“Laurel, you okay?”
The tears she’d been holding back streamed down her face. Reluctant to let Wallace see her fall apart, she took her usual place by the window and stared out at the street. “I’m alive. I guess that means I’m okay.” She made an effort to control the trembling in her voice. “What’s going on? I’ve been so worried about you!”
“I’m sorry.”
The regret in those words made it difficult for her to blame him. He’d been through so much.
“I knew this would be hard on you,” he went on. “But you have to trust me. There’s no other way.”
“When will I see you?”
“I don’t know. As soon as I can fulfill my assignment.” What, exactly, was his “assignment”? Wallace had been vague about that. He’d said Virgil was helping the government take down a dangerous gang, a different gang than the one to which he’d belonged. But Laurel couldn’t imagine one man being so instrumental in that kind of undertaking. Besides, the government couldn’t need him more than she did. She’d waited so long. “Are we talking days or…”
“Most likely months.”
“No, Virgil, please! Don’t do this.”
“Listen to me. There’s no better alternative. And that means you have to soldier on. I need to know you’re safe and well. Do you understand?”
She wiped her cheeks. “But…months?”
“Whatever it takes to set us free.”
He was determined. She heard it in his voice. “Fine. Then where are you? We’ll come there so we can at least visit you.”
“They’re putting me back in prison, Laurel, and you can’t come anywhere close.”
But that wasn’t fair! He’d just been released.
For a moment, she was tempted to strike out at Wallace. He seemed the perfect person to blame, but he was also the man who was trying to keep her safe. She didn’t know what to do. “The nightmare is supposed to be over,” she said. “When will it be over?”
“Someday, okay? Be strong. It’ll be easier on me if I know you’re bearing up under the weight of all this.”
Bearing up? She felt as if she was drowning in disappointment and fear and uncertainty. She’d been regularly beaten by the stepfather her uncle had shot. When her mother received the life insurance money and gave Gary almost half instead of hiring a better lawyer for Virgil, she’d run away. She’d been sixteen and survived on the streets for nearly two years, trying to scratch out a living. Then she’d married a man who’d turned out to be as abusive as her late stepfather. Through it all, she’d fought like crazy to save her brother, to hang on to her sanity and, later, to provide for the emotional and physical needs of her children. How could she continue to bear up when she was so tired?
And yet she couldn’t put her brother through any more than he’d already suffered….
Sliding down the wall to sit against it, she covered her face and struggled to rein in her emotions. “I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s it. I’m proud of you, Laurel.”
“This man I’m with…Rick Wallace. Can I trust him?” She felt Wallace’s eyes boring into the top of her bowed head, knew she wasn’t being polite by talking about him while he was in the room. But she didn’t care. She’d been pushed into survival mode, was well beyond observing common courtesies.
“He’ll take care of you as long as I’m giving him the incentive to do so. If that changes…if something happens to me…you might need to take Mia and Jake and strike out on your own. In that case, go several states away or to the East Coast. If I’m out of the picture, I doubt The Crew will bother with you. But I’ve managed to piss off some very determined people. Don’t take any chances.”
Resting her forehead on her arms, she shut her eyes. How could she start over again? Where would she find the money? She’d never had the opportunity to go to college. Since following Virgil to Colorado, she’d barely eked out a living working at the hospital. When Tom didn’t pay his child support, which seemed like every other month, she could hardly afford groceries. And now that he couldn’t know where they were, even his contribution would be gone.
There were other issues, too. What about ID? She’d need a new identity if she planned to escape The Crew. Was the government going to provide that? Otherwise an everyday P.I. would be able to find her.
Survival had been a part of her life for so long, she knew what it required. But she didn’t mention any of these details. Virgil had enough on his mind. “Wallace doesn’t trust you,” she said. “He believes you’ll double-cross him.”
“He was supposed to stay in his motel room. Anyone would’ve suspected him of taking off,” Wallace said, but she kept her head down and didn’t respond. Virgil was talking.
“If he didn’t have me by the balls, maybe I would.”
“So they’re forcing you to do this?”
“In a way. In another way it’s an opportunity. And it might be my last.”
Scrambling for a sliver of hope to cling to, she tried opportunity on for size. But she’d waited so long for the truth to win out, for her brother to be exonerated, that facing such a big setback made it feel as if their lives would never be their own. “A man showed up at the house,” she said. “With a gun.”
“Mia and Jake—”
“Are fine. He grabbed Mia for a few seconds, put a gun to her head, but…that was it.”
There was a silence, during which she felt his concern and his rage, before he asked, “What’d this man look like?”
“Short. Muscular. Lots of tattoos—maybe a full-body suit because even his face was tatted up. He’d shaved his head but had this little patch of hair growing from his chin—”
“Ink.”
She wiped away the last of her tears. What good did it do to cry? Crying changed nothing. Hadn’t she learned that by now? “That’s what he called himself, yes.”
“What’d he say?”
“He referred to you as Skin, wanted to know if you were getting the flag dirty.”
“Dropping the flag. He was asking if I was bailing out.”
“Of the gang?”
“That’s right. What else?”
Her nose was running, but she was too dejected to head to the bathroom. She sniffed loudly. “He demanded that I tell him where you are.”
“And you said…”
“What could I say? I didn’t know. He gave me a message that you have until noon tomorrow to call someone named Pretty Boy. But that deadline passed yesterday. It’s too late.”
“I wouldn’t have called him, anyway.”
Conscious of Wallace, who was still watching her, she got to her feet, turned her back to him and leaned into the window again. “What will they do?”
“If they find me, they’ll kill me. They’ll kill you, too, if they can. That’s why I need you to do exactly as Wallace says. This isn’t a game. It’s for real. He’ll put you in the Witness Protection Program, give you a fresh start. I know you don’t feel good about that, but it’s our only chance.”
“What about Tom?” she asked.
“Your ex? What about him?”
“The kids will never see their father.”
“He’s no father. He takes them maybe twice a year, sends them a few bucks for Christmas.”
“Still…”
“This is a matter of life and death, Laurel. That outweighs everything else. Everything.”
“But are we talking forever? I don’t want to tell them that.”
“Then don’t. Forever is a long time, baby sister. Let’s get through now. Then we’ll worry about later.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Why is this happening?”