Page 113 of But For You

As I listened to Kola talk to Hannah, tell her that when they got home, if she wanted, he would play Candy Land with her before bed, and felt her nod and start telling him who she wanted to be, the cold knot of fear in the pit of my stomach slowly started to unravel. There would be time to sort out my head later. Right this second, for the kids, I was their rock. I was fine, so they were fine. It was how it worked.

Who would have guessed that, someday, I was going to be the grown-up?

TWELVE

Ihad to go home without Sam. There was no way around it. I was okay to drive; it was normal, and so I did it. Of course we had a police car in front of us and one behind us, and four officers escorted us to the loft, which was thoroughly checked before we were allowed inside for the night.

Once we were home, I did normal things. We had dinner; I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup with Goldfish. I had the kids take showers and get into their jammies. We got clothes out for the following morning and filled Kola’s new backpack with the things from the old one. Then, because Hannah didn’t want to play a game, we sat together on the couch and watched Schoolhouse Rock! on DVD because Hannah liked the songs and Kola enjoyed the math.

Hannah fell asleep right after seven, which was her bedtime anyway, and I put Kola to bed at eight, which was his on school nights.

When there was a knock on the door, I checked the peephole and was surprised that standing next to one of the officers was Chaz.

I opened the door, and he looked pained.

“What’s wrong?”

“You gotta go downstairs. Sam’s there. Me and Pat …” He stopped, looking down the hall as the elevator dinged and Pat got off. He was jogging toward me when Chaz put a hand on my shoulder, returning my attention to him. “Okay, Pat and I are gonna stay with the kids. You need to go.”

“Where am I going?”

“To Sam, downstairs,” Chaz reiterated. “Where’s your coat?”

I went and grabbed the first thing in the closet—my trench coat—and pulled it on over the jeans and long-sleeved shirt I was wearing, along with my sneakers. I normally walked around the house in only socks if I was planning on staying in.

After Chaz locked the door behind me, I headed down to the elevator to find Sam.

He was outside with, as far as I could tell, his entire team of marshals, more men in suits, and then some uniformed patrolmen. As I reached him, he looked up and gave me a faint smile.

I knew it pained him not to be able to grab me, put an arm around me. I knew the guys who worked in his office were cool with Sam living with me—or at least, they said nothing to his face—but this was a professional situation, and in front of our building, there were a lot of people who didn’t know me or Sam.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he told me, his eyes locked on mine. “It turns out the guy I shot and the other two work for Salcedo. They were looking to pick you up tonight because they had gotten a tip that I was out of town. Who would know that I was out of town, Jory?”

I cleared my throat. “Kevin Dwyer.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “He saw you at Dane’s party the other night without me. When he asked, he was told I was out of town, and when he asked Dane when you were expecting me back, he told Kevin he didn’t know.”

“And you know this how?”

“From the planted bugs in Dr. Dwyer’s residence, and it was confirmed from text messages he had sent from his cell to others. We’d cloned his phone at the same time we bugged his apartment.”

“Okay.” I took a breath. “But why am I out here instead of upstairs with my children?”

“Salcedo doesn’t know he hasn’t acquired you yet.”

“You mean, he thinks his guys are still on the way with me.”

“Yes.”

“And so what?”

“And so, in exchange for being allowed to turn state’s evidence, Mr. Morelos, who’s in the car—the man who was driving—has agreed to escort you to the rendezvous point with Salcedo. We need you to go in with Mr. Morelos, wearing a wire, to draw Salcedo out so we can arrest him. None of us have ever seen the man. Even me. I’ve heard of him. We were even supposed to meet once, but it fell through. So, nobody knows what he looks like. If you go in, he should be easy to identify.”

“And if I don’t go?”

“If you don’t go, they’ll know we popped their guys, and they’re back in the wind. We need you to be the bait.”

I saw it then—the quick cording of muscles in Sam’s neck, a slight narrowing of his eyes—and understood this was not his call and not his idea in any way.