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That’s when another message from a number I don’t know pops up in the group chat.
Unknown:Employee meeting at five sharp. If you still want a job, show up.
I drop the phone. I have to get Milo at four-thirty, and I’m already running out of time. “He’s just going to have to come with me.” If the unknown number doesn’t understand, then I guess I’ll need a new job.
I’m good at adapting, but only because I have to be. I learned after our parents died that either I adapt or struggle, and I needed to adapt so Milo could thrive.
The wind howls outside, stealing my attention. The windowpane hums, and flurries swirl before sticking to the window. I can feel the cold from here and opt for a heavier sweater. It’s two sizes too big, but it’s fuzzy and warm and my comfort sweater when the world throws bullshit my way. Along with thermal leggings, I slide my feet into my boots and head downstairs…or I try to.
Albert sits on the steps, waiting to ambush me. The fuzzy little creature launches himself at my legs and somehow climbs up my body. Swiping him from my thigh, I cradle the little hellcat and head to the foyer. His rumbling purr actually settles me, and I don’t want to set him down, but I do.
“Don’t get into anything,” I warn him, then grab my heavy coat and purse. Tugging the beanie onto my head, I take a deep breath and try to push all thoughts of Salvatore from my head, yet despite wanting to forget about the stories I read, I can’t.
Stepping onto the porch, I find the cruiser sitting across the street. Two different cops jerk their heads toward me. I pause on my porch, just watching them watch me.
“Shame what happened to Sal, isn’t it?” Mr. Benson says, startling me. I turn to look at him. He’s an old veteran, but he won’t tell me what part of the military he was in, only that hewas.Wearing a crochet hat like mine, because Milo gave it to him from our stash, he rocks in his chair. He shakes his head while shaking his cane at the police across the street. “They act like I can’t protect you.”
“Protect me?” I ask, biting down on my bottom lip. Mr. Benson is nearly eighty, and while I know he has a sidearm, I’m not sure he could get to it in time. He used to wear it until we moved in, then he got himself a gun case, just in case. “Oh, I don’t know if I need protection.”
“Of course you do.” He snorts. “That man let you go, and as much as it grinds my gears, we need those donut-eating soldiers.”
“So does the whole town know that a hitman let me go?” I scrub a hand down my face, wondering how quickly something like that happens. Do they all have each other on speed dial? Is there a secret subreddit I’m not a part of? A Lenora phone chain?
“We watch out for our own, Charlotte,” Mr. Benson says seriously and stops rocking in his chair. His hardened eyes don’t dare look away from mine, and his words settle in my gut. “We watch out for our own.”
Swallowing my retort, I just stare at the man. I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to tell me something—something he won’t say outright—and I can’t help but think of Sal and his family.
Nodding once, I ignore the hidden warning because it’s coded, and I just don’t have the cipher. Yet. “I have to grab Milo, then head to the diner.” I jerk my head at the cruiser. “You think they’d give me a ride?”
Mr. Benson snorts at me and shakes his cane again. “Yep, but don’t do it. They are eyeing you up like you are their next meal. Boys. They are boys. Do not date those amateurs. You need a man.”
I choke on my own saliva and feel my cheeks burn red. “Noted.” Did he just warn me off those guys? I take off into the flurrying afternoon, ignoring his words and just how much they remind me of Desmond’s.
The sun is already setting as the world creeps toward shorter days and longer nights. It never bothered me in the past, but Sal’s murder has me shaken up, just not for the right reasons.
I should feel scared, not curious, and today just scratched the surface of my curiosity. Why is there a hitman in this sleepy little town? Why kill Sal? And is he really the son of a mobster?
Lenora is located in central New York, surrounded by cornfields, farms, and the Adirondack Mountains. It’s not the city, which was my main selling point when I packed us up and drove west with everything we ever owned in the crappy used car my parents purchased for me on my sixteenth birthday. It’s a cozy little town, with quirks and history that authors write about.
It isn’t the kind of town where mobsters retire to. At least that is what I’m basing all this off of—my own bias. The fact of the matter is, I just don’t know.
The elementary school rises before me. It’s a beautiful school, over a hundred years old, with the kind of character I wish my elementary school had.
As I hop up the steps, Milo comes bounding out with a huge smile on his face as he launches himself at me. I have a moment to brace myself before I hug his small frame tightly.
I inhale his powdery scent, and my whole world settles, and that is enough to calm the nerves and insecurities my research brought about. It doesn’t matter who Sal was. It only matters what he did for us, and what this town did for us.
I’m never leaving, no matter what.
It isn’t that I well and truly thought about leaving. I didn’t. Well, maybe a small part of me wondered if this is really the safest place for him, but something tells me it is.
“How was science club?” I ask and wave at his teacher from the doorway.
“Amazing.” Milo hands me his bookbag, which I swing over my shoulder, before I lead him down the steps toward the sidewalk. Little flurries drift from the sky and land on us, melting too fast to do anything. “I can’t wait for next week!” Milo talks fast about some experiments they did that I can’t understand. The periodic table and chemistry are not in my mental database, but I try to follow along.
It’s my fifth, “Oh, interesting,” that has Milo pausing on the sidewalk and peering up at me.
“You don’t know, do you?” He sounds almost disappointed in me.
