“It’s all so clear now. How weak you are.” She speaks with an eerie calm. “I should have gone to the train station with the chief. Gone to Boston and gotten rid of it. I could have been anything. I could have gone to college. But I believed you—and you promised me. You said we would make it out. That’s all I ever wanted. To get the fuck out of Hastings! But you’re a coward and a liar.”

The woods are dead quiet. The man with the shotgun, and my daughter—they are statues listening to this story. And Alice, how she weeps and buries her face into the side of her mother.

Daisy gets ahold of herself. Her face changes the way Alice’s does. In an instant.

Now come seconds that blur. Seconds that leave me stunned.

First, the words.

“Well, it’s done—so now we have to clean this up.”

And the shot. One shot, fired at Mick. Hitting him dead-on.

Chapter Fifty-four

Day eighteen

“Daisy!” Booth yelled out to her. Nic felt her head spin. She reached for the tree.

Reyes was on the ground. His eyes were open. His body still. He was dead.

The little girl was screaming now. “No!”

Daisy slapped her clear across the face.

“Stop it! Do you hear me? Mommy has to take care of things now.”

She turned the gun on Booth. He held the shotgun on her, though his arms were trembling.

“Put it down,” she said to him.

But even as his whole body began to shake, he did not let go of the shotgun.

“Roger—think about it. Do you know what’s been going on? We’ve been here this whole time. For ten years. Right under your nose. Living in that house right through the woods. Running the cons—on the roads, at the casino, it’s been so easy—and raising this girl. Your girl. Don’t tell me you’re not happy he’s dead.”

Booth was breathing hard, but said nothing.

“You wanted him dead when he said those things to you, right? Just now, when he told you how I never loved you? How I would never have your baby? He wasn’t lying. I was going to get rid of it. I kept it for him. I kept it because I thought he was a big man. I gave him your baby.”

Daisy laughed. It was sickening, like she was mocking the very core of his humanity.

“You wanted to pull that trigger just now, but you couldn’t. That’s why I could never love you.”

Nic moved farther behind the tree. The little girl pulled hard against her mother’s hold, even as her face began to swell.

Then, suddenly, Booth cocked the gun and held it higher. Aimed right at Daisy’s head.

“Why did he do all of this—kidnap Molly Clarke, then lure her daughter here?” Booth asked.