He’s lying.
My fingers have found the pistol. I pull it free. My vision is fractured by tears and I can barely recognize my own voice, which rises from the depths of my chest, shaking with disappointment or grief.
“GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!”
Hayden hesitates, staring at the gun. “Don’t do this, Aggy.”
Shoot him!
He loves me.
Nobody could ever love you.
You’re wrong.
Hayden hands Rory over without saying another word. He turns and walks away, wiping something from his eyes.
MEGHAN
* * *
The rain has turned to sleet, angling across the windows of the cab like windblown gobs of spit. Tires swish beneath me and classical music plays on the cab radio, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: “Winter.” A different storm rages within me. We were sent to the wrong place. Did Hayden Cole do it on purpose or was it a mistake?
I am alone in the cab but it won’t take them long to realize I’m missing. They’ll send someone to the bathroom to search for me or Jack will raise the alarm. I told nobody about Agatha’s phone call. Instead I excused myself and managed to shake Lisa-Jayne as MacAteer stood his men down.
Hayden Cole was in the backseat of a police car being driven to the Imperial War Museum when he told police he was going to be sick. The escorting officers lowered a rear window. Hayden squeezed out before they could react. The police gave chase, but lost him in Fulham Palace Road Cemetery. I don’t know why Hayden ran, but he’s become a fugitive just like Agatha.
Right now, I’m certain of only one thing—my baby is in Greenwich. I promised Agatha I’d come alone. I am keeping this promise because I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but the doubts are creeping in. What if I’m wrong? What if Agatha and Hayden had this planned all along?
The cab is passing through South London. Outside, I see drab gray shopfronts and blocks of flats that no amount of Christmas decorations and colored lights can make cheerful. I used to love this city—the plane trees and bridges and cathedrals and monuments. I loved its narrow streets and quaint shops and grand gardens. That hasn’t changed, but I could leave London tomorrow and not miss it as long as I had my family with me. People, not places, make a life whole.
I roll my head against the glass.
“Are you all right, love?” asks the cabbie.
“Yes, thank you.”
“You look familiar.”
“I’m nobody.”
*
The cab drops me on Romney Road and I step over puddles to reach the footpath. Despite the rain, crowds of tourists are queuing to visit the Cutty Sark. A Japanese tour group marches past me carrying matching umbrellas, following a guide into Greenwich Park.
My mobile is ringing.
“Where the hell are you?” asks Jack.
“I’m getting Ben.”
“Are you crazy?”
He’s yelling to someone—MacAteer, most likely, whose blood pressure will be stratospheric. “Where are you? Tell me!”
“I’ll be fine. Agatha wants to give him back.”
“She has a gun, for God’s sake!”
“Nobody has to get hurt.”
“Listen to me, Meg, don’t do this. Tell me where you are.”
“I’ll call you when it’s over.”
I hang up and turn off my phone.
The woman at the ticket desk offers me a visitor’s map of the museum, but I ask for directions to the Special Exhibitions Gallery.
“It’s on the lower ground floor,” she says, before interrupting herself. “You’re that woman from the TV—the one whose baby got taken.”
“No, that’s not me.”
My knees are shaking as I take the stairs and cross the marble floor, looking between pillars and display cases of naval uniforms and artifacts. A lone figure sits on an island bench in the middle of a cavernous room. My shoes squeak on the polished floor. Agatha raises her eyes and blinks back tears. I notice the sling across her chest, but can’t see Ben.
“What took you so long?” she asks, looking behind me, as though expecting to see the police.
“There was a misunderstanding.”
“Hayden sent you to the wrong place.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
I feel the weight of the silence, but not the sadness, because I have eyes only for the sling around Agatha’s chest. She reaches across her body and pulls it aside. I see a small pale face with enormous eyes that seem to open at the sound of my voice. They trap us like that—babies—with one look they can take hold of our hearts because our hearts have no defenses against such beauty and fragility.
Ben utters a weak squawk and as if by magic my breasts begin to ache and my milk comes in. I forget everything Cyrus told me about keeping my distance and stumble forward, kneeling beside Agatha.
“He’s hungry,” she says. “I don’t have another bottle.”
“I could feed him,” I say hopefully.
She ponders this and nods.
Getting up, I begin to unbutton my coat. Agatha sees the Kevlar vest but doesn’t say anything.
“Can you help?” I ask.
She loosens the straps and I pull the vest over my head, dropping it on the floor. At that moment, I glimpse the handgun tucked into the pocket of her coat.
I look at Agatha, waiting for a sign.
She unties the knot behind her neck and lowers Ben into her lap. “You can take him.”
Unbuttoning my blouse and unclipping my nursing bra, I slide my hands across her thighs and lift Ben to my breast, watching his lips part. He doesn’t latch on. I brush the nipple against his top lip, encouraging him to open his mouth wider.
“It might take him a while,” says Agatha, who is now holding the gun on her lap.
At the fourth attempt, Ben locks on and sucks hard. His lips barely seem to move, but I can see him swallowing. Filled with joy and relief, my eyes brim over. I did not think, I dared not hope, I prayed, I wished, I did not give up, but now the emotion of the moment overwhelms me.
Agatha reaches into her bag and finds me a tissue.
“I want to say I’m sorry for what I did,” she says. “I don’t expect you to forgive me, but you should know that I’ve loved him as much as any mother could. It wasn’t personal, by the way. I didn’t take him because I wanted to hurt you or Jack. I idolized you. I wanted a life like yours.”
“Our life isn’t so perfect.”
“It was to me.”
“Jack and I let each other down all the time.”
“Have you forgiven him for Rhea Bowden?”
“I’m trying to,” I say. “Did you put the note on his windscreen?”
Agatha nods and gazes down at Ben. “When I was growing up, I used to sit around with my girlfriends and talk about who we’d like to marry. We decided how many children we wanted and gave them preppy names like Jacinta and Rocco. All of us took it for granted that we’d get married and have babies. It was an automatic progression—school, a career, boyfriends, marriage, a mortgage, and children.
“I would even draw sketches of myself and my perfect family, or cut out pictures from magazines and stick them in a scrapbook. I gave myself a chic haircut and self-satisfied look, a handsome husband, a boy and a girl, a nice house in London or the home counties.”