“I was wrong, Kobe. Ari’s search for Jesse happened over ten months before mine. Jesse was a new student that year. Three weeks into the semester, his name was not yet on people’s lips. No one had cause to fear him. His reputation was not developed. That’s why Ari couldn’t find him.
“Ari told me about his daughter and how desperately he wished he could go back in time and change things. How he will never forgive himself. How he prays every night for the girl whose name he never learned. He confessed to his wife, sayinghe wasn’t worthy of being a father. He didn’t know how to make it right. So yes, Ari Yates looked me in the eye and told me he was sorry, and I forgave him.”
Dominique sighed and shook his head. “I’m not a monster, Kobe. I’m sure the world wouldn’t see it that way. I want to believe he’s a changed man. He loves his daughter. That moment in his life, when Angelique went to him for help, will remain a bruise on his conscience forever. It will never heal, but it will fuel him to fight against men like Jesse. Ari Yates will defend girls like Angelique. He may not be a good cop or a great cop or an honest cop, but his heart is in the right place. You two are alike in many ways.”
I clenched my jaw, hating the accuracy of his observation.
“I hope,” he continued, “that by setting Ari free I can set myself free because I’ve been living in a prison for two and a half years. I can’t keep going. I’m tired.”
I shifted my weight, hunched against the wind as I watched Dominique, doing all I could to read him, to understand him. I was not a father, but I didn’t have to be to know his pain ran deep.
“Did killing those men make you feel better?”
“No.” He spat the word like it tasted vile. “God no. I hated it. It was ugly and awful, and it stole pieces of me I will never get back. It was a sacrifice I made for my daughter because they stole something from her thatshewill never get back. Her innocence, Kobe. Her life.”
“You were saving others like her.”
“I like to think I was setting Angelique’s troubled soul free so she could finally be at peace. So she could sing and dance and smile again, wherever she is.”
“She’s gone, Dominique.”
“No one knows that more than me.”
The storm raged around us. Snow battered our faces and stuck in our hair. The shells of my ears ached, and I couldn’t feel my toes.
Dominique sniffled and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Everything I told you about her was true. She was a spark of life. She lit up a room. She wanted to be on stage. She dreamed of performing. She was an artist. On her first day of high school, she came home excited because she heard the theater group downtown was having auditions for a winter production ofMoulin Rouge. I told her she was too young to audition for such a risqué show. She told me to stop being a prude, and they were looking for dancers for the ensemble. She had a month before auditions, but she didn’t waste a moment of it. I never understood why she didn’t go. I see it now. The crack between before and after. It makes me wonder how I missed it.
“The last three weeks of her innocence were spent in song and dance. She wore one of her old figure skating costumes, a red sparkly number that was borderline indecent. She borrowed heels from Jolie and did her hair and makeup, so it was stage-worthy.”
Dominique unzipped his jacket a few inches, enough to reach for the inside pocket. He withdrew a woman’s silk scarf with tassels. Scarlet red.
My breath caught.
For a long time, he stared at it, running his fingers reverently over the fabric.
“She used it as a prop. Danced with it. Twirled around the kitchen and living room.” A wistful smile touched the corner of his mouth. “She knew every word to every song in that ridiculous musical. Those men took away her dreams and her future.”
He held the scarf to his nose and inhaled. Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks. His shoulders shook, and he clenched his fist around the fabric, holding it tight. “I can’t smell her anymore.The perfume she wore is the only reminder. It calls her back to me. It awakens the memories. I miss her every day.”
Dominique looked as though his knees might give out, like the weight of his emptiness threatened to crush him. He was but fragments of a man. Spent. Exhausted from years of grief and pain and heartache. Vengeance hadn’t cured his broken heart, and I suspected he would gladly lie down and die in the elements without a care if I commanded it.
“Will you arrest me?” he asked, trying and failing to pull himself together.
“I should.”
“I would not blame you. I anticipated you might. I knew it was a matter of time before you figured it out. I was prepared for this eventuality.”
“And what of Cosette?” The flame of anger in my core wouldn’t burn out. It flared with each new thought. Dominique’s complacency lacerated my heart. “Did you think of her in all this vigilante bullshit?”
“Of course I did. I look into her innocent face every day, and I see her mother. Angelique stares back at me. It’s uncanny. They are so alike. I don’t want Cosette to know the pain her mother went through. If I could scour the world of evil, I would, but I can’t. The future scares me. Will I fail her like I failed Angelique?”
“You didn’t fail Angelique.”
“I did. A better father would have seen the signs. He would have asked more questions. He would have dragged her to a doctor regardless of her protests. I didn’t even know she was pregnant, Kobe. What kind of father does that make me? I sometimes think Cosette would be better off with someone else. Don’t get me wrong. I love her with all my heart, but I don’t deserve a second chance.”
“If I arrest you, she’ll end up in the system. Do you really think that’s better?”
“She wouldn’t. My parents would take her.”
