Page 97 of The Angel Maker

“Yeah, I get that.” She nods sympathetically. “Honestly? It’s a bit worse than usual, but we’ll get through it okay. Promise you.”

“I’m sure we will.”

“Trust me—I’ve done thisa thousand timesbefore.”

Hobbes smiles, and she moves away. He turns his head to the small window beside him. The world outside is dark, but after a few seconds the plane tilts slightly and the ground swings up into view. The flight path circles over the north of the city, and Hobbes stares down at the spread of black land far below. It is speckled with tiny lights, one standing out a little brighter than the others.

The fire in his house that Edward arranged in order to kill Joshua.

The one Hobbes knew would come to pass.

The sight of it empties him.

Money can buy many things. Right now, Peter Leighton, the babysitterhis brother hired to look after his son, Nathaniel, is already settling into life abroad under the new name Hobbes acquired for him. The money Leighton will receive every month until he dies will be sufficient to ensure his silence.

The plane tilts again, and the world outside swings up, the sight of the ground replaced by a blue-black sky filled with racing wisps of gray cloud. The cabin continues to tremble for a moment.

And then… it settles.

The stewardess is making her way back down the aisle and gives him a wink as she passes.

“Told you so.”

Hobbes smiles emptily and closes his eyes.

Right now, Joshua is wrapped in an extra blanket and is being comforted by the cleaning lady who arrived at the church soon after Hobbes left. An ambulance has been called. Joshua’s life with Hobbes is over, and his new life with his adopted family will begin a few short weeks from now. It will be a long time before they see each other again. And while all this is necessary, it feels like the valves in Alan Hobbes’s heart are crumpling one by one.

I love you so much, my beautiful boy, he thinks.

Do your best for now.

And then the plane flies higher, and the land below is invisible for a while.

It is April 15, 1986.

Edward Leland is walking down a long, narrow corridor, a nurse on one side of him and a policeman on the other. Despite the warnings they have given him, he is filled with hope. Nathaniel has been missing for over a week now—vanished off the face of the earth, along with his babysitter—and Leland had all but accepted his son must be dead. The grief and loss andragehave consumed him, soaking him through like torrential rain.

But now a baby boy has been found abandoned in a church.

Who else can it possibly be?

Leland walks into the room and looks down at the child. And then freezes. He gradually becomes aware of a terrible noise building in the air, and then realizes it is coming from him. It is something between a scream and a sob, an awful keening that grows ever louder and more desolate as he stares down atthe thing—he can no longer think of it as a child—that is lying before him.

Charlotte’s eyes are staring up at him from Joshua Hobbes’s face.

And he understands what has been done to Nathaniel.

Standing there, the horror building inside him, Leland can see it all in his mind’s eye. Alan has organized it all so carefully. Using their father’s book, he has learned how Leland was intending to correct the course of the world by killing Joshua. And even though a part of him must surely have recognized the blasphemy of his actions, he made the choice to save his son. He arranged for Nathaniel to be abducted and delivered to him. And then he swapped the infants, so that instead of Joshua, it was Nathaniel who perished in the fire.

The fire that Leland had arranged.

The fire that killed his own child.

He blinks.

“Not him, right?” the officer says.

Leland will realize later that, had he better control of himself in this moment, he should have pretended it was.Yes, he should have said.Yes, it’s my son.Even if they didn’t believe him, all he would have needed was enough time alone with the infant. And he knew that God would have nodded along in encouragement of his actions. But reason has deserted him right now. He is too consumed by the horror of what Alan has done.

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