Cold Hard Truth

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952188

  Text copyright © 2018 by Anne Greenwood Brown

  First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Albert Whitman & Company

  ISBN 978-0-8075-8083-7 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-0-8075-8085-1 (paperback)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

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  Cover photo copyright © by Arthur Hidden—stock.adobe.com

  Design by Ellen Kokontis

  For more information about Albert Whitman & Company, visit our website at www.albertwhitman.com.

  For Greg (my mighty #6)

  CHAPTER ONE

  PIGEON

  Emmie O’Brien knew she was supposed to run. But despite all of Nick’s yelling to Go! Go! Go! her muscles locked—stuck in place. The sight of the unconscious man behind the counter of the SuperAmerica made her think of B. J., except that this one was younger. Not really a man yet. More her age. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” Nick yelled as he emptied the cash register into a plastic bag. “Why are you still standing there? Get the car started, Pigeon. We gotta get the hell out of here.”

  Finally, Emmie’s feet started to move. Just a few tripping steps, then she broke into a run and jumped behind the wheel of the rusted-out sedan.

  A few seconds behind her, Nick threw himself into the passenger seat and tossed the bulging bag into the back. Emmie’s hands shook as she fumbled with the keys. She’d had her license for only a month, and it took her two tries to get out of first gear without killing the engine. She might have done better if it wasn’t a stick or if Nick could have stopped screaming at her for just one damn minute.

  “Hurry! Jesus, hurry!”

  When she finally peeled out of the parking lot, she oversteered and jumped the curb. The undercarriage made a horrible scraping sound along the concrete before the car bounced back onto the road and leveled out.

  “Watch out!” Nick yelled. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

  “Stop yelling at me! You’re scaring me.”

  They flew down Osgood, weaving in and out of traffic, headed for the highway. Up ahead, the light turned yellow, and Emmie instinctively took her foot off the gas.

  “What are you doing?” Nick cried, his voice rising in panic, his body first turning to look behind them, then bracing against the dashboard. “Don’t stop!”

  “But the light’s going to turn red.” Emmie’s heart pounded in her ears as the adrenaline beat a path through her body. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t calm her thoughts. She needed to calm her thoughts. She could fix this if she could just think.

  By now, the light had turned. The cars ahead of her came to a stop, but she was still going too fast. Nick reached over and jerked the wheel, pulling the sedan in a careening path onto the gravel shoulder, kicking up dust. The old sedan’s tires caught in a rutted groove, and Emmie slammed on the brake. The engine stuttered, then died.

  “Dammit!” Nick slapped the back of her head and she shot forward, hitting her nose on the steering wheel. Bright-white stars burst in her field of vision.

  “Get it started! Start the goddamn car!”

  “Do you want to drive?” she yelled back. Tears pricked at the backs of Emmie’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She just wanted to get the hell out of there and out of the car. In fact, she never wanted to see this car again. She wanted to go home. Wherever that was going to be.

  “Get in back,” Nick said.

  “Gladly!”

  That’s when they heard the sirens, already close, with red lights swirling not a quarter mile behind. There was no chance for a getaway because Emmie already had her door open and one foot on the pavement. Nick was still in the passenger seat. He cursed and threw his coat over the bag of money, like that was going to do any good.

  This was all Emmie’s fault. None of this would be happening if she hadn’t begged her dad to let her go live with her mom. All his strict rules made better sense now. Yep. This was all her fault, and Nick wasted no time in telling her how strongly he agreed.

  “You’ll pay for this,” he said through clenched teeth. “Believe it. You’ll pay.”

  Emmie swallowed and shook off the shivery terror that skimmed over her shoulders. She was going to jail. She, Emmie O’Brien, lawyer’s daughter, was going to jail. Strangely, that knowledge brought the calm she was looking for. It would be a reprieve from her mom. An escape from Nick. “Maybe it’ll be all right.”

  She thought she heard Nick make a scoffing sound, but what did it matter anymore?

  SEVERAL MONTHS LATER

  Emmie sat in a courtroom thinking about the time she’d played Betsy Ross in the second-grade play. She’d had only one line: “I’ve made you a flag, George.” It should have been easy to get the words out. Instead, she hurled all over the Stars and Stripes, putting the entire American Revolution on indefinite hold.

  She’d vowed never again to be so on display, but sometimes you weren’t given much of a choice. This time, there were considerably fewer eyes on her, but the stage fright was just as real, and the weight of those eyes was no less heavy. Angie and Jimmy glared up at her from the front row. Frankie would have been there, too, but there was a warrant out for his arrest so he couldn’t take the chance.

  Emmie fidgeted on the witness stand, swinging her feet. Seeing her former friends’ hatred for her was bad enough, but there were two people whose gaze she felt even more keenly: Nick, no longer in an orange jumpsuit but dressed in a neatly pressed suit, his eyes full of rage at her betrayal. And Tom O’Brien, her father, whose eyes flickered back and forth from fear to pain to guilt. That last look was the one that hurt her the most, and it was about to get worse.

  Aunt Bridget, who Emmie’d gone to live with since being released from the juvenile detention center six months ago, smiled encouragingly. It had been a social worker who recommended Emmie live “with a supportive female presence for a while in case she needed someone to talk to about all she’d been through.”

  Aunt Bridget never pushed. And Emmie hadn’t talked. That was about to change because she had no more choice in the matter. Testifying against Nick was part of her plea agreement, and her father knew everything already.

  After today, Emmie would be moving back home with him after two years away. There would be no more hiding the truth.

  The prosecutor tap, tap, tapped his pen against a yellow pad. “So the defendant, Nicholas Peters, had you not only delivering his product but, at the end, driving his getaway car in exchange for keeping your mother supplied with methamphetamines?”

  Emmie nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Miss O’Brien, but the court reporter can’t take down nonverbal responses. Was that a yes?”

  “Yes.” Her voice came out as a rasp.

  The prosecutor shifted the papers on the table in front of him. Emmie knew what questions were coming next. She’d been told. She’d prepared. Still, it wasn’t something she should ever have to say in front of her father—even a father who was a lawyer himself and had to listen to this kind of shit all the time. By the look on his face, it was clearly different when your own daughter was laying out the filth.

  The prosecutor cleared his throat. “How else did Mr. Peters make you pay?”

  Emmie shook the images of her and Nick from her head. She sensed, rather than saw, her father lean forward, bowing his head and putting elbows
to knees. He couldn’t look at her. And maybe that was just as well. Even if after Nick’s trial was over, they were going to try living together once more. Would they ever be able to look at each other again?

  Turned out, they could. Once Emmie’s testimony was done and the court recessed, Tom O’Brien put both hands on Emmie’s shoulders and leaned down and in. “That was tough. I know. But you did it. It’s over. And I am so proud.”

  Emmie kept her body taut and her mind still, but when she caught the tears welling in Aunt Bridget’s eyes, Emmie dared to smile a little. If only on the inside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  STARTING OVER. AGAIN.

  THREE DAYS LATER

  Last night, when Emmie fell asleep in her father’s house—the first time she’d slept in her own bed since freshman year—she’d wondered if she’d wake up thinking the last eighteen months had been one seriously nasty dream. Instead, she woke and got dressed to a healthy serving of reality, spooned up by her father yelling into the phone.

  “Woman, you’re daft if you think you can be at her meeting tomorrow. You’ve got a bloody no-contact order to contend with.” Her father’s Irish accent—lessened by twenty years in the States—always came on strong when he was talking to his ex-wife.

  Emmie stood in her doorway, straining to listen. She hadn’t heard her mom’s voice in months, given the no-contact order and her mom’s current residence in a rehab center. It was a strange new reality. Emmie didn’t like it, but she was largely to blame for the current situation, and it could have been a whole helluva lot worse. Still, maybe her dad would let her at least say “hi.”

  Emmie grabbed her bag and ran down to the kitchen, where her father was still fully engaged in his rant. “She’s back in my custody now. You stay away from our daughter and work your program. I’m not making any promises until that’s done.”

  He hung up the phone like the receiver had personally offended him, turned abruptly, and—when he locked eyes with Emmie—exhaled, letting all the tension escape.

  He tapped Emmie’s own court order, which was affixed to the fridge with a magnet, and said, “The terms of your probation will be your only house rules.”

  She gave a quick nod of acknowledgment because there was nothing more to say about that. She’d be having no contact with her mom until a judge decided otherwise.

  A car horn beeped in the driveway just as the phone rang again. Emmie’s father exploded like a powder keg meeting a match as he snatched up the receiver, “Dammit, woman. Quit calling. What part of ‘no contact’ don’t you understand? One more time, and I’m notifying the police.”

  “Dad?” Emmie’s chest constricted.

  He slammed the receiver down. “What?”

  “Yeah. Um. So, Marissa’s here.” She pulled a pink knit hat over her head while being careful not to let her father see the nervousness that shivered down her spine. She hadn’t spoken to her best friend in over a year.

  Her dad’s forehead furrowed.

  “You know,” Emmie said as if he needed reminding. “To pick me up for school?”

  “Oh, right,” her father said, even though he’d been the one to orchestrate this little reunion. There were few people he was willing to trust 100 percent with Emmie, so he’d called Marissa’s mom last night to arrange the ride. “My daughter needs to get back into normal life as quickly as possible,” Emmie’d heard him say.

  Emmie’s father crossed the kitchen toward her. She thought he meant to give her a hug, and as usual, the prospect of physical contact made her shoulders stiffen.

  What she was bracing for here, with her own father, in her own kitchen, she didn’t know. She hated her reaction, and she wished she could take it back, but there was no helping it now. Her father had seen it, and it had stopped him mid-step. The corners of his eyes tightened as if he’d been stabbed with a pin.

  “Have a good first day back,” he said. “And good luck.”

  Emmie gave him a curt nod, then gasped as she stepped outside into the subzero air. She buried her face in her scarf and hugged her coat to her chest. Another six inches had fallen overnight, and she shuffled her way across the unshoveled driveway to Marissa’s pea-green station wagon. Judging by the tracks, it looked like she’d skidded to a stop, barely missing the O’Briens’ garbage can.

  Marissa had been Emmie’s best friend since they were kids. Despite the snow, the very thought of her could bring to mind the taste of cherry popsicles and the smell of newly cut grass. Still, Emmie wasn’t sure about the status of their friendship.

  After she had moved out of her father’s house to go live with her mom, she’d only called Marissa a few times before stopping altogether. There would be consequences. Radio silence was the death knell to the best of friendships.

  Emmie took a breath and slipped inside Marissa’s warm car. It smelled like the same fruity perfume Marissa had been wearing since eighth grade. At least a hundred crumpled gum wrappers filled the cup holders and littered the floor. It was weird seeing Marissa behind the wheel of a car. They’d both gotten their licenses while Emmie was away.

  “Hey,” Marissa said as she folded a piece of Juicy Fruit into her mouth. She seemed nervous too. “It’s good to see you.” She put the car in reverse and turned to look over her right shoulder. Marissa looked thinner than Emmie remembered, and she had a new piercing: a tiny diamond stud in her nose.

  “You too,” Emmie said, ignoring the stiffness of the conversation. “Thanks for the ride. You didn’t have to.”

  “Sure I did. I wanted to.”

  “Okay, thanks. And…um…I like your nose.”

  “I like your hair,” Marissa said with a reminiscent smile.

  Marissa and Emmie had done the “grass is always greener” commentary on their hair since sixth grade because Emmie would have liked nothing more than to have Marissa’s long, shiny blond hair, and for whatever reason, Marissa preferred Emmie’s dark brown, completely unmanageable curls.

  Without warning, Nick’s voice echoed in Emmie’s head: Have you ever thought about straightening your hair? You’d look way hotter if your hair was straight.

  “So,” Marissa said. She pulled into the street and shifted into drive, but she kept her foot on the brake. She looked down at the steering wheel and then over at Emmie. “So this is weird, huh?”

  “Yeah. Kinda.” Marissa didn’t know anything about Emmie’s time away: her mom’s addiction, Nick, the robbery, the trial. Secrets were better than lies, and sometimes secrets were the best way to keep one’s friends. Or friend, as the case may be.

  “I was worried you weren’t ever going to come back.” A small smile crossed Marissa’s lips before disappearing again. “So are you ready for this?” She took her foot off the brake, and they started down the snow-packed road.

  “Do people even know I’m back?” When Emmie said people, she didn’t have any faces in mind. All of their middle-school friends had scattered in ninth grade, finding new cliques, new interests, and new identities. Because Emmie had missed all of her sophomore year in White Prairie, and now half of her junior year, the few new people she’d met in ninth grade were barely memorable.

  “A handful do.” Then Marissa raised her perfectly waxed eyebrows. “But I should warn you. I’ve heard a few theories about where you’ve been, and some people have fantastic imaginations.”

  Emmie recognized the attempt to rekindle the friendly banter of their past. She turned to face Marissa, and the seat belt cut across her shoulder. “Tell me.”

  Marissa scrunched her nose. “How do you feel about being a mother?”

  “A what?”

  “Some people think you left because you were pregnant.”

  “What?” Emmie drew her eyebrows together, disbelieving, but a second later she took a mental step back. “Well, I guess it’s not a totally off-the-wall theory.”

  Her initial surprise had more to do with the fact that parenthood had never crossed her mind. She got a weird feeling in her gut when she tho
ught about some kid putting her through the hell she’d put her dad through—or worse, maybe she’d turn out like her mom.

  So much for slipping quietly, seamlessly back into normal life. Why did she even think it was remotely possible?

  “Oh, and by the way,” Marissa said, glancing over nervously, “the theory goes, you delivered an alien baby.”

  This time Emmie turned her head so fast she kinked a nerve in her neck. “What?”

  “That last part was something I heard Kelly Winkler say. She said that the only way someone would sleep with you would be if he was an—”

  Emmie groaned. “I don’t want to hear it.” She’d known Kelly Winkler since third grade, so she could imagine the rest. Actually, the suggestion that she’d been physically attractive to aliens might have been one of the nicest things Kelly’d ever said about her. It almost made her laugh.

  But she had no right to laugh. Not when her family’s life was still upside down. Not when it was all her fault.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JUST DESSERTS

  As soon as Marissa parked in the high school parking lot, Emmie’s body began to move mechanically. Undoing her seat belt. Opening her door. Grabbing her bag. She was back at White Prairie. Really doing this. Breathe, she thought. You are just your average high school junior. Go, Jackrabbits! Rah!

  But as Emmie and Marissa marched from the parking lot to the school, their heads bent against the wind, Marissa grabbed Emmie’s arm and made her stop. “Are you really okay?”

  Emmie forced a smile, but she knew she wasn’t fooling her friend. Marissa could read voice and body language like the rest of the world read the side of a cereal box. In a second, she could know what someone was made of. That’s why Emmie had to be so careful with her. She couldn’t afford to scare away her only potential ally.

  “Yeah. It’s just weird being back,” she said.

  “Listen, Em…” Marissa released a long, thin exhale through pursed lips. “I’m really trying here. I mean, you are my best friend.” Her eyes were plaintive. “At least you were. And I want us to be that again, but…Can you fill me in on what the hell’s been going on with you?”