to get her. I remembered Cyrus telling me she had nightmares every night. Yesterday, I had almost suffered a fate similar to hers, and I wondered if I’d have all my marbles if someone had dug me up ten years from now.
Emma drew herself up and raised her chin in a semblance of dignity, but it wasn’t very convincing. She looked tired and scared, and I wished like hell she’d come out of that pond with her mind intact. I suspect her marriage to Anderson would have ended anyway, and it probably wouldn’t have been a nice breakup—if there is such a thing—but she might have had a chance at a decent life. But as it was, there was no room in her heart for anything but bitterness, jealousy, resentment, and fear.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Please do come in, my dear,” Cyrus said, gesturing her forward. “We have something very important to discuss.” He was smiling his usual pleasant smile, but his voice came out uncharacteristically flat.
I glanced at Anderson, wondering how he was taking all this. He wasn’t looking at Emma like the rest of us were, was instead staring straight ahead. His face was a stony mask, and I didn’t know what emotions that mask hid.
Emma obviously sensed the dangerous undercurrents in the room. She stood rooted in the doorway and turned a beseeching look on Anderson. When she saw him facing forward, refusing to look at her, she recoiled as if he’d slapped her.
Apparently, she was taking too long to follow Cyrus’s orders, because Mark suddenly gave her a shove from behind, propelling her into the room. The shove was so violent that she tripped over the edge of the rug and landed on her hands and knees with a cry of surprise and pain. Neither Anderson nor Cyrus objected to the rough handling.
Emma scrambled to her feet and whirled on Mark. “How dare you,” she snarled. I suppose she was trying to go on the offensive, but the shrill edge in her voice detracted from the attempt. She had to know the jig was up.
“I’d ask the same question of you,” Cyrus said, and Emma reluctantly turned to face him. The little darting glances she sent over her shoulder said that after what had just happened, she didn’t like having Mark behind her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Did we not have a discussion the other day in which I specifically forbade you from taking any hostile action toward Anderson or any of his Liberi?”
Emma blinked as if in surprise. “Yes. And I specifically told you I hadn’t done anything.” Her lip curled in distaste as she looked me up and down. “Whatever that bitch might have told you.”
I’d have been more outraged, both by her attitude and her denial, if I didn’t fear she was a hair’s breadth away from a death sentence.
Cyrus grunted in exasperation. “And I believed you. Right up until I found those drafts of the letter you wrote in my father’s name on your computer.”
“Those weren’t mine!” There were twin spots of angry color on her pale cheeks now. She certainly could put on a convincing righteous indignation act. “Someone used my computer to write them, but it wasn’t me. Maybe you should have a word with your daddy about it.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “Yes, that makes perfect sense. He broke into your house to use your computer to compose a letter that he then took to a FedEx to email. All because he’s batshit crazy enough to blame Nikki for his misfortunes. Strangely, that sounds rather more like you than like him.”
“I don’t know who wrote it or why. All I know is it wasn’t me.”
“You hired a hit man to kill Nikki and bury her in the woods where no one would ever find her,” Anderson interrupted, the rage in his voice enough to make Emma flinch from it.
“What?” she shrieked, looking back and forth frantically between Anderson and Cyrus.
“You gave Erin to your new friends just to spite me,” Anderson continued, taking a step closer to her. He looked intimidating enough that she took a step back. “But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to drive the dagger in deeper, so you had to destroy Nikki, too. Just because in your sick, twisted mind you decided she was the reason our marriage fell apart. But it was you, Emma. You’re the only reason, the only one to blame.”
Tears glistened in Emma’s eyes. “I loved you,” she said