“I need you to set up email alerts for any mobile phone or data usage that happens on this number.” She wrote down Ruby’s new phone number and handed it to him. “Now, I realize we’re not supposed to have alerts going to personal emails, but this phone belongs to a suspect, and I’m sure you understand the need for urgency on this case. I wouldn’t ask you, but it’s Christmas Day tomorrow; there won’t be anyone manning the surveillance system, and if the person turns the phone on, to contact family, for instance, then there’ll be an opportunity there that we don’t want to miss.”

“You’ll need the DI to authorize that.”

“I will, of course, but he’s not in right now, and if you want to get home quickly … It’s on my head, shall we say.”

“Right, fine. I’ll do it. But then I’m out of here.” He hurried away, clutching the paper with Ruby’s number on it.

“Thank you, Eddie,” she said. “I love you, Eddie.”

She thought she heard him mutter, “Yeah, right,” before he disappeared from view.

CHAPTER

38

It happened that one of the children, in the course of his play, found concealed beneath a stack of corn a seal’s skin. Her eyes glistened with rapture—she gazed upon it as her own—as the means by which she could pass through the ocean that led to her native home. She burst into an ecstasy of joy, which was only moderated when she beheld her children, whom she was now about to leave; and after hastily embracing them, she fled with all speed toward the seaside.

—Charles John Tibbets, “The Mermaid Wife,” 1889

Constance

Friday, December 21, early morning

THERE ARE ONLY a few hours until she will be gone from this place forever. Ruby has left—she went last night so that she could start her journey in a different place from Constance’s, to make the tracks they leave behind them as confusing as possible. Soon Ruby will set off to catch the first train south, and later they will meet up to make the switch. Constance couldn’t have chosen a better guardian for Leonie; Ruby is a true friend. A savior. Without her, none of this would be possible. She stares at the hands of the clock, willing them to go faster.

When she hears it, she instantly remembers the tape. The small pieces of masking tape she put on the cameras, that she forgot to remove. He’s looked on the camera feed, he’s seen that some of the cameras are obscured. He’s come back, and he’s angry enough to make a noise loud enough to alert her. She gathers Leonie into her arms, runs and hides as quickly as she can. He’ll kill her if he finds her trying to leave. She knows this in her bones.