“You don’t look like you’re working.”
Rhys snatches up the latest padded envelope from his agent and rips it open, mail spilling out across the desk. “Happy now?” He hears the door slam and knows she’ll be running straight back to Yasmin, but he doesn’t care. His world is on fire, and he doesn’t know which blaze to tackle first. He starts opening his mail, stuffing the wastepaper back in the padded envelope, laying out the entry forms, and slotting signed photographs into the waiting stamped addressed envelopes. He winces as he cuts his tongue on an envelope, presses angrily on the seal, then pushes the envelope into the post bag. Over and over: slot, seal, push. Slot, seal, push. And breathe. The repetitive action quiets his mind and blocks out the thoughts, and slowly, he begins to calm.
An exhaust backfires outside, angry and loud in the crisp air. Rhys stands and looks out the window to see a rusty Triumph Stag jerking to a stop in the space outside their lodge. The driver’s door opens, and Rhys’s chest tightens.
Ffion.
He can’t let her get anywhere near Yasmin or the girls, not when he doesn’t know what she might say—doesn’t even know the facts himself. He races downstairs, tripping on the last step and hurtling into the hall so fast, he smashes into the door before he can open it. Black blurs the edges of his vision as he lurches down the path toward Ffion.
She hasn’t changed. Still small, still with a groove between her eyebrows, as though she spends more time scowling than laughing. Her hair’s lighter than Seren’s—Rhys doesn’t remember if it’s always been that way or if it’s mellowing with age—and scraped into a bun, so what’s on show is straight.
“Am I right?” Rhys says. “Is Seren…” He still can’t say it, is still horrified by the very thought. But Ffion’s eyes are flashing. It’s true.
“How did you find out?” She spits it out as though it’s Rhys’s fault this happened. “Nobody knows. Nobody!”
“I—I guessed.” Rhys looks toward the lodges, anxious that this conversation should finish before Yasmin comes looking for him. She’s going to be furious. Does that matter? Rhys wonders. She’s furious anyway—she wants a divorce.
Ffion takes two steps one way, then the other. She stops and looks at Rhys. “Have you said anything to Seren?”
“No.”
“You promise?” Ffion’s voice cracks and tears spill over her lower lashes.
“I promise.” Rhys feels a sudden need to atone—for the girl at Number 36, for the nameless and faceless women he’s cast aside over the years. “But I have two daughters—two other daughters. They should know—in time—that they have a half…” Hunger gnaws at his insides; sweat breaks out across his brow. When did he last eat anything?
Ffion stares at him. “No fucking way.”
“Not now, but…when you’ve told her. Once she’s gotten used to the idea.”
“Tell her? I’m not telling her anything.”
“She has a right to know who her father is.”
Ffion walks slowly toward him, her eyes never leaving his. Rhys blinks nervously, his stomach twisting. She’s close enough to touch him—he can smell shampoo and cigarettes in her hair.
“You go anywhere near my daughter”—Ffion spits out the words—“youdaretell heranything, and I swear to God, Rhys Lloyd, I will kill you.” In a move too sudden for Rhys to step back from, she brings her knee sharply up into his groin.
As Ffion disappears down the drive, the Triumph backfiring into a cloud of dust, Rhys sinks slowly to his knees.
Fifty
January 8
Leo
Leo grips the top of the windshield and lifts one foot to step into the boat. Lightning flashes bright white and a gust of wind lurches the vessel to one side. Leo has no choice but to fall into the cockpit, then scramble onto the seat next to Ffion, who’s wasted no time in releasing the moorings. By the time thunder cracks overhead, they’ve left the jetty behind. Ffion releases the throttle, and the motorboat bounds forward, throwing Leo into the hull of the boat.
He can’t see the water, and he doesn’t know if that helps or makes it worse. He knows there are trees within striking distance, but the snowstorm hides them, consuming everything until it seems there’s nothing for miles. The boathouse light is lost in the first curve of the lake, and now they’ve passed The Shore, are already beyond the parts of the lake that could be seen from the jetty. He clutches the side of the boat as it crashes through the water, every wave lifting him from the base of the boat. His heart hammers against his rib cage, and he doesn’t dare crawl back onto the exposed, narrow seat.
As a new police officer, catapulted into Liverpool city center, Leo found himself in risky situations all the time—any number of which could have ended badly. The brawl outside All Bar One, the nunchuck nutter fighting anyone who came near. The guy on the bridge who threatened to take Leo down with him if he didn’t let him jump. None of those jobs scared Leo.
But now?
Now, Leo is terrified. Growing up, there was never spare money for extracurricular activity, and when you live in the city, miles from natural water, swimming lessons aren’t a priority. Leo reached a moment, somewhere in his teens, when it was too late—too humiliating—to learn, and so he never did.
In the dim light from the dashboard, Ffion’s jaw is rigid, eyes set on the red haze in the sky, fading even as Leo looks at it. He takes a deep breath. Somewhere beneath that mark, lost in the blizzard, is sixteen-year-old Seren, alone and in danger and way more frightened than Leo has any right to be. He can’t imagine being any colder than he is now, yet every wave that crashes over the windshield reminds him of the bitter depths of the lake.
Gingerly, Leo inches his way onto the seat next to Ffion. The windshield offers a little protection, and he tries to find the rhythm of the boat, softening his body so it absorbs the impact instead of flying into the air. The lake seems at once liquid and solid, each wave a brick wall against the hull. Ffion doesn’t waver, her knuckles white on the steering wheel, snow swirling about her.