CHAPTER 96

GRANT

Three Weeks Later

We're finally leaving the house where all this took place. Sophie and I have each packed a single suitcase. Her dolls, her books, her furniture, her clothes ... it's all staying, as is everything else Perla and I collected over the course of our marriage. Sophie has her journal, and I have my bird-watching book. We have our toothbrushes, a few changes of clothes, and enough money in our account to move anywhere in the world we want to live.

Two decades ago, George and Janice started a whole life insurance policy in Perla's name. They paid premiums on it until their death, and the equity continued making payments on the policy after that. I wasn't aware of it, and we don't exactly need the payout, so I put the $3 million into a trust account for Sophie, which will be accessible on her thirtieth birthday.

I quit my job, leaving the team in a bit of a lurch, but I couldn't think about statistical anomalies or database infrastructure, not with everything that had happened.

Today, we're setting out in a thirty-two-foot RV, driving across the US, and seeing what part of the country fits our fancy. By the time we find a place, Perla's apartment complexes and our house will have sold, and all ties to California will be gone.

"Okay, I'm ready." My daughter climbs into the passenger seat and smiles at me. I'm not comfortable with what she did to get me out of jail. But I can't argue with her results. In addition to the bathtub-drowning attempt, she told a few other stories ... small things, but when combined with Paige's accounts, they all helped to exonerate me and incriminate Perla.

On our way out of town, our first stop will be Lancaster Prison, where we will pick up a package that Leewood left for Sophie. She's very excited by this and has mentioned on several occasions that she wants to write a book about Leewood's story and "what really happened" at the Folcrum Party.

I'm sure it will be a bestseller. A bestseller inked in and paid for by blood. I've tried to talk her out of it, but she got her stubborn streak from Perla.

I'm terrified she got something else. Maybe her mother's love of lies? Maybe her detachment? Her broken moral compass or her need for attention, damn the costs?

It's probably just paranoia, but I'll be watching my daughter very closely. Looking for the clues that I missed in her mother. Working every day to try to show her the importance of honesty, kindness, and humility.

It's not lost on me that I have more in common with Leewood than I ever dreamed possible. I sat across from him for hours, judging him with such contempt—yet I'm not sure how different we really were. He was a single father and a widower, just like me. Both of us loved, and then tried to kill, the same woman. Both acts spurred by a fatherly duty. And we both were locked up as a result. I got free; he did not.

There is a common occurrence in birds when a young bird is killed by its parent or sibling. It generally occurs when resources are scarce, and is a strategy to reduce their competition. Some parents encourage it, while others prevent it. A parent's likelihood to participate in infanticide or encourage siblicide is often based on cost and effect, and can be broken down into an algebraic equation, where the level of parental investment in an entire brood is given an absolute maximum value and could calculate a measure of future reproductive success, based on that value and the cost of reproduction.

We didn't have an entire brood in which to gauge our level of effort and dismissal. Sophie had no competition for our resources. There is no mathematical equation to explain why Perla thought she was expendable, or that the removal of her from our lives would strengthen or improve them in any way.

"Dad." Sophie gestures impatiently for me to put the RV into gear. "We getting this show on the road or what?"

I love her so much it hurts. I would kill for her again and serve a lifetime behind bars if it means keeping her safe. I am a peregrine falcon, claws out, ready to take on any predator and fight to the death to protect my young.

"Yeah." I put my foot on the brake and pull the gearshift into Drive. "Let's get out of here."