“Agent Frost.”
“Laura, I wanted you to hear it from me,” Rondelle said, and the tension in his voice made her pause, her heart starting to race. “I know this isn’t the outcome you wanted, but please do me the favor of staying calm and not doing anything we can’t cover you for.”
“What?” Laura asked sharply, every fiber of her body on high alert.
“It’s Amy Fallow.” Rondelle paused, leaving her just enough time for a flare of fear to bite into her. “I don’t know how it happened, but apparently he had some favors to call in. Or threats, I don’t know. She’s back with her father.”
Laura had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop herself from being sick.
“I know this is terrible news, but…”
“Terrible news?” Laura said acidly. “She’s… you’ve let her go right back into danger. She’s six years old.”
“I haven’t let her go anywhere,” Rondelle said hotly. “I feel just as strongly about this as you do. I’m doing everything I can do -”
“No,” Laura said, cutting him off. She’d never been rude to her superiors, never shown Rondelle any disrespect. But he had never earned it before. “No, you don’t.”
She ended the call, turning on her engine and speeding down the road just for something to do, just for a distraction. She couldn’t take this. She needed to get home, get somewhere she could be alone and think. Marcus could be watching her through the window, judging her, wondering if she was having a breakdown.
Hoping, probably.
The drive passed in a blur, Laura’s hands and feet taking her on autopilot towards her home as her mind stayed elsewhere. She tried to think of something she could do. She imagined walking into the Governor’s home and taking Amy again, but she knew there was no way it would be that easy. He would likely have extra security now, and even if she did manage it, she’d be on the run. No one would let her take that child again.
And anything she did that got her into trouble – anything at all – could land the custody hearing in jeopardy.
Laura’s mouth dried up as she realized that even now, Governor Fallow could speak behind closed doors with a judge. Tell him to make a judgement in Marcus’ favor. He had the power to do it, and Laura had no doubt he would have been looking into her, looking for any weakness he could exploit.
She was backed into a corner. There was nothing she could do. Not if she wanted to get access to her daughter again, on any kind of a regular basis.
But could she really abandon one little girl just to have the chance to be with another?
Laura parked outside her apartment and traveled up in the elevator, barely seeing anything around herself. She unlocked her front door and threw her keys down on the counter in the kitchen, dumping her bags on a stool. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t see the way through this. She couldn’t…
She stopped, freezing halfway between steps, her foot hovering in the air for a long moment before she set it down. She stared, barely able to process what she was seeing.
On the wall above her battered, second-hand couch, someone had taken a paintbrush and smeared black paint into tall letters, sharp and angry in their execution. Letters that left a message, one that was so obvious Laura didn’t need any kind of clarification.
Forget the girl.
Beside it, pinned to the wall viciously in a way that left the plaster crumbling, there were two photographs. One, of Laura herself, slumped over a table. Drunk in a bar. Laura didn’t recognize the event, but she knew it must have been herself. She’d seen it before. Marcus had shown it to her, after he hired the private investigator to follow her. Whoever got this shot must have had access to his files.
The other photograph was Marcus standing with Lacey, helping her put her coat on outside the school gates.
Someone had broken into her place while she was away. Someone who worked for Governor Fallow. They had left her this message as a warning and a threat: stay away from the Governor, back off and stay out of his business, or they would come for her. They already knew where she lived. They probably knew everything about her.
Forget the girl.
As if there was any way she could do that.
Laura took out her phone and snapped a photograph of the words, furious determination taking over from her initial shock. Who did Governor Fallow think she was? Some mild, meek little woman who would shut up and go away when he asked her to?
No.
Laura was not just any woman. She was an FBI agent, and she knew she was one of the best. She had taken down bigger criminals, more terrifying criminals, than him. She had faced serial killers head on and won.
She wasn’t going to be threat
ened by a bully into leaving a child to survive on her own. No matter what fears leapt into her throat when she saw that they knew who her daughter was, she couldn’t back down. Protecting Lacey by abandoning Amy – what kind of person would that make her?