Chapter 12
Louisa’s clothes filled one black bag.
Pajamas.
Shoes.
Medicine.
Her stuffed fox.
Three days, maybe four.
I looked at Walter.
“Where were you taking her?”
He smiled.
“Somewhere she could learn manners.”
“Without me.”
“You’d interfere.”
“Correct.”
Lydia crossed her arms.
“You’ve made her dependent.”
Louisa held my hand tighter.
Lydia noticed.
“See?”
I stared.
“She’s afraid of you.”
“Because you reward fear.”
“No.”
“Every time she cries, you come.”
“Yes.”
Walter laughed.
“Exactly.”
I almost pitied them.
They genuinely could not understand why a child trusting her mother might be good.
“Where?”
Walter said nothing.
Heather whispered:
“North lodge.”
Same lodge.
Adam.
Martin.
Now Louisa.
My stomach turned.
“You were taking my daughter to the place Adam died.”
Lydia sighed.
“It’s a house.”
“No.”
“It has bedrooms.”
“No.”
“Food.”
“No.”
“She wouldn’t suffer.”
I looked at Louisa’s uneven hair.
“She already has.”
Walter stepped closer.
“You were supposed to stay at your meeting until midnight.”
There.
A slip.
My meeting.
I had returned early.
“Why midnight?”
His face changed.
Heather closed her eyes.
I stepped closer.
“What happens at midnight?”
Nothing.
I looked at Lydia.
She smiled.
“You’re imagining another conspiracy.”
“No.”
I pointed at the overnight bag.
“I’m looking at luggage.”
My captain’s radio crackled.
A guard at the Mafia meeting location.
“Boss, you need to hear this.”
I took the radio.
“What?”
“Your car was tampered with.”
The room went silent.
I stared at Walter.
He didn’t blink.
My guard continued.
“If you’d left on schedule, you wouldn’t have made it back.”
Louisa gripped my hand.
Heather whispered:
“Oh God.”
Lydia looked at Walter.
Not surprise.
Anger.
“You said no one would get hurt.”
Walter’s face hardened.
Another confession.
Not direct.
Better.
I looked at him.
“You expected me to have an accident tonight.”
He said nothing.
The bracelet.
The snow.
The overnight bag.
Adam’s phone.
May you like
All of it suddenly aligned.
They planned to remove Louisa before I came home because they never expected me to come home at all.
