“How am I to know you won’t come back for me? How do I know …” She paused to gasp in a panicky breath, “that you won’t just show up here one night, with your van.”
“I swear it.” He met her eyes then. “Give us the child, and we’ll go. You’ll never see me again. I’ll keep my distance.” His green eyes flashed. “But I’ll write. And you’ll write to me. That’s all. I love you, Colleen. I just want what’s mine.”
“Yours.” She laughed a little, although tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“He’ll write, and you’ll write back,” added the old man, “and we’ll know where you are at all times. Do you understand me, lass? You keep on writing to my boy here, because we’ll need to know you’re on side. Just in case you start feeling the need to unburden yourself. You never speak of this child to anyone. To you, they no longer exist. And for that, we’ll keep our distance. I can promise you that.” He lifted his lips in a sneer. “What are you sniveling about? You can have more babies. That’s what women do, isn’t it?”
Michael turned to look at the older man, a scowl briefly darkening his brow. “That’s enough.”
“What will you do? With the baby?”
“Raise him, Colleen. He’s my boy.” Michael smiled slightly, and quite abruptly she hated him with every part of her, a hate to shake the stars down from the sky. “Or girl. I’ll look after him. It might even, you know, help me. To be …”
He licked his lips and looked down at his feet again.
“To be less of a monster?” Colleen provided. He gave her that hurt look again, and suddenly she couldn’t stand it. She raised her hand. “You will stay here. You will wait here, and not come inside my home, or I swear to god I will kill the baby myself before you get to us. Do you understand?”
The old man looked like he might argue, but Michael nodded. Colleen went back down the hall to the little spare room she had been using as a makeshift nursery, trying with every step not to be sick. The twins were in matching basinets, snug in tiny yellow and white baby grows, their little pink faces scrunched up tight with sleep. She stood over them, knowing that she had no time, no time at all—the foul old man would get impatient, would come after her, then they would all be lost—but still, it was hard to look away, knowing this would be the last time she saw them together.
Over all the long years to come, Colleen would often look back on the moment she had decided, looking for reasons, for the truth. Hours spent awake as dawn stained the net curtains yellow. Every time she took Heather to the park and watched little kids playing on the slides or pushing each other into the dirt—always the question was hanging over her. But the truth was that when she bent down and plucked the little boy from his crib, she wasn’t thinking at all. Her mind was a terrifying blank, all comfort and hope blasted from it in one searing moment.
She carried him back down the hall and gave him to the monsters.
CHAPTER45
OUTSIDE THE SKY had changed color. The inky darkness of the middle of the night had gone, to be replaced with a kind of dark silvery mauve. Heather looked at it for a moment, confused. How long had it taken her to run through the woods? How long had she been in the house? It seemed only minutes ago that she had found Harry’s body in the cottage, and now dawn was edging over the horizon.
As she rounded the base of the Folly, looking for a way in, she spotted an old-fashioned car parked up on the far side, with two figures standing next to it. One of them raised its hand to its eyes, clearly peering at her with interest. A voice she recognized floated toward her.
“Lyle!”
Heather nodded and waved, and began to jog over to them. It was Lillian, and the woman she had caught outside the cottage, her sister. Now that they stood next to each other, it was clear she was a few years older than Lillian, or had had a rougher life. Lillian was wearing a long camel hair coat, the collar turned up, and her gray hair was whipped by the wind, while the other still wore the heavy parker. It was Lillian who stepped forward, a wide grin splitting her face.
“Did you catch her, Lyle? Did you kill her?”
Heather, who was still in the deeper shadow of the Folly, turned her face away and down, keen that they should not recognize her until the very last moment. Lillian though, seemed unconcerned, stepping toward her with her arms open.
“Little wolf, your father will be so pleased.”
Heather grabbed the older woman by the shoulders and slammed her backwards into the car. She squawked like a chicken, while her sister shouted something Heather didn’t catch.
“Who are you?” Heather brought the lethal little knife up to Lillian’s throat and pressed it there. When the other woman moved, she shook her head. “Another step and she’s dead. I bloody promise you.”
“Calm down, Heather, dear,” said Lillian. She cleared her throat. “We’re old friends of your father. You know who that is now, don’t you?”
“Why? All that stuff with the house, the funeral. You wanted me to come up here. Why?”
“A little family reunion.” Lillian grimaced. “We thought Lyle should know about his sister.”
“We raised that boy,” spat the other one. Heather
