What Happened to the Bennetts(28)

Dom smiled slyly. “Torches and pitchforks?”

“Yes.” I chuckled. “So what do you think?”

“About a message to them? We never have.”

“Did you ever have to? Have you ever had a family as applicants?”

“No.”

“So, we come with connections. Friends, school, employees, people. Normal families are connected, and we’re a normal family. You have to bend the rules.”

“No, we don’t.” Dom shook his head. “We’re not negotiating. That wasn’t the deal. The deal was that you follow the rules.”

“You just said you never had a family before. There’s new rules when you have a family. You guys have to compromise. I am, I’m not going to my daughter’s funeral.”

We ran in stride, breathing hard. I prayed the stitch would go away. Ahead was a line of mailboxes painted with fish, seashells, and crabs. Some had family names. Lovell, Sinclair, Tyson. The houses were obscured by the woods. There were no signs of occupants, like recycling bins or delivered newspapers.

“Dom, listen, who’s the usual applicant? Gang members? Murderers? Drug dealers? Have you ever even had an applicant with no criminal record?”

“What’s your point?”

“So usually, you’re putting up a witness that’s a criminal himself. Somebody who’s flipping, right?”

Dom looked over, flinty-eyed.

“I know the lingo. I’m a badass court reporter.”

Dom burst into laughter. “Okay, yes, a snitch.”

“Okay, and their credibility is terrible. I bet the defense always makes the same argument. ‘Were you lying then or are you lying now?’?”

We passed a row of crudely hand-painted signs—free firewood, toro mower for sale, for sale car runs good—clustered in front of one house with a front yard full of washing machines, a refrigerator with the door off, a few battered cars, a truck rusting on cinder blocks, and other junk. The mailbox read thatcher, and an old man smoking a cigar in a BarcaLounger watched us run past.

“There’s one in every neighborhood.” Dom rolled his eyes. “I got a guy like that on my street. Drives me nuts.”

I wanted to stay on point. “Anyway, we’re good witnesses, law-abiding citizens. Not even a speeding ticket. We’ll put Milo away forever.”

Dom smiled. “Now you’re talking.”

“We’re great witnesses because we’re a normal family, and on the other hand, because we’re a normal family, we have family and friends. You can’t have it both ways.” My side stitch began to subside. “You can’t get the value of a normal family but not accommodate us. That’s the argument you have to make to your boss.”

“And what do you want?”

“Protect my mother-in-law and Melissa. Get somebody on their street or some cameras, do whatever you do. And tell Melissa we’re in WITSEC.”

Dom fell silent. “It’s up to my boss.”

“What will he say?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, you know.”

Dom pumped his arms. “I think we can swing surveillance of your mother-in-law. Maybe the friend. Melissa.”

Thank God. “That would be great.”

“But no message to her.”

“Why not?”

“What if she tells her friends?”

I had made the same argument to Lucinda. “She won’t if you warn her our lives are at stake.”

“Where does this end? How many friends do you want us to notify?”

I could deal with a slippery-slope argument. “She’s the only one. You need to get ahead of this. I know this woman, and she’s connected to the field hockey moms, the lacrosse moms, the choir moms, the drama moms. She’s—”

“The kingpin?” Dom supplied.

I laughed. “Bingo. These are suburban moms. The Vera Bradley Organization.”

Dom burst into laughter. “Tell me about it. My wife’s one.”

“So then you know, and please get it done. It would really help Lucinda. This is killing her.”

Dom wiped his brow again. “I’ll talk to Gremmie.”

“Your boss?”

“Yes, Richard Volkov. We call him Gremmie. The Gremlin from the Kremlin.”

I smiled. “He’s from Russia?”

“No, Cleveland.”

My mood lifted. “One more thing. My employees. I want to pay them severance. I have money in the corporate account. It has to happen this week. I don’t care how.”

“I’ll talk to Gremmie.”

“Thanks.” I hated to have to ask for everything. My father taught me to be self-reliant, and I was. Until now.

“So, Jason, where you from, originally?”

I started to answer, then stopped. “You know the answer already. Why don’t you tell me?”

Dom snorted. “Okay. You grew up on a twenty-one-acre farm in Hershey. Your father, William, was a second-generation farmer—”

“A dairyman, not a farmer.”

“I stand corrected. Your mother died of a heart attack. You were only nine. That must have been tough.”

“It was.” I loved my mother, but didn’t remember much about her. A round face framed with red curls and a sweet smile. A faint warm feeling of soft arms, kisses, kind words, rosewater, and More 100s.