The Silence | ✔️

32. R

It took four hours from the time of receiving that phone call about Emma to arriving home. Just four hours and thirteen minutes. The ease that I had gained, the relaxation, the nerves that had settled, it was all lost progress that unravelled further and further the closer that we got to home.

Emma was dead.

Dead.

We still hadn't learned how. Aiden hadn't shared a lot with me. He seemed lost in himself but despite his thoughts being elsewhere, he never faltered in being a shoulder of strength for me to lean on. His concern laid with the fact that I'd brought this girl into our lives with the intention of taking care of her.

And he was right, it was weighing down on me that she had died while we were vacationing in the Bahamas. But without knowing the cause, without being home or having talked to Zoerina or Hunapo. It just didn't seem— real. Perhaps I was becoming immune to loss and horror. Perhaps it would catch up with me later. But when we did step inside the apartment and were faced with a handful of officers and an EMT who was wheeling out a stretcher with a body bag on top of it, I thought that I might lose the contents of my stomach.

Zoerina was sitting on the couch with Hunapo on one side of her and a female officer on the other. She seemed rigid and stiff as she leaned into Hunapo's side. It appeared that she wasn't all that interested in discussing much with the officer but she was answering her questions from what I could tell.

A few detectives appeared from the corridor and seemed to be leaving while they spoke among themselves and that was when I noticed a familiar police officer approaching us. My blood ran cold as he greeted Aiden at the edge of the living room behind the couch.

"You must be Aiden," the officer said, his gaze moving to mine for a brief moment. He knew who I was. But he held his surprise in rather well. "I'm Sergeant Hall. The detectives have been through and determined that it wasn't suspicious. Your sister might have told you that it was an overdose? Did you know that Tammy was using?"

"Tammy?" Aiden said and I mirrored his confusion.

I leaned against the back of the sofa because I was starting to feel a little light headed at the entire situation. That was when I felt a hand grasp mine and I glanced down to find Zoerina giving me a soft smile. It was just her and Hunapo now. The two of them were listening as well.

Sergeant Hall shifted his weight and gestured at the corridor. "That girls name is Tammy. She—"

"She told us her name was Emma," I mumbled, not looking the officer in the eye.

He shook his head. "No her name is Tammy. She's well known to us. She's been in and out for petty crime and theft for the last couple of years. She's had a major drug problem for quite some time."

"How old is she?" Aiden questioned.

"She'd have been eighteen soon," Hall answered. "May I ask how you knew her?"

"She was outside of the station begging for food," I said with my stare still down cast at the floor. "The same day that I came into the station to report Desmond and you turned me away and then told him all about it."

I didn't even need to peer up to see the reactions around the room. Zoerina's hand squeezed mine a little tighter and I heard her sharp intake of air. When I did raise my head and saw Aiden staring at the officer with his jaw clenched and his gaze narrowed to Hall, I swallowed, afraid of what I might have just started.

"Look," Hall became visibly nervous as he scratched the back of his head. "I heard about what happened and I—"

Aiden stepped a little closer to him. "You did that?" He spoke low with so much danger in his tone. "Do you have any idea what happened to her because of you?"