Page 95 of The Angel Maker

There is no rush.

Even so, he makes a series of calls as he is driven back from the funeral. By the time he arrives home, he has already established there is a local man named Michael Hyde, with a history of burglary and arson, who will be perfect for the task he has in mind.

Inside the house, he finds Eleanor is drunk. She often is. It was as though she too recognized that the life they have found themselves living was not what should have been. Nathaniel is unattended and crying. Leland lifts the baby from his crib and attempts to soothe it, the same way Alan did back in the church.

Hisactions are sincere. And yet Nathaniel continues to cry.

Leland suppresses the anger he feels. The truth is that he loves his son deeply. Even if Charlotte had been his—as she should have been—surely there would have been room in the world for Nathaniel too. And as he holds his son’s small body against his own, Leland imagines all the secret things he will teach him as he grows.

The ways he will shape him.

A few minutes later, Eleanor appears in the doorway, disheveled and unsteady on her feet. Nathaniel has been soothed into silence now, and Leland is rocking him gently against his chest, staring down at a small face that not only resembles his own but which reminds him of his father as well.

“Was he crying?” Eleanor sounds confused. “I thought I heard him crying.”

She leans against the doorway. Leland says nothing. There was a time when he thought a marriage might be helpful as a facade—a veneer of normality and acceptability—but he wonders how long it will be beforehe is compelled to add her to the burgeoning collection of angels in his secret garden at the back of the house.

But for now, he ignores her.

Nathanielmatters though. And as Leland continues rocking the infant in his arms, he knows the situation can’t continue as it is. There are times when he needs to be away for work, and if Eleanor’s attention cannot be relied upon, he will have to find another way to make sure his son is properly cared for.

That should be simple enough, he thinks.

They can find a babysitter.

Leland stopped outside the door.

There was an endless moment in which he could feel nothing but the blood pounding in his temples. When he could think of nothing but what the babysitter he hired, Peter Leighton, had ended up doing to Nathaniel.

Thirty years might have been expected to dull some of the hatred and loss, but they had not. Time held little meaning once you understood its true nature. Past, present, and future existed as one. The Edward Leland who had once walked down a long corridor to see what had been done to Nathaniel existed just as surely as the one standing here now.

But also the one who would put things right.

The one who will carry out God’s will.

He used the thought to anchor himself. A few short hours from now, there existed an Edward Leland who would right the wrongs that had been done and correct the blasphemous course the world had been set upon.

He unlocked the door before him and opened it.

Christopher Shaw was where Banyard had deposited him upon their arrival: slumped against the bare wall, bound and gagged. His face was scarred down one side, and now badly bruised on the other. As Leland walked slowly across to him, Shaw tried to flinch backward, but he was already pressed hard against the stone wall behind him and there was nowhere for him to go.

“Look at me,” Leland said.

The boy didn’t move.

“I said look at me.”

The boy did as he was told, raising his face and looking up at Leland. His eyes were wide and scared. There was pleasure to be taken in his fear, but Leland forced himself to remain impassive, leaning down and peering carefully at the boy’s features.

Searching for another glimpse of what he had seen at the café.

He leaned back. Sure now.

“I spent such a long time looking for you,” he said. “I always knew I’d find you eventually. I knew Alan wouldn’t be able to stay away from you forever—that he would want to look after you. That he wouldneedto. Because you are abhorrent. You shouldnever have been born. And deep down, I think you know that, don’t you?”

He reached down and brushed a strand of Shaw’s hair away from his face. The boy was so terrified that he didn’t even flinch. But there was something in his eyes that suggested Leland’s words had resonated with him. That on some level, Leland was only confirming a truth the boy had known his whole life.

He looked at Shaw’s scar. At some point, the boy had been badly injured. Someone else must have laid eyes on him and recognized that he was an abomination. Someone else had been driven to remove him from existence.

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