“I told you, we have time,” he says, looking at his watch. “They’ve delayed the surgery until the morning. Your mom isn’t going in for at least another seven hours. She won’t be going in alone. Tina is guarding Juniper. Crevan isn’t there. Everything is okay. If Crevan arrives, Tina will let me know.”
“Seven hours is too much time.” I shake my head, thinking of all the things that can go wrong in that time. I settle down to watch the house, with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Granddad locked up in Highland Castle while they build a case against him, their line about holding him for twenty-four hours an unsurprising lie; Juniper in a dodgy makeshift hospital, my mom about to barge in there declaring injustice and criminality; Carrick on the Wanted list. We’re all in danger now. I can’t drag them down with me. This plan needs to work.
FIFTY-ONE
WE WATCH MARY May’s house like hawks. Forty minutes later, when it is still and she hasn’t stirred for some time, we make our move. Carrick ducks down and moves quickly across the yard, to the garage, to see if he can gain access without needing to go through the house. There’s no door, no lock to fiddle with, no glass to break, and the two windows high up are too narrow to slide through. We have no option but to gain entry through the house.
I go to the mother’s bedroom window, heart pounding, and gently rap on the window, praying Mary May isn’t inside.
Her mother appears at the window, which startles me. A bright white gown, skin and gray hair more eerie than angelic in this light. I put my finger across my lips. I motion to the front door and she moves quietly. The door opens and I step inside, leaving the door open for Carrick, and follow her to her room. The house is so quiet and I tiptoe, while Carrick and his boots are so heavy it’s harder for him to be nimble through the house, so I almost have a heart attack each time he bumps something or the floor creaks. The house smells of baking, mixed with a stale musty stench.
Across the narrow hall is Mary May’s bedroom. The door is ajar, presumably so she can be on the lookout for her mother’s wanderings. I go inside her mother’s room and close the door gently.
“Sit, sit,” she says, holding her hand out.
I sit in the chair beside her. She is sitting up in her bed, propped up by pillows.
“I’m ready for him,” she says, lifting her chin bravely.
I freeze, not knowing quite what to say, hoping Carrick will locate the snow globe before this all unravels.
“Do you know what it is that Mary’s searching for?” she asks again. I nod.
“You will find it for her?”
“I’m trying,” I whisper.
“And will it make it right again?”
I nod.
“All I want is to see my children again,” she says, her eyes filling with tears, her voice sounding childlike. “She took them away from me.”
I reach out and hold her hand to comfort her.
“She was always a little … peculiar. As a child, she wanted things so much, too much. She loved Henry so much; she was … obsessed with him. When Henry fell in love with her little sister, Alice, Mary couldn’t bear it. She turned on Alice, turned on everyone in the family who hid it from her. She tore us all apart.” Her tears fall; even after all this time, the pain is raw. “But despite what she has done, I’m her mother. I just ask that the Lord is kind to her,” she says, pleading at me with her eyes. “She has hurt so many, but it is because she is hurting.”
I offer her a tissue, and she wipes away the tears.
She gathers herself, as if preparing for what’s about to come. “I’m not scared. I think it means that I’m ready.”
There’s a rap on the bedroom window and we both jump with fright. I’m sure it’s all over now; Mary May has called the Whistleblowers. They’ll be outside surrounding the house, a helicopter hovering above with a spotlight on me. Flawed TV capturing the live arrest. Heart pounding, I pull back the curtains and it’s Carrick, shaking the snow globe at me.
“Who is it?” she asks fearfully, pulling the blankets tight around her.
I feel giddy, the adrenaline pumping. I take her hands and squeeze them warmly. “It’s not your time to go,” I whisper.
“No?” she asks, surprised.
I shake my head and smile. “Go back to sleep. You will see your family soon. I’ll make sure of it.”
I help her lie down, wrapping the blankets tightly around her tiny frame. She closes her eyes and relaxes, a smile on her face at the very thought of her reunion.
FIFTY-TWO
SIX HOURS LATER, Raphael Angelo and I are in Judge Sanchez’s home. A glass-and-marble penthouse apartment in the tallest building in the city, it’s a stark contrast to Raphael’s mountain retreat. There is big money in being a Guild judge, branding citizens and looking down on others, from the bench in the courtroom to the penthouse apartment in the city. People are mere specks in the park below her window, almost nonexistent, decisions are made without a connection to humanity.
But reality has been brought into Judge Sanchez’s home now. She’s barely awake, the sleep still in her eyes, thanks to us bursting into her home at the crack of dawn.
She is almost unrecognizable without the red lipstick and matching red-framed glasses for which she is known. She wears no makeup, her hair is scraped back in a clip, and she wraps her body in a black cashmere cardigan as if she’s cold, but it’s not cold in here at all.
We stand in an open-plan kitchen/living/dining room; it’s enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass ceiling. She catches me looking at it.
“My son, Tobias, is a stargazer,” she says. “The reason we bought here.”
“I believe the professional word is astronomer,” a teenager says, appearing in the kitchen, looking sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, tightening his robe belt. He looks around the same age as me: He’s handsome, stands tall, with an air of arrogance.
“Only if you’re paid to look at them,” she says, focusing on the laptop computer Raphael is placing down before her.
Her son looks at me, registers me, then looks to his mom in surprise. Celestine North is in his home.
“Coffee, Mom?” he asks.
I find it hard to believe that she could be anybody’s mother. That she would have a heart big enough to love and care for somebody. The mirror has two faces. Though, I suppose Sanchez is trying to help me, even if it’s for her own gain.
She shakes her head to the coffee.
“Yes, please,” Raphael calls to him.
“My mom likes to look down, I like to look up,” he says, brewing the coffee. “Would you like to come upstairs and have a look?” he asks me. “I have a telescope in the atrium.”
I don’t want to see what Raphael and Judge Sanchez are about to watch, but I know I should be here. It’s too important to miss.
“No, thanks,” I say politely.
He runs his eyes over me. I see that his robe bears the crest of the most prestigious boarding school in the country.