Dial Em for Murder (7 page)

His chest puffed up self-importantly. “I think your daughter should cooperate with the police.”

“I
am
cooperating!”

They both ignored me.

“Emptor Academy is certainly more secure than her current public school, right?”

“We believe a professional killer wants to find your daughter, Vera. That's not going to magically disappear overnight. So let us know when Emmy is ready to come clean with the police.” He pulled out a business card of his own, scribbling a quick addition in blue ink before handing it over to my mom. “That's my number. Feel free to call anytime.”

“Oh, I'll be sure to do that.” My mom never loosened her grip on the back of my shirt as she propelled me forward to the exit, pausing only to share one last lingering smile with the detective. She didn't speak a word to me as we walked past the seating area where I'd spoken to Sebastian, or when we crossed the threshold entirely and headed straight toward the nearest subway station.

I didn't know if this was one of her acting techniques or if she was honestly at a loss for words, but either way her silent treatment was a whole lot more effective than anything Detective Dumbass had tried in the interrogation room.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you yesterday,” I said, when I couldn't take the silence anymore. “I thought it was an
accident
. I didn't want you to worry about it.”

“We'll talk about this at home, Emmy.” Her lips were pressed together so tightly they looked like a single thin line slashing across her face.

“I didn't think—”

“That's right,” she snapped, whirling me around to face her. “You didn't
think
, Emmy. I am your
mother
.”

That last part came out like a dangerous life sentence.

“I know, I just—”

“It is
my
job to keep you safe. My job. So don't you
dare
start keeping secrets from me for my own good. It doesn't work that way.”

Well, that was a first. It had been working
exactly
that way for as long as I could remember. Oh sure, none of the assholes my mom brought home had ever been violent. And if she'd noticed any of them looking at me for even a millisecond longer than she thought they should've been, she kicked them to the curb. But that didn't mean I hadn't learned not to rock the boat. I was the one who monitored her self-esteem, because when she hit rock bottom she binged on self-help books and began coating the mirrors with daily affirmations like,
You are a strong and powerful woman.

Sometimes protecting her feelings meant keeping secrets.

Which is why she didn't know that Henri had stolen money from my piggy bank, or that Kristoff had threatened to make the tooth fairy rot every last molar in my mouth if I ever mentioned watching him try on her high heels. I probably would have forgotten the incident entirely if I hadn't found his threat so terrifying. My mom thought it was adorable that her new boyfriend had inspired her little preschooler to be such a diligent brusher.

I'd grown accustomed to the small secrets. They didn't even feel like secrets anymore. Instead they were a string of unspoken factoids that I didn't expect anyone to notice. Still, there was something about the way she said, “I am your
mother
” that had me struggling to bite back a sharp retort. To ask why she cared so much about a stupid accident when she couldn't be bothered to protect me on a daily basis. I dug a nail into my forefinger to prevent the words from escaping, to keep those old scars tightly boxed with the rest of my baggage. She might believe that it was her job to keep me safe, but it hadn't actually worked like that in a long time.

She did her best.

She always did her best.

It just sucked that all those good intentions disintegrated around the men in her life.

“I'm sorry, Mom.” I choked out. “You're right. It won't happen again.”

She pulled me in for a tight hug, and I mentally added,
because even if Detective Dumbass is right about some psycho Starbucks killer, I'm going to keep him far away from you.

That's
my
job.

Audrey and Ben were sitting on my bed, waiting for me when I arrived home.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise since I'd given them both a spare key to the apartment right after my mom had broken up with Felix and decided to change the lock. I'd asked her to make a couple extra copies, just to be safe. I hadn't mentioned that the safety feature had nothing to do with locking myself out and everything to do with my friends' ability to get in.

“Um, hi,” I said lamely, as Audrey glanced up from her phone and Ben set down his chemistry textbook.

I quickly shut the door. The longer my mom had to calm down in private, the better. She had maintained an iron grip on my jacket the entire time we rode the subway home, like I was a little kid who required a leash at Disneyland. I hadn't protested because I could tell that my mom needed to cling, craved the physical closeness, because it meant that her baby was safe. Still, it would've been a whole lot harder to fill Audrey and Ben in on the events of the day with my mom breathing down my neck—literally.

“It's about time!” Audrey lurched upright on the bed and shot me her best glare of annoyance, which wasn't particularly fierce. If anything, she looked constipated. “We've been waiting and waiting, but did you call? Nooooo!”

Ordinarily, I would have laughed at the way Audrey had unknowingly imitated her Jewish grandmother who lived up to the nagging cliché with her weekly phone calls: “I haven't heard from you in ages. But do you call me? Noooo! I could be dead for all you know!”

Too bad I wasn't in a laughing mood. Not when I had to find a way to pack my life into a suitcase. I scanned my bedroom, unsure what to take with me to Empty Academy.

“I was a little preoccupied at the police precinct,” I pointed out. As far as excuses go, it was a damn good one. “And I did send you guys a text.”

“One!” Audrey scrunched up her nose in disgust. “And all it said was,
Fine here. Fill you in later
.”

“Well, I
was
fine and I'm with you guys now. So I'd say that my text was very informative.”

I did my best to ignore the irritated look Ben and Audrey traded by tugging out my battered suitcase from the back of my closet.

“So what did the cops say when you handed over the Slate?” Ben asked. Apparently it was his turn to grill me for information.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing because they were so shocked that you'd been withholding evidence?”

“Nothing because I didn't hand it over,” I admitted, yanking my suitcase across the room. Two very strong hands deliberately settling over mine made my every muscle freeze. It was a stupid reaction. Ben touched me all the time. It was no big deal. We had spent thousands of movie nights curled up on a couch together, watching lame action movies. I'd even fallen asleep on his shoulder once. I still remembered lurching upright with a massive crick in my neck, meeting Ben's incredibly warm hazel eyes, and then glancing down to see a drool spot staining his sleeve that he could have only gotten from me.

His touch shouldn't have unnerved me now, but somehow it did.

“You need to go back to the station, Emmy.” Ben spoke calmly, as if he expected me to jackrabbit out of my own skin.

“I can't.” The words emerged hoarsely from the back of my throat. “You don't understand, the cops won't listen to me!”

Ben moved even closer, forcing me to look up and meet his eyes. Those hazel depths weren't soft now. They looked fierce and, well, kind of pissed off.

“Did you try talking to them?” he demanded. “Most people are better at listening when someone actually speaks!”

I crossed my arms. “Thanks for the lecture, Ben. It's so great that even though
you
weren't in the interrogation room you know exactly how it happened. That's quite a skill you've been hiding. Very impressive.”

It took all my self-control not to yell,
Shut up. Stop expecting me to be more than I am.
According to my mom's relationship manuals, true love makes you want to become the best possible version of yourself. Too bad my best self appeared to have gone into hiding and the scared-out-of-my-mind self couldn't seem to live up to any of Ben's expectations.

“What did the cops say to you, Emmy?” Audrey asked.

“They think that someone targeted me at the Starbucks.” It was getting easier and easier to say the impossible. By the end of the week, I could probably shake hands with a stranger and say,
Hi, I'm Emmy Danvers. There's a crazy killer who wants me dead. Nice to meet you.
“They think I'm involved in the old man's death.”

“You
are
involved in something.” Ben tried to lower his voice, but I could still feel the anger vibrating in it. “And you're keeping everyone else out.”

“He's got a point, Em.”

Guilt gnawed at me, but their words didn't change the situation. It was still safer for me to keep my big mouth shut. At least until the panic bubbling inside of me was reduced to a nervous simmer.

Unfortunately, there was still one detail I had to share with them.

“The dead guy told me to warn my dad. So if I'm the target, then
he
is at the heart of it.”

“Jesus, Em.” Ben sank down to the foot of my bed, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “I thought you'd moved past this. Colin Firth isn't your father. There isn't a big choreographed group dance number in your future. Real life doesn't work that way.”

I instantly felt like an idiot and wished they would take their sarcastic comments, and worse, their pitying looks, and just shove it. Go analyze someone else for a change.

“I looked for him, Em.” Audrey hugged her knees to her chest, probably because she knew I'd become claustrophobic if she wrapped her arms around me. “I ran a thorough search for Daniel Danvers. I even expanded it to include Danny, Dan, Denny, and Dennis Danvers, just in case he's been using a nickname. I came up empty.”

“The dead guy said his name was Morgan.” I couldn't resist pointing out, before amending myself. “Actually, he said that Morgan would know what to do, but that's pretty much the same thing, right?”

“This would be the same dead guy who stole your drink then handed you a Slate? Yeah, you should
definitely
follow his advice. He doesn't sound mentally unhinged at all,” Ben snorted. “Seriously, Em, hand it over to the cops and then turn the whole thing into a great college admission's essay.”

I stubbornly ignored Ben's advice. “We never looked for a Morgan Danvers.”

“We also never looked for a Morgan Denvers or a Morgan Danningham; should we start looking for your dad in that needle stack of needles, too?” Ben demanded. “Best case scenario: your dad's first name really is Morgan, which means he lied to your mom about his name before he left her. Remind me again why you want to find this asshole?”

“Maybe he had a good reason.” The excuses I'd dreamed up a billion times came spilling out. “Maybe he thought he was putting my mom at risk, or someone was after him, or he needed to help somebody in trouble.”

“If any of that is true,” Audrey said softly, “then don't you think that's one more reason to keep your distance, Em?”

Probably.

If I saw it laid out as a multiple choice question, it would probably have looked something like this: A sixteen-year-old girl is delivered a cryptic warning in a coffee shop. She can either:

The correct answer should have been obvious. Ben and Audrey had no trouble selecting the most practical solution. Except I couldn't shake the feeling that option C was my best bet.

I needed to find my dad. Maybe he wasn't any better than Pierre the thief, or Kristoff the tooth-fairy terrorist, or Felix the scumbag, but he couldn't be much worse. I mean, yeah, theoretically it was possible. Maybe he
was
a murderer or a gangbanger or a stodgy accountant who enjoyed reporting people to the IRS. But the man that my mom had described—the one who had said that he believed in the beauty of her dreams—sounded wonderful.

He sounded like the kind of person who could help me become
more
. And if he was a disappointment, well, then at least I'd know for sure. It would be one less thing to spend my time imagining.

“You guys don't have to support it,” I said. “But this is happening. I'm going to track down my dad. I'm going to follow some crazy dead guy's advice, because if I don't I'm going to hate myself for taking the coward's way out.” I unzipped the suitcase and began tossing in the shirts that lined my dresser drawer. “You're both welcome to say ‘I told you so' when . . .
if
this whole thing blows up horribly in my face.”

Ben glared at me. “Are you ser—”

“Okay, Em,” Audrey cut in smoothly. “You know we'll always have your back. But that's going to be a whole lot harder if you flee the country.”

“I'm going to Emptor Academy. I've got a scholarship there.”

That left Audrey at a complete lack for words. Too bad Ben wasn't similarly shocked into silence.

“Since
when
?!”

“Since Sebastian St. James showed up at the police precinct and offered it to me. I guess the dead guy is his grandpa and—”

“Well, isn't that cozy. His grandpa dies and suddenly Sebastian St. Jerk's first thought is to offer
you
a scholarship? Come on, Emmy. Please tell me you're not going to take him up on this.”