“Yeah?”
“Was the woman you helped today worth all this?”
Her question hurt, although I knew she wasn’t trying to wound me.
Everyone looked toward me.
I crouched so we were face-to-face.
“Yes.”
Sophie frowned.
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
“Why?”
“Because if you ever fall on the side of a road, I want whoever sees you to stop.”
Her eyes filled again.
I gently touched her cheek.
“We don’t decide whether kindness matters based on whether it rewards us.”
Then I looked toward Lucy.
“We do it because somebody has to.”
Once the girls had left, Eleanor remained quietly in my kitchen.
“You have good girls.”
“They have a good mother.”
“And father.”
I couldn’t find an answer.
By midnight, investigators had traced Marcus’s disposable phone.
He hadn’t gone to the airport after all.
He’d driven north toward an abandoned Vale construction site.
Claire recognized the location immediately.
