he won’t touch you again.”
“No ma’am. Mr. Jonas said he’d keep us safe from them.” She asked who they were. “Our mom. She’s mean too, but she never hurt us like Dad did. Mr. Jonas has been really good to us.”
“He’s a man you can trust.” Bobby looked at him. “All of us are going to keep you safe, Bobby. And when I mean safe, I also mean we’ll make sure you have food and clothing and that no one will touch you again. Do you believe me?”
Bobby looked at his sisters and brother before looking at Jonas. He told him he would keep them safe, but as Rogen said, they’d help too. Before Bobby spoke again, he leaned back in his seat. Of all four of the kids, Bobby was the most outspoken.
“If I tell you something, something important, will you help us still?” She told him there were no conditions on her helping them. She’d do it anyway. “I’m going to trust you with something that will get us in big trouble. You too, if anyone finds out. Okay?”
“Bobby, we made a promise.” Bobby told Thomas that they needed help. “I know, but we made a promise. And she told us that it would come back on us if we told anyone.”
“I think you need to tell me, boys. If it’s going to be bad, I’ll be able to help you more if I know what I’m up against.” Bobby asked Thomas what he wanted to do, and when he nodded, Jonas let out the breath he was holding. “All right now? You’re willing to tell me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took a bit of the soup on his spoon and sipped it noisily. When he laid the spoon back on the table, he looked directly at him. “My dad robbed a man of all his drugs. He told us that he was going to be rich and he’d be able to have better kids. We told Mom what he’d said, but we lied and told her that we didn’t know where it was. Thomas and I do. We know where it is because we moved it after Mom got arrested.”
“Is it a lot of drugs, Bobby?” He nodded. “Tell me how much. Like bigger than this table? Would it fit on the table?”
“It won’t fit in this room.” Jonas was glad that he was sitting down. He didn’t know what the kids had done to move a room full of drugs, but he was sure it would get them killed. “We had to move it, Mr. Jonas. Some bad people were going to sell it to everyone, and they’d die. That’s what Dad told us. That the drugs were spoiled and would kill anyone who took it.”
“Christ.” He had to agree with Rogen on that. “All right. You tell me where it is, and I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”
“I will, but…will you promise to help us when you get it? Dad said people would do anything for the amount of drugs that was there. Kill for it even.” They all swore that they’d take care of them forever if it came to that. “Just be careful. Okay?”
“Yes, you can count on us all being careful.” Bobby and Thomas told them where they could find the drugs. Not only that but where they’d gotten it from too. Rogen shook Bobby’s hand and told Thomas that she was happy they’d told them. “Bobby, you and Thomas have done a good thing with this. I’m very proud of you.”
He knew that Rogen would get right on retrieving the drugs. But she stayed to talk to the kids a little more. Even Thomas loosened up a little around her. Sarah was still clinging to Beck, but she did watch Rogen closely.
Jonas didn’t ask her how she was going to get to the drugs. Nor did he wonder if she would. It would be just a matter of her calling in someone to get it and figure out who it had been taken from. He had a feeling that was why Cindy had been murdered.
~*~
Benson put the phone back in the cradle. Shivering at what had been told to him, he looked up when his wife came into the room. He told her that he’d just gotten a call from the FBI, that his sister’s kids needed them to come and get them.
“All right. When are we leaving?” He told Sissy that they weren’t going to. “What do you mean we’re not