After seeing Angela to her room, where she would be safe, O’Halloran returned to his studio living room, where Evan was waiting for him, nervously cracking his knuckles.

  “Now that she cannot hear us, you can curse me out in three stories if I have gone crazy, or ‘lost my mind,’ as you like to say. Or I can pour you some tea and explain everything. Look, we even have a pie.”

  “‘We,’ huh,” Evan muttered, his irritation growing.

  “Do not pick at words. You are my friend, and I trust you will keep your mouth shut. She climbed into my car herself. Gallagher, she is starting to speak.”

  “Wonderful. Hand her over to Leary. Let him…”

  “For now Angela speaks only to me. You cannot even imagine what happened today. I do not even know where to begin.”

  “You are a police officer and you do not know where to begin?” There was mockery in Gallagher’s voice now.

  “You are insufferable. Angela is starting to speak. We can finally move forward.” He turned his head and pointed at the table, where the word “HE” was still laid out in candies. “Look. She never pulled tricks like this at Molly’s. It was Molly’s son who frightened her, that damned idiot. She hid at the lake. Molly called me when she could not find Angela at home. Evan, she said my name.”

  “Oh, this smells like romance.”

  “Do not laugh,” Shane said, offended. He gathered the candies back into the bowl and switched on the cooled kettle. “This is not funny. Angela feels that I can protect her. She does not want to go back to the Daniels. And I thought that I could achieve more if she stayed here…”

  “And what about professional ethics? If the journalists find out, you will not get away with it lightly.”

  “I have already thought about that. Tomorrow we will make a statement. If journalists visit the Daniels in Coleraine, they will find nothing there except a pit where that extension once stood. We will say that Angela is under professional supervision. Tell me, who is going to check my apartment? I am a bachelor. I have lived alone and I still do. My residential complex is secured, besides. No one gets in unless I allow it.” In his agitation Shane did not even notice that he was taking the cups and pouring the tea, everything happening automatically. “Molly knows Angela is with me, but if I ask her, she will not spread it around.”

  “All of that is fine, but will you risk leaving her alone while you are at work? I think that is dangerous. She is from a basement and has no idea about modern apartments. She will set it on fire.”

  “Do not talk nonsense. She is not a savage. Molly has taught her a lot.”

  “I am afraid to leave my own children home alone, and that is why they sit with the neighbors until I come back. Thank God for them. Good people. But you cannot hand Angela over to the neighbors.”

  “I will think of something.”

  At last Shane sat down at the table. Evan began eating the pie Molly had given. In all the years of their acquaintance, Evan had never seen his friend so happy, although Shane himself clearly did not realize it. Shane was a complicated man, with his passions and flaws, and that was why he did not get along with women. He had never allowed a stranger into his sanctuary, his apartment. He was convinced that he would live without a wedding ring on his finger, that temporary affairs were enough. Evan had heard at the station that more than one woman was crazy about him, but Shane was not interested. He lived by his own principles and for his own pleasure.

  But what change was Evan witnessing now?

  Shane reminded him of a boy who had seen breasts for the first time. Both funny and sad.

  “Here.”

  Gallagher looked into the open notebook.

  “A drawing?” Then his eyebrows rose. “‘Shit’? She wrote that?”

  “Yes. That is what she called her offender.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “She learned that word while sitting in a basement?”

  “Evan, do you really think that a girl who dug her way up cannot learn a swear word?”

  He shrugged, then his gaze moved lower.

  “And what does ‘she is not’ mean?”

  “This is what I have been telling you. She talks to me. And if you had not come, I would have achieved more.”

  “So now I am the one to blame. Wonderful.”

  “I am serious.” Shane pushed the remaining pie toward his friend. “Eat, if you are not worried about calories,” he teased. Evan pierced him with a fierce look but pulled the pie closer. Shane smiled, then quickly became serious again. “We were talking about her family. She wrote that she has no family.”

  “Speaking of family. I came because I spoke to Dylan’s wife. A very unpleasant woman. Answered through clenched teeth. Fortunately, she confirmed that house number ten in Coleraine belongs to them. This is delicious.” Gallagher chewed, washed it down with tea, then continued. “She admitted that she and her husband moved out not so long ago, maybe a year and a half. Stan insisted, but did not explain the reasons to his wife. I took the opportunity and asked about the O’Flaherty family, about their son and about the girl. Mrs. Dylan said she did not like Judith and Greg, but her husband kept in touch with them. Timothy O’Flaherty, as the other neighbors said, rarely visited his parents, and when he did, they argued. But she knows nothing about a girl. She never saw any children in that house.”

  “So in general there is little information,” Shane sighed. “I am surprised this could not wait until tomorrow.”

  “You can consider that a preface. I am about to tell you something.”

  Shane tensed, sensing that he was about to hear something sensational. He was right.

  “Today the detailed forensic report came in. As your partner I read it, after which I started calling you. And you were… occupied.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Greg and Judith O’Flaherty were cousins.”

  After a minute of confusion Shane came back to life.

  “Wait… were they not husband and wife?” he asked.

  “This is where it gets interesting. Faye started digging and gave me the following information. They were not married. And never were, although people truly thought they were husband and wife. According to Jodie McCormack, the neighbor from house number four, the two were always attentive to each other and almost never apart. But Faye also discovered that Judith had previously been married to a certain Gary Banning. They are not divorced.”

  “But the neighbors never mentioned a third man in the O’Flaherty house.” Shane frowned, thinking. “So Judith kept her maiden name. And Greg is her cousin on her father’s side.”

  “But Faye found Timothy Banning,” Evan stunned him with the next piece of news. “Tomorrow we will try to find out more about him. If this is the same Tim, then he is the son of Judith and Gary.”

  “And where is this Gary Banning?”

  “That is something we still have to find out.”

  Shane took out his phone, found in the gallery the photo of the drawing from the textbook that Angela had made, and showed it to Evan. He studied it for a long time while Shane explained its meaning and his assumption that it had been drawn by a witness to the murder.

  “You think Angela saw it?” Gallagher whispered.

  “If she did, she can tell us a lot.”

  After Gallagher left, Shane changed into his home clothes, gray trousers and a dark blue T shirt with a small pocket on the left side of the chest. Then he decided to check on Angela. For some reason he assumed she had fallen asleep, since she had not come out even when the door slammed behind Gallagher.

  He knocked softly first, then pushed his head through the doorway.

  Angela was not asleep. She was flipping through a magazine she had found on one of the shelves. Fortunately, Shane was not a pervert, and the magazine contained human interest stories, cooking recipes and interior photographs.

  “Where is Toby?” he asked first.

  Angela nodded toward the armchair. The teddy bear lay on a pillow, covered with Shane’s sports jacket.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and interlaced his fingers. The veins on his hands stood out. The girl watched them with interest.

  “Angela, I have to ask you again. Do you want to stay here?”

  Without hesitation she nodded.

  “But I work. Will you be able to stay alone?”

  Silence.

  She will not. And what am I supposed to do, he thought, realizing he had to come up with something by morning.

  He did not trouble her with more questions, wished her good night and left. He tidied up the kitchen, then settled comfortably on the sofa and placed the notebook on his knee, writing down the new information.

  He read the written names aloud.

  “Judith and Greg O’Flaherty. Timothy Banning and…” A short pause. “Gary Banning.”

  Something fell with a crash behind him. Shane turned sharply and saw Angela backing toward her room. She had brought him the magazine, probably wanting to show him something interesting, but something had gone wrong.

  “Angela?”

  Tears streamed from the girl’s eyes. She was breathing rapidly, and Shane understood nothing.

  “What happened? Why are you crying?”

  She shook her head in fear and kept moving backward until she hit the wall.

  “Eh,” she cried. “Ga ry.” Her eyes darted around as if searching for something and not finding it. But she quickly understood, returned to the living room, picked up the magazine, flipped through several pages and opened it to an advertisement for a horror film. In one of the photos a villain with a chainsaw was depicted. She began pointing at him with her finger. “Yes. Yes. Ga ry.”

  Shane did not understand. He stood rooted to the spot, unsure how to react. Then he matched the sounds with the last name he had spoken.

  “Gary is bad?”

  It seemed she grew even more frightened.

  “Shane,” she sobbed, wanting to say more, but failing. She snatched the notebook from him, took the pen and wrote in very crooked, uneven letters with mistakes: PROTECT.