She stops dead in the hallway, as though she knows somebody is here, or else perhaps this is something she routinely does. I watch her make slow progress through to the kitchen, putting a rucksack down carefully but in the doorway; she’s spooked.
She seems to relax after a few moments and starts to make a hot drink, possibly tea, I’m not sure. And this is my moment.
Another glance through the crack; it is absolutely, definitely her.
I step out of the cupboard, holding my rope. She hears the noise, and instead of startling, her body goes completely still. I hold my breath as she freezes, then turns to me in slow motion. Her shoulders are up, her eyes round with fearthat I am – that someone is – here in her space, that she had no idea.
Our eyes meet.
And then recognition flashes, as fast as headlights.
Earlier, I learned that Michaela Wyatt owns this house. And that, therefore, this is her daughter, who I have been searching for.
‘Lucy,’ she says softly, her voice all feathers. ‘Lucy Seaborn.’
I reply: ‘It’s me.’
Part V
THE KIDNAPPER
CHAPTER 76
The Kidnapper
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, gesturing pointlessly to the rope, the tape. I advance towards her, and she backs away. ‘I’m sorry I have to …’
Here she is, in the flesh, the person I have been searching for all this time: the kidnapper’s daughter. In the end, it was the only way. I realized early on what I’d have to do. The second we decided to run, I directed us to Terlingua – I’d overheard the daughter say she lived there, though I never told Mum that fact; I knew she’d stop me from doing this. It’s easy to act when you’ve been taught how.
I saw her through the crack in the door, and I knew I’d find her again, if only I looked hard enough.
I had the right house, but it was easy to check once Mum told me the kidnapper’s name. Michaela, the Border Patrol officer. Michaela, the owner of this house.
She owns it, and her daughter lives in it, evidently in fear, as she leaves the shutters closed and only goes out at nightfall. All I had to do was come back here, once we got back to Terlingua after Mum’s arrest, and do the deed. I had no idea the kidnapper was a woman, but, to me, it changes nothing.
It’s old-fashioned inside. A stone kitchen, fluorescent light up ahead littered with flies. The shutters make the place feelsmaller, keep the morning out. A coffee machine steams on the counter, puffing plumes under the cupboards.
I take a breath. It’s time to use the kidnapper’s only Achilles’ heel, and it’s time to save my mother. And then, in that tired kitchen in Terlingua, she does the thing that I would never expect. She nods, like:OK, I get it. And also:I knew this would come. And also: understanding. She knows more than perhaps I’d counted on.
‘I saw you on the news,’ she says. But her face changes, a micro-emotion passing over it.
And suddenly, I think she doesn’tonlywatch the news. She knows precisely her mother’s involvement in it.
‘She …’ she says, and with a single syllable, I know that she knows everything. Exactly who I am, exactly what her mother does, and possibly even what I want. She waits a beat, then very deliberately, she raises her right hand, which contains a set of keys I didn’t know she was still holding. One sharp key held between index and middle finger. It’s something I recognize as such a mark of femalehood I almost have to look away. I know the exact feel of it, and the fear that predicates it. And here I am, causing it.
Then, to my surprise, she puts the keys down on the counter. ‘You’re here about her,’ she tells me.
‘Your mother,’ I reply.
The fluorescent light above us is off, only silvery glare coming in through the gaps around the shutters, hitting a couple of glasses sitting on a draining board but not much else; her face is shadowy.
And then she says it. The thing that changes everything. She steps forward, towards me, not afraid at all.
‘You want her to confess,’ she tells me. ‘You’re going to take me.’
I blink, surprised to find my eyes wet. When it comesdown to it, I have almost no plan. I was meticulous in finding her. There was nowhere I didn’t look. But now I’m here, and I thought I’d take her through threats, through surprise. But I can’t. That isn’t me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I have to …’ I walk towards her with no idea what’s next.
