This Secret Thing, стр. 80
He marched to the door, his phone buzzing in his pocket, letting him know someone had pulled into his driveway. What was it the kids said? It was very meta. If he said that to Karen in ordinary circumstances, she’d laugh at his attempt to keep up with the culture. He missed Karen’s laugh. He missed Karen.
He stopped short, the pain of loss—both of Matteo and of his family—hitting him in the chest. He looked around at the familiar surroundings, seeing them as a visitor might. Because that’s what he was now: a visitor. There was the tree they had planted the week they brought Ian home from the hospital. There was the fence post that needed to be replaced. There was the firepit he’d made with his own two hands. In the fall they roasted marshmallows and made s’mores there, eating until their stomachs hurt. But he wasn’t there to make s’mores.
He looked back at his car, debated going back to work, leaving his family to it. Let Karen deal with whatever Lauren was doing when Karen got home from whatever she was doing. He wasn’t supposed to know anything. Karen would be furious if she knew that he did. He wouldn’t be the only one spoiling for a fight. He saw that, in his haste to get out, he’d left his car door open, like an invitation to just climb back inside.
He walked back to the car, stood there for a moment, trying to decide what to do: admit defeat and retreat, or stay and fight. But was it too late for a fight? Had he ruined things for good? Karen was off with friendly neighbor Mike, and Lauren was entertaining thugs. And who knew what Ian was doing. None of them missed him. None of them seemed to notice his absence. But was that their fault—or his?
He went to shut the door and heard his police radio go off, the dispatcher sputtering out codes for a shooting with a possible fatality. His pulse spiked at recognition of the location. He’d been to that house enough, after all, barked out that same address to plenty of people as he coordinated the investigation and search. He’d done it thinking it would bring his brother back. But Matteo was already lost to him. The ME had said he’d likely been in that water since he’d gone missing. All that searching, all that time away from his family. And for what?
He looked back at his house. Then at the radio. Then back at the house, his feet frozen in indecision. He should go to the scene. This was his case. He likely knew the shooting victim. He worried it could be Norah’s daughter. If something happened to that kid, he’d have one more thing to feel guilty for. It would be another disaster fueled by his obsession with Matteo’s disappearance. If his brother hadn’t gone missing, he wouldn’t have investigated Norah Ramsey. At least not to the degree that he had. He’d lost sight of everything else. And then he’d lost everything else.
He put his hand on the car door just as he heard the back door open and his daughter call out. “Dad?” Lauren asked. “What are you doing here?”
He looked at her, guilt deepening the lines on his face. He wanted to cry, to run to her, to hold her until she squirmed out of his grasp. But he held his ground as he debated how to answer her question. He supposed that when you didn’t know whether to fight or flee, sometimes holding your ground was all you could do.
She watched him warily, wondering, he knew, if she was busted. “I was afraid you were in trouble,” he finally said. “I came to . . .” He didn’t want to admit what he’d come to do. He’d come to yell at her, to demand an explanation, to rage at the injustice of being expelled from his home just because he’d tried too hard to find his brother. But it wasn’t Lauren he should be upset at. It wasn’t Karen, either. It wasn’t Matteo. It was himself.
“Daddy?” She hadn’t called him that in so long.
He felt wetness on his face, tasted salt on his lips, saw his daughter through a sheen of tears. Her blurry form moved toward him, rocketing into his arms. Behind him, he heard the radio alert again. And for a moment, he felt that tug, the one that compelled him to go where the danger was, to protect and serve as he’d always done. Away from here, things were happening: bad things, to innocent people. But they weren’t his people. His people were here, and they needed him. He couldn’t save those people. He probably couldn’t save his own. But he could start trying. He could start trying right now.
Violet
After they had asked her a few questions, they forgot all about her, which was what she needed them to do. They were too concerned with the emergency situation at hand. So when heads turned toward the victims, she sidestepped out of the den, crept up the back staircase, and made her way to her room as fast as she could. It hadn’t been that long since she’d tossed the doll aside, feigning nonchalance, when Casey had walked in.
It hadn’t been long, yet so much had happened. Later, she would let herself think about it all: the man with the gun, how heroic Casey had been. She’d let herself recall Bess bleeding on the doorstep. The