Chapter 2

 

 

MY EYEBROW only needed five stitches, which, compared to some of the other lacerations I’d suffered over the years, was nothing. The doctor on call checked me out—I got jumped in line because I got hurt, technically, in the line of duty, and because Ching looked pissed and no one wanted to tell him no.

Because I was a federal marshal and had to carry a gun 24-7, I always had to be checked out so a doctor could vouch for my brain not being scrambled. No one wanted someone to get shot accidentally because a marshal had a concussion and mistook them for a bear or something. I certainly never wanted to be the guy on the wrong end of a shooting incident.

As I sat there in the ER, blood on my shirt and sweater, waiting as Becker talked to Kage and Ching paced as he talked to Dorsey, the curtain that separated me from the next bed was yanked open and Eli appeared, another man right behind him, like it was a magic show.

“Hey,” I greeted, smiling, finding it odd he was there.

“I was driving by from the airport and told you were still here. Since we’re supposed to be eating tonight, and I figured Doyle stranded you at the pickup site when he left with the SOG guys, it made sense to come grab you.”

I nodded. “That seems reasonable,” I teased. “I find your logic sound.”

He rolled his eyes theatrically but moved quickly, his nonchalance belied by how fast he got to me.

Stepping between my parted legs, he checked my eye and face, upon which, Dorsey had informed me, the bruises had started to darken. Eli winced at the damage and my clothes. “I’m thinking we have to go by your place so you can clean up and put on something without blood splatter on it.”

I grunted before holding out my hand to greet the man who must be his cousin but looked only fleetingly like Eli. Where Eli was tall and built like a swimmer with wide shoulders, a broad chest, narrow waist, and long legs, Ira was leaner with long muscles, not ones defined in a gym like Eli’s.

“Oh yeah,” Eli said. “This is my cousin, Ira. Ira, this is Miro Jones.”

The smaller, nerdier, bespectacled cousin of a guy I trusted with my life moved forward to take my outstretched hand.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ira.”

“And you,” he said with a half grimace, half smile.

I patted our gripped hands with my other, then let go, gesturing at my face. “Oh, this is nothing. Par for the course.”

He nodded. “I have a friend, Tracy. This kind of thing happens to him too.”

“Is he in law enforcement?”

“No, but his brother is.”

“Turns out you know the brother indirectly,” Eli explained. “Me and Ira were putting it together in the car that you know Alex Brandt, and he’s Ira’s friend’s brother.”

How did I know that name?

Eli, who read me pretty well after the years between us, noticed me struggling. “You worked with my buddy Kane Morgan in San Fran the last time you were there and—”

“Oh, Brandt’s the DEA agent,” I realized. “Shit, how is he?”

“Good,” Ira said, grinning. “He’s annoying and kind of a douche, but yeah, all in one piece.”

“Oh, I’m glad.” Even though I’d never met Brandt myself, Inspector Morgan struck me as the kind of man who didn’t take his friendships lightly. I was pleased to hear he wasn’t missing anybody. “And damn, that’s a small world,” I said to Eli.

“It is. I mean, I know Kane, but I had no idea Ira knew the Brandts.”

I looked back at Ira. “So you like San Fran?”

“I do,” he said, then indicated Eli with a tip of his head. “This one liked it too until Natalie.”

Eli inhaled sharply, which made me ready to hear all about whoever Natalie was.

“Hey,” Becker said, snapping his fingers to get our attention.

Eli and I turned to look at him.

“State police in Huntsville, Alabama, already found a shallow grave off I-65 North.”

“So they recovered both bodies?”

He nodded.

“That’s good.”

Becker half shrugged, and I understood. Yes, it was good they’d been found because this way their families got closure—but bad for the obvious reason—they were dead.

I twisted back around, taking a breath before smiling at Ira, giving him an eyebrow waggle, needing the diversion of a good story. “Okay, so, dish about Natalie.”

“No,” Eli barked, putting it on. “Shut up, Ira. Don’t you say a fuckin’ word.”

Ira chuckled.

“I’m not kidding.” He pointed at him. “Just—you don’t need to tell him about—”

I grabbed Eli’s arm and drew him closer, upsetting his balance just enough that we bumped and he had to put his hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “Tell me all about Natalie,” I instructed Ira.

Ira was enjoying seeing us jostle around, the delight easy to read on his face.

“Don’t,” Eli warned.

“Do,” I pressed, holding Eli’s arm tighter when he tried to lunge at Ira.

“He followed Natalie out here from San Fran, and a week later, she dumped him.”

I moved my hand to Eli’s shoulder, squeezing tight. “Aww, buddy, is that before you started dressing well?”

“Fuck you,” he groused as he eased back into my hold, not struggling, content to stand there beside me.

It was funny. We were fooling around, and in the midst of waiting in the ER, I was comfortable, and I realized that was because I was with Eli and the rest of the guys.

I realized at Thanksgiving last year that I’d stopped looking for companionship outside of my circle, outside of the guys I worked with and counted on. My last friendship with a nice attorney who moved in next door to me and Ian turned out to be nothing but a ruse, and in the aftermath of that betrayal, I found myself hesitant to open up to anyone new. I was never a real trusting guy to begin with—foster care did that to you, made you wary of strangers—but now where I used to smile and make conversation with everyone, I was far more reserved, downright quiet. I listened a lot, which was good, and as a result, the guys, especially Eli, had become the ones I looked to for companionship.

“So,” I said, looking at Eli. “You followed a woman out here and, what, fell in love with the city?”

He shrugged. “She left to go back, couldn’t take the winter, and I stayed here.”

“And then your mom moved here too?”

“Well, yeah,” he replied with a smirk. “She can’t live without her baby.”

“Which sucks for the rest of us,” Ira chimed in, “because his mother can cook.”

I smiled at him. “And yours can’t?”

He winced. “Just don’t—if you ever meet her, don’t tell her I said that.”

“Said what?”

Ira pointed at me, grinning at Eli. “Oh, I like him.”

Eli was going to say something shitty back, I was sure, but a commotion in the hall interrupted us, and we all watched uniformed hospital security rush by, and then a nurse and a doctor followed. Before I could even open my mouth to ask, a person—I couldn’t tell if it was a kid or a woman—bolted past, and then Ching, who was still behind me, drew the curtain wide, opening it around my bed so we could see what was going on.

The heavy coat was thrown off, and a teenaged girl emerged from underneath, clad in booty shorts and a tank top that were too skimpy for March in Chicago, where the weather went up and down so fast that it could be sixty on one day and thirty the next. The shoes she had on, platform strappy heels, also made no sense. When she went down, the heel twisting under her, I hopped off the table to go help, and when I moved forward, she looked up.

“Jesus,” I gasped because it hit me. “Wen?”

She heaved out a sob, got her feet under her just as security reached her, and charged forward, closing on me in seconds and hurling herself into my arms.

I clutched her tight, tucking her head to my chest but still careful not to crush her since it was like holding a baby bird. I had no idea what the hell was going on. The last time I saw her, she was not this skinny, was not wearing mascara that was running down her face in black rivulets, and certainly was not dressed to walk the streets. I was horrified and filling with slow, seething rage as every protective instinct inside of me went off. The urge to shelter her thrummed under my skin.

Security guards moved forward, and I took a step back, bumping my bed. They might have advanced a second time, but Eli was there, hand out to still them.

“We need you to hand over that patient,” one of the guards ordered, addressing me. “She assaulted her guardian and hit a nurse who was trying to help her and—”

“You need to step back,” Becker informed them, opening his coat so they could see the badge hanging from the chain around his neck. “We’re federal marshals, so you need to explain what the hell is going on here.”

“There, there,” Wen cried, pointing at a man bolting for the exit.

“Stop,” Ching bellowed, drawing his gun as people screamed around him and dropped to the ground. “Or I’ll be forced to fire.”

The man did a slow pan, and the arrogant smile slowly crumbled as he took in Eli, who had pulled his gun as well, and Ching, both advancing on him. From his reaction I bet he had been ready to face security guards, not federal marshals. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he assured them.

“We’ll see,” Ching informed him, holstering his gun, pulling the zip ties from the pocket in his cargo pants as Eli covered him.

The guy wasn’t looking at Eli anymore, though; it was Becker, his gun trained on him, who was suddenly making him shake.

“Benjamin James,” Becker said as Ching shoved the guy to his knees and secured his hands tightly behind him. “Picking up where Rego left off? You pimping out underage girls?”

The shaking turned into a tremor, but I didn’t care. It was Wen sobbing in my arms, holding on so tight, who had all my attention. Lifting her head, I looked down into her face.

“What happened, sweetheart? Where’s your sister?”

“Han,” she gasped, “she got hurt real bad. The man… he hurt when he—when—Miro!”

Howling cries then, and she dissolved in my arms as I lifted her and put her on the bed I’d been on. She weighed nothing, a mere slip of her former self, and I wrapped her in a blanket that Ira, now off the floor where Eli had pushed him, handed me. Swallowing down my desire to go kick the shit out of James, I made myself stay there and be strong for Wen, letting her lean forward and bump her head on my chest.

“We gotta go see Han, okay?” she pleaded.

“Sure thing, honey.”

“And you won’t let them get us again, right?”

“No, you know I won’t.”

She nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t. I told Mrs. Cullen to let me call you, but she wouldn’t. I told her we weren’t going to school, but she said for Chinese girls to miss studying wasn’t a big thing because I was just going to be a maid anyway.”

My stomach roiled, and the anger swept through me, but I kept my voice calm, solid, matter-of-fact for the trembling girl. “You’re going to be a doctor like your father was.”

She lifted her head and gazed at me with wounded, terrified eyes. “Can I still be a doctor after what those men did?”

Fuck. “Absolutely,” I assured her, confident in my answer, letting her hear the certainty in my voice as I tucked her head back against my chest.

Glancing over at Eli, I saw him swallow hard, watched his jaw clench, and knew, like me, he was holding on by a thread not to tear James limb from limb.

“Oh, don’t you guys worry,” Ching said, darkly certain, a cold grin on his face that was by far the scariest expression I’d ever seen on him. “Prison’s gonna be a blast for this one, I’ll make sure.” I remembered that just like some of Dorsey’s family, some of Ching’s were serving time as well. “No one likes guys who hurt little girls.”

I had always heard that but didn’t know it was a real thing until I started putting people in jail for a living. It was, without a doubt, a true statement. Scary prisoners locked up for life had daughters too.

“Take me to Han,” I told the fourteen-year-old girl in my arms. “Let’s go see your little sister.”

It was one of the longest walks of my life.

 

 

MOST PEOPLE, if asked, probably thought the number of people who went into WITSEC every year was in the thousands, but it was actually far less. From when witness protection became a program in the 1970s to today, the number hovered somewhere between ten and eleven thousand, depending on what report you accessed or who you asked. Of that number, most were married or there was a significant other, some had families, and some were underage.

Because kids who had seen a crime committed—normally the death of one or both of their parents—could not be turned over to relatives unless they too entered WITSEC, most of them went into foster care. In Chicago there were, at the moment, a hundred and twelve underage kids placed with the Department of Child and Family Services, and while that agency was in charge of them, the caveat was that, along with their case manager/social worker, a liaison from the marshals’ office supervised them. So while DCFS struggled with the same things as every government agency—the deplorable lack of funding, the chronically understaffed clusterfuck, and widespread unreliable reporting—for the kids in WITSEC, it was supposed to be better because they had someone from the marshals’ office advocating for them. Sadly they dropped the ball on Wen and Han Li, whose parents, Dr. Herman Li and his wife, Jia, had been killed in a home invasion in Jacksonville, Florida.

It was a mistake. Gil “Piston” Baker, head of a local meth ring who had ties to a biker gang that was big in Florida, thought he was killing a rival when he was, in fact, killing a gifted cardiologist. In the dark, hopped up on meth, having mixed up the numbers of the address, he shot first, murdering the doctor and then his wife, who charged down the stairs after Dr. Li. The girls saw it all from the second floor and ran to their room, locked the door, and then climbed out the window and up onto the roof, cell phones in hand, before Baker even figured out what he’d done. Jacksonville PD caught him before he pulled out of the driveway.

Baker would have remained strong and not rolled over on the motorcycle club, but facing the needle for murdering the Lis, he turned on everyone he’d ever called friend. It was a long, arduous process, dismantling a gang that had ties to a cartel with fingers in prostitution, drugs, and guns. And because everything had to be disclosed, Baker’s gang knew all about Han and Wen, so they were placed into protective custody until the entire trial concluded—which was still years away—or Baker died. Since Baker was in fine health and had basically put out a bounty on each girl, WITSEC was their only option. Five months ago, they had been brought to Chicago. Ian and I did their intake paperwork and took them upstairs to Custodial WITSEC, run by Sebreta Cullen and overseen by new Supervisory Deputy Darren Mills.

Normally there was red tape. Normally there was a process and things took time—if and when an individual or a department was investigated, that would move at a glacial speed. The difference in this instance was the office faced a PR nightmare of biblical proportions that could effectively cripple the Northern District. It would blow the reputation of the marshals’ office to kingdom come. But more important than all of that was we were talking about underage children. Kage was so furious he wasn’t even yelling, which was a very, very bad sign. Heads were going to roll.

The problem was new because Mills put Cullen in her position after Maureen Prescott retired, and he was not required to run his pick by Kage. Because of that, and because Kage had his hands full with everything else, he hadn’t checked in on Custodial WITSEC.

I went with Kage to confront Cullen because I was the guy who’d called him. He charged into that office at four in the afternoon like the wrath of God.

He rattled off directions to his team, the accountants—because there were fiscal concerns if people weren’t watching the kids—then the social workers from the DCFS who would know what they were looking for, and of course, Prescott, who’d worked for Kage for years before retiring and still came when called. Kage brought some of the guys up from Judicial Security too, four total, and positioned them around the room so that when he told everyone to get up and walk to the conference room—he was clearing the area before he spoke to Cullen—no one hesitated. They just got up from their desks and moved.

I followed him into Cullen’s office, where he didn’t knock. He shut down her assistant with a sharp word that sent her scuttling after the others, strode to Cullen’s desk, took the phone out of her hand, and hung it up.

Cullen was a short blonde woman with a medium-length bob with bangs. She shot up out of her chair. “How dare you—”

“No.” He punched a button on the phone so it was on speaker. “Marshal Kenwood.”

“Kage,” the US Marshal for the Northern District answered.

“I’m here with Sebreta Cullen, sir.”

“And is Prescott there?”

“I am, sir,” she answered, moving around to stand beside Cullen.

“And who’s taking over in the interim?”

“Deputy US Marshal Miro Jones, sir,” Kage replied smoothly, leaving me stunned and staring, gulping like a fish on dry land. “He’s the one with the commendation from the State Department and the Spanish consulate for the recovery of a cultural attaché’s children.”

“Oh yes, excellent,” he agreed quickly. “Sounds like you have it well in hand. Have the DOJ get the investigation done to find out if it’s criminal or merely gross negligence. Make sure she’s escorted from the building after Public Affairs meets with her and reminds her of the agreements she signed when she was hired.”

“Yessir.”

“Do you have a team at her home now?”

“I do, sir.”

“Excellent. I’ll expect a report in two hours.”

“Yessir.”

When he hung up, I looked back at Cullen and noticed she was shaking. She had to step aside as Prescott plugged into her computer a flash drive I knew from experience gave her immediate access to the desktop.

“What the hell is going on?” Cullen shrieked, and I noticed her peaches-and-cream complexion was steadily pinking with anger.

“Well, that’s what we’re going to find out,” Kage explained, scowling.

“I don’t understand. My record is impeccable with—”

“White middle-class kids,” Prescott interrupted, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “But with black kids, Asian, mixed, gay, bi, transgender—your record is for crap, Ms. Cullen.”

“I don’t—that’s not true,” she shouted, banging her hand on the desk. “I’m a Christian and—”

“You hypocritical piece of crap,” I snarled. “How could you—”

“I won’t stand for—”

“You will stand for it!” Kage roared, and holy crap, was he loud. I forgot sometimes, considering how good he was about keeping his tone modulated, that when he wanted to, he could bounce his voice off the walls. But it made sense. He was massive with muscle, his arms, shoulders, and chest built like a tank, so when he wanted to yell, Jesus Christ, he could. “No Christian I know treats a child—any child—with the willful disrespect, disinterest, and disdain you’ve shown.”

“I—”

He turned and pointed at two women and a man, all in suits, who stood just inside the office door. “These people are here to advise you of your rights, place you on administrative leave for the duration of the inquiry, and take your statement about the welfare of the children who are supposed to be cared for by the department you manage.”

“You cannot expect me to take care of the bad children like I do the good ones,” she told him, her voice rising a second time. “Many of those kids have serious mental issues, or they’re juvenile delinquents or—”

“They’re children,” Kage said, his voice so hollow and cold I could feel the chill. “It’s your job to protect them. You failed.”

“I can’t be expected to help the black boys, because they hate me, and those horrible kids who don’t know if they’re boys or girls, or the dirty little faggots—”

Prescott gasped, which snapped Cullen from her tirade, prompting her to cover her mouth with her hand.

Instantly I thought of Josue and Cabot and Drake, all young men, not children, but still in need of direction, guidance, and protection. A few years younger and they would have been treated to Sebreta Cullen’s icy indifference and possibly may have gotten as lost as Han and Wen. I was nauseated thinking about what could have happened to my boys—or even me—in a different time and place. I was gay and in the foster care system, but I never faced anything like Cullen. She looked into the hopeful, needy eyes of children turning to her for salvation and shelter, care and concern, and threw them away like garbage. The surge of disgust was visceral, and I had to breathe through my nose not to vomit.

Kage turned his head to the suits in the room, focusing on one woman who was clearly in charge. She got on her phone as another man strode forward, folder open while he wrote frantically.

“Done,” the woman on the phone said to Kage, looking up for only a moment before returning to her conversation. I saw her badge before she started closing the blinds in the office, Department of Justice easy to read above her name: Rhonda Taylor. She was tall—at least six two—a stunning woman with long blonde hair who looked more like a model than a DOJ lawyer.

Kage turned back to Cullen. “Sebreta S. Cullen, you are hereby dismissed from your position as director of Custodial WITSEC here at the Northern District of Illinois.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

“And off the record,” he said icily, “you’re a vile human being, and I will personally make certain that criminal charges will be filed against you.”

“You won’t find—”

“Oh, we will,” Prescott assured her, her voice and hands shaking. “We most certainly will.”

“Come with us, please,” Taylor directed, now off the phone, lips pursed, eyes blazing, utterly rippling with barely controlled anger.

Cullen moved around her desk and stood before Kage. “This is a witch hunt because you’re gay and you’ve hated me from the start.”

The muscles in his jaw corded, and really, I knew he’d never hit a woman, but if he did, no one in that room would have said a word. “Madam, before today I had no earthly idea who you were or that you were not doing your job, and that’s my failure. I trust others to oversee different departments in this building and have recently been reminded that, unless I pick the supervisor myself, I can have no real confidence in the reporting. Had you done your job, you would never have seen me. As things stand, you’re terminated with charges pending a formal inquiry. You will remain on house arrest until we complete our investigation.”

“You can’t do—”

“He can, he has,” Taylor informed Cullen, her voice brittle. “And had he not, I would have, so come with us, Ms. Cullen. We need to go over the expectations of you during this transition time, and the limits of your travel to and from your home.”

“I’m not a criminal!”

“You certainly are,” Kage intoned, turning his back on the room, clearly done speaking to the horrible excuse for a human being, purposely breathing in slowly, I suspected, so he didn’t explode.

After Cullen was removed, we stood quietly for a few minutes as a team in coveralls came in and started dismantling the office in front of my eyes, taking photographs and paintings from the walls, packing up framed awards and certificates, boxing up tchotchkes and candles, the pens on her desk, and pictures of her family. It was so cold and impersonal to watch.

“Oh, Sam,” Prescott said, taking a halting breath.

He turned to look at her.

Elbow braced on the desk, her face was in her hand as she stared at the screen, trembling, her eyes filling fast. “You need to have Jones meet with a lot of these kids right now—yesterday—or we’re going to have more—oh God.”

“Tell me,” Kage demanded.

She took a shaky breath, hand over her mouth for a moment, moving her fingers as though tiny shocks were moving through them before she straightened and put her palm down on the desk with what seemed like considerable effort, getting herself under control before she addressed him. “You’ve got a boy in the morgue right now.”

“How old?”

“Sixteen.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry, but I need you to come back for at least three months. I need you to tell me who’s good, if any, in this department, and supervise here on-site while Jones conducts the field interviews. It’s a two-person job until we can get all the current, as well as the incoming, kids accounted for and situated.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And he needs an assistant.”

“For an interim position?”

It appeared their eyes locked, like they were sharing a brain for a second, and I felt like I was witnessing that silent communion I’d read about but never seen in real life. A moment later, they both turned to me.

“Sir?” I asked Kage.

“Get him an assistant,” he told Prescott before he turned for the door.

“Mills?” she asked.

“Mills,” he echoed as he walked out.

I watched him leave, his retreating back holding my attention.

“Jones.”

All my focus returned to Prescott.

“That man has all the faith in the world in you. You get that, right?”

I tried not to grimace because… was she serious? Me? All he had? All Sam Kage had? Anyone in their right mind would leap at the chance to be the one he called upon for anything because if he had any kind of trust in you at all, it was worth the world. But I wasn’t his go-to guy; I couldn’t be. There were others so much more qualified than me. “I think I’m all he’s got at the moment.”

She shook her head. “I worked for him a long time, and he’s never unprepared.” Quick breath. “You need to give yourself some credit here. If he didn’t think you could do the job, he’d never put you in charge.”

I let that sink in. What I knew of him and what a dumbass he always treated me like were at odds with her words. Could it possibly be that Kage did not think I was a complete doofus? And I knew he didn’t because otherwise I wouldn’t be on his team, but would it have killed him to tell me that? To say, even in passing, “You know, Jones, you don’t totally suck.” I could only imagine what being his child must be like. Strong and silent was all well and good if you knew you were loved, or in my case, respected.

“On the other hand, you have to realize that this is not a glory job.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that this is not the job for an adrenaline junkie. This is a small office in the corner of the monolith, and when you’re outside with your badge, no one really looks at it. They’re much more interested in the lanyard around your neck. You still carry a gun, but in all my years on the job, I only drew mine twice.”

“That’s good. I’d prefer never to have to pull my weapon,” I answered woodenly, saying what I thought I should at the moment instead of screaming.

She spoke like I was done in the field doing what I knew best and backing up Ian. It sounded so normal coming from her, like this was of course my new path and not at all the life-and-death decision it actually was. I couldn’t imagine not being a member of Sam Kage’s team, not being Ian’s backup, not doing what I had been for the past five years. The idea of something new, of change, was terrifying, but instead of arguing, I shoved down the fear because, at the very same time, there were aspects of the job I was doing now that I was better at and a huge piece of what she was talking about. Maybe the nurturing side of me, the part that wanted to help and not punish, was something Sam Kage could actually see.

“Jones?”

“I’m listening,” I advised her because I was just processing at the same time.

She nodded. “Once you take this job, Jones, your power isn’t about heroic feats anymore. There won’t be any news articles or photos ops, instead simply quiet moments where kids thank you before they go off to college.”

I crossed my arms as I looked at her. “There’s nobility in that.”

She scrutinized me. “But you don’t care about that.”

She said it like she knew already, and I shrugged.

“You’re not a glory hound, are you, Jones?”

“No, ma’am,” I replied, now taking the time to study her face, liking her dimples, her kind smile, her deep brown eyes, dark sepia skin with the gold undertones, and the intricate braids swept up carelessly into a bun that looked heavier than her hair fork could actually hold in place.

“I’ve read your file.”

“Mine?” I was surprised.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She stared at me until I got it. “He had you check me out.”

“He did.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“Like I told you, he’s always prepared.”

“But he just told Cullen he had no idea who—oh,” I said, jolting with the realization of what I knew, for certain, about my boss, that being caught off guard was not an option for him. “If Mills hadn’t filled the position, he wanted to be ready.”

“Yes.”

“So I was on the back burner this whole time?”

She nodded.

“That’s kinda scary, right?”

“It’s something, yes.”

I took a breath. “Well, give it to me. What did you tell him?”

“I said that you seem to have a natural drive to create a family.”

“Explain it to the whole class, willya?”

She raised her thick eyebrows. “Cabot Jenner and Drake Ford?” I opened my mouth to correct her because those weren’t their last names anymore. “Yes, yes,” she hushed me. “I know, you put them into protective custody and changed their lives.”

“I guided them a bit.”

“And Josue Hess?”

“He’s only been with me for a little while.”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “With you. I heard that.”

“I just want to make sure that you’re not mixing up regular—”

“Where are Wen and Han Li now?”

“They’re at the hospital in protective custody, waiting for their… stepaunt, I guess is what you’d call her, to collect them.”

“Why weren’t they placed with this aunt to begin with?”

“They’re not really related to her.”

“Explain.”

“I got permission to contact their mother’s stepsister, who lives in San Antonio. She’s going to graduate school there, and she’s agreed to take the girls.”

“And how are you keeping them safe?”

“Well, the sister, Rowan is her name, she’s related to Mrs. Li through her father’s second marriage. Rowan was his second wife’s kid when Mr. Wu, Mrs. Li’s dad, married her.”

“So Mr. Wu, Mrs. Li’s dad, was Rowan’s stepfather.”

“Yes.”

She smiled kindly, tipping her head for me to go on.

“So Mrs. Li and this Rowan are stepsisters and—”

“I got that, but how does that keep the girls safe? I mean, if you found out, don’t you think other people will be able to?”

“It’s a stretch. I only know because the girls told me. Mrs. Li and Rowan were friendly, but they had a big gap in their ages. They only met after Mrs. Li’s father, Gene, passed away.”

She nodded. “I like the sound of this, of them having family, but you still haven’t convinced me of the long-term viability of your plan.”

“They’ll have exactly what they would have had if their parents had lived. They live on their own with federal marshals checking in on them, plus I put them on SRT status until they’re both eighteen and—”

“SRT status?” Her eyes were wide. “How did you get that put in place for two non-high-profile witnesses?”

Special Response Team status was for emergency lockdown situations in case an entire family had to be moved at a moment’s notice. It was normally reserved for organized crime families, cartel heads, or people who had turned state’s evidence. It was not usually put in place for witnesses testifying against single individuals.

“I told them that because the girls were abused, it makes them especially likely to reach out to old friends of theirs, old friends of their parents, people they used to know, which in turn makes them vulnerable to discovery.”

“But you don’t actually think they would do that, do you?”

“I have no idea. They didn’t do it when they were in hell these past few months, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

She scrutinized me. “But you let the office there in… where?”

“San Antonio.”

“You let them think it could.”

“It just puts them on everyone’s radar so they can’t slip through the cracks again.”

“That’s very smart. Did you include that in their transfer paperwork?”

“I did.”

She nodded. “That’s quick thinking, Jones, to have it in as part of their official plan.”

“You know as well as I do that whatever stipulations are included in a witness plan initially are a pain in the ass to get changed.”

“Very true.”

“So this way I figured there would be no question that their aunt would be accompanying them if the new living arrangement was ever discovered.”

“And the aunt was fine with this? Being uprooted if there ever came a need?”

“She said she was all-in for the girls,” I reported, leaving out the fact that Rowan Wu was livid when I told her how Wen and Han had been living. Why hadn’t she been contacted after her stepsister was killed? Wasn’t it usual to ask family before anyone else?

I had no answers for her other than to say no one had any idea about her or her connection to the girls until I was told.

“Well, that seems like a good thing, then, if I want to take them,” Rowan had said over the phone. “And I do want to take them. I may not be mother material, but I can be a kickass aunt.”

I had no doubt. Her absolute willingness to jump in spoke volumes. She had already lined up a therapist for the girls.

“It sounds as though you’re confident about this new arrangement,” Maureen said.

“I am, and the girls can contact me as well. They have my cell number.”

“When are they leaving?”

“They’ll be taken to San Antonio by judicial transport tonight.”

“So the girls only told you about this.”

“Wen did, yeah.”

“Because she knew you.”

“Well, she doesn’t know me that well, of course. She just remembered me from when I did her intake paperwork. I haven’t seen her since then.”

“Which was one time.”

I nodded.

“You must make quite an impression.”

Me?

It was a weird thing to say, because I doubted that was the case. “Actually, it’s Ian who makes the impression. I sort of fade into the background when he’s around.”

“And yet, not for little girls who are looking for a savior.”

“Savior’s laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?”

“What do you think Wen Li would say? She saw you at the hospital today by some freakish stroke of luck, and her whole life changed in an instant. Do you think she sees you as her savior or not?”

“She’s just a little girl.”

“Exactly. A little girl looking for a miracle.”

I shook my head. She was jumbling things up in my head. I knew who I was, and some kind of hero wasn’t it. There was a difference between doing your job and going above and beyond. I did more for Josue and Cabot and Drake because it had been that way from the start. But Wen and Han Li had not been on my radar because they weren’t supposed to be. It hadn’t been my job to….

“Ah,” Maureen said, flashing me a quick grin, pointing at my face. “You got it. It was supposed to be Sebreta Cullen’s job to stand between the world and those girls. She didn’t do it, she didn’t perform her job, and as a result, atrocities occurred. It is heroic in certain instances to simply do what you’re supposed to, and Custodial WITSEC is one of those jobs. If you drop the ball here, it’s a child’s life.”

We fell quiet, just looking at each other.

“You know this is all just crap, right? I mean, I’m not the long-term solution here. You heard Kage: I’m the interim guy. He’ll find the person he wants directing this department. I’m just filling in until he finds a new you.”

“I think you’re the new me.”

“That’s just silly. We don’t even look alike,” I quipped to try to soothe myself after the bomb detonated in my chest. How could she simply say something like that and think she wasn’t turning my whole life upside down? Because if I was the new her, then where did that leave my partnership with Ian? Where did that leave me as a member of the team that had become a vital part of my life? The unit was my family. Leaving was not an option.

She gave me a bright grin. “The question truly is what you can live with and what you can live without.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have to be a hero every day? Do you crave the excitement of being in the field?”

I would miss being with the others, but the fugitive pickups, the chases—just everything I’d done that morning with Kage—none of that was really me. Ian was the guy who liked kicking down doors; I liked the mop-up part of it, protecting the innocents, extricating them from filth. That was the part that gave me satisfaction, the knowledge that I’d set someone on a new road. “I like helping people,” I told her.

She nodded. “Will you miss your partner?”

“Well, actually, I’m married to my partner.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, surprising me. “But what I mean is will you miss working with him during the day?”

Absently I touched the stitches in my eyebrow, and it hit me that I hadn’t really worked with Ian in weeks. It seemed like he was loaned out to SOG or on ops with them almost daily now. It was why I wanted to make sure he ate in the morning, because he’d walk in the door after me at the end of the day like a ravenous wolf. I didn’t get to look after him over the course of a day anymore because I didn’t see him.

“Custodial WITSEC is the liaison between social services and underage witnesses.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Also reports of child abuse, including endangerment, physical as well as environmental neglect, issues of adoption, and things like college placement all fall under our purview.”

“Well, I had to put Cabot, Drake, and Josue all in college.”

She smiled. “Yes, I know you did.”

“So at least that part I can do.”

“I understand that you yourself were once a ward of the state.”

I glared at her. “Exactly how long were you studying up on me?”

“Sam has had this idea for a while—as I told you—of you in Custodial. You must have done something that impressed him.”

Again came that feeling of surprise because that was not at all the impression I got from him on a day-to-day basis. “He always acts like all I do is piss him off.”

“It’s probably more that he worries about you getting hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“Mmmm-hmmm,” she mused.

“Not physically.”

“No.”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“You were in the system,” she commented. “Were you homeless at eighteen when you graduated from high school?”

“Yes.”

“So you had nowhere to go except college.”

I nodded.

“Well, that might be a lot to make you relive over and over, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me. It was a long time ago.”

“Over and done is not the same thing as seeing other children carry their belongings from one house to another just as you did.”

I felt the tightness in my chest as I remembered that, remembered having to leave people’s houses and feeling like I was nothing, my clothes and knickknacks in garbage bags, making that whole experience that much worse. I was worthless—so was everything that was mine, which was why now, today, all my possessions were quality.

I spent too much on shoes, socks, everything, anything. I knew that, and I knew why. It was why people became hoarders: because once you lost it all, had not one thing to point to and call your own, it was a brand seared into your soul. The second that changed, once you could have whatever, buy whatever, there had to be more and more until the hole inside was all filled up.

I got lucky there. When I turned eighteen and went to college, I met the four women who were still my dearest friends. Through them, because we all lived together and they shared everything with me from food and money to paintings on the walls and rugs on the floor, from their TVs and game systems to getting me a phone for Christmas… as a direct result of being shown that friendship was the real prize, not stuff, I learned the ebb and flow of possessions. I didn’t become a hoarder, though my shoe collection was vast, but kids I didn’t know also needed to learn those lessons. Trust took longer, trust I had just recently mastered with Ian coming into my life, but maybe I was supposed to pass on something. Pay it forward, as it were.

“You’re thinking really hard,” Prescott apprised me.

“Yeah, I do that sometimes.”

She chuckled.

“Not often, mind you.”

She sighed deeply. “Well, tomorrow’s your first day here. I suggest you go talk to your partner and find out what he thinks about all of this. At this point this is an interim assignment, and it’s up to you what you want it to be. I know Sam Kage, and he would never simply do something without asking you; that’s not how he works. You just need to figure out what it is you want.”

I did. She was right. If Ian wasn’t my work partner anymore, and if he actually wanted to be transferred to SOG, then did I still want to be a marshal? Was the real thrill of the job being with him? And if I wasn’t his partner, did Ian still want to be one? But maybe I was misreading the guy I loved. Maybe he was just helping out because he missed being in Special Forces, and that desire would fade over time.

“I think you need to figure out your life, Miro Jones.”

She wasn’t wrong.