He smiled, holding the flowers out toward her as she approached. Emma thought fourteen years had been good to him. He had grown into his body, his face angled instead of rounded. His smile, kind as ever. How had they let so much time pass between them?
“Aubrey, I don’t know if you remember me,” he said, holding out the flowers to her. “Aaron Pleasure. I’m an old friend of Emma’s. You and I—we spoke after your parents…”
“Yes. Aaron. How lovely of you to think of her.”
He handed her the flowers wrapped in florist paper.
“Thank you for these. I’ll make sure to find a vase for them. By the way, it was so kind of you to send flowers for my parents’ service.”
“Of course,” he said. “How’s Em?”
“The same. She’s in a coma. We don’t really know what’s going to happen.”
“Right.” He gestured to a chair there in the waiting area, where they sat down. “I’m very sorry you’re going through this again. And for Em. She doesn’t deserve this. I just happened to be in town to see family. I’m in Palo Alto now—California—and I heard about her accident from a friend. Terrible. It shook me. I wanted to come by and—”
“It wasn’t an accident. At least, we’re pretty sure it wasn’t,” Aubrey told him.
He blinked. “What?”
“We think she was driven off the road intentionally. They found pieces of the other car apparently. A dark gray SUV, they think. But you know, there are a million of those. Finding the ‘one’ may be like…like finding a needle in the haystack.”
“But they think it was intentional? Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know. No one knows.”
“Jeez, Aubrey. I’m…sorry.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Hopefully, the police will figure it out.”
“If there’s anything I can do—”
“Say a prayer? It was nice of you to stop by. I’d let you see her, but she’d probably kill me if I did. Nothing personal. She’s a little vain.”
Emma’s eyes widened with affront. “Vain?I am not!”
“Well,” Connor pointed out. “You did say yourself ye didn’t want him to see ye like this.”
“No, I didn’t.” Emma narrowed a look at him. “Well, I may have thought that, but I never said it aloud.” Her expression flattened. “Are you reading my mind again?”
He lifted his hands a smidge.
With a huff of exasperation, she turned her attention back to Aaron, who was talking about Lizzy now.
“…I stayed in touch for a long time with Lizzy and Dan. She knew I was always interested to hear about the shipwrecks they were exploring and what they’d found. Your parents were my aspirational adventure heroes while I sat writing code at my desk in Silicon Valley. I can’t tell you how crushing it was to hear about their deaths.”
“Crushing. Yes,” Aubrey said, her eyes shiny with moisture. “It was. They loved their treasure hunts. They died doing it.”
Connor turned a curious look on Emma. She answered with a quelling head shake.
Thankfully, Aaron didn’t ask for details about Lizzy and Daniel’s deaths. Not that Aubrey would know the answers, but he had grace enough not to press her right now on another painful topic. She was already going through enough.
Aaron stared down at his feet. “So often, over the years, I’ve wanted to get in touch with Emma. One thing after the other, I guess. I’d like to think she knew I was thinking of her, though.”
“She talked about you often,” Aubrey said. “When we’d hike up on the cliffs, she’d tell me all the stories about you two. She’s always thought of you very fondly.”
“I still do. I’m not dead yet,” Emma murmured, standing close to Aaron now. She flicked a look up at Connor, whose expression had gone curiously dark.
“Thank you for the flowers,” Aubrey told Aaron. “I know she will appreciate them when she wakes up.”
