Page 11 of The Angel Maker

Red car.

“What—?”

But then she heard a buzzing sound. Her phone ringing—over on the table. She stood up and walked across, shivering slightly, caught off-balance.

She registered the number on the screen and answered the call.

“Mom?”

“Katie?”

Her mother sounded disorientated. Upset. Which frightened Katie, because weakness had always been the very last thing her mother would show the world.

Something terrible has happened.

“It’s me, Mom. What’s wrong?”

For a second, there was no reply. Just a hiss of static on the line.

“It’s Chris,” her mother said softly. “It’s your brother.”

Four

A couple of minutes later, Katie was back on the couch pulling her boots on, her fingers trembling slightly. Sam walked in from the kitchen and leaned against the doorframe.

“Who was that?”

“Just Mom.”

“What did she want?”

“I’m not sure. Something to do with Chris. I’m heading over now.”

A moment of silence.

“Is he dead?” Sam said.

Katie stopped and looked up. Her husband had his arms folded in a way that reminded her a little too much of Mrs. Field earlier. She looked down and knotted her laces too tightly.

Is he dead?

The last time she had seen Chris was more than two years ago. It had been on what should have been their father’s birthday, except that Dad had died three years earlier, and what was left of their family had gathered at her mother’s apartment in his memory. She and Sam arrived early with Siena to help her mother prepare a meal. Chris turned up later. He was allegedly no longer using, but there had been too many betrayals over the years, and Sam had been skeptical beforehand. His patience had always beenthinner. Katie had looked at Chris carefully when he arrived. That was something she had become used to doing—trying to work out what stage he was at in the endless cycle of addiction—but that day she found him hard to read.

Regardless, her mother was overjoyed to see him. Katie remembered how she’d bustled around the kitchen, happily batting away the offers of help she and Sam tried to make while Chris played with Siena in the front room. But when Katie had taken the first of the dishes through for the table, she had found her daughter abandoned on the couch. Because her brother had already snuck out by then, along with the money he had found in her handbag.

And despite her mother’s protestations, Katie had called the police.

And none of them had heard from him since. She and Sam had never spoken about it, but she imagined that, as time had passed, they had both made the same assumption: at some point there would be a body found in some shabby apartment, or an old tent, or facedown in the canal. It had always seemed the inevitable destination of her brother’s life, and even if Sam had not quitewishedfor that outcome, she knew he had at least been relieved to have Chris gone from their lives.

She reminded herself now that was only because Sam cared about her. That it stemmed from what he’d tried to get her to accept over the years: that people choose their own paths, and however much you love them there comes a point when they have to take responsibility themselves for the journey they’ve embarked upon.

And that it’s not your fault when they do.

Is he dead?

“I don’t think so.” Katie stood up. “But she didn’t want to talk over the phone.”

“What does that mean?”

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