Page 13

The two of us stood in my bedroom, staring at the whiteboard, each with a marker in hand. I’d spent the better part of the way home trying hard to sort through all the potential possibilities and what their ramifications could be if Marco was indeed the AD—or Vollero himself. It was all speculation and theory, but given what else we had to work with, it felt like something.

And I could work with something.

“Okay,” Dawson said, stepping up to the board of chaos, “let’s think this through. If Marco is the AD, according to your timeline, it is possible that he could have committed the crimes we’re aware of over the past ten or so years, right?”

“Definitely.”

“And it seems pretty certain that he did or still does have ties to the mafia, so it’s possible that he really is in Vollero’s pocket somehow—”

“Or vice versa.”

“But what doesn’t make sense to me is why he would up and leave. That doesn’t feel like the AD’s M.O. at all.”

“I mean…he could be dead. I suppose that’s an option.”

“It is, but there were no signs of foul play at the pizzeria, and I sent Higgins to do a wellness check at Marco’s house. He just texted back saying everything looked good. Just his vehicle was missing. It’s not impossible that he’s been murdered, but for now, I’m going to proceed under the assumption that he’s alive.”

“Okay…so, assuming he’s alive, what if we look at this through the lens of him possibly being Vollero himself? I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any pictures of him anywhere online. It seems like only a couple of his men might actually have access to him to ID him. So what if, when the feds closed in on him, Vollero posed as someone else within the organization and turned state’s evidence against himself? It sounds crazy, but it’s also kind of genius. It’s not like the mob couldn’t wrangle up some false documents and identification, right? Could he have fooled them into putting the very guy they were hunting into WITSEC?”

Dawson looked back at me incredulously. “It’s possible, but that’s not taking into consideration that his information and testimony would have had to actually result in arrests and prison sentences—which it didn’t, because the DA screwed up.”

“Maybe,” I replied, “or maybe someone in the DA’s office was paid off or blackmailed. Maybe that’s where his connection to the AD started. Maybe that’s when all of this shit started.”

“Let’s assume you’re right. That means that either Vollero knew the AD in some capacity prior to the FBI crackdown on the family, or he somehow made contact after he was brought in.”

“Or the AD contacted him.”

“Correct, but I’m struggling to believe that a serial sociopath who appears to have ties to this area randomly reached out to a mob boss whose real identity wasn’t even known to the FBI and offered to help him out. I think they somehow knew each other before that. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Nothing about this makes sense,” I argued as I plopped down on the end of the bed. “It’s one big hypothetical mess until we hear something from Dean. What are the odds that the Marshals will be helpful?”

“It’s a mixed bag. There’s a lot of red tape involved.”

“Shocker. I’m sure it’s the definition of expedience, too.”

“‘Rigorous’ was the word used in the policy.”

“Which means time-consuming.”

“Dean and his buddy in the Marshals go way back, so hopefully that will get us through some hoops quicker. The tricky part will be whether or not our reasons for revealing Marco’s real identity are compelling enough. With everything you’ve been through and the circumstantial links we have to him, I’m hoping the potential conspiracy is enough to warrant opening the file.”

“That doesn’t sound encouraging.”

“Because it isn’t, but it’s what we have. Otherwise, it’s nothing. There are no pictures of Marco in any of the FBI files I skimmed through. He’s been scrubbed entirely, which confirms the WITSEC angle, but not much else.”

I sighed hard and scrubbed my hands over my face. “Why does this case feel like we have all the game pieces but we can’t put them down on the board? We have leads. We have connections. And yet somehow they repeatedly get us nowhere.”

Dawson spread his arms wide. “Welcome to law enforcement, Danners.”

“For the record, it blows.”

“Duly noted. Now,” he said as he tossed his marker on the bed beside me, “when does your grandfather get home?”

“Pretty late, I think. Why?”

“You should probably call him and let him know the current situation.”

Yes . Yes, I should. But that didn’t mean I wanted to.

I dropped my hands and looked up at him. “Are you referring to the issue that the pizza guy might be a mob boss or the AD, or your insistence on commandeering his couch so you can babysit me?”

“The latter. And I think you meant to say ‘protect’ you, not ‘babysit’ you.”

“In theory, yes, I’d love to give him a heads-up, but he’s working late and doesn’t really believe in cell phones, so short of me trying to get a message to him even though they’re short-staffed at the prison, I think we’re shit out of luck.”

“Try anyway. I can't imagine he’ll be happy to come home and find me sleeping on the couch.”

“Can confirm, hotshot. Gramps will one hundred percent have a knee-jerk aneurysm in reaction to an unsanctioned male in his house at night, which he clearly doesn’t need on top of his heart trouble.” As Dawson glared at me, I pulled out my phone and sent Gramps both a text and a voicemail in the hopes that he’d get one or the other when he left the prison. “Done. Feel better now?”

He exhaled hard, and I realized in that moment just how tired he looked—more tired than I was used to seeing him. It appeared that my case had taken as much of a toll on him as it had on me. “Mildly.”

“Listen, we’re both frustrated about the Marco issue, and I know you’re probably not thrilled about this new living situation, but I didn’t exactly have cohabitating with you on my bingo card for this year either, so if you don’t dig deep and find ‘kinda fun Dawson’ for a bit, you’re going to drag me down into a worry spiral that I might not recover from, and I just don’t have room for that in my life right now.”

He got up and walked over to the window facing the street and peeked out for the eightieth time since we’d returned, then let out a breath. “ Fine .”

“There’s the can-do attitude I’m looking for, partner!”

He shot me a look over his shoulder. “And I’m regretting it already.”

“Great. Now let’s change the subject for a bit,” I said as I walked out of the room.

He followed behind me as I led the way to the kitchen, then pulled out a chair to take a seat like he was preparing for an interrogation. One I probably wanted no part of. “Did you talk to Meg today?”

“Let’s change the subject again—”

“I’m being serious, Danners.”

“As am I.”

“I was thinking about our conversation after we got off the phone last night—”

“Of course you were—”

“Applewood should never have shared that information with you,” he said. “He was way out of line.”

“I get it, but if it was a town rumor, then really anyone over a certain age could have let that slip at some point. For all anyone knows, I was already aware.”

“Maybe…”

“Not everything is a crime, Dawson. And not every act has some dark motive.”

“True, but I could easily argue that he was in love with your mother and still jealous about that whole thing, and he used the opportunity to get some payback by telling you.”

“You could, except you’d sound crazy. All he’d gain from that is a ‘HA! Suck on that,’ and that feels pretty petty for someone of his standing.”

“Except people ‘of his standing’ take rejection the worst, Danners. You don’t get to a position of power without an overinflated sense of self-importance and ego, and when one of those is undermined, it usually doesn’t end well for somebody.”

“Be that as it may, I’m not sure it was a premeditated act. And even if it was, I’m glad I know.”

“Does Meg think you should talk to your mom about it?”

“She does.”

Silence.

“What do you think?”

I let out a breath that flapped my lips and buried my head in my hands. “I think I still want to talk about something else.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, hedging slightly. “What about AJ?”

“Not an improvement, Dawson—”

“Any change there?”

I stared at his earnest expression, wishing I could spontaneously disappear. “‘Change’ is such a subjective word—”

“I’ll take that as a no.” He leaned back in his seat and laced his hands behind his head. His henley pulled tight across his chest, and I found myself taking a sudden interest in the wood grain to keep from ogling him. “A part of me hoped for your sake that he’d pull his head out of his ass and realize the mistake he made…” His words trailed off, and every cell in my body went still.

“And the other part of you?” I asked so softly I wondered if he’d even hear me.

I dared a look at him to find his jaw flexed so hard it accentuated the harsh lines of his face. “The other part knew it would be for the best if he didn’t, because he can’t give you what you need.”

“What’s that?” I asked while my heart thundered in my chest.

“To be loved for exactly who and what you are.” The weight of his gaze held me in place when every fiber of my being wanted to run from the room, the words he’d just said, and the thoughts running rampant in my mind as I romanticized them in a way I shouldn’t. But instead, I sat there, only feet away from him, and just stared back. “Never accept anything less than that, Danners. It’s either the real you or it’s nothing at all.”

With no clue how to respond to that and the disturbing feelings rising within me, I did what any self-respecting teenage girl would do: I panicked.

“ Cool ,” I said, shooting finger-guns at him, “I’ll keep that in mind for when I’m not being potentially hunted by a psychopath. For now, I need snacks.” With zero grace, I shot up out of my seat and raced over to the cabinets. Once I escaped the tension-filled pressure cooker that was the kitchen table, I took a breath. There was something so all-consuming about Dawson when he was in intense mode that he seemed to suck up all the oxygen around him.

And I liked breathing, so…

“Got anything good?” he asked as he stood to join me.

“That’s a definite no,” I said, pulling down a package of rock-hard marshmallows and equally questionable graham crackers, “but I do have these, which means we’re two-thirds of the way to semi-delicious-if-not-completely-stale s’mores. Interested?”

Judging by the contortion of his features, he was not. “How are you even going to melt those?” he asked, casting a sideward glance at the electric stove.

“Oh, ye of little faith—and ingenuity.” I found a microwave-safe glass bowl and dumped the marshmallows into it, dutifully ignoring the loud sounds they made as they struck the glass.

“Sounds appetizing,” he deadpanned.

I resisted the urge to elbow him in the gut as I brushed past him. “Watch and learn, hotshot.” I tossed a pat of butter on top of them and threw them into the microwave just long enough for them to melt and swell up like balloons. “The key is to not overheat them,” I explained as I pulled them out. “Hand me the graham crackers, would ya? Oh! And see if there’s a bag of chocolate chips up there somewhere.” He passed me the box of grahams, then rummaged through the cans and miscellaneous pantry items until he found something hidden in the back. The face he made when he pulled the bag out wasn’t inspiring, so I snatched it away before he could look any closer. “This doesn’t require investigative thinking, Dawson, just creativity and a sense of adventure.”

“You mean a desire to visit the ER with a raging case of food poisoning?”

“ Exactly ! Exciting, isn’t it? A little game of expiration-date roulette just to keep things interesting.”

“I think our situation is interesting enough without adding E.coli to the mix.”

I scoffed at his concerns and dumped the half-bag of chocolate chips into the melted marshmallows. A scoop of a graham cracker later, I had a makeshift s’more in my hand. “This is how we do it down in the holler,” I said, doing my best Gramps impersonation as I handed him the treat.

Begrudgingly, he took it and put it up to his mouth. “If this kills me, it’ll ensure you go down for murder.”

“Like father, like daughter,” I said, raising my own hillbilly s’more like I’d given a toast. “Now eat it, you big baby, before it gets cold and you break a tooth trying to bite it.”

With the skepticism of a cop far older than he, Dawson crammed half the wafer into his mouth and chewed it like it might explode at any moment. Then his tight expression eased to one of surprise. “Hey,” he said around a mouthful of sticky awesomeness, “this isn’t half bad.”

“I think what you meant to say there was, ‘Kylene Danners, you’re a goddamn culinary genius, and I will never doubt your skills in the kitchen again’.”

“I definitely did not mean to say that.”

“You di-iiiiid,” I replied in a singsong voice as I made my way to the couch, bowl in hand and box tucked under my arm, “and you’re not getting any more redneck yumminess until you admit it.” I plopped down on the left end of the ancient sofa. Dawson took up station as far away as he could while still being able to reach the bowl I’d placed next to me. “Ah, ah, ahhhh. No more for you. Not until you say it.”

“I’m not saying it—”

I snatched the bowl away before he could and clutched it to my chest. “You will, or you’ll watch me inhale this whole thing out of spite and indignance.”

“I don’t think you need either to polish that off.”

“Say it, Dawson. Just say I’m a genius, and all this could be yours.” I dunked another cracker dramatically into the marshmallow mound speckled with chocolate and took an equally dramatic bite. “Mmmmm…so chewy,” I said, voice muffled by the sugary goo. “So delicious…”

“Danners—”

“And allllll you have to say to have one is that I’m the cleverest woman to ever raid a pantry.”

The frustration in his expression was plain, from the set of his brow to his narrowed eyes. The deep breaths he was taking to keep from freaking out didn’t help, either. “Give me the bowl, Danners.”

“Never!” I shouted as I reached for the box of crackers. But Dawson, sneaky little shit that he was, shot up and grabbed it right before I had the chance.

Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, he waggled it at me from the far side of the couch. “Care to rethink your stance now?”

Like a petulant child, I dunked my fingers into the bowl, swirled up some marshmallow cream, and crammed it into my mouth as I stared him down. I sucked them clean while he watched, his jaw muscles flexing once again. “Nope. But have fun with those crackers from 2005. Might want to get a glass of water to help wash them down.”

“Last chance, Danners,” he said, leaning forward.

I gripped the bowl tighter. “Is that a threat, Agent Dawson? May I remind you that you are here on—”

He pounced on me with cat-like reflexes. I barely even had a chance to let out a little scream before he was on top of me, attempting to wrestle the bowl from my arms.

“You’re gonna spill it!” I yelled, holding on for dear life as I attempted to rotate away from him, taking the bowl with me, but Captain Jiu Jitsu was having none of that. It was only a matter of moments before he had me pinned in the corner, hovering over me as the bowl I clutched started to slip from my grasp. “Okay!” I shouted as my fate became clear. “I’ll share it! I’ll share it!”

“See how easy that was?” he said as he smiled down at me, satisfaction gleaming in his warm stare. With annoying grace, he climbed off and sat down closer this time, as though he thought I might renege on our deal and take off down the hall with the snacks and lock myself in my room.

Which was exactly what I'd planned to do, given enough leeway.

Bastard .

With glee in his eyes, he took a stack of crackers from the box before placing it back down on the coffee table and scooped half the bowl onto one of them. “Just in case you’re rethinking your generosity,” he said as he distributed the mound of marshmallow amongst his pilfered grahams.

I took the defeat as sorely as possible. “You could have just said I was a genius—”

“But I told you I’d never lie to you.”

The look of indignation on my face made him break out in laughter, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn't the best sound I’d heard in a long, long time. Had I been a bigger person, I’d have joined in.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t.

Instead, I leaned over to reach the box and elbowed him in the gut along the way. Laughter turned to coughing in an instant as he tried to catch his breath. With him disarmed, I snatched one of his many s’mores, then sat back and took a victorious bite. “I don’t know, Dawson. That seemed pretty damned genius to me.”

“I believe ‘unscrupulous’ is the word you’re looking for.”

“Nope, I don't think so.” I stood quickly and made my way to the kitchen. Glass of water in hand, I returned to the couch and handed it to Dawson. “Would an unscrupulous person get you this?” He eyed it like I might have dosed it with something, then grabbed it out of my hand and drank half of it in two gulps. “Better now?”

“Mostly.”

“Aw, didn’t you just tell me you’d never lie to me? Probably shouldn’t start now, Dawson. It’s okay to admit my elbows are lethal.”

“To an unsuspecting victim,” he muttered under his breath.

“I think you of all people should know by now that I’m only ever seconds away from throwing one.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He leaned forward to put the glass down on the coffee table and winced at the motion. Any amusement I’d felt fell away in a second. “Wait,” I said, leaning closer to him, “did I really hurt—AGGGH!”

I was on my back before I even saw him coming, crammed into the corner of the couch with his forearm braced across my throat—sans any weight pressing down—and his body pinning mine firmly in place. “Never let your guard down, Danners. A genius would know that.” With the return of his smug smile, he backed off of me and resumed his post on the couch, snagging a s’more from my stash along the way. “And your elbows aren’t lethal.” He cast me a sideward glance while I attempted not to pout at my defeat. “But they sure as hell hurt.”

A small concession, but one I was proud to receive all the same. “Considering I wasn’t trying to do damage, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Take it however you want,” he said before taking a bite. “Just don’t throw any more at me without warning.”

“Deal. Now, I know we’re both supposed to be working, but my focus is shot. Can we just watch a movie or something? I don’t want to talk about the case any more, and I sure as hell don’t want to do homework.”

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out to check it. “It’s Wilson.” He quickly pressed talk, then put the phone on speaker. “This is Dawson.”

“I’m just checking in since you haven’t reported back.”

“Sorry, sir. I got a little sidetracked after arriving.”

“Has there been a new development?”

“Actually, there has.” Dawson went into as in-depth an explanation as he could while his boss listened. There was a distinct pause when he finished as the senior agent let it all sink in.

“So you’re saying that you think this Marco could be either the AD or Vollero himself?”

“We think it’s a possibility, sir.”

“Any theories on where he’s disappeared to?”

“Not yet, but Agent Franklin is in contact with the Marshals office now to see what, if any, information can be found through WITSEC.”

Wilson cursed under his breath. “You let me know the second you hear back from Franklin, is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the meantime, I’ll put out an APB on this guy’s car and see if we get any hits. I’ll be in touch.” Agent Wilson hung up without another word.

“I’m going to call Dean and tell him Agent Wilson wants an update—see if that helps move things along any faster. You go ahead and find something to watch on TV. I’m good with whatever.” He rounded the couch and headed for the hallway, disappearing into the darkness.

“I’ll make you regret that,” I called after him as I pulled up Gramps’ only streaming service while grinning at the thought of torturing Dawson. “It’s gonna be chick flicks and rom-coms alllllll night long.”

“Then start with The Proposal, ” he replied as the creak of my bedroom door sounded in the distance. “It’s my favorite.”

* * *

Hours into our couch party of distraction—and midway through 27 Dresses —I’d fallen asleep, no longer able to keep my eyes open. For the first time in forever, I felt safe and secure in my own home, nestled down on the couch next to Dawson. My deep slumber was filled with dreams that, for a change, didn’t serve as reminders of all the shit I’d been through. Instead, they were random but pleasant, with a sense of familiarity that grew more vivid by the moment. The faint smell of Gramps’ aftershave wafted into my consciousness as the sound of his front door closing echoed through my mind, and I smiled to myself as the space between sleep and wakefulness began to blur.

Then I shot up on the couch to find Gramps looming over it. “I don’t know what in the hell is goin’ on around here,” he said, glaring at the federal agent who’d nodded off next to me, “but somebody better start explainin’. And quick.”