Page 66 of We Are All Guilty Here

“Sheriff?” Dervla had shoved her phone in Gerald’s face. “How does it feel to know that you and your daughter ruined Adam’s life with your lies?”

“Ma’am.” He sounded tired. “The case against Adam Huntsinger is—”

“Paul!” Hannah screamed.

Emmy flinched.

The panic in her voice, the visceral terror, set every nerve in Emmy’s body on fire. She spun around. Time slowed to a crawl. All of her senses faded but one. No hearing, no taste, touch or sound. Emmy saw the rage in Paul Dalrymple’s eyes as he aimed a Smith & Wesson revolver directly at her chest. Then Hannah was lunging for the gun with both hands. Cole was running in the distance. His vest was flapping because he hadn’t strapped it down tight like Emmy had told him.

Why didn’t he listen why didn’t he ever listen?

Cole disappeared as Hannah cascaded into Emmy’s line of sight. Her face came into sharp focus. The fear in her eyes. Mouth opened in a scream. The revolver was still aimed in Emmy’s direction. She pivoted seconds before the muzzle flashed. Smoke flowered from the barrel. Emmy’s lips parted. She breathed in. Prepared herself for the impact. There was a low whistle as the bullet whizzed past her head. Then she felt a great cleaving behind her; an iceberg breaking off, a mighty limb splitting from a tree. She turned again and watched her father collapse to the ground.

Time snapped back with a vicious clarity.

“Dad!” Emmy dropped to her knees beside him. The bullet had ripped a hole in his chest. She clamped her hands to the wound. Tried to stop the torrent of blood leaving his body. “Dad, hold on! Please hold on!”

“Papa!” Cole was running down the street. “Papa!”

“Call an ambulance!” she yelled. The crowd had frozen around them. Paul was sitting in the middle of the street. Hannah wason her knees. The revolver was on the pavement. No one was moving. No one was doing anything. “Somebody call a fucking ambulance!”

“Em …” Gerald’s teeth were chattering. His hand shook as he placed it over hers. “Em-m-m …”

“Hold on, Dad.” She pressed her weight into his chest. Emmy could feel the sharp edges of a shattered rib. His blood pulsed through her fingers. His face was losing color. His lips trembled. “Please hold on. Please.”

“Em …” His eyes tracked in confusion. “Emmy Lou?”

“I’m here, Dad.” She leaned down so he could see her. “I’m right here.”

“FBI …” he whispered.

“We’ll call them Dad. As soon as you’re in the ambulance I’ll—”

“N-need …” He coughed. Blood slid from the corner of his mouth. “N-need to … talk it out …”

Her throat squeezed so tightly that she could barely answer. “We’ll do it later, Dad. Okay?”

She saw a tear roll down his face. He didn’t speak, but he was looking at her, forcing her to understand. He had asked to talk it out. She had to listen.

Emmy felt a stillness wash over her body, a kind of calmness that she had never known. Everything else melted away. It was just the two of them now, the people who never talked unless they were talking to each other.

She cupped her hands to his face. “Go ahead, Dad.”

“Your m-mother …” he whispered. “T-tell her … I’m sorry …”

“Okay.” Emmy used her thumb to wipe his tears. “I’ll tell her, Dad. I promise.”

His eyelids started to flutter. Emmy smoothed back his hair. She could feel his body trying to hold on, even as the torrent of blood was reduced to a trickle.

“Please, Daddy.” Emmy held him in her gaze the way that he’d always held her in his. “Please stay with me. I’m not ready to let you go.”

For just a moment, for Emmy’s sake, he seemed to hold on.She felt the comfort of his presence, the certainty of his love. But then he let out a low, mournful sigh. His eyes lost focus. She could feel his body start to relax. His face went slack. The worry disappeared from his brow. The pain was gone. The burdens were lifting. His struggle was coming to an end. She watched the trickle of his heartbeat slowly ebb away to nothing.

Then he closed his eyes, and he was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

Jude Archer stood at the back of the conference room as Special Agent Raheem Davidson walked the Talbot family through the FBI’s two-decades-long case against Frederick Arnold Henley. The room was dark, the only light coming from the monitor at the head of the long table. The blinds were all closed over the large windows that overlooked San Francisco’s Civic Center. The muffled sound of car horns and street vendors penetrated the thick, blast-proof glass of the Phillip Burton Federal Building as Golden Gate Avenue came alive.

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