This Secret Thing, стр. 72

“So, you still want to go?” Mike Lewis asked, and smiled nervously.

“If you do,” Nico’s wife said to his adversary, smiling that adorable grin that Nico had thought until this moment she reserved just for him.

Mike Lewis held out his hand to Karen. She took it. “You need to say goodbye to your kids?” he asked.

“Oh no, they know I’m going out with a friend.” She giggled. “They couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

“I’ll have to thank them later for being so shortsighted,” he said. And then Mike Lewis pulled Nico’s wife away from the camera’s eye, away from the home they’d shared, away from him. Off camera, Mike Lewis started whistling again. And this time Nico recognized the song. “Carolina in My Mind,” by James Taylor. Karen had always liked that one because her name was in it. He couldn’t believe she’d told him about that. What else had they shared? Nico sank into a chair and listened as, off camera, the whistling stopped, two car doors slammed, and the car started up and drove away.

He let himself sit and absorb what he’d just seen. He’d sit there for as long as it took to calm down. He had to be on his A game when he went to Norah’s to see about the doll. He had to be OK. He’d deal with Karen’s infidelity later. But was it infidelity if they were split up? It was for Mike Lewis. As far as Nico knew, he was still very much married. Maybe he’d call Mike Lewis’s wife from the station, give her a tip. But not now. Now he had to get to Norah’s before that kid did something with that doll. There was no time to waste. He rose from the chair and walked out of the room.

He was almost out of the station when his phone buzzed again. If anything could deter him from following up on the doll, it was the results of the autopsy. He stopped in the lobby and pulled his phone from his pocket. But again, it was the security camera, not the autopsy. His heart lifted. He smiled. Karen had come to her senses, told Mike Lewis it was a bad idea and to take her home. He clicked on the app to watch the scene unfold.

But instead of seeing Karen going back inside their house, looking guilty and ashamed of herself, he saw the smirking faces of those two thugs he’d seen his daughter talking to before, back at his door. Though he couldn’t see her from the camera angle, he could hear as Lauren opened the door wide and greeted them happily.

“We got here as fast as we could,” one of them said.

Off camera, Lauren giggled. “Come on in,” she said.

And they did. He heard the door shut behind them, and the camera kept recording nothing and no one. He watched for a bit, waiting for Lauren to remember the rules and kick the boys out. A bird flew by the camera. A breeze blew, rustling the branches of the azalea bush, long devoid of flowers. An adventuresome squirrel scampered along the rail of the porch. But no sign of the boys. Karen was gone. Ian was likely in his room with headphones on, lost in a world of animated gun battles, oblivious, leaving Lauren alone with two older boys wearing matching leers.

He looked up suddenly, remembering he was standing in the lobby of the police station. Candace, the receptionist who occasionally flirted with him (harmlessly), glanced nervously away. But he could tell she’d been watching him, likely wondering just what he had stopped to see on his phone. He shoved it back into his pocket and tried to catch Candace’s eye. But she busied herself with looking busy.

He walked out of the lobby, looking sheepish and feeling worried. And torn. Should he go to his house and interrupt Lauren and the delinquents? Or should he head to Norah Ramsey’s house as intended? Should he do his job, or protect his daughter? His hunch about the doll was just a hunch, after all. No one would know if he didn’t follow up. No one but him. Which would he regret more? If he didn’t catch Norah Ramsey, he might never know what happened to Matteo. But if he didn’t check on Lauren, something bad could happen, something that he’d regret forever.

Matteo was dead. No investigation was going to change that. When there had been a chance Matteo was alive and just in hiding, then the detective work—the dedication—had been worth it. He had had the hope that he could save his brother. But Matteo didn’t need saving. Not anymore. His daughter, however, did—even if she didn’t know it. Nico got into his car and sat there for a moment just to be sure exactly what his gut was telling him. Could he even trust his gut anymore? He could feel the pull toward home, toward his family, acutely. It was like the moon pulling the tides. And the tide had turned for him, just like that. He backed out of his parking space and turned in the opposite direction of Norah Ramsey’s house. For the first time in a long time, Nico had something—someone—else to save.