Chapter 12 - The Girl at the Back Door
Émilie found June before asking another question.
She put the phone on speaker.
“Where are you?” June asked.
“In the pantry.”
“Is your mom home?”
“Yes.”
“Can you go to her?”
A muffled voice sounded in the background.
Brianna stopped breathing for a moment.
Then she said, “He’s upstairs now.”
June kept her voice level.
“Go sit with your mom. Tell her you called us.”
“I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t look in his office. I just told Émilie what I heard.”
“I know.”
Twenty minutes later, a car pulled into the driveway.
Brianna’s mother, Nora, stood at the back door with one hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry to come like this.”
June let them in.
Brianna wouldn’t look at Émilie.
Her eyes were red. Her expensive jacket hung open over her school uniform.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table.
Nora faced him.
“Mark told me you were confused. Then angry. Then trying to get money.”
Daniel said nothing.
“Today I asked him why the company attorney was calling the house.”
She set her phone on the table.
“He told me to stop asking questions.”
Brianna stared at the floor.
Nora took a breath.
“I’m taking her to my sister’s tonight.”
“You can wait here until you’re ready,” June said.
Émilie got two glasses of water.
She placed one in front of Brianna.
For a long moment, neither touched them.
Then Brianna whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Émilie sat down.
“For what?”
Brianna’s face crumpled.
“All of it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Daniel shifted, but June touched his arm.
Brianna swallowed.
“For laughing. For saying he forgot you. For making everyone look.”
Émilie looked at the water between them.
“You made me want to leave before he got there.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Brianna nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“You’re right.”
It wasn’t forgiveness.
But it was the first honest conversation they had ever had.
Nora called Elena from the porch. She said Mark had asked her to delete messages from a shared family tablet, telling her they were private company business.
She hadn’t deleted them.
Elena told her to preserve the device and arrange a proper handover.
As Nora returned inside, her phone lit up.
MARK.
She silenced it.
A second later, Daniel’s phone rang.
The investigator.
“We’re moving forward,” he said. “But you need to know what Ellison is telling us.”
May you like
Daniel’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“He says the defective brake work was yours.”
