Danielle left work at 2:00 P.M. Thursday, feigning a doctor’s appointment. Because she rarely took time off and always did a good job, no one questioned her.
She drove to Kevin Fieldstone’s school. Perhaps ironically—or because of fate—Danielle’s house was in this school district. She lived only four blocks away. There had been times—rare though they were—when she called in sick and she’d sit in her living room and watch the children walk by her window.
Children that weren’t hers.
Today she waited along with mothers and fathers; grandmothers and grandfathers; aunts, babysitters, and older siblings. She waited in her car, down the block, for school to let out. She didn’t know what Kevin’s grandmother looked like; she did, however, know what Kevin looked like from meeting him in the office and the picture she’d stolen from Nina’s office this morning. One of many pictures Nina had of her son on a bulletin board behind her desk.
She wouldn’t notice it was gone. If she did, she would assume it had been knocked off and swept away with the trash.
No one would think that Danielle had taken it.
“You are perfect,” she whispered to the photo before putting it in her pocket. Too perfect to have such miserable parents. A father who would rather be screwing his mistress than home with his son; a mother who worked long hours and would rather be out with friends and colleagues than home with her son.
Kevin was perfect; his parents didn’t deserve him.
Even before the bell rang, children trickled out of the school. Teachers or aides stood at the gates, watching the kids, the buses, the parents. Saying hello to who they knew, and maybe who they didn’t. Boys and girls of all shapes and sizes, every color and ethnicity.
She was looking for a blond boy with hair that was always a little too long, always seemed to hang in his eyes. A blond boy with dimples and a light smattering of freckles who was just a little shorter than an average eight-year-old.
The crowd was thickening and she feared she would miss him. Her heart raced as she scanned back and forth. What was the urgency? She could come back. She didn’t have to do this now. She could wait.
Wait? Wait for his parents to fail him?
She thought she’d missed him as the crowd thinned. Her hands tightened around her steering wheel. Her vision began to fade.
No, no, no!
She watched as an older woman in blue walked to the gate. A moment later a little blond boy ran out and took her hand. He was jumping up and down and talking, then he waved to someone Danielle couldn’t see. He bounced as he walked with his grandmother, chatting freely.
Carefree.
Kevin.
Danielle watched as they reached the corner. When the light turned green, they crossed the street and turned right. Danielle waited a beat, then followed.
She lost them for a moment and nearly panicked, then she turned around and saw them down a side street. She drove down the street at the legal limit and passed them. She turned down the next street, then watched through her rearview mirror.
They, too, turned down this street. Walked right by her car.
“And Daddy said I can play baseball! Sign-ups are this weekend, I’m going to sign up. I want to be a pitcher, Grandma! I want to pitch like Clayton Kershaw! He’s with the Dodgers. You know the Dodgers, right? Daddy took…”
And then she couldn’t hear them anymore.
She watched as they walked up the short walkway to a house halfway down the street. She waited five minutes.
Then she drove by the house before she left.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope Tony Fieldstone isn’t the bastard I think he is.
She knew she wasn’t wrong. She’d never been wrong before.
It pained her greatly that Tony’s son was going to suffer for his sins. But she took some comfort in knowing Tony would suffer for the rest of his life.
She drove home. As she pulled in to the driveway, her phone rang.
Nina.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Hi, Danielle, sorry to bother you. Can you come back to the office after your appointment? I know I said you can have the afternoon off, but we have an emergency briefing to take care of, and then—”
“It’s fine. I’m just leaving now. I can be there in twenty minutes or so?”
“Thank you so much. You’re a godsend!”
Danielle sat in her driveway for a long minute. She picked up her phone and dialed her ex-husband’s number.
It rang. And rang. Voice mail picked up.
“I miss Matthew,” she whispered. “I miss him so much.”
She stared at the phone for another long minute, until it automatically disconnected the call.
She pressed redial.
“I hate you,” she said when voice mail picked up again.
Then she backed her car out of the driveway and went back to work.
Chapter Thirteen
Rosa Kincaid flung open the door Thursday evening, beaming. “Lucia! Sean! This is the best surprise.”
Lucy hugged her mother. “It’s so good to see you, Ma.”
“Let me look at you—you are good.” Rosa smiled at Sean and hugged him. “You make her happy.”
“That’s my job.” Sean kissed Rosa on the cheek. “I’m sorry we called last minute.”
She waved off his comment with a frown. “Family is always welcome, anytime. Did you ask the FBI to transfer you home?”
“Mama,” Lucy said. “I told you, that’s not how it works.”
“But you know important people. Dillon told me that you’ve done a good job, can’t you pick where you work?”
“No, I can’t. Please don’t talk to Dillon about my work.”
“I don’t—just making sure you’re okay. I worry. But no details. I don’t need details.”
Lucy had done everything she could before her wedding to hide the bruises and injuries she’d sustained the week before she married Sean, but her mother had seen some of them. Now, she was worried all the time—even more than before.
On the day of Lucy’s high school graduation, she’d been kidnapped and raped. She nearly died at the hands of a psychopath. Her brothers had found her, but in the process Patrick had been seriously injured, resulting in a long coma. Lucy couldn’t bear the guilt and pain of what happened to Patrick, on top of the grief she saw in her mother’s eyes. She moved three thousand miles away to Washington, D.C. and lived with her brother Dillon while attending Georgetown University. It had taken Lucy years to put the past behind her, and unfortunately, sometimes her job brought her past to the forefront.