Page 72

CHAPTER 72

A FTER HE RETURNED TO THE trailer, Devine slept well. When he went into the kitchen the next morning, it was clear that Shore and Rose had not.

“You both look like shit,” he said, grinning at the irony from the pair’s having previously told him the same thing.

They glanced up at him bleary-eyed from the small kitchen table, coffee mugs in hand.

“You try stayin’ up all night,” grumbled Shore.

“Yeah, never done that,” replied Devine as he poured a cup of coffee. “I peeked in on Betsy. Sleeping well.” He sat down across from them. “I’m going to Ricketts today.”

“Have you lost your damn mind?” said Shore. “Thought you said that was a bad place?”

“There’s something there I have to find out about. Which means you two will have primary guard duty on Betsy. You up to it?” He looked at them both.

Shore nodded. “They go through us to get to her.”

“But you got other folks around, right?” said Rose nervously.

“Yes,” said Devine. “But you’re the last line of defense.”

“If they was gonna kill her, why not do it when they killed Dwayne and Alice?” asked Shore.

“Leverage over her uncle,” said Devine. “They kill Betsy, they lose any chance that they can stop him from helping the feds.”

“ Helpin’ the feds?” said a stunned Shore. “I thought they was suin’ his ass.”

“It’s a long story, but to be brief, Glass has the dirt on some really bad folks who want to turn this country upside down. He can help bring them to justice. In return, they let him walk on the other stuff.”

“But when does that leverage go away? When the dude testifies?” asked Shore.

“Or when they kill him, too?” added Rose.

“For now, just watch her like it’s your last minute on earth.”

Devine was waiting outside her door when Odom woke up and came out of her room.

“You hungry? Korey made pancakes.”

Still in her sleepwear, shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt and long pink socks, she rubbed her eyes, squinting at the morning sunlight streaming into the trailer.

“Yeah, I could use some food.” She eyed him. “Why do you have your coat on?”

“I have a few errands to run.”

“Where?”

“Need to know.” He finished that statement with a smile.

“Can I go with you?”

“You need to stay here, with Korey and Nate, for now.”

“They want to hurt me, right? Like my mom and dad.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, Betsy.”

“The government needs my uncle to help them and he wants to. Only he’s afraid if he does, the people who killed my parents will hurt me, right?”

“Yes,” admitted Devine.

“And if he decides to help you?”

“Then I imagine you both will be put into witness protection. New identities, new lives.”

“So I won’t be me anymore?”

“You will always be you, Betsy, just under another name.”

“When does he have to decide?”

“Soon,” said Devine.

“Well, I better go have those pancakes then. While I still can.”

She trudged off, looking, to Devine, like the loneliest person in the world.

And it absolutely broke his heart, when Devine didn’t think anything ever could again.

Later, as he cleared the forest and hit the main road, he called Emerson Campbell. He had previously told his boss about King’s meeting with Nicholas Dawkins.

“On the way,” he said.

“Good luck.”

“All plans go as the conditions on the ground go, sir.”

“What kept me alive in Vietnam and you in the Middle East. DOJ and the Bureau think they have this sucker all figured out. Let’s show them how the Army does things.”

“Roger that.”

“You need any backup?” Campbell asked.

“I’ve got all I need.”

Devine clicked off and kept driving straight toward the Termites’ mother ship.