worried about you, Declan. He thought maybe you needed some time away, a rest—”
“I know what he thinks,” Declan snaps. His father wants to send him back to the old country, for what he calls rehabilitation. But Declan has heard stories of the isolated camp in the Alps where faithless members of the line are sent. None of them ever come back. “He thinks I’ve lost my mind.”
“You’re not exactly sounding like a beacon of sanity right now, honey.”
“Endgame is a lie, Lorelei. You know that.”
“I know you believe that.”
With those words, he knows he’s lost her.
“Can we take a little time?” she asks. “Sleep on it, maybe talk more in the morning?”
Declan gazes at her, this woman to whom he’s sworn his lifelong love. The woman he fell in love with the first time he saw her, hunched over a book in an uptown branch of the New York Public Library, strands of hair curling over her face. “Of course we can,” he tells her. “We can talk about it as much as you want. You’re right, we shouldn’t make a rash decision. We won’t do anything until we both agree it’s the right thing to do.”
“You promise?”
He kisses her, takes her in his arms, and holds on like she’s a buoy in rough seas, the only thing that can keep him from drowning. “I promise,” he tells her.
Then he waits for her to fall back asleep, and kidnaps their daughter.
He tells himself it can’t be kidnapping, because Aisling belongs to him as much as she belongs to her mother.
But he knows better.
Declan drives all night with Aisling sleeping in the backseat. They can’t leave the country yet, not until he puts together a fake passport for the baby. But he can at least put as much distance as possible between himself and his family. He hears the Amber Alert on the radio, but by that time he’s ditched the car for a hot-wired Pontiac and is halfway to North Carolina. When he’s too exhausted to keep his eyes open, he checks them into a motel, paying in cash. He’s taken $5,000 from the safe at the back of the closet, which should get them through the first few hurdles of the journey. Declan has accounts in banks all over the world, accounts that Lorelei doesn’t know about, and he supposes he should feel proud of himself that he’s so prepared. But he’s not proud, only profoundly sad that he’s so good at keeping secrets from the woman he loves. This is exactly the life he doesn’t want for Aisling.
He never wants her to learn not to trust.
He plays with Aisling on the dingy motel carpet while the press conference plays on TV in the background. Lorelei has wasted no time calling the cops on him. He can’t blame her.
He’s glad of it, actually, because he knows the High Council would prefer to conduct their search in secret. Having police bumbling around and getting in their way will only help Declan.
Still, he can’t stand to hear the pain in Lorelei’s voice.
“Please, Declan, bring her home,” she says, before a crowd of eager reporters. Aisling looks up at the sound of her mother’s voice, reaching eagerly for the TV screen. “We can figure this out together, if you just bring her home.”
He wonders what she’s told the police. Probably that her husband’s gone off his rocker.
He hasn’t given up on her yet. Now that she knows he’s serious, maybe she can still be convinced.
Declan gathers Aisling to his chest, trying to soothe her to sleep. He lets his eyes close, and he dreams of Lorelei’s tears.
His training taught him to get by on only a few hours of sleep, so it’s not long before they’re on the road again. Declan has a contact in West Virginia who’s more than happy to make the baby a new passport, for the right price. While he’s waiting for it to be ready, he and Aisling duck into a drugstore. He buys a pink stuffed bunny nearly as big as her head for her and a cheap burner phone for himself.
It’s a risk, but it’s one he has to take.
He dials Lorelei’s number.
“Declan.” She breathes his name into the phone, as if she’s afraid to scare him away. “Declan, what have you done?”
“I’m sorry.” He swallows hard, fights back the tears, presses his lips to Aisling’s forehead, reminding himself why he’s doing this, why he must. “I’m so sorry.”
“Is she okay?” Lorelei asks. “Please, just tell me that.”
“She’s fine. Of course she’s fine. You know I would never let anyone hurt her.”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
“I can’t come home, Lorelei. I can’t bring her back. It’s too dangerous.”
“Then tell me where you are.”
“So you can send the cops for me? Or Pop?”
“So I can come to you,” Lorelei says. “I know you, Declan. If you want to take Aisling away, hide her where no one will ever find her, you can do it. So you win, okay? I can’t be away from her. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come with you. Wherever you want to go, whatever you need to do. I’ll go. I’ll do it. Just tell me. Trust me.”
Her voice is full of pain—and love.
“What do you think?” Declan whispers to Aisling, ruffling her red hair. “Can we trust Mommy?”
At the word, Aisling bursts into tears. It’s the only answer he needs.
“Okay,” Declan tells Lorelei, hoping he’s not making the biggest mistake of his life. “Get a pen and paper, and I’ll tell you where to find us.”
He trusts his wife.
But he also knows his wife.
“Stay quiet, little girl,” he murmurs to Aisling as he nestles her carrier beneath a tree. She sucks at her pacifier and, he hopes, dreams of happier days. Declan has stationed them on an overlook that gives him a perfect sight line into the valley. Down there, in a deserted stretch of field in the heart of the Ozarks, Lorelei will come for her daughter. He lies flat on his stomach, camouflaged by the weeds, and raises the binoculars.
He’s been careful.
He chose a place he knows like the back of his hand, an open field easily surveilled from the surrounding hillside.
This oasis of wilderness is special to him; it’s where Le Fond first made face-to-face contact with him. Le Fond is his own name for the network of shadow warriors, a small joke with himself: La Tène means “the shallows,” so he thinks of these strange messages from the dark as “the deep.” With few exceptions, they exist for him as whispers, anonymous texts, faces hidden by cloaks and masks.
The young woman who met him here wouldn’t reveal her name or background, wouldn’t explain how she’d come to know about Endgame or why she’d chosen Declan to
