She realizes Mike was the person on the other end of that call, refusing use of his friend’s private plane Gordon used to get here. They’ll have to fly commercial. There are daily direct flights from Austin to London, but she doesn’t know when they are. They can’t run so fast right now.

She dials Detective Ponder as they drive away, in case they’re not supposed to be leaving the country. They’re the police’s problem now.

She leaves a long message for Ponder. As she does she gets another call: the juvenile detention center. She quickly finishes her voicemail to Ponder and then listens to the center’s voicemail insisting she call back immediately, and she dials the phone with a hot, sharp fear in her heart.

58

Iris

It’s the same hospital that Julia was in when she first got sick, before they knew it was cancer. The hallways are the same, even when Iris is taken to a different ward.

Her daughter lies in bed, unconscious, her throat bruised, but breathing steadily, her heart rate echoed by a faint beep.

All of the words the officers said swirled around Iris’s head when she first got there: Found her in the cell. Looks like she tried to hang herself. The closet hook broke, though. But she’s taken something; she’s sedated. They’re running tests.

“Julia would never hurt herself,” she says again and again, and the officers and the doctors and the nurses all give her that typical patronizing look of endless understanding.

“No. She survived cancer as a child. She would never do it.” And then she thinks about wondering what Kyle was capable of, of what she was capable, and maybe Julia could do this.

The day becomes a haze. She holds Julia’s hand and waits for her to wake up. She makes phone calls. Grant has stayed home from school. She doesn’t want him here at the hospital seeing his sister like this. Hearing the words “suicide attempt.” Not yet. She asks Mike to check in on him and he offers to bring Grant to the hospital. She says no.

Ponder and Ames come in, and she stands. “I need to know who this man is. This Marland. Who is he?”

“He doesn’t seem to have a criminal background. Or any background. We believe Marland was an alias.”

“Ned must know.”

“Ned Frimpong is not talking,” Ponder says. “Neither is his father. They’ve gotten the Ghanaian ambassador involved now.” She leaves to make some phone calls.

Iris could tell them about the apartment Ned mentioned to her. But what other secrets still lurk there, secrets that could inflict further destruction on her family?

*  *  *