Danielle had killed her. Danielle had grabbed the gun and turned it back toward Anya, trying to pull it out of her grip, but it had been HER hands on the gun. While my hands had been on Anya’s arm, pulling her off-balance. But I hadn’t touched the gun. It was Danielle. I want to be clear about that.

Danielle’s mouth moved at me, but in the aftermath of the gun blast I couldn’t hear. I just stood, watching. Anya was dead. There was nothing to be done. It had been over in an instant. She lay on her back, eyes toward the endless gray sky, the snow beneath her, and I stared and saw snowfall settling on her open eyes. I stared and stared, like my eyes were dead as well.

Danielle grabbed my arm. She mouthed words I couldn’t quite hear. Shoving me back toward the car.

We had to get out of here.

It was a strange numbness. I was in shock, so Kyle sat me down in the snow and I held Grant while Kyle put the baby seat back in our car. Danielle walked away, behind the green house.

The cat in the window had fled. A few minutes later I saw it in the snow and thought for a horrifying second that someone in the green house had let it out and I got up and walked around and saw there was a cat door at the back. This must have been where Anya was living. Hiding.

Danielle came around the corner, on her mobile phone, whispering urgently. I couldn’t hear what she said and she turned and walked away from me.

Later, when the shock subsided, I would wonder who the hell Danielle was calling.

I still had the warning woman’s phone in my pocket. How had she been connected to Anya? I’d been too terrified to ask, to confess in front of Danielle and Kyle that I’d been offered a fortune to decline this baby. I held Grant closer to me.

“We have to tell the police. We can’t leave her here,” I said in a daze. Grant was looking up at me as I held him, eyes bright from the cold, sleepy. He had finally stopped crying after the shock and scare of the gunshot.

Danielle knelt before me. “You cannot tell anyone this happened, Iris. Ever. Do you understand me?”

“But…”

“Listen. They will take Grant away from you and Kyle. We have to go back to Saint Petersburg. Then to Moscow, just like we planned, and fly home. We do everything just like we planned after we picked up your son. We do not alter plans or deviate. We don’t leave early. Because this did not happen. Do you understand me? This. Did. Not. Happen. The Russians won’t care that she was in the wrong. She’s a Russian citizen and she’s dead because of us.”