a stop a short distance down the hill. All of them kept away from the eyeline of the house, so that if Saunders were to look out of his window right now, he would see nothing. That was important. The last thing they needed was for him to barricade himself in and for them to end up dealing with a hostage situation.
Not that it would come to that, she thought. If he was cornered, Saunders would simply kill Jake Kennedy.
Her phone had been buzzing the whole way. She took it out now. Four missed calls. The first three were all from an unknown number. The fourth was from the hospital. Which meant there was news about Pete.
Something fell away inside her. She remembered how determined she had been last night—that she would not lose Pete, that she would find Jake Kennedy. How stupid to think like that. But she put those feelings away for now, gathering herself together, because there was only one of those things she could do something about right now.
I’m not losing another child on my watch.
She got out of the car.
The street was silent. It felt almost wholly deserted here, an area of the city that was slowly dying in its sleep. She heard the side of the van behind her rumbling open, and then the scuff of shoes on the driveway. Down the hill, officers were congregating. The plan had been that she would go first, ostensibly alone, and try to get Francis to open the door and allow her inside the property. At that point, there would be a flurry of activity, and he would be taken down in seconds.
But then Amanda noticed a car parked outside, its driver’s door open. And as she walked down the street, she realized the door to George Saunders’s house was ajar as well, and she began running.
“Everybody move.”
Through the front garden, up the path, and then through the open door into what turned out to be a living room. There was a mess of bodies on the floor, blood everywhere, but it wasn’t immediately obvious who was hurt and who wasn’t.
“Help me, please.”
That was Karen Shaw. Amanda moved over. Shaw was kneeling on one of Francis Carter’s arms, trying to hold it still. Between them, Tom Kennedy was pressing onto Francis Carter. Carter himself was pinned in place, eyes shut tight, concentrating on moving even though the weight of the two of them together was enough to keep him in place.
From somewhere above them, Amanda could hear a hammering noise and shouting.
Daddy! Daddy!
Officers swarmed in past her, a dozen bodies overtaking the scene.
“Don’t move him,” Karen shouted. “He’s been stabbed.”
Amanda could see the spread of blood soaking into Carter’s bathrobe. Tom Kennedy was completely still. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or not—if she had lost him today as well …
Daddy! Daddy!
That, at least, she could still do something about.
She ran to the stairs.
Part Six
Sixty-seven
Pete remembered hearing that your life flashed before your eyes when you died.
It was true, he realized now, but it also happened while you were alive. How fast things went, he thought. As a boy, he had marveled at the life spans of butterflies and mayflies, some of them alive for only days or even hours, and it had seemed unimaginable. But he understood now that it was true for everything—that it was only a matter of perspective. The years accumulated quicker and quicker, like friends linking arms in an ever-expanding circle, reeling faster and faster as midnight approached. And then, suddenly, it was done.
Unfurling backward.
Flashing before your eyes, as it did for him now.
He looked down at a child, sleeping peacefully in a room barely lit by the soft light from the hall. The little boy’s hair was swept back behind his ear, with one hand clutching the other in front of his face, completely still aside from the gentle rise and fall of the covers. Everything was calm. A child, warm and loved, was sleeping safely and without fear. An old book, its pages splayed open, lay on the floor by the bed.
Your daddy liked these books when he was younger.
And then here was a quiet country lane. It was summertime and the whole world was in bloom. He looked around, blinking. The hedges on either side of the road were lustrous and thick with life, while the trees reached together overhead, their leaves forming a canopy that colored the world in shades of lime and lemon. Butterflies flickered across