Page 61 of The Wrong Side of the Law

“Get out of my way, Margaret,” I tell her, putting my bag over my shoulder and raising my hands to shove her.

Tears are running down Margaret’s immobile face. This is not an act. She really does love her son. It may be the only truly authentic thing about her.

“Please,” my stepmother repeats, choked up from the tears. She takes two steps back.

“There’s a possibility,” I say. “There’s a chance. Atinychance. He could be able to walk away from this. One thing, one very, very small thing, that could help him out.”

“Really?” Her voice is suddenly even, and though her cheeks remain wet there are no new tears flowing.

Were the tears an act, too? Was she using the truth of her love for Frank as a lever on me? Suddenly I have a fear that even without telling her anything, I’ve still said too much.

“I can’t talk about it, Margaret. I shouldn’t have said even that.”

“You’re just saying this. You just want me to leave you alone.”

She’s not wrong, not at all.

Margaret doesn’t resist as I push past her on my way to the front door, but she grabs my arm with all her strength.

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Margaret,” I say, jerking my arm free. “He got caught up in the middle of something else.” Why am I saying this? Why am I not just shutting my damn mouth?

“What do you mean?”

I ignore my stepmother’s question and run out the front door to my car.

“What is it, Emily? What do you mean,something else?Is this some kind of conspiracy?”Margaret screams questions at me from the doorway.

My tires squeal as I leave the driveway, and at the first red light I bang my head against a steering wheel held in shaky hands.

I. Am. An. Idiot.

Margaret’s suggestion that I use sex to get my brother cleared hit me like a baseball bat to the gut. She rattled me so badly that I said things I shouldn’t have. I’m an idiot.

And that’s not what I’m doing, is it? I genuinely am attracted to Gabriel Cooper. This hasn’t been some sort of coldly manipulative process. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of seducing him forthatreason.

As if there weren’t enough other problems already in my mind when it comes to my feelings about Gabriel, that bitch justhadto throw that one onto the pile. Now I feel even dirtier, but at least my resolve is strengthened: there isnoway that I can allow anything at all to happen between me and Gabriel Cooper. No way in hell.

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