She pulls a sizzling strip of bacon out of the skillet with a fork. “Not really. I was being nice.”
“Appreciate that,” I tell her, taking a swig.
“I need the car later. Are you coming right back after you drop Sherm off?”
I shrug. “Figured I’d drop him on my way to check out the south side of the island.”
She sets the fork down, plants her fists on her hips. “And what, exactly, are you looking for?”
My jaw tenses. I have to fight to keep my temper in check, because I have no fucking clue. I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life. All I know is I have to keep this crew safe until I can bring them home, but I can’t even begin to see what that looks like. “Anything that might be a problem for us.”
Sherm lifts his head, splitting a wide-eyed glance between us. Lee shoots me a warning glare as she pours a bowl of beaten eggs into the skillet. She’s quiet as she stirs them around, but finally says, “Rob, if you keep looking for trouble, you’re going to find it. Just let it lie, okay? No one here knows who we are. Don’t go giving them a reason to want to find out.”
My hand tightens on the glass. I force myself to relax before I crush it.
She dishes eggs onto a plate and slides it in front of Sherm. “Want some?” she asks, lifting the pan.
I shake my head. I have no appetite.
When Sherm’s done eating, Lee loads him in the car and hands him his backpack as I climb into the driver’s seat.
“There are pencils and erasers in the front pocket,” she tells him, then turns to me. “Find out what other school supplies he needs and I’ll pick them up when I’m out.”
“Yes, boss.”
She gives me a measured look as she closes Sherm’s door, as if trying to gauge how far off the reservation I am. I’m going to have to come clean with her soon.
As we pull onto the dirt road at the end of our long driveway, I can’t shake the feeling we’re being watched. I rarely went anywhere in Chicago alone. If I was out on business, there were always one or two crew members with me. If it was personal, they were still there, just more discreetly. Their whole job was to watch me, but this feels different.
I’m being paranoid. I know that. We were flown from Chicago to DC eight hours after everything went bad. We spent nearly two weeks at the Witness Security Safesite and Orientation Center, where they made us into new people, complete with a new look, fictitious history, and all the documentation we could possibly need to back it up. I’ve got death certificates to prove our parents were killed in a car accident two years ago. According to the paperwork, I was awarded custody of Sherm by the court. If anyone asks, we decided to move from Philadelphia because we have family in Clearwater, Florida.
They originally talked about splitting the adult children up because our group was too conspicuous, but when Lee found out that meant we’d never be able to contact each other, she put her foot down and they agreed to keep us together. They laid our new birth certificates and licenses, our fake educations and histories, out in front of us and grilled us on our own and each others’ until we could recite them backwards and forwards. All of us except Sherm, that is, who wouldn’t talk. They called in their kid shrink, who labeled it PTSD. Said he’ll need treatment and gave us a name of a guy in Tampa.
Once the Feds deemed the WITSEC makeover complete, they handed us our new bank account with seventy-five thousand in seed money and direct deposit stipends to cover anything we’ll need for the next eighteen months, and four gray rolling suitcases full of new vanilla clothes for our new vanilla lives. Then they put us in a black Expedition with tinted windows, drove us to the airport, and handed us plane tickets. Three hours later, when we landed in Tampa, the deputy marshal who met us there handed off the keys to the car and house, four cell phones, and a printed map to Port St. Mary, then sent us on our way.
Pop gave them what they wanted. The trial’s over and all