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Chapter 43
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The Fantasy Maker Chapter 44
When Emma next woke, Steve was sitting in a chair beside her bed."Hey," he said, leaning close and running a finger down the side of her face. "How do you feel?""Like I rolled my car a few times," she said.He smiled, but it wasn't one of those smiles that filled his eyes with that sparkle she had always associated with him, with the happier moments of their time together. It had been a long time since she had seen that.Emma's eyes filled with tears. She turned, stared up at the ceiling."Hey," he said again. He ran his hand over the curve of her jaw. "You're going to be okay.""No," she said, shaking her head, and then regretting it as pain burst through her forehead. "Nothing's ever going to be okay again.""Emma-" he picked up her hand and kissed her palm lightly. "Nothing is set in stone."She just shook her head again.The door opened a moment later. The doctor came in, all business, blustering through a quick exam. When he was done, he handed Steve some paperwork. "Yo
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 45
He wanted to know. Said he wanted to understand. So she did it. She told him everything, beginning with the Ranch and ending with the car accident. She didn't hold anything back. And, to his credit, he sat quietly and listened.When she was done, silence settled between them. Emma curled up on the end of the couch, her thoughts wrapped around Tommy, around her loss. She couldn't let it go, this feeling of missed opportunity."He died because of me."Steve glanced at her. He was perched on the coffee table in front of her, his hands clutched in his lap."Who could have stolen the film?"Emma shook her head. "I don't know." She reached up to run her fingers through her hair, but remembered the stitches just as her fingers brushed over them. The pain helped, though. It cleared her mind a little. "They were there Sunday night. I remember seeing them.""How much time would it take someone to develop them?"She shrugged. "If they took them to a local place? A day. Maybe less. Only a f
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 46
Ray found them in the same positions they'd been in before, Emma curled up on the couch while Steve stood at the French doors, staring out at the swing set. He came and sat on the coffee table in front of Emma, leaning over to kiss her cheek gently."How are you?""I'll live," she said, with a soft smile."Good." He took her hand and held it between both of his. "Jen wanted to be at the hospital first thing this morning, but I talked her into going to get the boys for your mother. Convinced her that would be the best way to help you."Emma smiled. "Thank you, Ray."He nodded. He glanced over at Steve and then raised his eyebrows at Emma, as though asking what the deal was. She just bit her lip. Too long a story to tell."So, you wanted to talk to me?"Steve came over and sat on the couch, careful to sit with some distance between his body and Emma's. "Someone is trying to set Emma up."Ray's eyebrows rose again. "For what?"Emma glanced at Steve. He gestured for her to speak.
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 47
"Someone broke into your house?"Emma shrugged. "I don't know how else to explain it."Jen glanced through the photos still scattered across the kitchen table. Emma moved up beside her and began gathering them up, only too aware of the boys' voices in the great room. The last thing she wanted was for her children to see these."Why would someone steal pictures you took and send them back to Steve?""Someone had to have known what was on the film."Jen half nodded, picking up one photo in particular. "Do you think he had something to do with it?""Tommy?"Jen's eyebrows went up. "I thought his name was Dante."Emma slipped the photo out of her hand. "It was Tommy.""Then it was more than once. You're visits with him outside of the Ranch."Emma took the photos into her darkroom and lay them on shelf in the storage cabinet. When she turned, Jen was watching her from the doorway."It's complicated," she said, suddenly tired of talking about the whole thing."You know that's tab
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 48
"I talked to McWhorter, the contractor, this morning," Steve was saying around a bite of Danish. "He said that he turned in all the keys he and his men had.""Do you believe him?" Ray asked.Steve shook his head. "I keep the spare keys in a locked drawer in my office. There was one missing."Emma sipped at the hot vanilla latte the waitress had just brought her. "Who else has a key to our house?"Steve looked over at her, his eyes so dark from a restless night's sleep that they looked almost as bruised as hers. "Just your parents. And Liz."Emma's eyebrows rose. "Why would Liz have a spare key to our house?"He sat back, pushing his thumb into a corner of his Danish. "She ran by the house a few weeks ago to get some paperwork I had forgotten. You weren't there, so I had to give her my keys. I gave her a spare the next day in case it happened again."Emma glanced at Ray. He was watching the two of them like a child waiting for World War III to break out between his parents. She b
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 49
They drove to the house together in Ray's Escalade. A police car sat in Tommy's front yard, the driver's side door open. Emma had a flash, imagined a large number of police cars sitting here, their lights flashing as the uniformed cops walked in and out of the house. She imagined a hearse, imagined them rolling a gurney out of the house with a big, black body bag lying on top.She shivered despite the warmth of the day.Ray climbed out of the car and went to speak to the cop. Steve glanced back at Emma from his place in the front passenger seat. "You don't have to go inside. You could just tell us what you need."Emma shook her head. "I have to do this."He looked at her for a long minute and then nodded, turning his attention to the windshield and the two men just a few feet in front of them.Emma looked out the window at the front door. Again she imagined him as he had been the last time she saw him. Monday morning. He stood on the little porch, his hand lifted in a gesture of f
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 50
Emma slid the key into the small lock and took a deep breath. She wasn't sure it would open. He had told her it would, but some little piece of her was still uncertain about this, about all of it. What if he had lied to her?It did turn.Steve stood behind her close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. She had expected him to argue, to insist they drop the whole thing and go home, back to their broken lives. But he didn't say a word when she told him what she wanted to do. Simply drove them to the bank like it was something they did every day.She flipped the little door open and reached inside for the safety deposit box. Steve grabbed it as it began to fall into her hands, lifting it away from her and carrying it to the small table. She hobbled over, her ankle still causing her a great deal of pain. Her knee, too, had gotten stiff where the stitches pulled and tugged with every step. Between the two injuries, her sore ribs and constant headache, it was a miracle she was
The Fantasy Maker Chapter 51
Steve arranged it all.After arranging for a garage to pick up Steve's car and for a rental car, they picked up the boys and Emma's parents. They boarded a plane for Florida three hours later. Her mother was a little concerned by the rush, but was thrilled for the chance to get out of town. It had been such a long winter, she kept telling Emma on the ride to the airport. They would stay at a resort down there near Universal Studios in Orlando. The boys had wanted to go back there since a trip they made as a family two years ago. A trip Steve had abandoned them to when he was called back to his office three days early.Funny how she and the boys remembered that time so differently.Instead of driving home, Steve pointed the rental car toward downtown Fort Worth."We are we going?" Emma asked."A hotel."She turned in her seat. "Do you really think that's necessary?""Someone slashed the tires on my car, Emma. In the middle of downtown." He glanced at her. "Someone ran you off the
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