“Then who?”
“A woman who may find herself threatened by Lowery. A woman your father and uncle once rescued.”
Dax stopped walking. Shook another peanut into his mouth, cracked the shell, spit out the shell. Waited.
“Did you hear me?” Lambkin said.
“Sure.”
“No interest in that story?”
“I’m skeptical about your word choice,” Dax said. “Rescued? If the woman wasn’t family, and I’m quite sure she was not, then she probably paid for assistance.”
“She paid,” Lambkin acknowledged. “But not nearly as much as Lowery would have paid them to kill her.”
This was the past-due bill, the one outstanding invoice. Dax felt his interest rise and tamped it down. Grudges were a fool’s game. He’d been taught this from the beginning. “Can she outbid him now?” Dax asked.
“I…I don’t intend to find out,” Lambkin stammered. “The job is for her. Period.”
Dax shook another peanut into his mouth. Didn’t speak.
“It’s a deal-breaker for you, then,” Lambkin said. “Going up against that kind of outfit. I understand. The risk versus the reward is too high.”
“That’s your opinion of it?”
“It was my expectation, at least. It’s one thing to work for them and something very different to work against them.”
“And still you called.”
“Wasted breath,” Lambkin said resignedly.
“And still you called,” Dax repeated.
“She’s a good woman in a bad spot. She’s alone. Just her and two children.”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“No.”
“Prudent choice. You wouldn’t want to be in bed with her when they come to murder the family.”
“She’s a good woman in a bad spot,” Lambkin said again, “and all I promised her was that I would try. You’re a clever young man. You understand that my options were limited. I shouldn’t have called, though. It’s too great a challenge. Any freelancer who took a job against an outfit with that reach and those resources would be on a suicide mission.”
“You were hoping to send me on a suicide mission, then?”
“I was hoping to find someone who thought he’d at least have a chance of success. I don’t think there are many with your family’s…appetite for a challenge. Of course, you’ve seen the price of that now, so you know better.”
Dax smiled. It was a tight, unpleasant smile. It had been a long time since his father and uncle died, and still he couldn’t take remarks about their demise in stride. He didn’t mind that, though. Why should you ever learn to take events of mortal consequence in stride? With your own loved ones, at least. That was the sticking point. He could make peace with events of mortal consequence for most of the world, himself included, but family? Family should be different.
This was how he had been raised.
“It’s a good pitch,” he told Lambkin. “I like every word of it. A little bait with the opponent, someone for whom I might already harbor feelings of resentment. Then an appeal to the heart—which was surprising, I have to say—with that reference to the woman and her children. The nostalgia of my family’s past involvement. And finally, the taunt—saying that my father and uncle might’ve been bold enough for this job, but I am not.”
“That’s not what I was—”
“Come on.”
Pause. “All right, the assessment is closer than I’d like. But it’s not entirely accurate.”
“What did I miss?”
“Sincerity,” Lambkin said. “Every now and then, a bit of work will come your way with sincerity, Mr. Blackwell. The man in the middle won’t have any skin in the game. He’ll speak honestly to you, asking for the unique help that only a few people on the planet can provide. And if you accept, for one occasion at least, you’ll have the pleasure of working with a clean heart if not clean hands.”
“You wound me.”
“I mean what I say. I’ve spent more decades in darkness than you know. There comes a time in our line of work when even a single clean day feels like a gift.”
“Anyone who is in the crosshairs of people like Lowery is not living cleanly.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“I live in hope. But unfortunately, Mr. Lambkin, I’m not taking work at the moment.”
“I’m not sure there is work at the moment. There may never be work. For that matter, she may already be dead.”
“Happens to someone every day.”
“Indeed. She understands this better than most. I said that I would make a call. I’ve done that, and you’ve declined to help. No one will be surprised. She probably had less faith in the possibilities than I did.”
“It all sounds quite tragic.”
Lambkin sighed. “Nothing more to say. You’re declining, and I understand.”
“Not exactly. You said there was no work yet. I said I wasn’t working. So far, we seem to be meeting each other’s needs just fine.”
Don’t toy with him. Don’t leave the door cracked. Because a man like him will come back, and you know it.
On cue, Lambkin said, “So if I were to call again, you’d listen.”
Dax rattled the peanuts. Stared across the bright street, the sunlight reflecting on pale stone.
“Yes,” Dax said. “I will listen.”
He hung up the phone and pocketed it. Opened and closed his hand, feeling the muscles work along the knitting bones. There was still a throb in the nerves near his elbow but it was a faint pain and he’d grown almost fond of it. It was the right kind of pain, the kind that didn’t derail your future but didn’t let you forget its point of origin either.
He shifted the bag of peanuts from one hand to the other and walked on down the dusty street toward the sea.
7
The first time Leah was alone with her children was in a grief counselor’s office just down the hall from the courtrooms where custody was decided in cases where tragedy had struck the unprepared. Leah wasn’t among the unprepared. Not on paper, at least. In front of the kids, though?
There was no preparation for that. They didn’t know her, certainly didn’t trust her.
“Why didn’t you ever visit?” Nick asked. Nick, her sweet baby who had loved to reach for her earlobes with his chubby fist. He now had Doug’s broad jaw and light complexion, a scattershot of faint freckles across each cheek.
“I should have,” Leah said. “I know that, hon. It was a mistake, and I’m sorry. Your father and I didn’t do a good job of staying in touch. But I should have visited.”
“Yes,” her son agreed. “You should have.”
Beside Nick, Hailey kept a dubious eye on Leah. She didn’t have any of Doug’s features; she was all Leah. A lean face that could become a blade when she turned angry; dark embers of eyes beneath raven-black hair; the colt legs that Leah remembered from her own youth, that sudden summer of growth, what seemed like five inches in three months. Hailey was on her way to that now, standing only a few inches short of Leah’s five nine.
“I think we should be able to stay with Mrs. Wilson or with the Copelands,” Hailey said. “They actually know us. We know them. Mrs. Wilson is on the same street. She already said she’ll take us!”
Leah listened, patient. The conversation was on a loop. It had been the same with the counselor, and now it was beginning to play again in their first minutes alone.
“Trust your father,” Leah said. “You don’t have to trust me. I haven’t earned it yet. I will, I promise you that, but right now you need to trust your dad. He arranged all this because he loved you. Because he wanted to be sure you were always safe, always loved.” She fought to keep the tremor out of her voice. “He established the guardianship agreement to protect you.”
“He barely knew you! Our mom’s been dead for ten years and just because you’re her sister doesn’t mean you have any right to…just take us.”
“He established
the guardianship agreement,” Leah repeated.
“You could move in,” Nick suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have to move out.”
Leah felt like she was flying, but there was no joy to this sensation. She was simply adrift, without touch or command.
“We will not be able to stay,” she said. “I’m very sorry about that. But it isn’t an option. We will be together, and we will be a family, but—”
“We are not a family!” Hailey snapped.
Her daughter was beautiful when she was angry. That intense face, those flashing eyes. Closer to a woman than a child now, but still with the same expressions she’d had as a little girl, the same—
Doubt. She has always looked at you with doubt.
Maybe not always, but it was the expression that Leah remembered most.
“You’re all the family that I have,” Leah said. “That means more to me than you know. It’s sacred.”
Hailey crossed her arms over her chest but didn’t speak.
“You look like our mom,” Nick said thoughtfully, tilting his head as if to consider Leah from a new angle. “Dad had a couple pictures. You look just like her.”
Leah felt a momentary panic. Before she could answer, Hailey did.
“Mom’s hair was fuller.”
True. Leah’s hair was quite thin along the line where a man had once torn a hank of hair and flesh from her skull. She wore it up almost always now, pulled back to hide the place where it would never grow again.
“She did have better hair,” Leah said.
“And cheekbones,” Hailey said, and then, flushing, “sorry, I don’t mean—”
“It’s fine.” Leah suppressed a smile.
“They do look alike, though,” Nick insisted, and Leah decided to redirect this conversation. The more time she spent under the microscope, the closer she would come to breaking down and telling them the truth. There would be a moment for the truth, but it was not now. It would come when they were ready. When she knew that they were safe.
“Well, we were sisters,” she said. “There are always similarities, you know. What did your dad tell you about me?”
Nick answered immediately. “He said that you were the only person we should call if anything bad ever happened. And to do it fast.”
Hailey shot him a reproachful look, but he didn’t notice. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sat forward on the cheap sofa. “He said when we were older, we’d all get together then, but not until—”
“Nick, be quiet,” Hailey said. “She doesn’t get to just show up and ask questions.”
“I do, though,” Leah said, her voice soft but firm. “For better or worse, hon, I do, because for better or worse, I am your family. I know that is upsetting to you right now. But it’s true. Your dad made sure you remembered who to call if you needed someone. That wasn’t my instruction; that was his.”
Hailey tried to pace away but the room was so narrow that she couldn’t go far. There was a plastic plant in one corner of the room, a ridiculous imitation of a tropical tree, and Hailey leaned against the wall beside it as if seeking shelter.
“He told Hailey, mostly,” Nick said. “I didn’t get to practice the phone call.”
Leah loved him so much for that undercurrent of petulance, the heartbreaking humanity of the little brother who didn’t want to be left out. She was seeing the dynamic between them already, understanding it and loving it—Hailey the protector, and Nick wanting every privilege already granted to her, wanting the years between them to mean nothing.
“I saw you when you were young,” Leah whispered to Hailey, who was still standing with her arms folded across her chest, her lithe frame almost trembling with fear and anger. “You don’t remember it, but we were together, and I said that I had to go, and I promised that I would see you again sometime. I kissed your forehead. I told you…”
Her voice broke then, and a single tear ran from her left eye. She wiped it away and took a shuddering breath and tried to gather herself.
A small, sunburned hand touched hers. Nick reaching for her. Eleven years old and trying to comfort her. Leah had intended to project nothing but warmth and strength, but that single tear had thawed even Hailey, who pushed off the wall and took a step forward but didn’t fully bridge the distance.
“I’m not trying to be awful,” Hailey said, and Leah had to bite her tongue to keep the swell of emotion down.
“You’re being so brave,” Leah said, her voice thick. She cleared her throat. “You’ve both been so brave, and it’s such a terrible time…all I can do is promise you that I am here to keep you safe. We will get through it together. Okay? Together.”
Nick nodded. Hailey remained motionless.
“You need to trust your dad now,” Leah said. “You know that he loved you. The two of you know that better than anything in the world, don’t you?”
Silence. Nick nodding, Hailey watching.
“You trusted him,” Leah said. “And he trusted me. I need you to remember that.”
“Where are we going?” Nick asked.
Leah wondered about recording devices. It was supposed to be a grief counselor’s office; why would they record? But you never knew. “We’re going to my home,” she said finally. “It will be your home now. You’ll like it in time, I think. It is all going to take time.”
Hailey finally broke her silence. “I don’t want to go,” she said. “I don’t want to leave.”
Leah gave her daughter a broken smile. “I know exactly how that feels. But sometimes we don’t get a choice.”
She tried to give them hugs then. Nick accepted, hesitantly at first, then squeezing her fiercely, and even though she understood that he would have hugged almost anyone on a day like this, it took her breath away. Her son. Her baby.
When she reached for Hailey, her daughter offered only a one-armed squeeze before pulling away, opening the door, and walking out.
Leah watched her go and thought, That is fine. Because you called. You did the hardest thing. The rest is up to me.
“We’ll be okay?” Nick asked. A question, not even a hopeful one, just sincere.
“You’ll be okay,” Leah told him. “I promise.”
8
She called Doc Lambkin, told him that she was safe, that the kids were with her, and that she’d seen no sign of trouble. Nonetheless, she said, was there any chance he’d made his call?
He had.
“And? If I need help—I mean, if I need…that kind of help…”
“I’m not sure.”
She tried not to let fear creep into her voice. “I don’t think I will need any. I think it is all behind me and will stay there.”
“I think so too.”
“It’s just that, knowing the man the way I do, I wanted…”
“I know.”
“Just for peace of mind. A break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option.”
“My contact might still be that. I wouldn’t rule him out.”
“Who is he?”
Doc went quiet for a moment. “Very young, but experienced. A very…unique pedigree.”
“Does he know Lowery?”
“Not personally. By reputation, though. He is not a fan. His family had some dealings.”
That made her nervous. She did not like the idea of a family history, of any overlap. She trusted no one except Doc.
“What dealings?”
“Well…they helped you once,” he said hesitantly.
For a moment, she was confused. Then it came in a flash—the men on the Florida back road, their detached dialogue, their absolute disinterest in her even as they arranged her hair and blood judiciously on the headrest.
“Those sociopaths?” she said, at once both afraid and, perversely, encouraged.
Because they had helped, hadn’t they?
Still, she could smell her own blood and see their flat, affectless eyes.
“Not exactly. They’re dead, in fact. But there’s family. A young one who
—”
“I won’t need him,” she said. “I won’t need anyone who is at all like…like those two. I’m safe. The kids are safe.”
“I suspect you’re right. But if anything—anything—makes you feel otherwise? Call me and let’s see if we can indeed break that glass.”
That afternoon, she went to see their house. She went without the kids, because they were with friends and families of friends, with the supportive love of people they knew. Mrs. Wilson, for example, who had two older children, both in college, and was sincere in her offer to take Nick and Hailey in. She was petite and round-cheeked and spoke with a sweet Southern accent and looked as if she probably baked pies from scratch.
Leah hated her.
She’d had to meet these people, though. Had to linger long enough that taking the kids didn’t seem like a kidnapping. After that, she’d gone to meet with the attorney who had filed the standby guardianship. He was a thin man of about fifty with wire-rimmed glasses and thinning sandy hair. He wore an outdated suit and had University of Kentucky cuff links and worked alone in an office that his father had worked in before him. He specialized in estate and probate law and had no experience in criminal practice. Leah thought that Doug had made a perfect choice. Everett Spoonhour was a qualified and competent attorney but the furthest thing from the sort of man who might overlap with the Lowery Group.
He’d walked her through the process of executing the guardianship, assured her that he’d do what he could to expedite it, and said that he would see that Doug’s assets were transferred into a trust for the children as his will required. He also asked for her home address.
When she hesitated, he looked up, one eyebrow raised. Not suspicious, just perplexed. The question shouldn’t have stumped her.
“It’s a post office box,” she said. “That’s the only address I have. So just put box three seventy-three, Greenville, Maine.”
“For mailing, no problem,” he said. “But I’m going to need to have a physical address so the necessary home visits can be done.”
“Of course,” she said, trying not to show alarm, trying to believe that it was completely unreasonable to imagine that J. Corson Lowery would even be aware of Doug’s death, let alone look into it with such scrutiny as to find his way to these documents.
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