-”
“And so do I,” she bore in. “So do the families of his victims. They’re entitled. I’m entitled!”
Marty scowled, started walking away.
“Oh no you don’t!” Emily said, grabbing his shirt and hauling him around. His lips were flat, his face scarlet. His jaws wiggled like bags of mice. “If I’d died two years ago, are you saying you’d put my killer in a cell instead of a coffin?”
He waited a second too long to say no.
“I can’t believe it!” she raged, stalking a circle around him. “I thought you loved me! But maybe you love Alice more. Is that it, Marty? Are you leaving me for Alice?”
Marty’s voice strangled unintelligibly. His fingers massaging his ribs. “How do you-”
“I came back in the house that night. I heard you talking to your pretty little lady in the kitchen. After you’d thought I’d left for the station.” She glared at him, slapped her hands on her hips. “Are you in love with her, Marty? Are you leaving me? Tell me everything, damn you.”
“I . . . can’t . . .”
“You don’t have a choice anymore!” Emily screeched, pushing up so close she smelled his coffee breath. Knowing was frightening. Not knowing was worse. “If you love me, tell me what’s eating you alive. Right here, right now, or swear to God our relationship is-”
“I have a son,” Marty said. “Alice is his mother.”
She froze.
“That’s right, Emily, a son,” he said, crossing his arms. “That’s why I’m a witness Friday. That’s why I’m a hypocrite. And that’s why I’ll happily dance on Trent’s melted face. Because I couldn’t save that dead little boy that night.”
She clutched herself, gasping for air. She could have handled an Alice. Even another man. Not this. Marty had beagles. Not daughters. Not sons. No one with his DNA. His chiseled face. His square white teeth. His thick fingers. His sunray smile. His thick black moustache, which turned up at the ends like a British grenadier’s. His uncanny ability to both reflect and absorb her, in conversation or complete silence-
“You bastard,” she spat, turning on her heel.
“Nobody knows, Em,” he said. “Only Branch-”
“Oh, this gets better and better,” she snarled. “You spill to your buddy easy enough, but not the woman you love? The woman you supposedly want to spend the rest of your life with?”
“This is exactly why I didn’t say anything about my son and Alice,” Marty said, bouncing off the fence and grabbing her arm. “Because it would hurt you so much. But you insisted. You demanded. You said tell me Marty or I’ll quit you forever-”
“Leave me alone,” she said, shaking away and breaking into a sprint, barely able to see the ground through her tears. She bounced off a whippy tree, stumbled forward. It’d take an hour to run back to the station, but she couldn’t stand the thought of being in a car with him. Not after he’d lied so masterfully. Not after he’d broken her heart so-
Oh, Jesus, now what?
She snatched the cell phone off her belt. “Thompson.”
Her eyes widened as she listened.
“OK, Branch,” she managed to choke. “I’ll be right back.”
She disconnected, feeling sick. She didn’t want to do this, but had no choice.
“The police chief in Holbrook, Arizona, just called,” she said mechanically, looking at the fence instead of him. “He found burnt matches at a murder scene. I need to return ASAP.”
Marty pulled his keys. “Then we’ll talk in the car. You need to hear the rest-”
“I heard everything I need to know,” she said. “Daddy.”
11:42 a.m.
“Hundred and eight and climbing,” Gene Mason replied. “But it’s a dry heat.”
Emily heard that fairy tale from every Arizonian she’d ever met. She would have kidded him about it, but at the moment, humor stuck in her throat like bad clams.
“What’s this I hear about an electrocution?” Mason said.
Emily described what Covington had in mind, and how NPD intended to handle it.
“Sounds like your chief’s got it covered,” he said. “What’s your role?”