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Not a week ago Kingsley had wished to see a world without Nora Sutherlin in it Had that stray, bitter whiht this upon them? He was no fool A world without Nora Sutherlin was a world without Søren If the priest lost his Little One, especially if her death happened because of so Søren had done, no matter how inadvertently, it would mean his destruction Søren couldn’t live in a world without Nora Kingsley couldn’t live in a world without Søren Her death would be like the sinking of a great ship She would take thee of his desk, his forehead in his hand Ma soeur, what have you done? And what had they done, he and Søren, as boys? How uilt did he bear for this crie would be one in na else But Marie-Laure, vain and mad with love, refused to accept that

Did he say he loved you?

Nonbut he should He must He’s my husband

He told you why he married you He did it for us, Marie-Laure, to help us

I don’t want his money I want him

You can’t have hisley had no answer No, he did have an answer but one he couldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell her Because he’s mine, not yours, he could have said Because he loves me, not you, he wanted to say Because I’d rather see you dead than let him touch you the way he touches ht was the one that haunted Kingsley for the past thirty years He never uttered it, only in his uilt of how e of his desk, staring out onto the ht city, he conjured that horrible round His targets were all demons back in his days as a Jack-of-all-deadly-trades for the French governsley put a bullet in those chests He aimed for the heart and left easily identifiable corpses They ht be demons but they came from somewhere and he knew someone would want a body to bury in an open casket He could at least give them that After all, the body he’d seen at his feet the day he thought Marie-Laure had diednothing before or since, not even seeing his parents in urns, had turned his storay matter oozed fro but a bag of bones Only her left hand had survived the fall The wedding band on the ring finger had shone clean and bright and golden in the sunlight Not dented, not scraped, not bloodied That’s how he should have known the ring had been planted on the dead girl’s hand

And the dead girlas she? Kingsley had barely glanced at the newspaper article Søren had uncovered A young runaway fro to America for a better life What did she run from? An abusive father? A broken heart? Poverty? Or was she running to so, or someone? Whatever reason, she deserved better than to die like that, her body so torn up by the rock that had killed her they’d had to carry her away in two bags It seeirl had been the victi from the cliff to her death He and Søren had had to abandon the herirl had taken refuge there in the winter and Marie-Laure hadwalks Had his sister befriended the girl? Had they shared confidences? Did Marie-Laure tell the girl all about her marital troubles? The husband ouldn’t touch her? Did Marie-Laure lure her to the edge of the cliff and push her to her death? Her shock at seeing hisley had wanted her to see theether, had timed his confrontation with Søren in the hopes Marie-Laure would discover them in some state of passion or undress Then she would know the truth without either of the to tell her Then she could see how sley, not her Then she would understand the truth and erous games after dark, as Søren had said So foolishly wrapped up in lust for each other they never even noticed that Marie-Laure was playing her own dangerous game with theround And that left Kingsley with no choice but to do nohat he o

He would see his sister dead

The phone rang and Kingsley answered it in an instant

"Report"

"I miss you, monsieur," came a rich, honeyed voice on the other end of the line "How is that for a report?"

Kingsley sighed as he felt tension releasing from his body like air fro the rules," he teased Hearing her voice, her laugh, was everything he needed and the last thing he wanted

"You can punish me for it when I come home I know you told me not to call until you said I could, but I had to hear your voice It’s been a week"

"A very long week, sley ran a hand through his hair and wished it was Juliette’s hand on hiether He needed Juliette’s touch to restore hiain But that would have to wait

"Let me come home Let me take care of you It’s my place"

"You have to take care of yourself now It’s not safe here" He wanted to say more, to tell her the truth of what had happened The risk was too great, however No woman in the world submitted more beautifully in the bedroom and acted so independently outside of it If she kne bad it had gotten, she’d be on the next flight back to the city, his orders be damned "You can come home when it is safe No sooner"