It had been almost a year since I’d last seen Melody. I couldn’t imagine what would have prompted Justice to relocate her again just a month earlier. Unless someone else was trying to kill her.
I raised my voice, hoped it might bring a more detailed answer. “Why’d you guys move her?”
“Who knows.”
“It didn’t say?”
“You asked for an address.”
Gardner would never serve as my partner in crime.
“Gimme what you do have. Where is she?”
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “once you’ve driven me home safe and sound.”
I didn’t say another word, not because I was obeying Gardner’s demand—I could have gotten the answer out of him while still keeping one hand on the wheel—but because the flood of potential answers to the question why had me clawing for the surface to get some air. Just like Chuck.
I replayed every conversation I’d had with my father and brothers over the previous few months, attempted to reread their words and signals and facial expressions. Their disappointment in my inability to complete the mission of knocking off Melody was not exactly hidden; maybe they thought it was time to get it done no matter what. On the other hand, there was really no compelling reason to have her killed immediately, other than to tidy up that loose end and to make a point to our peers that eventually we eliminate everyone who would dare to testify against us.
We pulled in front of Randall’s house, his driveway now full of cars, guests visible through the first-floor windows.
“Great,” he said, “everyone’s already here.”
“Where is she?”
Gardner stared at his house, had a look on his face like he was starting to wonder if this was all worth it. He never turned my way, mumbled, “Four twenty-five Sunrise Road, Farmington, New Mexico.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head back to the headrest, thought, Man, that’s a really, really long drive. All along I’d been fortunate enough to have Melody within a single day’s drive. But New Mexico meant overnight stops. I knew I could never utilize airplanes or trains or anything that would log my name to a ticket purchase, anything that could be used as proof I’d been traveling with the intent of locating her. And with the demands of Sylvia, I wasn’t really sure how I could ever pull it off; those trips would require a significant time commitment.
Gardner turned and stared at me as I blanked out and gazed down the tree-lined street of his neighborhood. “You’re welcome.”
I kept my eyes on the street. “Get out of my car, you friggin’ scumbag.”
Once he’d left, I broke my trance, watched him stroll to his front stoop, running his hands through his hair, straightening out his clothes, wiping his face. He put his hand on the doorknob and paused a few seconds like he was trying to get his breath instead of his composure.
With data not flowing from the government side, I tried to paint as full a picture as possible by draining my family of whatever information and intentions they had—though they offered not much more than Randall. Over the course of three days, I casually asked my father and brothers and a few of the capos in our crew if they’d had any change in plans or interest toward Melody, but I could read the honest indifference in their demeanor, in their words:
POP: “Geez, kid, I got other things on my mind right now.”
PETER, with a wave of his hand: “She’s your little project. Clean up your own mess.”
TOMMY FINGERS: “I thought you took her out four years ago.”
ETTORE: “Not me, Shonny. No way. Not a shansh.” (These were Ettore’s last words to me. He would die, bullet to the neck, a terribly slow way to perish, in an alley in midtown five days later. My father turned the other way and allowed it to happen, a payback for a mistake Ettore had made against another family, a price paid to keep peace. No one thought to mention it to me until he’d been gone nearly a week.)
I slowly came to terms with the idea that her move might’ve had nothing to do with me or my family at all, that it could’ve been something as benign as a budgetary issue within Justice where they wanted to consolidate witnesses to regions, or that Melody had developed an allergy to some native Kentucky weed, or that some health issue required her to live in a more arid environment. No matter the excuse, I