Chapter 7

 

 

WHILE KELSON sat in one of our six holding rooms, Ryan and Dorsey manned the office. Kage, who was in the process of moving down the hall and giving Becker his old office, was meeting with Adair’s boss and his boss’s boss—the Feds had an organizational chart that was hard to follow—as well as the police superintendent and the deputy mayor.

Eli and I stopped on the way back to the office for coffee because I was frozen inside, plus something to eat because, as he said, “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“How’d you know?” Eli asked as we sat in the drive-thru at Starbucks.

“That Kelson was wrong?”

He grunted.

“It’s a sad truth, but no one knows Hartley like me.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with that?”

“No. That kind of vigilantism has never been him.”

“But he’s still out there somewhere killing people.”

I shook my head. “I disagree. It’s not him anymore, and I don’t know how to explain it other than it’s like the killing he did, that’s out of his system.”

“But you can’t say that for certain.”

“Yeah, I can,” I sighed, leaning my head back. “I think if the Feds just let him go now, he wouldn’t be a threat anymore.”

“Willing to stake your life on it?”

I thought a moment of what I knew of Hartley. “Yes.”

“No shit?” He was startled and turned to me instead of ordering, stunned.

“I need a red eye, so tell her,” I said, pointing at the speaker. “And get me a scone.”

At the window, Eli was still so flustered when she told him they were out of blueberry scones, and did he want something else, that he started saying things they didn’t even have. Once they agreed on a chocolate croissant, he tried to give the cashier a hundred-dollar bill she clearly wasn’t about to break. I leaned across him and passed her my phone instead.

“Thank you,” she said, shooting Eli a look of pure distaste.

When he pulled away, I patted his thigh. “Calm yourself.”

“You realize that right now you sound as psycho as Hartley.”

I turned to him and laughed. “Really? Just as psycho?”

He had to pull over so I could drive when he realized he’d compared me to a serial killer.

Once we were back at the office, Kage told Eli to get his ass back to the crime scene so he could keep the reporters off Ian and Becker.

He didn’t want to argue, but he didn’t want to leave me either.

“Redeker,” Kage barked, and Redeker rose from Kowalski’s desk, which was apparently going to become his, and crossed the room to me. “You’re with Jones today.”

“Yessir.”

Kage pointed at the door, and Eli moved fast, talking to me over his shoulder. “I’ll tell Ian as soon as I get there.”

“I’ll call too,” I told him before turning back to Kage, who had left without another word. “Okay, I guess that was all,” I said to no one in particular before pulling my phone from the breast pocket of my suit jacket to call Ian.

“Are you all right?” he said instead of hello.

“Yeah, I just wanted to tell you that Kage sent Eli back to you so he can talk to the press and do all that,” I explained.

“Then who the hell is—”

“Redeker.”

Silence.

“He’s good, Ian, I swear. You’d like him.”

He gave that grunt I knew so well, the one saying he was deciding what to do.

“I’m not helpless anyway, right? I carry a gun, Hartley’s always been the biggest threat to me, and honestly, we both know whatever that was this morning had nothing to do with him.”

Back to silence.

“He might not even be in Chicago.”

Quick clearing of his throat. “Lemme talk to Redeker.”

“No,” I said gently. “Just… stop. I’ll be fine.”

“Turn on the GPS on your phone.”

“Ian,” I sighed. He knew as well as I did using the tracking software on our phones to keep tabs on each other was prohibited by the marshals service. It was probably the same for the FBI or DEA or ATF. No one wanted a cloned phone to find an undercover agent or a marshal on a task force ready to serve a warrant. If Kage ever caught either of us with it on—I didn’t even know how severe the ramifications would be.

“Fine,” he growled, “just—please.” Unspoken: Be careful, come home in one piece, don’t do anything stupid, and take care of yourself.

“Yes, dear,” I agreed. He was silent, and so was I, and in that moment, the fear of the changes being made and how we were going to cope and even if we should… drowned me. “Ian—”

“Just focus on the day, all right?” he said sharply.

I took a shaky breath because he sounded ice-cold, which meant he was pulling away, turning his emotions off, both of which were bad for me, for us.

“Focus on the job, all right? Be safe.”

I had no choice. I would keep busy so I couldn’t think. It was all I could do. “Yes.”

He hung up, and I faced Redeker. “Listen, I’m sorry that—”

“So your boss—”

“Your boss now too,” I corrected because I was a smartass.

“Jesus.”

“Sorry, but technically he is our boss.”

“Who is? That’s what I’m confused about. Who am I reporting to?”

“Becker,” I told him as he walked with me to the Custodial office. “Kage is Becker’s boss—which is weird for all you new guys because he hasn’t been all that great about giving up command.”

“You think he will now?”

“I think now that it’s Becker, who he trusts… yeah.”

“That’s good, then.”

“I think it will make things around here easier.”

“So Kage, he gets stuck with the suits a lot?”

“Yeah.”

“And Becker and Doyle, they have to deal with the on-site crap?”

“It’s brand-new for both of them, but yeah, they’ll both be there until the scene gets turned over to CPD, and then I’m thinking they’ll come back, and Becker will decide who’s going to be whose partner and have them report to him. I’m thinking Ian will have to go around to all the other offices and meet people. He’ll have to create the database of who’s where and who to talk to, and—that just sounds horrible to me.”

“Yeah, that job with all the red tape and the million different ways of doing things—I mean, what’s the SOP for a task force?”

“Is there one?”

“No, but there should be, right? I mean, if everyone is coming to work with the marshals, then the marshals should lead. It should be our rules.”

“Have you ever seen those enforced?”

“No,” he answered implacably, “but I’ve never been in an office big enough to have a deputy director either. You gotta figure our boss can have that now since he’s got a man under his supervisor to take over making sure every other agency complies with how we do things, not the other way around. Most offices don’t have someone like Doyle to take over that piece, and there aren’t enough hours in a day for the supervisory deputy to deal with it all.”

“Huh,” I said, ending that discussion.

“Huh?”

“Yeah. That’s all interesting, but I wanna be done talking about that because there’s more important stuff I need to know.”

“More—what?”

I rounded on him before we went in. “So what the hell?” I snapped.

His glare came fast as he crossed his arms. “Why’re you yelling at me?”

“That is so not yelling.”

“What’s with—”

“Speak.”

“I have no idea what you’re—”

“Don’t be stupid. Where’s your partner?”

“I haven’t been assigned one yet.”

I crossed my arms, mirroring him, and waited, hoping he saw the irritation on my face.

He groaned loudly, showing me his annoyance. “He’s in Vegas.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.”

He winced. “We had words.”

“And then you ran away.”

“I did not run away,” he said much too defensively.

“Listen, I’m not trying to get in your business,” I lied to his face. “I’ve just seen your dynamic up close, and it works. He’s careful, and you’re kind of a cowboy.”

His glare was back. “When did he tell you that I grew up on a ranch in Wyoming?”

Pivoting, I ignored him and went into Custodial’s office, and six pairs of eyes were on me as Prescott came out of what was, in fact, now my office.

“Are you okay to be here?” she asked me solemnly, and I saw the worry in her gaze. Unlike with Kelson, I could read emotions in her eyes. “I would be curled up in a ball in the corner of a room.”

I gave her a game smile. “I’ve had Craig Hartley in my life longer than some people have been married. It’s no big deal.”

She gaped as she stared at me.

“And even if it was, being scared doesn’t help anything.”

“True,” she granted. “But are you sure you want to start in with all of this today? I mean, Jones, you’ve had one hell of a morning.”

“Compared to being kidnapped and tortured by the man, it was a walk in the park.”

Sometimes I forgot being honest could be dicey. Now and again people got freaked out by how normally I treated things that were not so easy for others to deal with, like, for instance, serial killers. But truly it wasn’t that I was so used to the idea of a nightmare of Chicago’s past being a part of my life. It was that on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t think about him. I didn’t worry I was being stalked; I let go of that fear years ago. I never thought Hartley was the type to walk up behind me in a crowd, pull the trigger, and blow my brains out. If he was going to kill me, he’d make me squirm first like a worm on the end of a hook. I knew that firsthand.

“I… don’t—I can’t even begin to imagine what—”

“We really need to get out and see the kids,” I told her. “We need to get interviews started today, and I want to meet my team.”

She was staring at me, trying to figure me out, searching for the correct response. But there wasn’t one, and I saw her pull herself together.

“May I please meet everyone?” I asked to give her something to think about besides Hartley.

“Of course,” she agreed as people got up from their desks.

 

 

I ORDERED the entire office into the field to get the home visits done as quickly as possible because I was more than worried about the kids who’d been in former Director Cullen’s care. In theory, six people in three teams of two, along with me and Redeker, could make a serious dent in the home visits even on the first day. Maureen insisted I call her by her given name and that she could do visits as well, but someone needed to man the desk in the department, and she still had Cullen’s paperwork to sort through. She finally agreed that since she knew what red flags to look for, she was the logical choice to remain.

“I’ve assigned you one of the top social workers I know, and she’ll join you at the first home. I emailed her over your schedule for the day.”

“Thank you,” I told her.

“No, thank you, Marshal. Already—just in the care you’re showing, in your zeal to get started and not waste any time—you’re a vast improvement over Sebreta Cullen.”

Anyone would have been a step up from mediocrity. I just wanted to make a difference in the lives of the children as quickly as possible.

“Why Custodial?” Redeker asked as he drove us toward the Fuller Park neighborhood on the South Side. “Don’t you want to move up?”

“I want to help take care of kids,” I told him, watching the world go by outside the Ford Expedition delegated for the use of the director of Custodial WITSEC. It had government plates and was painted metallic gray instead of black. I was excited, and Redeker was confused until I explained about the first-come, first-serve way the marshals’ office found cars at our disposal. He was horrified when I told him about Ian and me in a carnation-pink Cabriolet.

“Maybe you should be a foster parent,” Redeker suggested after a few minutes of silence.

“What?”

“Being a foster parent would let you get out all those feelings of wanting to take care of people, and you could still work your job.”

But making sure that a lot of kids were in good places, not just me nurturing one, seemed like a better fit for me. I wasn’t sure I could be anyone’s father because while I knew I was a caretaker, could tell from how I wanted to shield Josue, Cabot, and Drake and direct their lives, put my two cents in even when it wasn’t asked for, I also knew just because I could didn’t mean I had to.

Some people were made to be parents. For others, it grew out of their love for their partner, the desire to share more with them. Some people who were parents shouldn’t have been, some too selfish, while others simply wanted to heed the call of the open road or the sea, to travel, to be free, to lead, to create change, or a million other pursuits that did not include parenthood. Being a father wouldn’t complete me. It wouldn’t make me whole; I already was. My dream was to be the best man I could be, the best friend, colleague, uncle, and most of all, husband. Loving Ian took all the parts inside that had been cold and dreary and made them happy and warm and light. But it was hard to explain. How did I say to Redeker that, for me, the natural progression of my marriage was not to a child because already my heart was content? I had Ian, I had the girls, I even had the boys. I was full up. People could look at me and say, “You would make a good father,” but that didn’t mean that was what I wanted.

“Do I have to be a father?”

“What?”

“I mean, am I broken if I don’t want to?”

He glanced at me. “What’re you talking about?”

“People ask women who don’t have kids all the time, when are you going to have a baby? This happens to my friend Catherine on an almost daily basis. She’s a doctor, and her husband’s a composer, and they’re both at the top of their game, you know, but still it’s like they’re judged because they don’t have kids yet, and her most of all.”

“Which is a shitty double standard,” he advised me.

“It is because it’s like she’s less of a woman because she’s not a mother.”

He grunted.

“That’s crap.”

“Agreed.”

“But it’s the same for me because if I’m never a father, does that make me less?”

“I think people are a billion times more judgmental of a woman not having kids than if a man doesn’t.”

“No, I know, but still, people look at Eriq—that’s my friend Catherine’s husband—and whenever he plays with a kid or holds a baby, people say, oh, what a good father he’d be, he should have kids.”

He nodded. “I’ve heard that too.”

“Right? But see, maybe that ten or twenty minutes is all the nurturing any of us has in him.”

“Very possible,” he said. “Is that how it is for you?”

“I dunno, but I am certainly not ready to be anyone’s father. I can’t even fathom that level of responsibility.

“Yeah, join the club.”

We were both silent for a bit as we passed gutted, rotting buildings with broken windows and piles of garbage, small crowds of men clustered on stoops and in doorways, and the husks of abandoned cars and the ubiquitous graffiti.

“So, is that a yes on the foster parent thing? I mean, that’s helping, right? You don’t have to adopt the kids, just give them a secure place to be for a certain amount of time.”

I cleared my throat. “I was a ward of the state myself, so I’m not sure I’d make a great parent, foster or otherwise.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “I think maybe certain people are made to be parents, and other people aren’t.”

“I get that.”

I turned to him. “Do you wanna be a dad?”

He thought a moment. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Huh.”

“Why huh?”

“No, nothing, I just thought, with how you are, that being a parent wouldn’t be on your list.”

“‘With how I am’? The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

I gestured at him. “When I met you in Vegas, there was some hard living you were doing, according to your partner.”

He grunted.

“You’re saying that was a lie?”

“I’m saying that people change.”

It was true. Ian and I certainly had.

“Don’t you find that in life?” Redeker asked.

“I do.”

“So then I’m telling you things are different for me now.”

“And what brought on this epiphany?”

He shook his head.

“I’m guessing something to do with Callahan?”

He exhaled sharply. “I needed a fresh start. I can’t be what anyone needs unless I get my shit together.”

I was starting to get an idea of what had happened. “You ran away from him.”

“I’ve never run from anything in my life.”

Uh-huh. “So you thought, what, I don’t want to fuck up his life, so I’ll just go?”

“Is there going to be a social worker going with us on these visits, or are we doing them alone?” Redeker asked, completely ignoring the question I’d put to him.

“That won’t work.”

“Whatzat?”

“Changing the subject.”

He ran a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t—this isn’t for you to fix, Jones, or for you to make me examine and do whatever. This is my deal with… it’s my life, yeah?”

It was, but I’d been where he was and lost so much time not diving into the deep end with Ian. I could see things so much clearer than he could, and if he’d only hear me out, then he wouldn’t be haunted like he looked now. He was missing his other half, but he was too bullheaded to know it. But was it my place to make him think about Callahan or what he was missing or… what…?

The ring caught my eye.

He was still yanking on his hair with his left hand, which bore a silver ring that was somehow familiar. It was shaped like the tentacle of an octopus, wide and tapering, both masculine and delicate at the same time. Then it hit me: the last time I’d seen Callahan, the same ring had been on his hand. But now it was with Redeker, entwined around his middle finger, and it was doubtful he was even aware of it. Instead, he wore it naturally, just as he did the love of his partner, without any awareness at all.

So he had Bodhi Callahan’s ring on his left hand. I needed to shut the hell up because one thing I did know was that everything happened for a reason, and even if he had no idea what was going on, I suspected his partner most certainly did.

“I just—”

“No, you’re right,” I amended, smiling for his benefit. “I’ll shut up.”

He checked my face, trying, I was sure, to get a read on me.

“And just so you know, there will be several different social workers,” I informed him.

“Okay, good,” he rumbled as he pulled up in front of an apartment building and parked.

“You’re getting around pretty well already,” I praised him.

“Well, you know, GPS, it’s a thing, but I’ve been here a week already, so some things are starting to make a little more sense. Though some of the streets I’ve been on—there are potholes that you could lose an axle in, and I swear I was driving down Milwaukee Avenue, and I’m pretty sure it turned into, like, two different streets or something, and some of the intersections here… I pray to God I’m never first because I would have no idea where to turn.”

I chuckled. “You’re used to living in a city on a grid.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Yeah, no,” I teased before getting out of the car.

We were there to check on Ernesto Ramirez. He was placed in witness protection after he saw his father, an elementary school science teacher, killed in Tucson, Arizona. The reason Ernesto was taken into WITSEC and not simply foster care was who pulled the trigger. Troy Littlefield was a hedge fund manager supposedly lost at sea two years prior after an accident on his yacht. Ernesto’s father, Manuel, knew—everyone did—that the story had been splashed all over the internet, so when he recognized Littlefield, he snapped a picture and ran. Unfortunately Littlefield was not alone. His men caught Manuel, and Littlefield shot him, only realizing the little boy was there when Ernesto gasped. But it wasn’t as easy for the men to catch a speedy, skinny eleven-year-old, and Ernesto got away by running straight to the police. That was a year ago, and the trial was still being scheduled, so Ernesto was in our system.

As I stood with Redeker outside the door, I took a quick breath, terrified of what we were going to see.

“Good morning,” a woman greeted me cheerfully through the opening the chain would allow. “May I help you?”

We both lifted our credentials so she could see them, along with the stars hanging from chains around our necks.

“I’m Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones, and this is Deputy US Marshal Josiah Redeker. Are you Monalisa Verone?”

“I am,” she said sweetly, closing the door to take the chain off and then opening the door wide.

The aroma tumbled out of the hall as she stood in her doorway, and I whined. I tried to stop it, but whatever it was smelled incredible. My stomach growled at the same time. It must have sounded pitiful.

Redeker looked at me like I’d grown another head.

She chuckled. “Come in and have some empanadas, Marshal, before you pass out.”

She introduced her mother, Conchita, who was cooking and appeared very pleased to see us. The only person happier to see us was Ernesto. He shook our hands as I sat beside him at the small kitchen table.

“That woman was so mean to me, Miro,” he said, using my name as I directed him to. “And she never paid Mrs. Verone, and it’s really hard for her to get all of us stuff for school if she only uses what—”

“Wait,” I stopped him. “Go back to the not paying Mrs. Verone.”

He nodded quickly. “She always said that the paperwork was lost and needed to be refiled.”

“Ma’am,” I said, “are you receiving the appropriate subsidy payments for Ernesto being here?”

Monalisa waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it, Marshal, I—”

“I’m worried about it,” I told her. “You’re supposed to be compen—”

She grabbed my hand so fast it startled me, and she squeezed it. “Mrs. Cullen told me that if I pushed about the money, she would remove Ernesto from our home, and I—”

“No,” I assured her. “I won’t move him, and I will get you what’s owed, and whatever is back-owed. Do you have paperwork for me?”

Monalisa’s mouth fell open.

“Mija,” Conchita snapped. “Go get the nice man the paperwork that you filled out over and over so he can get you some money and some health insurance.”

Oh shit. “Not that either?” I asked Conchita.

“Not yet,” she said, pinning me with a pointed stare.

Redeker snorted. “Tell me who to call, Jones.”

When Tori Macin from DCFS got to the apartment, the harried-looking social worker was stunned to find I had already scanned and sent paperwork out to her office.

“So you—you just took it upon yourself to do that?”

I squinted at her as Conchita passed her an empanada.

“Thank you so much,” Macin said quickly before turning back to me.

“Have you worked with the marshals service before?”

“I have,” she told me, “but only with Sebreta Cullen,” she amended. “And I will say that that was only in her office. She never came out in the field.”

I grunted.

“So you’re saying that this is how fast this is supposed to work?”

“The marshals are a government agency,” I reminded her. “And so we’re at the mercy of the same bureaucratic red tape bullcrap that you are, but these are federal witnesses as well as children, so they go to the top of the list.”

She glanced over the paperwork I submitted. “How are you getting health care for the entire family?”

“It’s considered an environmental standard,” I explained. I’d been doing WITSEC intake paperwork for years. I knew how to work the system and in fact knew a few loopholes the others didn’t. I couldn’t count the times I’d been asked how to do something where benefits were concerned. I was especially vigilant about allowances for kids. “You cannot place a single witness into an environment where anything is out of the ordinary for said witness. So if he has full insurance, then the rest of the family must as well.”

“Wow” was all Macin could manage.

“If you put him in a home where everyone had to get around by car because the distance to school was too great, then we’d get him a car. Ernesto cannot stand out to anyone for any reason. Do you understand?”

“I do now,” she said, the awe clear in her voice and on her face as she stared at me. “It’s amazing what can get done when you have the right people in position.”

“I think—oh,” I said, laughing, having been startled by Monalisa and Conchita grabbing me at the same time.

“I can quit the second job,” Monalisa sighed happily. “Thank you, Marshal.”

“Let’s do some direct deposit paperwork now,” I said, taking my third empanada and handing Redeker his second.

By the time we left half an hour later, Monalisa had the first payment for Ernesto’s care in her bank account and temporary health insurance cards on her phone. As she hugged me, I told her the real ones would be mailed. It was a good start for the morning.

Unfortunately Redeker and Macin and I were in for a frightening status check in the next home out in Skokie. Kendra Paulson’s foster parents hadn’t seen her for a week, and they hadn’t reported it because they were certain she just ran away as, Mrs. Paulson said, “girls like her do.”

“What kind of girls are those?” Macin asked her pointedly.

“Like you,” Mrs. Paulson spat. “Black.”

Macin pulled out her phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m calling the police, Jones,” she explained, visibly annoyed at my question.

“You don’t need to do that.”

She opened her mouth to protest but stopped as Redeker pulled out his cuffs.

“We’re full-service ride-along,” I informed her.

Her face brightened as Redeker cuffed Mr. and Mrs. Paulson before he called the office and got ahold of Sharpe.

“Is this legal?” Mrs. Paulson asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Redeker told her snidely. “You get arrested for neglect of a minor in the great state of Illinois. Now where is Kendra’s room?”

She appeared utterly flummoxed, and her husband was too drunk to have any idea what was going on.

Kendra’s room had a broken window, mouse and roach traps on the ground, and no radiator. I could only imagine how cold it got in there in the dead of winter. While Redeker and Macin remained with the Paulsons, I searched the room. I checked the ceiling, behind the pipes, but found nothing. And then it hit me, and I walked back out the living room.

“Did the school call you?”

“What?” Mrs. Paulson snarled.

“Did the school call you?” I asked again, enunciating each word.

“No, why the fuck would they do that?”

I looked at Macin. “Let’s go. Redeker will stay here and wait for Skokie PD, and then he can join us at… lemme look,” I said, opening the binder I’d carried in with me.

“Denning,” Macin offered. “The school is Denning.”

“Is it close?”

“Fifteen minutes away,” she informed me.

We were out the door in seconds.

 

 

THE SCHOOL had no idea there was an issue because Kendra had not missed a day. When we pulled her out of class to talk to her, I saw a bruise on her jaw.

“Is that from Mr. Paulson, or Mrs.?”

Stunned, she stared at me like I was speaking Greek.

“Kendra?”

“Mr. Paulson,” she answered quickly.

I saw Macin make a note of that.

Kendra was tall for her age, with big brown eyes, expressive dark eyebrows, and a silver nose ring. Her afro had natural highlights in it, and I liked the sprinkle of freckles across her nose.

Quick clearing of her throat before she checked my face, as though making sure I was for real. “So what, you took over for Mrs. Cullen?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re the new her.”

“Well, I’m me, but yes.”

She coughed. “And you’ll believe me when I tell you that the Paulsons are terrible, awful people?” She was testing my resolve, sounding bored, but the way she was chewing on her bottom lip gave her away.

“I will,” I replied implacably.

She was startled and uncrossed her arms before sitting up in her chair. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

“And you?” she grilled Macin.

“I believe you too,” she assured her.

Kendra looked back and forth between us. “Where’ve you all been?”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “We were late. It won’t happen again.”

She nodded. “This is a mindfuck, man.”

“I suspect it is.”

She grunted. “Okay, so I’ve been living with my girlfriend Robyn and her family, and they said I could stay for as long as I like.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah. They really like me. I’m a good influence on her.”

Macin had questions, but I cut her off. “What if you guys break up?”

“Nah, man. This is the real deal. Some people still find their soul mates in high school, no matter what you see on TV. Don’t be so jaded.”

“Really?”

A second grunt from her.

“Listen, I’m not arguing with you, what do I know?” I said, getting up. “Let’s go talk to your soul mate’s mother.”

“Was that sarcasm?”

“Surely not.”

And her smile, from nothing to brilliant, was a joy to see.

“Okay, Miro Jones, let’s go.”

 

 

MACIN DIDN’T like it. I explained to her I didn’t care. Kendra liked it, and after losing her folks and being let down by the marshals’ office, I was ready to go on faith.

Redeker caught up with Macin and me an hour later at the home of Melinda Shelby, who had a very big house and who was very, very excited to have Kendra come live permanently with she and her husband, their daughter Robyn, and her other two sons. She was crying as she held on to my arm.

“You don’t understand. Last year before Robyn came out to us, she was so scared, and there were drugs, and she almost flunked out of school, and we were fighting all the time, and we—we thought we were going to lose her. I thought, this is how my family ends, you know? But then over the summer, it’s suddenly all about Kendra and how she’s a lesbian too, and can we still love her, and—I mean, of course we love her, why in the world would her sexual orientation matter?”

“Good job, Mom,” I said, patting her on the shoulder.

“And this is crazy,” she continued, smiling, “but Kendra and my husband—two peas in a pod. They both like to fish and play Call of Duty and make crepes and garden…. I mean, those horrible people she was living with, they have no idea what a sweet girl they have there.”

I nodded.

“So yes, please, whatever I need to do to sign up to be her foster mother, let’s make that happen as soon as possible.”

Macin was pleased after that.

The next three were close: one in Des Plaines, one in Parkridge, and then one in Harwood Heights. Two of the kids were doing well and, while happy to meet me, were in good homes, while the third, Jason Knowles, was not where he was supposed to be.

After Kendra, our routine was to go directly to the school and pull the kids out of class. It was better than waiting to see them at home, and we got honest answers. When Jason was not in school, we went to his house.

When I knocked, a woman came to the door but only opened it a crack. I didn’t get the delicious aroma of wafting food like at Ernesto’s home; instead I got vomit and sweat. Her right eye looked fearful, and she was clearly trembling. I shifted the folder to my left hand and lifted my badge for her to see. The credentials wouldn’t get the door open, but the star would.

“Ma’am, I’m Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones, and this is my partner, Deputy US Marshal Josiah Redeker. May we come in, please?”

She took a heaving breath and then lifted her finger to her lips, asking for silence.

I nodded quickly.

So carefully, so quietly, she closed the door just enough to remove the chain and then slowly opened it back up.

The living room was right there, and it was strewn with clothes, smashed dishes, food, empty beer bottles, and vomit. It wasn’t the room that made my stomach turn, though, but the woman herself. Standing there in only a tank top and panties, she was battered and bruised, her lip and nose bleeding, her left eye swollen on the way to closing. Finger-shaped bruises dotted her throat and, as I looked down her body, her thighs. Redeker turned to the coats hanging next to the door, grabbed a long sweater, and passed it to me. I held it up, and she turned around and let me help her put it on. It was difficult—I could tell her left arm was broken.

“Where is he?” I whispered.

“In the bedroom,” she whispered back.

“Is he armed?”

She nodded.

“Is Jason home?”

A tremor ran through her, and she took a shuddering breath. “No. I made him take my little girl to school on the bus this morning because I needed to get them out of the house.”

I nodded, watching as she winced just standing there. “Did he rape you?”

Quick nod.

Turning to Macin, I tipped my head toward the door.

Quickly she took the woman’s good arm and led her away.

“He’s big,” she told me before allowing Macin to move her.

“Oh, I hope he’s stupid enough to fight,” Redeker growled as the two of us drew our guns and headed toward the bedroom.

What the man was, was drunk. Very drunk. Sawing-logs-on-the-bed drunk. Blood streaked the sheets. Redeker went to the bathroom, grabbed toilet paper, took the gun out of the man’s hand, and stood with it by the door as I got on my phone and called it in.

He was probably only about six feet tall, but since the woman he’d beaten up was all of five feet, he seemed “big” to her. Redeker was bigger, and both of us had quite a bit of muscle on him, but he was beefy compared to his tiny, delicate wife.

We stood there, watching him sleep naked in the middle of the bed. I noted the blood on his upper thigh, knowing it wasn’t his.

“I bet you if I punched him in the gut, he’d barf, and then we could watch him choke on it,” Redeker suggested darkly.

“True,” I agreed, hearing the sirens wail in the distance. “That would be fitting since this seems so anticlimactic.”

“I bet you the wife knows he’s coming home drunk, been out all night doing God knows what, so she gets the kids out of the house, makes him breakfast to try and placate the fucker, and then he comes in, maybe even eats for a bit, then beats the shit outta her, makes her hurl up her food, and then rapes her.”

I turned to him, wincing, sad to hear him so easily make assumptions about what went on. There was only one way people knew those kinds of things: experience. “You sound like you know this scenario.”

He shrugged. “My old man, he was like this, except my mom left me and my sister alone to fend for ourselves.”

I cleared my throat. “You protected your sister, huh?”

“Oh hell yeah.”

“Were you in foster care?”

“No. My dad had a sister, and one weekend she drove up in her red Firebird, packed up me and my sister, put us in the car, and drove clear to her ranch in Wyoming.”

“How old were you?”

“I was five. Lisa was four.”

“I like this aunt.”

“So did we. She was our angel.”

“She still alive?”

“No. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded.

Moments later I heard movement in the living room, and then CPD came through the door—six uniformed officers, all looking grim, obviously having seen the woman in the hall.

Redeker and I walked out as we heard an outraged yell.

“I really wanted to shoot him,” Redeker grumbled.

“Me too.”

 

 

MACIN HAD no idea in the world how Eric Durant and his wife, Carmen, had qualified to be foster parents. Carmen wasn’t a problem, but Eric had a record of battery, more than a few drunk-and-disorderly citations, and my favorite: mob fighting. I hadn’t come across that one in a while.

We sent Carmen to the hospital, and right about the time she left in the ambulance, Jason came running down the street, clearly in a rush to get up to the apartment.

“Jason,” I called.

He pivoted to face me, and I saw the panic on his face.

“She’s on her way to the hospital,” I informed him. “We’re going there too. Do you want to ride with us?”

He bolted over to me and reached for my hand when I offered it.

“I’m Miro Jones, and I’m from the marshals’ office, and we need to talk so we can figure out what you want to do.”

He took a breath. “I want Carmen and her daughter, Anaj, to be safe.”

“They will be.”

“Are you sure?” He sounded scared. “Can you promise that?”

Could I? I had no power over Carmen and her daughter’s situation, only Jason’s. “I can promise that Mr. Durant is going to jail.”

“Because of the gun, right?”

“Yes.”

He cleared his throat. “My dad was a lawyer, and he said that using a gun to coerce someone else is a serious charge.”

“Coerce, huh?”

He smiled just slightly. “I remember all the words he used.”

“You wanna be a lawyer like your dad?”

“I do, yeah.”

“Good. That’s real good.”

He exhaled long and loud.

“Jason?”

“Yes, Marshal?”

“Do you want to live with Mrs. Durant and her daughter?”

No answer.

“It’s okay, yanno,” I assured him. “No one’s gonna be mad at you, especially Mrs. Durant. I can tell you’ve been a big help to them.”

“She always makes sure the two of us are safe, but it’s like—I mean, he’s like a bomb, and I just… I’m not—”

The kid never knew when an eruption was coming. He was forever living on borrowed time. It had to be terrifying for him.

He shook his head, biting his lip like he was embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I soothed him. “I promise you Mrs. Durant and her daughter are not your responsibility.”

Tears welled up in his eyes, and I slid an arm around his shoulders. It took a moment, and then I had a sixteen-year-old boy sobbing all over me.

“My mom always said that it was our responsibility to take care of people who didn’t have all the blessings we had.”

His parents were killed in what was made to look like a home invasion but was really his father’s close friend and business partner, Charlton Stewart. Apparently he’d been skimming from their employees’ retirement fund and from their clients, and Jason’s father was a day away from finding out the truth. It would have been the perfect crime, but Jason came home early, saw his godfather, and fled. The people Stewart was giving the money to were not happy, and thus, WITSEC for Jason.

When Jason turned twenty-one, he had a hefty trust fund coming his way, but nothing, even the death of his parents, could change that he had to wait. It ended up lucky for him, though, with all the people who came after Stewart, and in turn Jason’s parents’ estate, to recoup their stolen money. The estate was picked clean but for the trust fund. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Jason to go from private schools and country clubs to the inner city. Cullen, of course, saw a black boy and nothing else. She never considered for a moment how new and different the transition had to have been for him.

“Marshal?”

“Yes?” I said softly, rubbing circles on his back as his face stayed down on my shoulder, his arms wrapped around my waist.

“Can I go live somewhere else?”

“Yes, you most certainly can,” I sighed. “Let’s go upstairs and collect your things, all right?”

He cleared his throat as he leaned back to peer up at my face. “You’re sure it’s okay? Mrs. Durant won’t think I abandoned her?”

“No, buddy, I promise she won’t.”

He shuddered, and I could see he was relieved. “Maybe, uhm…. I’ve been staying at my friend Mark’s house a lot, and his mom said I could visit any time.”

“Where do they live?”

“In La Grange,” he told me. “I met him when he came to my school for a science fair.”

I nodded, and he smiled sheepishly.

“We’re both big nerds.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I assured him. “Let’s go upstairs and get your stuff.”

He was more than ready to do that.

 

 

MRS. APRIL Takashima, Mark’s mom, was very excited about the idea of keeping Jason. Her husband, a high school science teacher at a Montessori school in the area, was also thrilled by the prospect. And their oldest had just left for Yale, so they even had a bedroom open. The money for taking him in would be welcome, but more importantly, Jason was an excellent influence on Mark, who was, April told me, a bit of flibbertigibbet.

I nodded because she was very serious when she said it. Like not being able to focus was the worst thing she could think of.

As Redeker, Macin, and I walked down the long row of stairs that led from the Takashimas’ front door to the sidewalk, Macin explained it didn’t work like this.

“Whatzat?” I asked, rounding on her at the bottom.

“This doesn’t just happen,” she blurted, and I wasn’t sure if she was excited or irritated. It sounded like a bit of both. “You don’t just snap your fingers and abracadabra, new life.”

I was confused. “But that’s exactly what WITSEC does.”

She shook her head.

“You lost me.”

“You don’t move kids in one day! You don’t trust people you haven’t vetted to enroll kids in school, to just take them in and—who are you?”

“This is Custodial WITSEC,” I explained. “I have the authority to make any decisions I deem appropriate for the continued safety of my witnesses.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“This is all within the scope of the marshals service,” Redeker reminded her.

“I know that, but—”

“I don’t understand, then,” I said.

She gestured at me. “You don’t just poof foster parents into being.”

“What?”

“The Takashimas,” she explained. “It should take months to decide if they are a suitable fit for Jason. We have to run background checks and financials and—”

“We did all that,” I apprised her. “You saw me and Redeker on the phone.”

“I know! How the hell do you guys have access to someone’s whole life that fast?”

I looked at Redeker, who only shrugged before returning my focus to her. “We’re United States marshals, ma’am. We don’t wait for anything.”

She just stood there shaking her head in disbelief.

“We all missed lunch,” I announced into the silence. “I think we should have a late one. Who’s with me?”

“I saw an Indian place,” Redeker chimed in. “How’s that sound?”

She looked back and forth between us. “Things don’t happen this fast.”

“You keep saying that,” I apprised her. “But in my world,” I said, hand over my heart, “in his,” I continued, placing my hand on Redeker’s shoulder, “they do. They always have.”

“Maybe in other areas, but not where kids are concerned.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“I know you don’t, but you should because sooner or later you’re going to bump up against a situation you can’t wave your magic wand over.”

I scoffed at her.

“Marshal, I promise you, there are not fixes like this in the real world.”

“We’re not Child and Family Services,” I reminded her. “You get that, right?”

“I do. Of course I do. But you’re still a government agency!” she maintained, willing me to understand the point she was trying to make, which I suspected was that there were miles and miles of red tape I was skirting.

“We are, and normally we move slower too, but this is witness protection,” I clarified, “and we don’t work through regular channels for that. We don’t have to.”

“We move fast,” Redeker said, giving her his lazy cowboy grin. “I mean, it’s life-and-death, after all. You can’t dick around with people’s lives, especially kids’.”

She still looked like she was at a loss.

“C’mon, Indian food, my treat,” Redeker said, taking her arm gently and leading her to her car. He drove her car—she was that out of it—and I followed in the Ford.

Kama Bistro was on South La Grange Road, and once we were inside, Macin took a breath and calmed down.

“I just had no idea that kids could be rescued like that,” she conceded. “I’ve been a social worker for three years, and I’ve not seen anything like what I’ve seen today.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what has to happen in WITSEC. We make quick decisions and hope they’re right. It doesn’t mean we always make the best ones,” I amended. “But that’s why we check and double-check and triple-check to make sure that everything we think we did correctly actually stays that way.”

She nodded.

“Eat, you’ll feel better,” I said, smiling.

“No,” she protested, “you misunderstand me. I’m not upset or—I’m just going to get spoiled if I keep working with you. I’ll want it to work like this for all the kids, not just the ones in WITSEC.”

“It should work like that, and I wish it did. But it takes vigilance, right?”

“It does.”

“We’re not perfect. Look at Cullen. Kids died on her watch. We have one in the morgue right now that we’re trying to get to the bottom of. Sadly everything that happens with kids in the foster care system is only as good as the people administering those services.”

“It takes a village and all that,” Redeker said, smiling up at our server as she approached the table.

After we got our drinks and the appetizers came out, masala fries and chicken lemon tadka, Redeker asked her where we were off to next. Macin just put her head in her hand and looked at him.

“What?”

“I’ll go anywhere with you guys.”

It was nice to hear.