She loved her line the way a miser loves a hoard.

I loved my daughter the way you love the air in your own lungs, and a person fighting for a hoard will always, in the end, lose to a person who has simply stopped counting the cost.

At the far end, by the altar, stood Ottoline in a dark raincoat, her gray hair plastered to her skull.

Beside her stood the man from the footage — Cordis Weatherby — a heavy flashlight in one hand, a canvas duffel in the other.

And behind them, wrapped in a wool blanket, her wrists loosely bound to a chair with what looked like soft cloth, was my daughter.

Chapter 17 — Mommy