Page 59 of A Heart So Haunted
“Then we have a deal.”
Just then, footsteps thumped up the steps—and I watched, wide eyed, as Hadrian stepped back into the darkest corner of the room, and vanished.
I swung around. Emma, red faced, stared at me from the top of the steps.
“What are you doing?” she breathed.
I hadn’t heard the front door unlock or the grandfather clock starting to chime two in the morning.
“I was just—I heard something,” I stammered. My face grew hot as I gestured to the lit hallway. That old anger from our argument, now stifled, shimmied back to the surface like a bloated, dead body.
“So you turned on every light in the house and go in my room?” she pressed. Emma’s hair was tied in a loose bun, her shirt partially untucked, her face bare.
Because, yes, Landry, after giving yourself a pep talk about keeping Hadrian from Emma, the first logical thing to do was to mention hearing something that could make her bust out the EMF reader.
When I didn’t answer, Emma shook her head, forehead creased. She brushed past me, tossed her purse onto the end of the bed, and switched on her bedside lamp. “Don’t tell me that when I’m supposed to sleep in here tonight.”
I scooted closer to the door. Emma untied her hair, cheekbones still tight, and started pulling her shirt over her head. I searched for words as she retrieved a sweatshirt and a pair of old, worn shorts from the floor.
Here we were, in our late twenties, giving the silent treatment.
She kept her back to me as she pulled her sweatshirt on. I settled into my frustration as I stood there. It hadn’t been completely my fault—she’d stepped over a line, too. Still, I could almost picture Sayer, glaring at me, while eyeing Emma as if to say,Apologize.
I hardened myself. Apologizing meant I was wrong, though. And I wasn’t.
“I thought you were going to be out tonight?” I tried instead.
She eyed me. A chill to her words when she said, “Stetson isn’t that big.” Then, “What happened to the hallway?”
I couldn’t tell if her words were an olive branch. Not that I’d offered much else, so I gave my half-truth about expanding the hallway.
“Hm,” was all she said. Like she didn’t care.
I turned to leave but stopped at the last second. It was the thought of Hadrian eavesdropping from a recessive place that hooked me.
Pressure built at the back of my neck. I glanced back, hand clutching the doorframe.
“I’m sorry for before,” I said. “I kept Ivan’s packet. Just in case.” I swallowed around the words, like a thousand bees had stung my lips. “I might have him come take another look in a few weeks.”
Emma collected a trio of bobby pins off her nightstand and started spoking them around her hair. The fly-aways slowly disappeared.
“Emma.” Her name withered on my lips.
She stopped and turned toward me, her hands propped on her hips. “Why don’t you tell me things?”
My chin dropped. “I do tell you things.”
“No, you tell me what you think I want to hear. What happened to how we were in middle and high school?”
I didn’t meet her gaze. The floor became oddly interesting.
“You don’t tell me anything anymore. Secrets. Jokes. How you’re feeling. What you’re doing. All I get are directions on what to do, what to tear up, what to throw out or box away.”
“I don’t have secrets because I don’t do anything exciting, I don’t go out and drink or party or have this huge group of friends,” I said, exasperated. “I’m an amateur interior designer that reno’s. I don’t know what kind of exciting things—”
“No, Landry. You. Not your work. Even … even the funeral. You don’t talk about her. You don’t talk about your mom. You don’t talk about Dad.”
Her.Not Aunt Cadence.Her.
