I was getting older, slower, weaker.
I’d always thought I had it all figured out: kill bad guys, raise good kids. But recently it was all becoming a little more shaky.
In the months leading up to Italy, we’d upscaled our operation. Using Jenny’s police resources, we’d aimed higher than we ever had before: tearing apart sex-trafficking rings by eliminating their key supplier; going after an influential bad man who’d used his embassy contacts to escape prosecution for putting several women in the hospital. For a while, we were really making an impact. No more chance encounters with drunken would-be rapists. No more just flirting with being superheroes; we were bona fide gamechangers.
And then everything had fallen apart.
I thought of the postcard from Ivrea that was still pinned to our fridge. It had arrived a year ago, the day after we got back. In case it wasn’t enough of a warning that they had our home address, the scrawled “Stay out of our business” made it clear.
We’d gone from being our most efficient, our most effective, to only fitting in one bad man in a year. And I couldn’t even perform for that one. My wife had to do it for me. No wonder I was feeling crushed and overwhelmed. I was tired all the time. I wasn’t putting in enough time at the office, so my investment fund wasn’t where it should be. And then there was the nagging guilt that Reggie was not getting the same level of attention Bibi had. Just because he was the second born didn’t mean he should be a second-class citizen. Where washisperfectly put together baby book with marked milestones and photo evidence? But then, when was the last time I’d run through phonics with Bibi? And Haze, when had we last had a proper date night, time to reconnect, rather than just rowing over whose turn it was to get up for Reggie?
Father of two. Husband. Killer. I wasn’thaving it all.I wasn’tkilling it.I wasn’t killing anyone.
A full house of failure.
Chapter Six
Haze
“Mrs. Cabot!” Mr. McCabe, Bibi’sridiculously attractive twenty-something-year-old new teacher, was waving at me from the classroom door. I’d been hovering by the school gates, waiting for Bibi to be dispatched to me. I now understood why I hadn’t yet seen her in the throng of children rushing out of the door. I was being summoned inside.
Fox had insisted Bibi attend the exclusive private school fifteen minutes from us because of its excellent academic record, although I think he was equally charmed by the straw boater hats they had to wear. “So charmingly English!” Despite my scoffing, it did seem like the school was the right choice: she enjoyed going, they had good parking, and her teachers’ fixed grins were near believable.
I strode toward the teacher. “It’s just Haze!” I said this every time he addressed me, and still he refused to take it onboard. I had to hope it was down to an insistence on parental politeness and not due to the fact I was ten years older than him. “Everything okay?”
“Bibi’s fine. She’s with Miss Dutton next door. I just need a quick word with you.”
He led me through to his classroom and motioned to one of the small plastic chairs. I squeezed into one as he sat down next tome.
I had a feeling I knew what it might be about.
We compensated for our nerves about leaving Bibi for so longby embedding trackers in her school shoes. It gave us the security of always knowing where she was, and as an added bonus, it helped us find her shoes during the morning scramble to get out the door. The events of last year might have shaken us enough to justify the need to use a tracker, but judging by the amount of online rave reviews these devices had, we weren’t the only nervous parents out there. There was the occasional rant from someone whining about them being an invasion of a child’s privacy, but let’s face it, she was four. She shouldn’t have anything private from us. It was our job as her parents to make sure we knew everything—including exactly where she was.
I didn’t know how these fancy schools worked, but if they’d discovered she had trackers planted on her, I imagined it might constitute some kind of rule breach. Mostly because they didn’t want anyone to know that despite their brochure advertising an hour and a half a day of “daily play and outdoor activities in the expansive park opposite,” I’d clocked the most they ever managed was an hour and five minutes.
“There’s been a common theme in Bibi’s drawings this last week.” Mr. McCabe moved a pile of papers toward me.
On the top was a picture of a stick figure with long hair and a dress. Next to her was a little stick figure in what looked like penguin pajamas. Bibi had drawn herself and me. It would be adorable, except for the fact I was covered in red crayon. I looked like I’d bathed in blood.
I flicked through the pile. All varied in setting, and artistic talent, but all featured me, covered in red.
“Have you been in an accident? That perhaps Bibi witnessed?”
The Clark Dixon murder had been a disaster from start to finish.
My aim had been off. I’d sliced his femoral artery. The spray had got me. Really got me. Bibi had walked in on me in the utility room as I was stripping down. She’d screamed at the sight of her bloodied, half-naked mother.
“Gosh no! Nothing like that at all.”
Bibi had woken because of a bad dream and heard me talking to Jenny downstairs. Just after Jenny had left, Bibi had come to find me. I’d calmed her down by laughing off the mess I was in. I knew she didn’t believe the excuse about a red paint can exploding while I was working. But having shown her that I wasn’t injured anywhere, she seemed reassured that I wasn’t hurt. She knew the story wasn’t quite right, but she didn’t know the truth.
By the time Fox had returned from doing a sweep of the street cameras, Bibi was back tucked up in bed, fast asleep. I was showered and clean.
I picked up a couple of Bibi’s drawings as Mr. McCabe watched me. She had talent. And, like her mother, blood spill clearly inspired art.
“I don’t know why she drew these. I do like red dresses.” Breezy. Cool. Normal.
Mr. McCabe frowned. “She said, ‘Mama hurt,’ when I asked her about them. Clearly she’s using her art to express her worries.” I saw his earnest expression and realized he really wasn’t going to drop this. He cared about kids’ well-being too much. I was both delighted and inconvenienced by this.
