Anne
Six Weeks Later
My hand paused over the canvas when I heard a different kind of engine coming up our driveway.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my new studio, I watched Ethan climb out of a black van.
He went to the rear and began unscrewing the number plate.
To my surprise, there was another one beneath it.
I moved closer to the glass, paintbrush full of Eva’s blood still in hand.
He opened the doors and dragged two men out by their hair. Black hoods covered their faces; duct tape bound their hands and feet.
Ethan said something I couldn’t hear, kicked one of them in the ribs, then dragged them both across the block-paved driveway to the house. He vanished through the double doors, and I was still inspecting my brush when he returned for the third.
He was dressed all in black—tight long-sleeved top, matching denims. Not his usual style at all. All he needed was a balaclava and he could double as a burglar.
His head turned toward my studio and he waved, cheerful as a husband bringing home the shopping, before dragging the third man inside. This one had more fight in him than the others—though I supposed having clumps of your hair ripped out took the shine off resistance.
Ethan reappeared to park the van around the back of the house.
I began cleaning my brushes, curious about the trio now decorating the basement.
The door slid open, and his heavy footsteps entered my domain.
I didn’t need to look up to register his disdain for my chaotic workspace.
I could feel it radiating off him, the way heat came off kilns in a pottery studio.
“What goodies have you brought me?” I asked, turning to face him.
The haughtiness was more than his puffed chest or his swagger. It was the bedlam dancing in those dark eyes.
“The ones who live-streamed Jenny Sheehan,” he stated, closing the gap between us.
The words landed somewhere beneath my ribs and stayed there.
For all the chaos of my studio, he’d designed it so that nature seemed to be climbing in through the walls and windows—an open, light-drenched space that always made me happy.
Green pressing against the glass. My mess given a home instead of an apology.
So when the tears came, trickling down my cheeks even as I smiled, I let them.
Ethan cupped my face and wiped them away with his thumbs.
He didn’t tell me not to cry. He didn’t ask what the tears were.
He already knew—they were the twelve-year-old under the car, the girl in the closet, the woman in the victim statement who wanted to die, all of them told at once: someone came.
“I love you, Dr Hammond,” I said with a wobbly smile.
The once-foreign words came easier with time—easier still because of Ethan’s devotion.
“And I love you, Mrs Hammond,” he murmured, lowering his lips to mine.
Eleven months.
Eight months.
Eight months.
To ruin a child forever.
It would never have happened to a child from an affluent family. The system protected its own and processed the rest. But Jenny Sheehan’s men weren’t in the system anymore.
They were in our basement.
I wrapped my arms around Ethan’s neck and kissed him with a burning fervour, paint-stained fingers in his hair, his heartbeat steady against mine.
Killing would never be the same again.
It had a purpose now. It had a we.