Emmett and Marina sat in stunned silence for a few moments, allowing this new realization to sink in. If this was all a lie, Emmett sure was a good liar. It had to be true, right? No one could lie with such detail and conviction.
"A murderer could." Marina reminded herself.
After more than enough tense minutes passed had between them, Marina finally pulled herself out of her mesmerized stupor. She decided to be the first person to break the ice.
"Emmett, you've got to be kidding. The governor killed your wife?" In her shock, Marina had unintentionally raised her volume level.
"Shh!" Emmett shushed her harshly. "I'm sorry," He softened for a moment, apologizing. "Just please don't speak so loud."
"This is crazy talk. Why do you think it was him?" Marina returned to her previous whispering tone.
"Isabelle talked about him some. She said he was a politician. She said he was older than her, too. He would give her expensive gifts and take her on elaborate vacations." Emmett motioned to the photo of Jeff Cox once again. "And she said he was married."
The photo on the front page was of Governor Jeff Cox waving to a crowd outside town hall. His wedding band was clearly visible in spite of the grainy photo.
"Those could all be coincidences. What you described sounds like all politicians." Marina let her doubt to become evident despite her better judgment.
"Sure, but guess whose phone number she called me from?" Emmett allowed the question to hang in the air for a moment before answering it himself. "She called me from Jeff Cox's personal number."
Marina searched through her questions for a moment and attempted to answer some herself. It was relatively likely that a politician would want to cover up an affair if Isabelle was pressuring him to go public. She could have even seen something she was not intended to. Marina wondered what Isabelle could've known that would've made her the Governor's victim.
"If he did it, why are the police looking for you?" Marina asked with genuine concern in her voice. For the first time in their conversation, Marina was actually beginning to believe Emmett didn't do this, but she needed more evidence.
"Marina, you're a journalist." Emmett gestured to invisible lines of text and made air quotes with his fingers. "'Governor cheats on spouse with the wife of wounded veteran' Doesn't that sound like a great front page article?"
"So, you're being framed?" Marina leaned in close to Emmett before speaking to ensure no one would hear them.
"Yes, that's what I think is happening. He knew everyone would be quick to blame the 'PTSD'd war veteran'." Emmett used air quotes again, allowing his obvious disgust to paint his face.
Marina's head started to spin. Thoughts blew past her at impossible speeds. If Jeff Cox was truly trying to frame Emmett, this would be the story of a lifetime.
"No, not a lifetime." She thought. "The century."
If the police really were involved, like Emmett said, the corruption must go even deeper. When writing her last article about a political figure, Marina practically had to threaten people to make them talk. She was sure no one would give her any sympathy this time around either. It had been long and arduous, but the pay-off had been worth those months of work. She wondered if she would receive an award for it or maybe even a promotion. Marina was accepting her imaginary award from the Governor, the new Governor of course, when Emmett snapped her back to reality and spoke again.
"So now we should probably talk about why you're here," Emmett said in a serious tone.
"I'm listening," Marina replied. Truthfully, she was only half listening. She was still dreaming about the book she would write when all was said and done.
"I saw an old article you wrote last week. Ever since I saw it, I knew you would be the only one who could help me."
"Okay..." Marina responded half-heartedly and continued thinking about who would play her in the movie adaptation of her book.
"I found you last night and I was going to ask you to help me." He paused for a moment, embarrassed. "The other stuff... Well, that wasn't really part of the plan." Emmett choked out sheepishly.
Marina realized the truth with brutal shock. All the air blew out of her lungs as if she had been hit square in her chest. Emmett was finding her just so she could write his article for him. He had used her. Did he think that sleeping with her would make her more invested in his cause? Tears threatened to break past her defenses for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.
"Oh." She replied quietly. The simple phrase was all she could muster. A million thoughts darted through her head. The vicious lies stood out as the loudest among the group.
"I didn't sleep with you on purpose, Marina. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She nodded, but barely.
"I thought you would be a lot older and I would just tell you my plan, but then you came in and were so you." He emphasized you with a flash in his eyes. "It all happened so fast."
A few hot tears spilled over Marina's cheeks. In a last-ditch effort to disappear completely, she buried her face in her hoodie.
Emmett's voice cracked as he whispered again. "I've been alone for so long. I'm sorry."
His words stung like dull rusty daggers in her chest. His words struck an all too familiar chord. She had said those same words to herself last night. Deep down, she understood how he felt. She had only been using Emmett the night before purely out of fear of sleeping alone again. Marina wondered if it was best to just let last night go and attempt to move forward with this strange alliance. On the other hand, Marina wanted to be upset. She wanted to yell and kick and scream and curse at Emmett for ever daring to walk into her life. Secretly, she wanted it to end as it always ended, in complete and utter heartbreak. If all relationships ended in pain, perhaps she could convince herself to stay away from them entirely.
In situations she was used to, however, half of the relationship wouldn't go to prison for life after they broke up. That was a complication Marina was not accustomed to.
"Please talk to me. You're killing me with this silence." Emmett snatched Marina from her pit of despair and tossed her back onto the beach of her reality. "Please." He pleaded.
"What do you want me to say, Emmett?" Marina's voice was muffled by the hoodie she still had wrinkled around her face.
"Tell me how you're feeling. Be mad if you want to be! I mean, I would prefer if you weren't mad at me, but if you are that's okay and I understand completely."
"How can I not be mad at you?"
"Marina, look at me." There was that voice again. That sing-song voice that made Marina's stone cold heart melt a little. Marina labored greatly to move her eyes from the newspaper in front of her. Emmett's soft eyes met Marina's the same way they had every time she had looked into them over the past fifteen hours. She could see now that his blue eyes were misting lightly. A few more drops melted off Marina's heart of ice.
"I know how hard it is to be alone. I know what it's like to get hurt. And I know, more than anyone, how easy it is to put up defenses around yourself to keep that from happening again. And when you do let someone in, just to get hurt all over again, I know how absolutely devastating that is." There went Marina's heart again. Drip. Drip. Drip. "I'm sorry I betrayed your trust. I'm sorry you woke up to police officers banging on your door this morning. I wanted to stay with you, but I couldn't. I didn't know how close Jeff was until this morning."
Marina gnawed subconsciously on her bottom lip, desperately fighting the wave of absolute hysteria that threatened to wash over her. This is all just too insane to happen to one person, right? Why couldn't she have a normal life like everyone else? She cursed her own horrible luck, or rather, her total lack of luck. She had always been the clumsy, cursed, ugly duckling. Ever since mom's accident, nothing seemed to go her way.
"Can you forgive me? You don't have to now or anything. I just need to know if you could forgive me eventually."
The time came again, decision time. Would Marina walk away and never see this man and his lies again? Or would she fight every good instinct deep within her and follow this man into the unknown. Two impossibly dramatic choices, each with their own sets of consequences and guilt. What if Emmett was telling the truth? What if she helped send an innocent man to jail? Wouldn't that make her just as guilty as he might be? She muttered a few curse words to herself and shook free of her hoodie defenses. She had never had very good judgment.
"Yes." The words slipped out of her mouth all too easily. At that moment she resolved to follow Emmett to the end of this story, no matter where that led. "Eventually." She clarified. "And I'll help you. I want to get to the bottom of this."
Emmett's face lit up bright like the first sunrise after months of darkness. How could you not trust a man who radiated in the way Emmett did?
"Partners?" Emmett said coyly as he reached a strong hand across the desk.
"Partners," Marina replied with all the courage she could muster as she shook his hand.
At that moment, it happened, Marina's ice heart melted straight through. The core of it dropped from her chest like a lead balloon. She would've sworn she could feel the impact in her stomach. There she sat, Emmett's hand in her's, completely heartless. Icy water sloshed around in her stomach and now her heart was replaced only by a cold emptiness. She was going to write this story, but at what personal cost?
***
Marina wanted to ponder the cost of all of this over and over and over again, but instead, she did what she does best, she ignored it. She ignored her own hollow chest and pressed on simply for her own selfishness. Emmett had gone over the plan almost three full times by now, but surprisingly, Marina found no comfort in the repetition. Emmett's own enthusiasm for the plan left little room for constructive criticism. Marina knew the plan backward and forwards now, but that didn't make it a good plan. She was the one doing all the dangerous things, so why did he get to make the rules? Emmett had insisted it was because he had more experience. Marina said it was because Emmett had a big ego.
"Let's go over this again. What is step number one?" Emmett drilled Marina for the fourth time.
"You're going to call the police department and pretend to be my boss. You'll say I need to see the evidence lockers for a story about evidence tampering. I need to see it for reference. If they aren't tampering with evidence, then they will have nothing to hide." Marina droned off robotically.
"Good. What are you going to do once you get inside?" Emmett continued his coaching. It was obvious to Marina that he reveled in the planning. Marina was sure he wished he could be the one going inside the police station.
"Your friend who is a police cadet is going to play lookout. I'm going to look for any evidence about the case they have hidden." Marina didn't hate that part of the plan, truthfully. She was accustomed to being seen as the nosy journalist, but it was the last part of the plan she didn't appreciate. The last part, however, was Emmett's favorite part.
"Right. Then what will you do once you find the evidence?".
"Steal it."
***
Chapter 5 word count: 2,051
Current word count: 10,191