by Ava McCarthy
Novak had been charged with harbouring a fugitive, despite the fact that it was he who’d called in the police. He’d arrived at the truth through a circuitous route of his own, though Finch wasn’t clear on the details.
Novak made bail and came to see her. He wasn’t allowed inside the holding cell, so they stood either side of the wire mesh screen, Jodie’s fingers hooked through it. Novak looked bedraggled, but his eyes were quick and bright. Jodie whispered,
‘Have you seen Abby?’
‘She’s fine, don’t worry. Celine’s neighbours are looking after her.’
‘Why won’t they let me see her?’
‘She’s …’ He hesitated, broke eye contact.
Jodie raked his face. ‘She’s what, Novak? Tell me!’
‘She’s confused. Upset.’ He touched her fingers through the mesh. ‘She doesn’t want to see you. Not yet.’
Jodie closed her eyes, a ripping sensation tearing through her. Novak squeezed her fingers.
‘Just give her time.’
Jodie managed a nod. Then she gave him a searching look.
‘Did you know all along she was still alive?’
‘No! Of course not, how could I know that?’
‘But it crossed your mind?’
He hesitated. ‘Maybe, after a while. Like I said before, something was off.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Jesus, Jodie, how could I tell you something like that? Raise your hopes on a dumb hunch? What if I was wrong?’
Jodie bowed her head, conceding the point. No one spoke for a few minutes, then Novak said,
‘Finch tells me he’s getting you out of here, real soon.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m okay.’
‘Should you … Will you go and see someone? You know, about all this?’
Jodie looked away. Felt the crawling dizziness that seized her body whenever she thought about Ethan. About her father. In a tight voice, she said,
‘You mean, like a shrink?’
‘Asking for help doesn’t make you weak.’
The dizziness spread, washed into her gut. An image cut across it: Lily’s flashback at the clinic; Lily clawing at her own stomach, as though something grotesque was erupting inside it.
‘ … a full-blown panic attack that wracks her with physical and mental anguish until she feels like she wants to die.’
Jodie shuddered. Maybe Novak was right. Maybe she wasn’t quite as strong as she thought. She took a deep, steadying breath, then raised her gaze to his. His eyes were full of concern.
‘How did you find out the truth?’ she said. ‘About Ethan?’
Novak hesitated, watching her carefully. As though on the lookout for signs of disintegration. After a moment, he said,
‘That law firm of Celine’s. Ives and McKenzie? I discovered Ethan used to work there.’
‘And that linked him to Celine?’
He shrugged, nodded. ‘It wasn’t much, but I spun up a few what-ifs. What if all those years ago, Celine’s lawyer was actually Ethan? Or what if he was more than just her lawyer? He’d faked his death once already, what if it wasn’t the first time? What if Peter Rosen hadn’t really drowned, and Ethan was actually her son?’ His mouth twisted. ‘I didn’t really buy it, it was too …’
Jodie filled in the gap. ‘Grotesque?’
He nodded, swallowed hard. ‘But when you disappeared, I went crazy, I couldn’t pick up your trail anywhere, no one had seen you. I was scrambling, I had to do something. So I followed my only lead, got a copy of Ethan’s photo over to Celine’s old neighbours in North Dakota.’
‘The Blanes?’
‘Took a while to find them, but they confirmed the likeness and I called the cops. When I got to Celine’s house and I heard the shot, I thought …’ He halted. Tried again. ‘I thought I was too late.’
Jodie touched his fingers through the mesh. Eventually, she whispered,
‘I left you for dead. I thought Caruso had found you, and I just left you for dead.’
Novak looked bewildered, and she tried to explain: the black jeep at the motel; the mess in his room that she’d interpreted as signs of a struggle; the pain and guilt she’d felt at abandoning him to Caruso. Novak’s brow finally cleared. He reached a finger through the mesh, gently tilted up her chin.
‘I get it, it’s okay. If it was Toby, I’d have done the same thing.’
Jodie lost track of time.
For days or weeks, she wasn’t sure which, she paced the cold, ten-by-ten cell: toilet to bench; wall to wall; cinderblock to cinderblock. To and fro; backwards and forwards; over and over.
Until one grey, shivery morning, an officer rattled at the wire mesh screen and held the door wide open.
41
Jodie closed her eyes, tilted her face skywards. The sun felt hot and glossy on her skin, pouring over her like a warm, soothing liquid.
The sounds of the island washed through her: waves shushing against the sand; voices lilting in Belizean Creole. She opened her eyes, shading them from the dazzle, then picked up her paintbrush and looked across at her daughter.
Abby had chosen to sit far apart from her mother, plonking her sturdy little frame on a towel several feet away. She sat there scowling out to sea, flinging fistfuls of sand into the air in front of her.
Jodie drank in the miraculous, wondrous sight of her. The years had melted away some of Abby’s plumpness, but her cheeks were still round, her wrists still circumscribed by a chubby, rubber-band look. Abby’s gaze flickered her way, resting briefly on the squeezy, poster-paint bottles that Jodie had left out for her. So far, she hadn’t touched them.
Three years ago, Peter had told Abby that her mother had left her. That Jodie hadn’t wanted her little girl any more. Who could blame Abby for keeping her distance now? She was waiting for the moment when her mother would leave her again.
Jodie loaded her brush with cadmium red, resisting the urge to hug Abby close, to rush the healing process. She risked another quick glance. Her daughter was peeking through her wild fringe of curls, sneaking looks at Jodie’s canvas.
Novak had driven them to the airport. He was busy these days, getting his life back in order. He’d lost the scoop that had meant so much to him. Calling the cops had leaked his story, and others had beaten him to the punch. So in the end, he’d written a human interest piece. The story behind the story. A reconstruction of Peter’s journey from abused young boy to tormented, twisted adult. It was a powerful account. Unflinching. The Boston Globe published it to wide critical acclaim, and Novak had a string of new assignments as a result.
The Caribbean breeze frisked around Jodie’s shoulders. She glanced at Abby, who was standing up and scuffing at the sand with her feet. Novak had wanted to join them on the island, as soon as his custody case was over. His ex-wife had relented, and they were reaching a settlement, working out the best arrangement for their son. Putting their child first, like normal parents.
‘I’ll fly out in a few weeks,’ Novak had said. But Jodie knew it was too soon. So much had to be mended first between herself and Abby.
They’d driven most of the way to the airport in silence, the tyres slushing through the melting ice and snow. When Abby had finally fallen asleep in the back, Novak said in a low voice,
‘Would you have shot him? If Celine hadn’t done it, would you have pulled the trigger?’
Jodie stared at him for a moment, then turned to look at her sleeping child. Her heart soared and danced at the sight of her. At the flushed, round cheeks, at the chubby fingers curled into fists. Suddenly, Jodie had felt again the weight of the gun, felt her own fingers flexing around the trigger. She’d turned and stared back out at the snow.
‘Some things are worth killing for, wouldn’t you say?’
Waves hissed against the sand, the briny air mixing with the sweet scent of fried food: conch fritters, fry jacks, spicy rice and beans. Abby kicked at the sand, sidled closer. Jodie’s chest turned over, her arms a
ching with the need to scoop her up and hold her. Abby sneaked another look at Jodie’s canvas. It was almost finished, though her attention was barely on it.
The foreground showed a dark, tunnel-like enclosure, forged by earthen walls and canopies of palms. It led out to an epicentre filled with light and colour. Not the fantasy colours of her old paintings, but the true festive hues of Ambergris Caye: cheery blues and yellows of beachfront huts; cobalt-blue sky, aquamarine ocean; carmine, purple and magenta blossoms; bougainvillea, hibiscus, morning glory.
Abby moved closer, fetching up beside the easel. She picked up Jodie’s palette, sniffed at the paint, her button nose wrinkling at the dense oiliness. Then her expression cleared. Turned thoughtful. As though the smell had conjured up buried memories. Abby blinked. She stared at Jodie. Seemed to reassess her.
Jodie gazed back at her sturdy, robust little girl. At the dark eyes and brows that were so like Peter’s. She thought of Anna, Lily’s daughter, weakened by faulty, inbred genes. But not her Abby. Thank God, not her Abby.
Samples A and C share insufficient genetic markers … excluded as the biological father … Sample D … Probability of Paternity greater than 99.999% …
She recalled the DNA samples she’d sent off three years ago to the lab. One for Ethan, one for herself, and one for little Abby. And a fourth for Lucas Olsen, the young Danish architect who’d been so enchanted by her paintings.
Their affair had been brief, a snatched respite from her oppressive marriage. It was over and Lucas back in Copenhagen before she’d even known she was pregnant. Her intimacies with Lucas and Ethan had overlapped and she’d spent the pregnancy plagued with worry. Then once Abby had been born, all doubt had vanished. Abby’s likeness to Ethan was strong and unmistakable.
But the lab results had confirmed the truth. That Lucas was Abby’s father. And yet she looked so very like Ethan. But not because she was his daughter. She looked like him because she was his granddaughter.
Jodie gazed at her little girl, risked a smile. Abby stared back.
Jodie had already been in touch with Lucas. He was married now, but he and Abby had a right to get to know one another. As for Jodie, she’d had more than enough of family. She’d make sure Lily was looked after. But where Jodie came from, who she looked like, none of that mattered any more. She held Abby’s frank gaze, saw her own past, her present and her future reflected back to her there.
Abby snuck a look at the squeezy bottles. She reached out a hand, fingered the caps. Jodie held her breath. Then Abby picked up a bottle of vibrant yellow, and with a mischievous glance at Jodie, upended it over a bowl, squeezing out glowing colour till it overflowed.
She flung Jodie another rascally look, then plunged both hands into the bowl, dunking them up to her wrists. She lifted them out, held them, dripping, stretched out in front of her.
Then with a wide smile that lit up her face, she clapped her hands together, over and over, spattering flicks of bright, light yellow into the air like sunshine.
Acknowledgements
Big thanks as always to my agent, Laura Longrigg, for her continued support and patience. And heartfelt gratitude to my editor, Sarah Hodgson, for her tireless enthusiasm and wonderful suggestions. Thank you also to Rhian McKay for her eagle-eyed copy edits, and to Lucy Dauman and all the team at HarperCollins. A special thanks to Gerry Gleeson, for sharing an insight into his hometown in New Hampshire, and to Cliff Cunningham who first told me on a plane about fisher cats.
SHE TOOK A GAMBLE. NOW HER LIFE’S AT STAKE.
Click here to buy The Insider, the first book in the Harry Martinez series.
CAN SHE PULL OFF HER MOST DARING HEIST EVER?
Click here to buy The Courier, the second book in the Harry Martinez series.
IN A GAME WITHOUT RULES, THE WINNER TAKES ALL.
Click here to buy Hide Me, the third book in the Harry Martinez series.
About the Author
Ava McCarthy was born in Dublin and attained degrees in Physics and Nuclear Medicine before going on to work for the London Stock Exchange for six years as an analyst programmer. She currently works in software in County Dublin, where she lives with her husband Tom and two children.
By the same author
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Hide Me
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