The force of it hit like a second wave.
My phone.
I fumbled for it with shaking hands, Sabine still plastered against me.
Étienne had been unraveling at the school. Imagining the worst. Living inside the kind of terror that splits a parent in two.
My fingers barely cooperated as I unlocked the screen.
Sabine is safe. She is with me.
I hit send before I could overthink it.
The reply came almost instantly.
Merci mon Dieu. Merci. Is she hurt? Where are you? I am coming. Police?
My throat tightened again.
He had every right to call the police. To demand explanations. To demand arrests.
But Kane’s voice came softly from in front of me.
“No police.”
I looked up at him.
He didn’t say it harshly. Didn’t bark it like an order. Just stated it.
“No police,” he repeated quietly.
My pulse stuttered.
Behind his calm was something else.
Calculation.
I thought of Randy admitting he’d hired people. That he’d had Rose watched.
I thought of how fast everything had escalated once he felt cornered.
If police showed up now—sirens, questions, statements—Sabine would relive it all in fluorescent light.
And the story would unravel publicly.
Rose’s double life.
Her marriage.
The child she’d hidden.
The man on the floor.
I looked down at Sabine.
Her small hand was twisted in my sweater, knuckles pale.
She didn’t need flashing lights.
