John felt Chloe's squeeze his hand very hard, and heard Dean and Amanda exclaim at the same time. Dean said 'son of a bitch!' and Amanda simply uttered a disbelieving 'what?'. Lost, he turned to Chloe.
"Who is Emily Sampson?" he asked her.
Chloe looked at him, her eyes a mixture of profound sadness and anger. "She's Riley's mother."
"Riley? Your friend Riley?"
"Yeah." Chloe answered simply.
Scott headed to the door, looked outside and waved to someone out in his car. John noticed Chloe start breathing faster. Whether it was from panic or anger, he couldn't tell, but either way, Chloe was no longer the energetic, happy teenager she'd been before. The presence of her father seemed to drain all her optimism out of her. John did something then that he hadn't done since Sam was a toddler, upset because he was afraid after a bad dream. He grabbed Chloe's hand and gently turned her face so that her eyes met his. It felt awkward after so many years, and he just hoped he could be convincing.
"Everything'll be okay. I'm right here."
Chloe smiled. "Thanks, Grandpa."
John winked at her and ruffled her hair, making her smile all over again. Did I actually just cheer her up? he thought. No matter what was going on, or what was about to happen, John knew he'd done something good that day. A woman he hadn't seen before, but that looked entirely too smug for John's taste, walked in and stood next to Scott.
"Hi there, Chloe." Emily greeted.
"Hi." Chloe said, not taking her eyes off the coffee table in front of her.
"It's been a while." Emily remarked.
It was Amanda who answered this time. "Not long enough."
Emily sighed. "Are we really going to do this now?"
"Why not? Good a time as any." Amanda spat.
"Stop fighting!" Chloe exclaimed from the couch. "Just…stop it, okay? Stop fighting."
"Thank you, Chloe." Emily said. "I know I'm not exactly your favorite person…"
"I didn't do it for you. I did it for me and mom." Chloe said. "What are you doing here?"
"You still haven't forgiven me, huh?"
"Riley died. He died and you left mom and me to take care of him." Chloe spat. "How could you do that?"
"Chloe…"
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You didn't take care of him when he was alive, why should I expect any different when he's dead?"
"I did take care of my son…"
"Right. That's why Mom took him to and picked him up from school, fed him dinner every night, and let him sleep over here so much when he was fighting with you that she and Dean were looking for a bed for him." Chloe shook her head in disbelief and spoke with dripping sarcasm. "But yeah, you're right. You took care of him."
"Look, Chloe…"
"You know what, this is just perfect." Chloe said, her irateness showing through in every part of her. She pointed to her father and Emily in turn. "You forgot about me, and you forgot about Riley. You guys are made for each other."
"Are you gonna let her keep talking to us like this?" Scott asked, turning to an unbelievably calm Amanda.
"Soon as she says something out of line, I'll stop her." Amanda said coolly.
"You know what…"
Before Scott could say anything else, a loud knock at the door put an immediate end to the fight. Dean went to answer it, shocked to find two police detectives there.
"Eddie? Jake? What's up, guys?"
"Hey, Dean. Listen, can we come in? We've got something to talk to you about."
"Yeah, sure." Dean let the two of them in.
Dean let the two of them in, and the officers stopped short at the sight of Scott and Emily. Eddie was the first to speak up. "Well, damn. That was easy."
"What does that mean?" Amanda asked. "Why are you guys here?"
"We're here because we have an arrest warrant for Scott Wilson."