He thought about Emma meeting Gabe this morning. Her lie about picking Ben up at Target. He thought about the business card from Allegiance Health Clinic that had been found on Violeta Williams’s body and how she’d died of the same drug used on Santiago Martinez. He thought about the prescriptions being signed by Dr. Wallington and Emma’s reaction when he’d found the briefcase.

And then he thought of Julia.

Birdhouse pills.

Tell Emma.

Nate suddenly felt very, very naïve for thinking it was just an affair that Emma was involved in.

Someone from the clinic was fraudulently signing prescriptions for opioids.

Someone who needed money fast.

Someone connected to Ben, who was connected to Martinez, who was connected to Williams. It was all tied together. The drugs. The murders.

And he knew. Maybe on some level he’d known all along.

Emma was involved in all of it.

CHAPTER 37

MY CELL PHONE VIBRATED.

Not my usual phone. My secret one.

Moira glanced up from her book, sending me a questioning look over Josh’s sleeping form. She’d heard it.

I made a phone-call motion with my thumb and pinkie and stepped into the hall. In the accessible bathroom, I locked the door and pulled my secret phone from my back pocket, quickly returning Gabe’s call.

He was speaking so fast I could barely understand what he was saying.

“Gabe, slow down!” I hissed.

“Your husband was here, at my gas station! He looked through the video surveillance recording!”

“Shit.” I sat on the toilet, my legs weak.

I’d planned to tell Nate I’d paid for Josh’s treatment with money I’d saved from my parents’ life insurance. He would be mad, but not you’ve-been-illegally-selling-oxy mad.

But if Nate had seen the video footage of me giving Gabe the signed prescriptions, there was no way he’d believe that.

I felt the silken threads of the web I’d created tightening around me.

“That briefcase of Violeta’s,” I said. “He got it open.”

A moan, sharp and barbed, came from Gabe. “What was inside?”

“Drugs and cash. And an old Nokia phone. What was on that phone? Did you text her on it?”

“No. But Ben did.”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t know for sure, but they definitely arranged for Vi and me to meet at Target and then meet you at the warehouse.” A strangled moan rose from Gabe’s throat. “This is a fucking nightmare, Emma! I can’t go to jail.”

“Shut up, let me think,” I snapped.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t regret it. Not a thing. The prescriptions I’d written, the drugs I’d helped sell, every single lie I’d told—they had all made it possible to pay the $98,000 I needed for Josh’s treatment today.

But now Nate knew.

And he would be coming here looking for more answers.