Claudia sat beside Charles on a long sofa. She held both of his hands in hers.
They were cold.
Charles barely seemed to notice. His eyes were fixed on the large portrait hanging above the fireplace—Ingrid Duvall, captured in paint exactly as she had been in life. The artist had rendered her with remarkable warmth.
She looked alive.
Claudia had tried speaking earlier. Sera too.
None of it reached him.
He just kept looking at Ingrid.
Inside his mind, however, the silence was deafening.
You deserved better.
The thought came again and again.
He felt too many things.
Regret pressed heavily on his chest. His wife had been murdered. His daughter stolen from him. And for nineteen years he had walked through the world completely unaware.
Nineteen years.
It sounded obscene now that he thought about it.
Nineteen years, Charles.
