Still Waters Run Deep

Chapter 24: Off the Beaten Track

Chapter 24:

Off the Beaten Track

The next morning they talked to Pam, Jason, and Lily about the impromptu trip to France. Lily absolutely lit up at the idea, which pleased her mothers. Seeing her smile made everything bad in the world fade away for a little while. She immediately started googling things to do in Paris. She was already mentally taking a tour of The Louvre. Pam was on board, too, citing she needed a little excitement in her life.

"And of course, you'll need a built in babysitter while you two frolic in the city of love." Pam looked at Ali and Emily through a lifted suggestive brow.

"Mom, that's not why we're inviting you." Emily laughed, though to an extent it was true.

"Hey, I'm not complaining." Pam threw her hands up with a laugh. "It's Paris! I'll take it. And time with my grandbaby? Bonus!"

Jason was excited they were finally taking him up on his offer, but he had to be in Brazil for a conference and couldn't go with them.

An odd sense of calmness overcame Emily the next several days. A strange acceptance of fate. It's like a filter had gone up in her brain and cut off all reality. A numbness took over, her mental pain receptacles completely blocked. Sometimes when things got bad enough in life, there was a disconnect that happened in the body in which the brain built a barrier to keep the pain out. It was the mind's way of protecting the human spirit.

She knew she was on a time crunch, but she didn't want to face it. She didn't want to think about it. Because she knew what she was facing, but her mind was made up about what had to happen when she came face to face with the person who was threatening her. She was convinced giving herself up was the only way, though Maurice kept assuring her that he would figure it out. To her surprise, he didn't freak out about her going to France.

She'd gone to visit him at the bar after she'd worked out at the gym. He told her he agreed that whoever was sending the messages would probably not go as far as following her across the world. In fact, he encouraged her to spend time with her family. He knew she needed it. He also needed her out of the loop while he worked with Mona, which Emily did not know about, to find a solution that did not result in Emily getting herself killed. Emily was shocked by his reaction.

"You're seriously not going to yell at me and call me an idiot like you normally do?" Emily lifted a single one of her eyebrows, sensing something was amiss.

"Doesn't do any good. You're like a damn cat. You just do whatever you want." He shrugged, rubbing a rag against the bar to clean it.

"Let's hope I have some of my nine lives left." She smiled weakly.

"Just don't go do something stupid and fall off the Eiffel Tower and get yourself killed. I'd be really pissed if we did all this to keep you alive and then you tripped and fell to your death while overlooking Paris." Maurice tossed the rag over his shoulder.

"Why do I have a feeling you're Emily-proofing Paris and putting up giant mattresses at the bottom of every steep drop and at the bottom of every hill?"

"Your dumb ass would find a way to hurt yourself on the springs." Maurice gave her a hard time. "Short of bubble-wrapping you and the entire country of France, there's not much I can do. You're gonna do you."

"You're really not worried?" Emily asked curiously.

She felt like Maurice was up to something. Little did she know that he'd brought Mona in on the case. She was researching everything they had. And she was on the trail of something interesting about the wire they'd found in the teddy bear.