Chapter 17 - The Balcony
"Rachel, no!" Adam grabbed my shoulder, but I twisted free.
I broke past the police perimeter, ignoring the yells of a state trooper behind me, and sprinted across the cobblestone terrace toward the front steps.
"Claire!" I shouted, standing on the lawn directly below the balcony. "Claire, look at me!"
Claire stopped screaming. She looked down through the iron railings, her face gaunt, streaked with mascara, her knuckles white where she gripped the little girl's arms. Maya was sobbing, her small body shaking inside her plaid school uniform.
"Don't come up here!" Claire wailed. "I'll jump, Rachel! I swear to God, I’ll take her with me!"
"No, you won't," I called up, my voice steady, dropping the anger, replacing it with the calm, desperate empathy of one mother speaking to another. "You love her, Claire. I know you do. You wouldn't hurt her."
Claire’s breath hitched. She looked down at Maya's dark curls, her hands trembling.
"You took care of her," I said, taking two slow steps up the front terrace stairs. "When she had the croup. When she scraped her knee. You loved her for seven years. But she isn't yours, Claire. And deep down, you've known it every single day."
"I wanted to be a mother," Claire wept, her voice collapsing into a hollow, broken whimper. "I just wanted to be a mother. Victor told me the mother had died in childbirth. He told me the family abandoned her."
"He lied to you," I said gently. "Just like he lied to me. He used us both, Claire. He used your grief to turn you into a kidnapper. Don't let him ruin Maya's life any more than he already has."
Claire looked down at the courtyard, where Victor was being shoved into the back of a police cruiser, cursing and thrashing against the officers. She looked at Julian Croft being loaded into an armored van.
Then she looked down at Maya, who was looking up at her with pure, innocent terror.
"Mommy?" Maya whispered through her tears. "I’m scared."
Claire’s grip loosened. The madness in her eyes seemed to extinguish, leaving behind only the crushing, bottomless sorrow of a woman whose world had collapsed into rubble.
"I know, baby," Claire whispered, smoothing Maya’s hair for the last time. "I know."
Claire sank to her knees on the balcony floor, releasing her grip.
Marshal Campbell and three female agents sprinted through the front doors, up the grand staircase, and onto the balcony. A female agent gently scooped Maya into her arms, while Campbell placed Claire Sterling in custody without resistance.
Two minutes later, the front door opened again.
The female federal agent walked out onto the stone terrace, carrying Maya.
Adam walked up beside me, his hand finding mine, our fingers interlaced so tightly our knuckles were white.
The agent carried the little girl down the steps and set her gently onto the cobblestones ten feet in front of us.
Maya rubbed her wet eyes with the back of her small hand. She looked at Adam’s towering, gentle frame. Then she looked at me.
She looked at my hazel-green eyes. She looked at the tiny dark freckle beneath my left lower lash.
She reached into her uniform blazer pocket, her small fingers pulling out the blue velvet ribbon I had seen in the library.
"You're the lady from the books," she whispered, her voice trembling. "And the gate."
I dropped to my knees on the stone driveway. I didn't rush forward. I didn't overwhelm her.
Instead, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the small, battered yellow paper party hat that Tess had kept beneath her pillow.
I set it gently on the cobblestone between us.
"We saved your place at the table, June," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "Your brother and your sisters have been waiting for seven years."
The little girl stared at the yellow hat. Then she looked up into my face, and for the first time, the fear in her eyes melted away, replaced by the deep, instinctual memory of a soul returning to its harbor.
She took one step forward. Then another.
And then June threw her small arms around my neck, burying her wet face in my shoulder.
May you like
Adam dropped to his knees beside us, wrapping his massive arms around both of us, weeping openly into his daughter's hair, while the sirens flashed blue and red against the afternoon sky.
***
