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She nods and sobs. “He hurt me,” she whispers over her tears.
“He’s a dead man,” Harvey tells her, his jaw ticking. He finds my eyes and I know he’s telling the truth. The cop in him is gone in this moment. There is no innocent until proven guilty, the distress of this girl we both love and care about is enough proof. He’ll help me to end the life of the person who did this to her and a swell of emotion for him hits me, it’s like my soul leaving my body. It’s like love.
I’m so engrossed in the scene in front of me, in wondering how to comfort Mabel, that I don’t notice Keeley picking up the phone from the table.
“Anni,” she cries, dropping the phone and jumping into my lap, wrapping her arm around my neck. I can practically feel her little heart beating against my chest, her panting breaths close to my ear.
I wrap my arms around her. “Hey, it’s okay,” I soothe. “It’s okay, he’s not here, just us, I’ve got you.”
I look over her shoulder and Ruby is staring down at the screen of her phone, still on the table. I follow her gaze and see a picture clear as day. A mugshot. A familiar face. That rage is back, prickling at my skin like cheap wool and churning my stomach. We have a starting point, someone to question for more information, someone to kill to sate this burning desire to rid my girls of their demons. And the best thing about it is he’s already in my custody.
35
HARVEY
Calvin Gregson. That’s the man in the photograph that Keeley ran from in fear, her eyes staring at him as they fill with tears. Her chin trembles as she buries her head in Annika’s neck. Annika looks at me in a rare moment of vulnerability, not knowing how to help a distressed child and I want to throw the phone through the window and wrap them all in a hug, although I know none of them would appreciate it.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Mabel whispers.
Annika slips the phone away and passes it to Ruby who quietly puts it in her pocket. “You don’t have to do anymore. Thank you for your help.” Her voice is flat and emotionless, her default.
“Don’t cry, Mabel.” Keeley crawls from Annika’s lap to Mabel’s and strokes her sister’s cheek, her wide eyes so innocent and unknowing of what’s really happening.
“Can we go?” Mabel asks, turning to Annika.
“Yes,” she responds calmly. “I have somewhere I need to be, but Miss White will be here.” As the girls get up to leave, she stands with them, placing her hand on Mabel’s shoulder and keeps her at a full arm’s length away, bending her knees to look her in the eye. “You did well,” she says so quietly that it’s obvious her words are just for Mabel, not for show.
Mabel nods and they leave without another word. All three of us stare after them for a minute, each in our own thoughts. Mine mostly consist of what I want to do to Gregson.
“You may leave,” Annika’s voice cuts through my violent imaginings and for a second, I think she’s talking to me, but then I see her glaring at Ruby.
The other woman just snorts, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her black shorts. “I’ll be off then. Until next time,friends.” She smirks at us both.
She leaves and once we’ve heard the door close behind her, Annika calls Lee in. His large frame fills the doorway, wearing all black against his dark skin.
“Find out how she got in,” Annika says, without looking at him.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Lee?”
He looks at her expectantly.
“If you fail to have this house completely secure when those girls are here again, I’ll kill you myself.” She finally holds his stare, her face relaxed and neutral but her eyes blazing in anger.
The man stills and looks at her with actual fear. “Yes, sir.”
“Send Guinevere in please,” she dismisses him.
When the housekeeper scuttles in, Annika offers the closest thing I’ve seen to a smile since Ruby broke in. “I have to go somewhere. Can you please look after the girls and sit by their door tonight.”
“Oh, of course,” she says pulling her light grey cardigan further around her body. “But…uh…I thought you weren’t doing that anymore?” Her face immediately drops as though she’s done something wrong by questioning her boss.
But Annika isn’t bothered by her question. “They need it tonight,” she says, striding from the room and I follow her on instinct.
She doesn’t say anything to me but opens the safe box by the front door and tosses me the keys to the Lamborghini. I catch them and head straight to the garage with her, we don’t discuss where we’re going, there’s no need.
We’re silent the whole journey, Annika looks as relaxed as can be sat in the passenger’s seat, one leg crossed over the other and her hands loosely clasped together on her thigh. But something’s here that isn’t usually, a buzzing of emotion like the hum of power cables overhead. Anger. She’s radiating fire and I have to admit that I’m eager to see how this is going to play out.
