“Where’d you go?”

Emma looked pissed, but could she blame him for asking? “McDonald’s. Here. You want proof?” She grabbed her purse off the counter and rummaged in it, then pulled out a crumpled receipt and thrust it at him. The date was today’s.

Nate knew he should be relieved, but instead he felt furious. She’d once again excluded him from a major part of her life, just like with her parents, just like with Dr. Palmer.

“I told you to stay away from him. And to let me know if you heard from him!”

Emma stiffened. “Maybe it hasn’t occurred to you, Nate, but I don’t have to do everything you tell me.”

She whipped out of the kitchen, Charlie at her heels, leaving him to work in silence as anger gnawed at his belly.

The lingering scents of chopped onion and sage made him feel queasy; the heat rising from the oven suffocated him. He shoved the stuffing into the birds, sparking a sudden memory of coming home after baseball practice one day and finding his dad in the office stuffing a load of cash into an envelope.

“I’m saving up to buy your mom something special for her birthday.” He’d winked at Nate and shoved the envelope into the back of the filing cabinet. “It’ll be our little secret, right, son?”

Nate stared at the birds. His brain felt like someone had taken it and shaken it up, a snow globe full of garbage.

Stuffing an envelope. A filing cabinet. The briefcase.

The thought came so unexpectedly, he almost dropped the knife. He took the stairs to his bedroom two at a time. He found Emma’s briefcase nestled under her clothes and lifted it onto the bed, his mind flashing to the numbers on the scrap of paper at Martinez’s house.

323 454

Downstairs, he could hear Emma calling for him.

“Nate? Where are you?”

And then the sound of her feet on the stairs.

Nate turned the numbers on both combinations. The briefcase clicked open, the sound loud and metallic.

A sense of unrest churned in his stomach. Nate lifted the lid as Emma entered the bedroom.

Baggies of white powder. Cash. An old cell phone. And pills.

Lots and lots of pills.

CHAPTER 32

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!” Nate’s voice cracked with shock.

Violeta’s briefcase was open on our bed in front of him, an old Nokia cell phone in his hand. I felt the blood drain from my face. A wash of cold swept over me, like I’d stepped into a shadow.

He dropped the cell phone and picked up a baggie filled with white powder.

“Don’t touch it!” I lunged across the room and grabbed the baggie out of his hand.