She had stood on the balcony just as Grens usually did, and she understood why; there was a special kind of peace out there. She’d sat in his worn leather armchair in the small library, saw the portraits on the wall of two young police officers in their brand-new uniforms, Ewert and the woman who must have been Anni. But she couldn’t rest. And it didn’t matter. It was enough that the children were. As she headed into the kitchen to fill a kettle with water and make herself a cup of tea, her phone rang. The only voice she wanted to hear.

“Hello, my beloved wife.”

“Hello, my beloved husband.”

They could have hung up after that. It was enough, no more explanation was needed.

But while they both held their phones they started to weep. First Piet, then Zofia. Not violently—just a slow, shared crying.

They were alive. They were uninjured.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be together again, Zofia, we can hold each other.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I found a solution. With a very wise man down here. He got something from me, and I got my freedom from him. We promised each other we would never meet again. Never have to see each other again. Sometimes it’s that simple.”

They wept no more.

Peace, that’s what they felt.

A calm that a body truly allows inside.

Chapter 59

Idon’t have any children.”

“Why?”

“Never worked out.”

Ewert Grens sat in an armchair surrounded by pillows with a gun pointed at his chest. And the only thing he could come up with to talk about was the daughter or son he never had, because that was the only thing that seemed natural.

“But there is one child I’ve thought about, who’s followed me, and who I’ve wondered about over the years—where she ended up, how she was doing.”

They looked at each other again. He’d been so sure she wouldn’t shoot. He wasn’t anymore. Her intense gaze was single-minded and defeated at the same time, though that was impossible, and somehow she stared straight through him in a way he’d never experienced before. No matter how long you live, no matter how many people you meet, there’s always something new.

“A little girl who hopped around her siblings’ bedrooms on one leg at a time. And who leaned her head on my shoulder when I carried her out.”

Her hand was just as steady, her gaze as sharp. She’d heard him, maybe even listened and understood, but she wasn’t letting it get close to her, not losing control for even a second.