Page 68 of The Forgotten
“Emma, please, don’t ever do anything like that again,” Gabe pleaded with her. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“I was scared,” Emma cried. “I was calling for you.”
The officer smiled. “She just kept saying, ‘I want my dad. I just want my dad.’ She was terrified.”
Quinn didn’t need to see Gabe’s face to understand what those words meant to him.
“I will never lose you again,” Gabe promised. “Ever.”
“I don’t want to be lost,” Emma said. She held out her hand, putting her palm on Quinn’s damp cheek. “You’re my mum and dad now.”
“I think it’s safe for us to leave,” DI Delaney said as he took in the little family. “All’s well that ends well.”
“I love you, Emma,” Gabe whispered into Emma’s hair.
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“Let’s go home,” Quinn said. Her legs seemed to have turned to jelly, and she was shaking with relief.
“I’m hungry,” Emma protested, making them laugh.
“Of course, you are. Where would you like to go?”
“I want pizza and ice cream.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gabe said as he turned to walk out of the playground.
The police cars had sped away, and the onlookers were dispersing, smiling with relief that there had been a happy endingto this family drama. Gabe wrapped his free arm around Quinn. “Are you all right?”
Quinn gave Gabe a wan smile. “I never understood until today how vulnerable becoming a parent makes you.”
“Me either. Life will never be the same again, will it?”
“No, but I’m glad of it. I’m ready, Gabe.”
“So am I.”
Quinn followed Gabe into a pizza restaurant and sat down, glad to be off her wobbling legs. She was ready and excited for the future, but there were still two things she needed to do before the baby was born. She needed to find her biological father and finish out her contract with the BBC. Once that was done, she would never delve into anyone’s past again, not in a personal way. She’d been handed this gift/curse, but she didn’t have to use it, not unless she really wanted to, and watching Elise’s and Petra’s tragedies unfold had convinced her that she was more than ready to relinquish the sight.
EPILOGUE
APRIL 1347
The sea was as calm as a puddle after the rain, its blue-gray surface reflecting the puffy white clouds as they drifted across the aquamarine sky. A chill breeze moved through the newly greening branches, but there was a whiff of spring in the air. Avery stood on a cliff by the priory, gazing out over what remained of Dunwich. The devastation was unspeakable. Hundreds of houses had been washed away by twenty-foot swells, and St. Leonard’s was lost to parishioners forever. It was partially submerged in water, its tower rising out of the sea like the arm of a drowning man, begging for help that would never come.
The streets had been blocked by debris and silt for weeks, and many townspeople were still unaccounted for and presumed dead. For days after the storm, people wandered about, unsure of what to do now that they found themselves homeless and completely dispossessed. They searched for victims and anything that could be salvaged, but the sea had been cruel, leaving nothing but destruction behind. The waters had eventually receded, but not all the way. A substantial portion of the town was still underwater, the coast so eroded by the power of the storm that it simply vanished beneath the waves.
Avery pulled on the hood of his robe and began to walk toward what was left of Dunwich. He had two stops to make before he left for good. With Petra and Edwin gone, the bishop had been more than willing to forgive his indiscretions and allow him to return to Oxford after a period of further prayer and contemplation, but Avery refused. He no longer had any desire tobe a priest, nor did he have any ambitions for the future. His carelessness and arrogance lead to Petra’s and Edwin’s deaths, and although he still saw the taking of one’s life as a mortal sin, he no longer felt that his life was his to live.
Avery knocked on the door of Petra’s house. It had survived the storm but needed extensive repairs. The water had reached the house and flooded the ground floor, reaching almost to the loft and carrying off household goods and bits of furniture. Chunks of daub were missing from the walls facing the street, while the back walls were still damp even after all this time. Maude was in the house. She tried to restore order to what was left of her home, but her heart wasn’t in it, and the place looked a shambles. Elia and Ora were outside, hanging up laundry, their faces solemn and gray and their eyes downcast. They’d lost much the day of the storm, and neither girl would ever forget the sight of their mother and brother murdered by an angry mob. They were lucky to have been spared, and they both knew it.
Avery greeted Maude and stepped inside but remained by the door. Lord Devon sat at the table, eating a bowl of pottage. His face was still bruised and swollen, and his right arm rested in a makeshift sling and splints, having been broken in two places. He limped when he walked due the damage caused to his knee by a blow from a cudgel, but he was on the mend physically, if not mentally.
“What do you want?” Lord Devon asked, failing to invite Avery to sit down. He now knew, as did everyone else who survived the storm, that Edwin had been Avery’s son and that Petra had been his lover, both before he left Dunwich and after he returned. There was no love lost between the two men.
“I’ve come to say goodbye,” Avery said. “I’m no longer a priest, just a simple Franciscan friar. I leave Dunwich today.”
“Where are you bound?” Maude asked.
