Law is not justice. Even a lawyer used that phrase.
"I won't put her through this. We contain it here and now," Pierce vowed.
"Nick will back you. ASI won't divulge a thing. And you know Gen and Kelly will do what you ask, they consider you part of the family."
"And Harvey left before we heard about the ledger," Pierce offered. I wondered who Harvey was. But he'd obviously been here earlier and now was gone, and he was clearly not part of ASI or a friend. Maybe a partner? Another detective?
"So, that's your choice?" Dominic asked. Pierce nodded. Both men let out long breaths of air. "Good luck, then," Dominic murmured, shook his head and then walked out of the door without a backwards glance.
Silence wrapped around us, thick and uneasy. Weighted in lies and deception, and the criminal filth that was McLaren's mark.
This was wrong. I knew it with all my heart, that it was the wrong thing to do. But I couldn't deny a part of me was relieved, and utterly blown over by Pierce's fierce position on all of this. By the fact that I remained out of the spotlight, free not arrested. Able to care for my daughter and not have her visit me behind bars.
Daisy's safety was always forefront in my mind. If the ledger remained missing and my association with it forgotten, then I had a better chance of keeping Daisy safe and happy.
Didn't I?
Two jeans clad legs appeared in front of my vision. I'd been staring numbly at the floor before the settee. Ryan crouched down until he was at eye level, a sadness laced with conviction stared out at me from dark chocolate tinted eyes.
"Are you OK with all of this?" he asked, reaching up and touching my cheek. He seemed unable to resist touching me for long. I liked that he could openly reach for me now, but how long would it take for this decision to come between us? For him to realise I was not worthy of his touch.
"No," I replied quietly. "And neither are you."
"Marie," he began, but I sealed his lips with a soft brush of my own, feeling for the moment a type of bitter-sweet bliss, before it was ripped away forever.
"I need to see Daisy," I announced, standing up before he could deepen the kiss as he'd obviously been intending.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, a hint of wary fear looking back at me from his handsome face.
"Just talk," I said over my shoulder, letting his fingers slip free of my hand. I didn't add aloud, for now. But I thought it.
I walked in a numb kind of haze through the house searching for my daughter. She wasn't in the penguin painting room, or the room where she'd been sleeping. She wasn't in the kitchen, but as soon as I walked up to the sink, I could see her out of the picture window, swinging on the swing beneath the Cherry Tree, while Abi, Kelly, Genevieve and Eva looked on from the deck.
I wasn't sure where all the ASI men had gone, but for now their absence was a bonus.
I walked out, smiled at the chatting women, but didn't get drawn into their cheerful conversation, and headed straight over to my girl. She was singing softly to herself as she swung her legs underneath her seat, and then let them fly out in front.
And the song? It wasn't a Country tune, like those Eva had been singing. It was Daisy Bell.
She beamed at me as she kept singing, so I walked behind her and started to gently push. Before long I couldn't stop myself singing the last few lines of the song with her.
"It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford the carriage, but you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two."
"Daisy," I said, feeling my throat constrict and tears threaten my eyes. "I need to talk to you, sweetheart."
"OK, Mummy," she said merrily, slowing the swing as I walked out in front of her and knelt down in the grass.
The swing slowed even further when she saw the look on my face.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her little legs barely touching the ground beneath the seat. Each bare toe stretched like a ballerina’s in order to still the motion of the swing completely.
Where to start? And how much to tell a five year old?
"I loved your father," I said softly, and watched as her eyes widened in utter surprise. I'd never talked about Rick. Hell, I wasn't entirely sure if she knew his name or not. Time to change that. "His name was Richard Costello, but I called him Rick."
"Rick," she repeated, testing the name on her tongue.
"He wanted to give me the world, and that would mean, you the world too."
"The world?"
"Buy expensive things, live in a fancy house, drive a flash car. Those sorts of things."
"Oh," she said, her eyes lighting with possibilities.
"But those things cost money, Daisy-girl. And when I knew your Daddy, we didn't have much money." She slumped on the swing seat, not liking that part of the story. Well, this was never going to be a fairytale, was it? "I didn't mind that we didn't have money, I was happy to be with Rick. But your Daddy, he had big plans, big dreams. Ideas that needed money. And he didn't want to wait."