“I know,” he said absently, his gaze on a tall, sandy-haired child in soccer uniform running toward him. He was suddenly straightening, moving protectively closer to Eve. “It’s going to be okay, Mama.”
“I know it will.” Her gaze went to the boy. Freckles, pale skin, huge blue eyes, dressed in the same red-and-gold soccer uniform Michael was wearing. And Joe was right, he was almost a head taller than Michael. “Gary?”
He nodded. “I thought I made him understand, but maybe he’s not—” He took a step forward. “Hi, Gary, do you need something?”
“Nah, I just wanted to see her.” He was standing there, gazing at Eve. “Michael says you bring people like my dad home.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, Gary,” she said gently. “I’ll be glad to explain myself later if your mom says it’s okay.”
“I don’t think there’s going to be time. But I think maybe my Dad wanted me to know about you.” His eyes were fixed intently on her face. “He knew I was scared.”
“There’s no reason to be scared, Gary,” Eve said. “No reason at all.”
“I know that.” He smiled. “Michael told me. But I still had to see you. He said it would be better.” He turned to Michael. “Coach said to tell you that he’s going to take the whole team to Pops Ice Cream Emporium on the square. He said we can’t celebrate a win, but we can practice for the win next week. Can you go?”
Michael’s face lit with eagerness as he looked at Joe. “May I?”
He nodded. “Why not?” He got in the car and waved the squad car on duty to follow them. “We’ll drive you to the square and wait in the car until you’re done. We wouldn’t want to intrude.” He looked at Gary. “Need a lift?”
He shook his head. “I’ll go with the rest of the guys in the coach’s van. See you, Michael.” He was dashing back toward the field.
Eve was gazing after him as she got into the passenger seat. It had been a strange few minutes, but she supposed it was positive. “I take it you and Gary have straightened out your differences. You told him it would be better if he saw me?”
“No. That wasn’t me.” Michael was buckling up his seat belt. “I wasn’t the one who told him that.” He leaned forward to talk to Joe. “Isn’t this cool? Do coaches always buy ice cream after a game? You said you played football. Did you get—”
“No, I don’t recall ever being offered ice cream for making touchdowns.” Joe was grinning. “But then I could be mistaken…”
*
Joe pulled into the square at the same time as Coach Wilkes and parked the next row down from him. The boys poured out of the van and ran toward a shop with “Pops Ice Cream Emporium” in ornate red script on the frosted windows.
Michael jumped out of the backseat of their car and was streaking after the other boys. He caught up with them at the red swinging doors. He gave Eve and Joe a brilliant smile and a wave, then disappeared inside with the rest of the red-and-gold-uniformed boys.
“I believe he might be a little excited,” Eve said as she leaned back in the seat gazing through the frosted windows at the boys running around the ice-cream shop. “That poor coach is going to earn his money today.”
ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT ATLANTA, GEORGIA
“I’ve been in a police station before but this is much different,” Darcy told Cara as she stared with interest into the offices they were passing as they made their way toward the evidence room. “No one’s paying any attention to me. The last time I was only ten, and we were filming in a police station in New York. I was supposed to have run away from home, and the cops brought me to the station until they could convince me I should go back to my family.”
“What an amazingly original script,” Jock murmured.
“Hey, don’t knock it. The ratings went off the charts for the episode. I even got an Emmy nomination. I was touching, funny, and I even sang a wistful little song to those cops. It wasn’t like ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ but it hit square on dreams and family values so it—” She stopped and drew a shaky breath. “I’m talking too much. Sorry. I guess I’m kind of nervous about this.”
“You don’t have to do it,” Cara said. “Go back to the car and wait for us.”
“I do have to do it. He put Sylvie in that box. I’ve seen the rest of what he did to her. I have to finish it.” She smiled determinedly. “And I will. It’s not so bad. Come to think of it, I did get some attention as we came into the station. Maybe they thought I was a hooker. No, at least a high-class escort. The first is Academy Award material, but I’m not ready for that yet and I—”
“Hush.” Jock was showing his pass to the policeman in the wire cage. “We’ll be out of here soon. I don’t really expect to find anything unless something just strikes a note. It just needs to be checked.” He took the gold-foil box from the policeman and placed it on the table. “Joe said it was a double-sided mirror with the top mirror intact and that the mirror facing down to reflect the skull was broken.” He was carefully opening the lid. “I just wondered about the mirror that was left unbroken. It’s been nagging at me. Norwalk has been planning this down to the last detail. The broken mirror was to reflect Sylvie’s death. What was the other mirror meant to reflect?”
“Me?” Darcy whispered, gazing down at the box. “One broken, one intact. One twin dead, the other one left alive. It makes sense, doesn’t it?” She moistened her lips. “Open that box. I want to see it.”
Cara took a step closer to her. All she could do was offer silent support. She knew what strain Darcy was under, but she also knew that in her place she would have had to do the same thing.
Jock opened the lid. “Quick look, and then we’ll be out of here. It’s not necessary to— What the hell!” He started to swear.
Glass. Shattered mirror pieces spread all over the interior of the box. No intact mirror reflecting their faces. Jagged splinters. Total destruction.
Cara stared down at it stunned. “You said it was— It’s not supposed to be like this, Jock.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Maybe one of the police clerks was careless?”
“It has a fragile tag. Police know how to care for evidence. It can make the difference between a murderer’s going free or being convicted.”
“He was here.” Darcy’s face was pale. “Or he paid somebody to do it. That could happen, couldn’t it, Jock?”
“It could happen,” he said quietly. “But he’d have to have a good reason to go to all that trouble.”
“He’s crazy.” Her voice was shaking. “I think that’s probably a good enough reason for him. But let’s take it a step further. He wanted to prove he could do it and make us feel helpless. And he wanted to tell us that there’s going to be another death, that he wasn’t done.” She was staring at the glittering shards of glass. “That there was still another twin who had to die.”
Cara grasped her arm. “He’s wrong. We won’t let him touch you.”
“I’m saying what he intends. Not what’s going to happen,” Darcy said. “I won’t let him kill me. He butchered Sylvie. I won’t let him do that to—”
“What’s that scrap?” Cara had stiffened and was looking down at a bit of colored material on the bottom of the box that was half covered in glittering mirrored shards. “I’ve seen that—” Then she realized what it was. Her heart lurched. “No!” She couldn’t breathe. “My God. No!”
*
Eve’s phone was ringing.
“Cara. She was worried about how Darcy would take that visit to the precinct.” She accessed the call. “How did it go? Is she—”
“Michael,” Cara gasped. “Do you have Michael with you?”
She stiffened. “Easy. He’s only about twenty yards away inside the ice-cream shop.”
“Go get him. The mirror was broken. You have to get him.”
“Calm down. Tell me.”
“There was a scrap of the material they use in the soccer uniforms in the bottom of the box. Red and gold. Don’t ask questions. Go get him. Red and gold.”
“Right.” She dropped the phone. “We’ve got to go get Michael, Joe.” She was out of the car. Her heart was beating so hard she could barely breathe. She could see the boys inside the shop as she started running toward it.
Red and gold.
Red and gold.
Red and gold.