Page 86 of Second Chance

There’s a smile in Emilio’s voice. “You and Daniel aren’t the kind of couple that fights, huh?”

“There was one time.” Tony wouldn’t call it a fight so much as the catalyst of their relationship. They could have fallen apart over it; instead, Daniel found the courage to be honest aboutwhat he wanted, and Tony found the faith to trust in what they had. “But otherwise, no, not really our style.”

“Amy loved a good discussion.” Emilio sighs wistfully. “The night we met, we spent all night arguing about whether women are underrepresented in STEM fields. By the time we agreed on anything, the rest of the party around us was over, and it was nearly dawn.”

Tony’s not one to judge. Emilio apparently cherishes the memory. To Tony, it sounds awful. “Sounds different than fighting about your kid.”

“Well, yeah. We’d have worked it out though. We always do. Did.”

They pass through Red Hook and Tivoli while Tony chews on that. “Not something you can tell the police,” he says eventually when he can’t let the silence go on.

“Nope. Not you or your friend either, huh?”

Tony winces. He’s being too obvious.

“It’s cool. I wouldn’t trust me either. Hell, I don’t right now.”

“Comforting.”

Emilio shrugs. “I never thought I was the kind of guy who yelled at strangers. Turns out I am if enough shit has happened around me. Never thought I’d send my kid away because I can’t take care of her. Who knows what I could do.”

They’re closing in on Germantown now. With no other plan of how to find Daniel, Tony takes the turnoff to Emilio’s house. “You’ll be fine. You’ll get Francie back next week, and you’ll make it work for her.”

“Sure.” Emilio’s eyes are heavy on Tony, making him want to squirm. “Someday. Anyway, I wanted to say thanks.”

“For suspecting you of murder?”

“For getting me out of the goddamn house. And cleaning up my kitchen. I needed that. I’ll take being a murder suspect if it gets me out of my own head.”

It startles a laugh out of Tony as he pulls up to the curb next to the Lawrence house. “If you say so.”

“I do.” With a grin so sharp it’s wolfish, Emilio undoes his seatbelt and gets out of the car.

“Hey,” Tony says before he can get too far away.

Emilio turns.

“Look,” Tony says, “I have one more lead for you. It’s a long shot, but someone was leaving bomb reviews of your wife on Rate My Professor. Maybe you can trace them. Might be something to incriminate Lily Peterson.” At least it could keep Emilio occupied while Tony gets Daniel the hell out of this town.

“Probably not. But thanks. Come back anytime. Seriously.” Emilio raps his knuckles on the roof of the car, and then he’s vanishing into the dark of his empty house.

Tony watches lights turn on and off in the windows as Emilio climbs the stairs, uses the bathroom, and goes to bed, until a lone lamp upstairs stays lit. He wonders if Emilio will sleep. Probably not, not in the bed he and Amy shared. Tony couldn’t. He’d be sleeping on the couch if anything happened to Daniel. Unless Emilio’s that cold, and he likes to sleep in sheets still smelling of a woman he murdered.

Tony can’t stay here, watching the house like a creeper. Emilio knows his car; he caught Tony staking him out once today. Anyway, Daniel’s not in the house. Colette checked everywhere. Unless there’s a secret basement or something, Daniel must be somewhere else.

He pulls away from the curb and cruises through Germantown. It’s pretty depressing. A two-year-old billboardfor the school’s baseball team looms to the side, and otherwise, only ads for shops in other towns line the roadside. Maybe in daylight it would be green and tranquil, but at this time of night, Tony can’t help but find it eerie.

Germantown by darkness is nothing besides the 9G winding through it. The only thing still open is the gas station with a lone teenager behind the till, eating a candy bar and scrolling on his phone. Tony exhausts every road in town he can drive down, headlights sweeping across darkened houses and empty parking lots.

He’s just finished another pass by the Lawrence house (Emilio’s light is still on upstairs) and is about to give up for the night when he spots it. To his left, a parking lot looms in front of a building with dilapidated neon lettering barely illuminating it. Only aC, anN, and twoU’s announce that it used to be a movie theater called the Continuum. And there, all alone in the parking lot, sits an ’07 Toyota Camry.

Chapter Thirteen

Tony doesn’t park in the lot. He drives to the Lawrence house again and leaves his car at the curb. If anything happens, Emilio will see the car eventually and come looking. Or if Emilio’s involved, the police—more likely, Colette—will know where to start looking.

Fuck. Who is he kidding? Emilio isn’t involved. Tony should have trusted his gut, which has been protesting Emilio’s innocence since the memorial service. It’s been evident since they met that Emilio had nothing to do with this. Over the last few hours, Tony flirted with the simple solution, imagining he might have done it. It was easy in the way the resolution of an episode ofBonesoften is. Emilio has a motive and a complicated relationship with his wife. Emilio wouldn’t need to be pitied if he did it. It would make sense.

It would be wrong. Tony might not easily understand Emilio’s relationship with his wife, but he loved her, and he loves his daughter. His grief is making him harder and harsher than he was before. Tony understands more intimately than he wants to. He has from day one even if Colette can’t quite see it.

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