He waited until the sound of the car had fully faded down the long driveway. Until the night had settled back into its ordinary sounds. Until he was completely certain there was no one left to hear him breathe.
Then he straightened up slowly from the shadow of the hedge. He stood in the dark of the driveway and looked at nothing for a long moment.
His daughter was with him.
Kalian had her or knew exactly where she was. I have other plans for that baby. Said the way you say something about a file, a document, a transaction. Not a child. A tool.
His blood was moving at a different temperature from the rest of him. He was aware of it, the heat underneath the stillness, the particular controlled fury of a man who knew exactly what he wanted to do and exactly why he couldn't do it yet.
He wanted to reach through the dark and find his uncle and make very clear, in terms that did not require words, what it meant to take a child from its mother as a distraction.
