Valerie hugged Callie to her chest and marched through the open door leading out of the house. She didn't look back. She deposited her bag in the back seat of Serena's Mustang and fitted Callie into the car seat with tender hands. The police on the lawn watched her, and no one moved or spoke.
Marcus followed her as far as the porch and called after her. He folded his arms over his chest in anger and annoyance.
'Do you want me to say I'm sorry?' he said. 'All right then, I'm sorry. But remember, I was innocent in all this.'
Valerie stiffened. Her back was to him. She turned around slowly, and her eyes were like stone. 'Innocent?'
'You know what I mean.'
Valerie didn't say anything more. She waited in silence. Her breath came and went in clouds of steam that dissipated into the cold air.
'Oh, for God's sake, come inside,' Marcus told her. 'What do you want from me?'
Valerie shook her head. 'I don't want anything from you,' she replied. 'I'll have someone come by to get my things.'
'You're not in any shape to be making decisions,' Marcus insisted. 'Take a few days with Callie. It's been a difficult week for all of us, and you need some time. When you come back home, we'll talk.'
Serena joined Valerie outside and climbed into the driver's side of her car and started the engine. Valerie stood by the open passenger door.
'I'm not coming back,' Valerie said as she got into the car and reached for the door. 'Goodbye, Marcus.'
Chapter Fifty-seven
The two of them drove in silence as the town gave way to the empty lands and the bright lights gave way to darkness. The highway felt familiar to Serena now, as if she had gone back and forth so many times that the distance to the city had grown smaller. It was still hours from dawn.
'Are you OK?' she asked finally.
Valerie twisted round and stared at Callie, who had drifted back to sleep with the motion of the car. She reached out a hand to touch the girl and then pulled it back so she didn't disturb her. 'I'm perfect,' she replied.
'Did you mean what you said?' Serena asked.
'About not going back? Yes. I'm done. I'm free.'
'Good for you.'
Valerie reached out and put a hand over Serena's on the steering wheel. 'I owe you my whole life.'
'You don't owe me anything,' Serena said. 'I should thank you. Seeing the two of you together restores a little of my faith.'
Valerie smiled. 'I used to think about all the terrible mistakes I've made in my life. Now I realize, without them, Callie wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be together. That can't just be an accident, can it?'
'Maybe you're right.'
'At least I won't wish I could go back and change them. Not anymore.' She added, 'I appreciate your doing this for me. Will Stride mind my staying with you?' 'It's fine,' Serena said. 'We'll both feel better knowing you and Callie are safe.'
She didn't say anything more. Instead, she thought about Stride and wondered where she would sleep herself tonight. It wouldn't be in their bed. It wouldn't be beside the man she'd loved for the past three years. They had both made their share of mistakes, and now she wondered where their mistakes would lead them and whether, like Valerie, she would be able to live with her regrets.
'Tell me something,' Valerie said. 'The woman who took Callie, this young cop, did you know her?'
'I met her this week, but I didn't really know her.'
'She escaped?'
'Yes, but don't worry, we'll find her. We won't let her get near you.'
'What was she like?' Valerie asked.
Serena glanced across the seat. 'What do you mean?'
'I mean, what was going through her head? How could she do this? I just want to understand.'
'It doesn’t really matter, Valerie.'
'I know, but I don't want to hate her.'
'She put you through hell,' Serena said. 'You can hate her if you want to.'
Valerie shook her head. 'That wouldn't accomplish anything.'
'All I know right now is that her own baby died,' Serena said. 'She couldn't deal with it. She became obsessed with Callie.'
Valerie was quiet. 'So she was desperate,' she said finally. 'I know what that's like.'
'Don't put yourself in her shoes,' Serena told her. 'She crossed lines you can't cross. It doesn’t matter how many bad things happen to someone. You don't do what she did.'
'I know, but I've been at the end of my rope, too.'
'That's the past,' Serena said.
She watched Valerie's face and saw exhaustion and emotion catching up with her. The roller coaster of the night was taking its toll. 'Why don't you get some sleep?' she suggested. 'We won't get to Duluth for another hour.'
'I'm not sure I want to sleep,' Valerie admitted. 'I want to be sure this is really happening. I'm afraid I'll wake up and it'll be a dream, you know?'
'It's not. You're both safe.'
'I'll sleep when we get there,' she said, but she leaned against the window anyway, and her eyes blinked shut. When Serena looked over again, Valerie was sleeping peacefully.
Serena was tired herself, and the dark highway was hypnotic, but she had plenty of adrenaline to keep her awake. Part of it was the knowledge that, like Valerie, she was about to be free, even though it wasn't a freedom she had sought or expected. Part of it was the knowledge that Kasey Kennedy was out there somewhere, and she didn't know how far Kasey would go or what she would do next.
I know what it's like to be desperate.
She followed her high beams down the lonely road and thought about Kasey on this highway as the fog gathered in a cloud around her. A young cop who was blind and reckless, toppling a set of dominoes that would leave so many people in ruins. She would have been alone on the road then as Serena was alone now, alone with the deer, lakes, and trees of the northland.
Except as Serena drove, she realized she wasn't alone.
As the road flattened into a long straightaway between the swamplands of the Indian reservation, she glanced into her mirror, and there they were again, a mile behind her. She had first spotted them five miles outside Grand Rapids, coming and going behind the shelter of the curves.
Headlights.
Kasey leaned against the wall of the old house, almost too tired to stand. She knew she had to keep going, but she didn't know how. She was bleeding again under all the bandages. When she touched a finger to her neck, it came away sticky and red. Her head throbbed. She was dizzy. She could barely hold the gun in her hand.
All she wanted to do was lay down. Lay down and sleep. Lay down and die.
She waited in the frigid night for her last chance. The harbor water lapped at the shore behind her, and she could hear the louder rumbling of Lake Superior on the other side of the street. Behind the dune. Behind Stride's house.
When she looked up and down the Point, she didn't see cops waiting for her. There were no squad cars, no flashing lights, no one patrolling in the shadows. There was only Serena and Valerie, at home where she had followed them along the deserted highway. She could see them in the front bedroom that looked out on the street. Bright lights were on, shining through the clean glass of the window. Valerie held Callie in her arms.
Kasey's heart broke, seeing Callie. Her anger came back, the same anger that had propelled her for the past week. Fury that her child was dead. Fury at God's mistake. Desperation to hold a child again. Crying, breathing raggedly, she coughed and tasted something wet in her mouth and realized it was blood. She staggered and propped herself up with a hand on the wall. The gun slipped from her fingers and hit the pavement with a clatter. She bent down and picked it up.