Emma in the Night: The bestselling new gripping thriller from the author of All is Not Forgotten. Wendy Walker
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sense because of this thing or that thing. Do you understand? There is nothing to find here. Nothing at all!”
“Why did you leave with these strangers?” Owen asked again, looking for confirmation.
Cass finally answered him, a hint of anger in her voice that surprised Abby. But it was her answer that surprised them all.
“We left because Emma was pregnant.”
My father squeezed the breath from my body when he first saw me again. He barreled past Dr. Winter, Special Agent Strauss and Mrs. Martin and fell into me, sobbing. I did not have a chance to even look at him, to absorb the deep lines that grief had carved into his forehead and the grayness that now covered his skin. That would come twelve seconds later. In that moment, those first twelve seconds, he needed to take from me all that was lost over those three years, and he was not deterred by the impossibility of this task. I indulged him because I love my father very much and feeling his arms around me again had me crying also and saying his name over and over.
Daddy . . . Daddy . . .
I cried for him many times on the island, even though I knew each time, in my heart, what I knew again on my mother’s bed as he held me that morning. No matter how many times I cried his name, the cries a plea for him to help me somehow even if only to give me the strength to help myself, my father had nothing like this to give me.
I let myself cry and I tried to give him the things he needed. I had expected him to need things from me when I returned home. Still, I was also shocked by the resentment I felt. I wanted to scream at him. I need things, too! I need to tell my story before it explodes right out of my chest! No one seemed to care about my things.
When I said the words, when I told them we left because Emma was pregnant, my father’s eyes grew wide and frantic, like he was lost in a storm. “I don’t understand! Did she have a baby? Is there a child? My God!”
I answered the second question first.
“She had a little girl. But they took her. Bill and Lucy took her from Emma and made her their own. It started out like they were just helping take care of her. They kept her in their room at night. They said it was just for a few days so Emma could rest. Emma didn’t want them to, but they did anyway. Then they just never stopped.”
“And they wouldn’t let you leave? They held you prisoner? I don’t understand, Cass!” My father demanded an answer.
“We asked to leave. And when they kept saying not yet, not now, things like that, we made a plan to leave, only we couldn’t see how to do it when they always had Emma’s baby with them. So we decided that I should leave and then bring back help. And I tried, but failed. I’ve been trying to tell you . . . and when I found another way years later, Emma said she couldn’t leave without her daughter. I tried to make her come with me. You have to believe me, that I tried!”
I felt a surge of panic like the shock you get when your finger brushes a light socket. The thought of baby feet and baby hair and baby smiles, and the pain when they would take her from my arms, and Emma—I suddenly missed her like I would miss my own heart if it were torn from my body—and all of this was just too strong to hold in.
“Find them!” I yelled into the room.
I wanted Emma. I wanted revenge. I wanted that sweet little girl. I wanted justice.
“Find them and make them pay for what they’ve done!”
My father covered his face with his hands. I think it was at this moment he started to understand the kind of place I was trying to tell him about, trying to tell all of them. There was just so much and I didn’t want to forget anything so I kept trying to go back to the beginning. Maybe I should have started with the first time I tried to escape and what they did when I got caught. Or the things I had to do to finally make it home. In so many ways, I still felt like a child, afraid I would be in trouble. Afraid no one would believe me.
My father stood up. “We need more agents! We need to do something! Right now! My daughter and granddaughter are being held prisoner by these people! My God!”
Behind my father, I could see Mrs. Martin looking at me like I was crazy. She’d been doing that all morning and I wanted to scream at her Maybe you’re the one who’s crazy! and then watch her break into pieces.
Agent Strauss tried to reassure him. “We have a team of agents ready to begin the search. We will find this island.”
My father hung his head and held it firmly between his palms. He started to nod then, and I could read his thoughts—Yes, of course. That’s why a girl leaves home. That’s what was so compelling, she would leave everything behind.
He turned to look at my mother for some kind of solidarity. His shoulders lifted slightly, his palms now stretched out and open to the sky and tears streaming down his face.
“We couldn’t have known, Judy. We couldn’t.”
He was trying to be kind, but Mrs. Martin didn’t want his kindness.
My father used to make comments about the relationship between Emma and our mother, about how Mrs. Martin looked at Emma like a younger version of herself. He said she liked it when Emma got attention as a little girl. She would tell him that people did the same thing when she was little—turn their heads and ooh and ahh. She and Emma were cut from the same cloth. They were the same. What my father didn’t understand was that after Emma got older, Mrs. Martin didn’t talk about her likeness to Emma, because of pride. It was her way of stealing back the attention Emma got—attention that used to be hers.
I knew what my father was thinking as he tried to comfort her. That this ignorance of such an important fact about Emma might be a blow to her pride, to her ego. If she and Emma were so alike, how did she not know Emma was pregnant?
I was never able to sit still when this thing was happening between them—my mother silently brooding and my father prancing around like a circus clown trying to cheer her up. It made me feel rage inside because he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see that she still knew how to reach inside him and twist him up even after she broke his heart and stole his house and his children. Even then.
I was not surprised when this was Mrs. Martin’s response after he tried to comfort her on the day I returned.
“Of course I couldn’t have known! You drove a wedge between us so she never talked to me about these things. You did that! And look what happened!”
Dr. Winter did not seem surprised either that my father tried to comfort my mother, or that my mother used his kindness to whack him in the head. That was when I knew she had been involved before, when we disappeared. I imagine she had learned a lot about our family when they were trying to find us. But it was the lack of surprise she had in this moment that made me think she could see our family.
Agent Strauss stepped in. “I think we need to hear what happened—from the beginning. Please . . . let’s get things to the lab and let’s hear the story, Cass. If you’re up to it.”
Dr. Winter smiled at me and nodded. The people from the forensic team left. Everyone sat back down, my father on the end of the bed, my mother back next to me. Dr. Winter sat in a chair with a small notepad flipped open and a pen in her hand. Agent Strauss was standing beside her.
“We should speak to Cass alone,” he said to my parents. They looked at each other, then at me. They didn’t move.
“No . . .” I said. “I need them here. Please . . .”
My breath was choppy from the attack of emotions and I tried hard to steady my voice. I could not tell my story without my mother with me to hear it.
Agent