“Then he is brought to justice. He is caught.”
“Justice.” I paused to study his eyes. “Here is your justice. Tomorrow morning every paper will have his face, but tonight it will be on every telly in England. ‘Cop Serial Killer! Cop Kills! Tune in for details!’ His face will be on every news site and crime blog. And that is only tonight. By tomorrow afternoon my picture and those of my brothers will join his. We will either be the poor helpless victims of his drunken rage, or perhaps they will catch a side-glance in a photo, and we will be the freaks with the DNA of a madman. One of us will surely follow in his footsteps.”
Sherlock said nothing, and when I caught him studying my face, I turned to stare out the window at the landscape speeding by.
“We will be separated, forced into the system, and our futures destroyed. That will be your justice. My ruin. And worse, the ruin of three beautiful boys who have lived through his beatings for almost a year now. Instead of help and compassion, they will get the suspicion of a nation, and it will not go away. The story will die off. Our father’s face will be forgotten as he rots in prison—if he rots in prison—and still his legacy will follow us forever.”
When Lock remained silent, I moved my hand close enough to touch him, though I did not.
“How is it justice for the deeds of one man to destroy those of us left behind? Why should justice punish the innocent? Is that true justice, after all?”
“No,” he said simply. “You are right again. Mori.”
The way he said my name was odd, but I continued my case, pushing my very real desperation into my pleading. “I have a plan, but I need your silence. At least for a little while. Can you do that for me?”
“What is your plan, Mori?” He said it again, my name. More slowly than was natural. Like he wanted to hold it against his lips.
“I have an aunt—Alice. She’s going to come to London, and my brothers and me, we’re going to live with her.” It sounded like such a fantasy to say it aloud. When I was with Alice, it had all seemed so plausible.
“And your father?”
“Leave him to me. I’ll take care of it.”
“And he will stop?”
“Of course.” I said the words too quickly, but Sherlock’s expression didn’t shake for even a second. He just stood, gazing at me with his most thoughtful eyes. “With no one else to kill, he will stop. He will leave us alone, and we will stay with Alice. All of us. Together.”
Lock slid from his side of the table to mine, just as the train attendant reappeared with our tea. It was oversteeped and lukewarm, like the attendant had served every other person on the train before us. But we drank it all, stared out at the landscape together, holding hands under the table.
We had both been lost in the silence for so long, it surprised me when the attendant came to collect our trash as the train pulled into the station in London. It was just five, which meant we’d get to my house a few minutes after my regu-lar time. It also meant the boys were out of school.
Lock insisted on taking a taxi to Baker Street and kept his arm around me the whole ride home. I stared past his shoulder out the back window, focusing on the raindrops dripping down the glass as my thoughts swirled apart, then spun together into a fine point once again when he leaned in and kissed me. I smiled. “What was that for?”
“You smile in this certain way when I kiss you. I needed to see that smile.”
“Just now?”
“Every now. I’m just usually able to control myself better.”
I smiled again, and he kissed my forehead and held me close. It all felt so normal, I started to think maybe we’d make it through this. Maybe we’d really keep my father away from us somehow. Maybe we would really all be okay.
I thought that all the way back to Baker Street, until Lock opened the taxi door and I heard the first bars of an eerie, warbling piano play, followed by a bleating trumpet.
Chapter 19
I stared at my front door, frozen, while Sherlock paid the cab. He might have asked me a question, but I couldn’t seem to put any thoughts together with that song playing. It was perhaps only a fraction of a second before I started to run for my door, but it felt like twelve eternities of stunned stillness as my mind, enfeebled by my assumptions, tried to make sense of that song being played on that day. Alice was all that was left of his morbid list, and she was safe in Sussex.
I may have used that as a mantra with my every step that brought me closer and closer to the house. I fumbled with my keys, and then the doorknob, as if I hadn’t entered this house through this door every day of my life. I threw open the door to stillness, but I knew someone was there. I could feel it.