GERALD
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Driving to the farmhouse was a blur of controlled focus.
Get there.
Get her there.
Execute the plan, which is simple and necessary.
I’d picked the location carefully. Remote. Undiscovered. Mine. The perfect place for… closure.
The meticulously kept grounds, all designed for illusion and safety. The kind of place a mother and daughter, finally reunited, would feel secure.
The contrast between the beautiful setting and the ugliness I felt inside, the cold purpose that drove me, was a twisted kind of poetry.
Seeing Mabel there, waiting, with my men nearby it was like a scene I’d replayed a thousand times in my head.
Older, yes, but still recognizable.
Still the woman who had smiled at me, who had tucked me into bed.
The duality of her existence was a constant,
