Distant gunshots made his head snap up.
He ran out of the house, onto the porch.
“It came from the woods,” said Barsanti.
They all froze at the crack of a third gunshot.
All at once, Gabriel was running, heedless of whipping branches and saplings as he plunged into the woods. His flashlight beam danced crazily across a forest floor strewn with dead leaves and fallen birches. Which way, which way? Was he going in the right direction?
A tangle of vines caught his ankle and he pitched forward, landing on his knees. He rose back to his feet, chest heaving, as he caught his breath.
“Jane?” he shouted. His voice broke, her name fading to a whisper. “Jane…”
Help me find you. Show me the way.
He stood listening, trees looming all around him like the bars of a prison. Beyond the beam of his flashlight was a night so thick it might be solid, unbreachable.
From the distance came the snap of a twig.
He spun around, but could see nothing beyond his flashlight’s glow. He shut off the light and stared, heart thudding, as he strained to make out anything at all in the darkness. Only then did he see the twinkling, so faint it might merely be fireflies dancing among the trees. Another snap of a twig. The light was moving in his direction.
He drew his weapon. Held it pointed toward the ground as he watched the light grow brighter. He could not see who was wielding the other flashlight, but he could hear the approaching footfalls, the rustle of leaves, only a few yards away now.
He raised his weapon. Switched on the flashlight.
Caught in the beam of Gabriel’s light, the figure shrank like a terrified animal, eyes squinting against the glare. He stared at the pale face, the spiky red hair. Just a girl, he thought. Just a scared, skinny girl.
“Mila?” he said.
Then he saw the other figure emerge from the shadows right behind the girl. Even before he saw her face, he recognized the walk, the silhouette of unruly curls.
He dropped the flashlight and ran toward his wife and daughter, arms already open and hungry to hold them. She leaned against him, shaking, her arms wrapped around Regina, just as his arms were wrapped around her. A hug within a hug, their whole family contained in the universe of his embrace.
“I heard gunshots,” he said. “I thought-”
“It was Mila,” Jane whispered.
“What?”
“She took my gun. She followed us…” Jane suddenly stiffened and looked up at him. “Where’s Peter Lukas?”
“Barsanti’s watching him. He’s not going anywhere.”
Jane released a shuddering breath and turned to face the woods. “There’ll be scavengers showing up for the body. We need to get CSU out here.”
“Whose body?”
“I’ll show you.”
Gabriel stood at the edge of the trees, staying out of the way of the detectives and the crime scene unit, his gaze fixed on the open hole that would have been the grave of his wife and daughter. Police tape had been strung around the site, and battery-powered lights glared down on the man’s body. Maura Isles, who’d been crouching over the corpse, now rose to her feet and turned to Detectives Moore and Crowe.
“I see three entry wounds,” she said. “Two in the chest, one in the forehead.”
“That’s what we heard,” said Gabriel. “Three shots.”
Maura looked at him. “How long an interval between them?”
Gabriel thought about it, and felt once again the echoes of panic. He remembered his plunge into the woods, and how, with every step, his sense of dread had mounted. “There were two in quick succession,” he said. “The third shot was about five, ten seconds after that.”
Maura was silent as her gaze swung back to the corpse. She stared down at the man’s blond hair, the powerful shoulders. A SIG Sauer lay near his right hand.
“Well,” said Crowe, “I’d call this a pretty obvious case of self-defense.”
No one said anything, not about the powder burns on the face, or the delay between the second and third shots. But they all knew.
Gabriel turned and walked back toward the house.
The driveway was now crammed with vehicles. He paused there, temporarily blinded by the flashing blue lights of cruisers. Then he spotted Helen Glasser helping the girl into the front passenger seat of her car.
“Where are you taking her?” he asked.
Glasser turned to him, her hair reflecting the cruiser lights like blue foil. “Somewhere safe.”
“Is there any such place for her?”
“Believe me, I’ll find one.” Glasser paused by the driver’s door and glanced back toward the house. “The videotape changes everything, you know. And we can turn Lukas around. He has no choice now, he’ll cooperate with us. So you see, it doesn’t all rest with the girl. She’s important, but she’s not the only weapon we have.”
“Even so, will it be enough to bring down Carleton Wynne?”
“No one’s above the law, Agent Dean.” Glasser looked at him, her eyes reflecting steel. “No one.” She slid in behind the wheel.
“Wait,” called out Gabriel. “I need to speak to the girl.”
“And we need to leave.”
“It’ll only take a minute.” Gabriel circled to the passenger side, opened the door, and peered in at Mila. She was hugging herself, shrinking against the seat as though afraid of his intentions. Just a kid, he thought, yet she’s tougher than all of us. Given half a chance, she’ll survive anything.
“Mila,” he said gently.
She gazed back with eyes that did not trust him; perhaps she would never again trust a man, and why should she? She has seen the worst we have to offer.
“I want to thank you,” he said. “Thank you for giving me back my family.”
There it was-just the wisp of a smile. It was more than he’d expected.
He closed the door, and gave a nod to Glasser. “Take him down,” he called out.
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” she said with a laugh, and she drove away, followed by a Boston PD escort.
Gabriel climbed the steps into the house. Inside he found Barry Frost conferring with Barsanti as members of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team carried out Lukas’s computer and boxes of his files. This was clearly a federal case now, and Boston PD would be ceding control of the investigation to the Bureau. Even so, thought Gabriel, how far can they take it? Then Barsanti looked at him, and Gabriel saw in his eyes the same steel he’d seen in Glasser’s. And he noticed that Barsanti was clutching the videotape. Guarding it, as though he held the Holy Grail itself.
“Where’s Jane?” he asked Frost.
“She’s in the kitchen. The baby got hungry.”
He found his wife sitting with her back to the doorway; she did not see him walk into the room. He paused behind her, watching as she cradled Regina to her breast, humming tunelessly. Jane never could carry a tune, he thought with a smile. Regina didn’t seem to mind; she lay quiet in her mother’s newly confident arms. Love is the part that comes naturally, thought Gabriel. It’s everything else that takes time. That we have to learn.
He placed his hands on Jane’s shoulders and bent down to kiss her hair. She looked up at him, her eyes glowing.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Mila
The woman has been kind to me. As our car bumps along the dirt road, she takes my hand and squeezes it. I feel safe with her, even though I know she will not always be here to hold my hand; there are so many other girls to think of, other girls who are still lost in the dark corners of this country. But for now she is here with me. She is my protector, and I lean into her, hoping she will put her arm around me. But she is distracted, her gaze focused instead on the desert outside our car. A strand of her hair has fallen onto my sleeve and glitters there like a silver thread. I pluck it up and slip it into my pocket. It may be the only souvenir I will ever have to remember her by when our time together ends.