by Lamar Giles
Dad brought his napkin to his mouth and spit the food he’d been chewing into it. He pushed away from the table, walked past Mom. “I’m going to grab a bagel.”
In Mom’s last words—Things won’t always be this way, Robert—I decoded a warning that Dad did not heed. We wouldn’t be around forever, maybe not for long.
He slammed the door. Gone.
Today might not be the day, but me and mom’s time here was short. Especially if Eli’s flash drive implicated Dad in the mayor’s and Miguel’s sleazy schemes.
Cherish the little time you’re allowed.
I needed to see Reya. Now. I wanted every moment I was allowed. Unlike my dad. I left the table.
“You’re leaving, too?” Mom said.
I kissed her on the cheek. “I love you. Whatever happens, I’m with you.”
She looked past me, into the middle distance. “I know.”
“I’ll see you later, Mom.” I grabbed my bag and left, preparing myself to tell Reya good-bye soon. Mom didn’t respond.
I prepared for the wrong thing.
Reya, hunched and tired, led me through her house by the hand. We pushed past her mom, on her way to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Mrs. Cruz,” I said on the move.
Reya pulled me into her room and shut the door. She bounced on the balls of her feet and chewed her nails.
“Was it what we needed?” I asked.
She nodded but kept chewing her nails.
“Well?”
She said, “Sit down.”
I settled onto her bed, waiting. She took the swivel chair by her desk and brought up a text file, the font too small to read from where I sat. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Reya. What is Whispertown?”
“It’s us. Stepton.” She finger combed her hair hard enough to tear some out. “Our town.”
“I don’t get it.”
Her fingers curled as if she wanted to strangle me for not understanding. “It’s a code name. For Stepton. A government code name. They’re running an experiment in our town. A trial. Eli found out about it from the files he stole off the mayor’s computer. It involves the Witness Protection Program, Nick.”
My face felt like it had been soaked in lighter fluid and someone struck a match. She said “Witness Protection Program” and my name. In the same sentence. “What”—my voice cracked—“kind of experiment?”
“There are criminals in our town. Living with us, going to school with us. Anyone we know could be one of them, anyone at all.”
CHAPTER 38
I STUFFED MY HANDS IN MY pockets, afraid she’d see them shaking. “What’s so secret about that? Who doesn’t know that the Witness Protection Program can set up a family with new identities?”
“I’m not talking about a family.” She passed me a few sheets from a stack she’d printed. “Look.”
The first was an email from Mayor Burke to a person identified only as Barkley.
Barkley,
I must say the numbers are even better than we anticipated. If you review the attached spreadsheet you’ll see that the major crime stats remain steady in Stepton despite the integration of 50+ rogues.
I said, “Rogues? He’s talking about WitSec families?”
“What’s WitSec?”
I felt far away, like I was outside my body watching two people playing me and Reya. I heard me say, “It’s another term for Witness Protection. I saw it in a movie.”
Reya nodded. “Best I can tell from Eli’s notes.”
“Why does he call them rogues, though?”
“Keep reading.”
Certain individuals were concerned that placing such unstable people in a single locale would incite spikes in violence, larceny, and overall chaos. Being one of the few who lobbied for the Whispertown initiative, I don’t feel a bit of shame in saying “told ya so”. . . LOL. The Program’s so-called Worst of the Worst merely need a little TLC. That’s southern hospitality for y’all . . . LOL. Take a look at what I’ve sent you and I’ll have a formal report ready in a couple of days.
I put the email aside, feeling something between hurt, outrage, and fear.
Rogues.
Unstable people.
The Program’s worst of the worst.
“This still doesn’t make sense to me, Reya. How does the Witness Protection Program protect anyone if they dump fifty witnesses in the same place?”
She motioned to the next email in the stack she gave me. “There’s more.”
Barkley,
Attached is my official report and stats on the Whispertown initiative for the last six months. Additionally, I’ve included prime fiscal statements for our town. The funds are helping us tremendously, and though I haven’t been privy to the numbers you’re running, I’m willing to bet disciplinary incidents are down for you. Your witnesses behave here. Please stress that to your superiors. It can only help our cause when this goes before Senator Rowell’s subcommittee.
“He’s lying for the money,” I said.
“It fits, right?” She pulled up several spreadsheets. “Eli discovered something was off about the official crime stats from interviewing people who’d been victimized.”
I recalled some of what he’d told me in Rage Against the Caffeine. “Like the teacher who had her car stolen from her driveway?”
“Exactly.” Reya highlighted cells in a spreadsheet, several seven-figure dollar amounts. “It was costing too much for—what did you call it?”
“WitSec.” It was strange saying it aloud to someone other than family.
She spoke rapid-fire now, barely taking a breath. “The government wanted a cheaper, more efficient process. They decided to try an experiment. Stepton got two million dollars for allowing one percent of the witness population to be placed here, unaware that they’re guinea pigs. The witnesses are monitored by two U.S. Marshals, utilizing a ‘streamlined process’ to observe and report on their”—she checked Eli’s notes—“‘acclimation.’”
Acclimation. The very word that Bertram used on those annoying weekly calls with the repetitive questions. Nicholas, on a scale of one to ten, how’s it feel finding out that this whole Whispertown thing is about you?
I said, “Why ‘rogues’ and the ‘worst of the worst’? What’s the deal with that?”
“That’s the most loco part. This program had been suggested years ago, but they had problems trying to test it. For one, WitSec didn’t want to jeopardize any of their ‘good’ witnesses. People who could deliver the most damaging testimony over the most sought after criminals got to stay put. Even witnesses who couldn’t always deliver but managed to follow the rules got a pass. Mostly the bystanders.”
Bystanders, people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were the ones who happened to step out of the Starbucks at the exact moment a motorcycle hit man shoots a mob lieutenant at the red light. Or the honest worker who took the wrong job with a financial advisor/money launderer and saw files she wasn’t supposed to see. The WitSec sob stories. Not career criminals who used Witness Protection as a pass on the penitentiary and retribution from former friends. Guys like my dad. I didn’t need Reya to explain the rest. “Remove bystanders from the equation, and all you’ve got left are the snitches.”
“And not just that,” she said, “but the snitches who couldn’t follow the rules. The most rebellious and dangerous protected witnesses.”
I moved to the window, unwilling to look her in the eye as I secretly described my recent family history. I said, “The witnesses who screwed up the most—I’m talking three, four times—and were the least valuable, became candidates for this new program. What choice did they have? It was either that or be expelled, right? And WitSec didn’t want anyone’s blood on their hands, even if that blood belonged to criminal dicks. After all”—I swallowed hard—“criminal dicks can have families, too.”
“The government couldn’t do this without permission—” said Eli. Odd, him being dead and all.
I searche
d for the ghost, found a webcam video playing on Reya’s monitor. It was recorded in the J-Room, the time stamp reading two months before I arrived at Stepton High. His sister said, “There were a few of these on the drive, too.”
Eli continued, “—wouldn’t be nice to dump a bunch of malcontent criminals into an unsuspecting community without getting sign-off. It’d be like dropping a piranha in a stranger’s fish tank, just ’cuz. When Uncle Sam proposed a million-dollar payday for the city’s participation, good old Mayor Burke did the responsible thing and asked for two . . .”
“Seriously?” I got closer to the screen as if I expected Eli to react. “The mayor negotiated?”
Reya tapped the space bar, pausing the video. “Not only that, if the program’s a success, the town’s supposed to get up to five million per year going forward.”
“That in this video, too?”
“No. It’s in another one. I’ve watched nearly all of them.” She stared at the frozen screen—Eli’s face—with longing, like she wanted to reach through and touch him.
“Nearly?”
“The last one he recorded is secure. We need another password.”
I groaned. “Why’d he do that?”
She shook her head “Like I would know. That Urilium word didn’t work and I don’t have the energy to try and crack it right now. Besides, there’s something on one of the other videos that bugs me.”
Reya brought it up and dragged the time slider to a precise minute and second. Again, Eli was in the J-Room, the time stamp from last month, a week before my arrival. “Things are much more complicated now. I may have enough to expose the mayor, but family concerns are stopping me. I don’t know what to do.”
She paused it. “Every other video is about the money, or the stats, or the rogues—”
“What about the rogues?”
“Common sense stuff. They’re scum.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, drawing a dribble of salty blood. I shouldn’t have taken offense. She wasn’t talking about me, not directly. Still . . . scum?
“The ‘family concerns’ thing is totally random,” she said. “I have no idea what it means.”
“Maybe he’s talking about your uncle Miguel.” I said it harshly; the words felt jagged coming up.
She blinked slowly. Once. Twice. “What do you know about my uncle?”
Deflecting, I said, “He’s family. Didn’t Eli mic his car once? That could be about Whispertown, couldn’t it?”
“That was like two years ago. Has someone been talking to you about Miguel?”
“Well, I don’t have access to a Girls’ Associated Press or anything, but I heard he’s into some stuff. You might call it roguish.” I stopped short of calling him scum.
Her defenses went up. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but if you think whatever my uncle does has something to do with . . .” She stopped short, maybe letting reason trump blood loyalty.
I might’ve told her about Miguel and the mayor’s fight that Dustin witnessed, and how the car accident could’ve been an attack meant for the mayor. But the bedroom door swung inward, and Reya had just enough time to tap a key and minimize Eli’s paused video before her mother saw. Mrs. Cruz eyed me like a stain, a far cry from what I was used to. “School’s starting soon.”
Reya said, “I’m suspended. Fighting. Remember.”
Mrs. Cruz’s eyes narrowed. “Someone who gets suspended for fighting probably shouldn’t have company for a while. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Looked like the grief trance was wearing off. Mrs. Cruz, reporting for parental duty.
“Fine. He’s leaving. Just give me a minute.”
“Make sure he does. I’m going to Portside to take care of some business.” She turned to leave, stopped, faced Reya again. “I love you, bebe.”
Alone again, Reya said, “You’re not really going to school, are you? We need to figure what’s next?”
“I’m going.” I needed to figure my “what’s next” by myself. “Big test.”
She tapped a pencil on the desk, tossed it aside. “Fine. I’m taking you.”
“You’re suspended. Fighting. Remember.”
“Last I checked, there’s no fence that keeps suspended kids from driving on school grounds.”
“I’ve got my bike.”
“Park it on the porch.”
“But—”
“I’m going to pick you up from school, too. We can crack the password on that last video.”
“Whatever.”
“Why are you acting so pissy?”
They’re scum. “I’m good.”
She tossed her keys and I caught them one-handed.
“Start the car then,” she said, bossy, focusing on the monitor. “Hold the two buttons on the key chain at the same time for three seconds.”
I rolled my eyes and pressed the buttons.
One . . . two . . .
The overcast day went bright as summer. A sudden flare forced me to flinch and press my forearm over my eyes, a lucky reflex that probably saved my sight when the window blew inward. An invisible, oven-hot mitt smacked me and tossed me into the wall over Reya’s bed. I rebounded off the drywall and landed on her mattress, dust raining on me. Only then did I hear echoing thunder that wasn’t thunder at all.
I was stunned—sounds and sights took on a slow-motion quality. Reya rose, yelled in an unlikely deep voice, “Moooommmm!!!”
I coughed and smacked myself in the side of the head, knocking something right because the world screeched into real-time speeds. Fire crackled, metal groaned, and people I didn’t know screamed.
Mustering what strength I could, I followed Reya’s trail outside and felt the dry heat coming from the flaming remains of her Beetle. The neon paint crisped and bubbled from green to black.
Next to the Beetle, Mrs. Cruz’s Camry had shifted diagonally. Its back tires had cut ruts in the lawn while the front tires melted in the all-consuming fire. The passenger door was closest to Reya’s wreck, bowed inward as if sideswiped, all the windows shattered.
On the opposite side of the car, Reya. Unharmed by an explosion that would’ve killed her, had she been near the car. Lucky.
The same could not be said for Mrs. Cruz, who lay unmoving in her daughter’s arms.
CHAPTER 39
SIRENS WHOOPED IN THE DISTANCE LIKE angry birds. Still, I ran inside the Cruz home and dialed 911 myself, needing to do something.
“Someone’s been hurt in an explosion,” I yelled into the phone.
“Sir, stay calm and—”
I cut her off. “Trace the call and come fast.”
I dropped the handset, ready to return to the lawn, when I realized the opportunity presenting itself. Yes, as dire as the situation was, without knowledge of whether Reya’s mother was alive or dead, I saw opportunity.
I made a side trip to Reya’s room.
The gathering crowd had thickened by the time I made it back outside. The heat from the explosion formed an invisible wall, keeping people back, giving Reya and her mother a wide berth. I rushed to their side, mad that none of the onlookers had offered any help. My indignation faded as I felt the weight of my backpack bouncing on my shoulder; helping hadn’t been my first priority either.
“Is she breathing?” I asked.
Reya simply rocked her mom, her voice a whimper. “Wake up, Mami. Wake up.”
I reached toward Mrs. Cruz intending to check her pulse. Reya slapped my hand away and rocked her mother harder. A fire engine blasted its air horn, parting the nosy onlookers.
An ambulance rounded the corner. The cops wouldn’t be far behind; I couldn’t be here when they arrived. They’d have questions and I needed to see my dad. Now.
I backed away slowly, grabbed my bike, and disappeared into the crowd with the items I stole from Reya’s room feeling heavier than they should.
In charred clothing, I entered the Tax and Accounting Services office, the burned fuel vapors stronger than the garlic shr
imp from the Chinese takeout next door. A single customer sat with his legs crossed and an elbow propped on Dad’s desk, rattling on about minimizing his tax liability. Dad wasn’t listening.
The customer noticed Dad’s gaze drift over his shoulder. He turned around, gasped. “Son, you’re bleeding from the neck.”
I touched two fingers below my chin. They came back red with tacky, drying blood. “Just a scratch.”
Dad came to me and dug his fingers in my arm. I bit back a groan. We exited to the tinkle of the door chimes and his coworkers’ concerned muttering. No Chinese restaurant today, no secluded corner beside the building either. He dragged me to the center of the near-empty parking lot, where nothing or no one could get within thirty yards without us seeing them.
“Damn it, Tony. What did you do?”
“What did you do, Dad?” I yanked the zipper on my backpack and pulled a handful of emails out. “The Whispertown initiative? Fifty rogues in a single place? Two million dollars for the city—for the mayor?”
He backed away, stunned, a vampire facing a crucifix.
“How—?” He didn’t finish his question, but closed the gap between us, snatching the emails from my hands, then taking my backpack and rifling through it. “You just don’t listen.”
“Keep the bag, Dad.” I dug Eli’s flash drive from my hip pocket. “I’ve still got this.”
He tried to grab it, but I ducked him, sidestepped. “Everything’s on here. Emails, financial statements, the whole history of Whispertown. Kids are dying over this.”
His face sagged, a warm-dough blankness. “Please tell me you’re not still on that kick about your friend’s suicide.”
“That kick? He’s dead, Dad. Murdered. A couple of other good kids are, too. Because of this scam you and the mayor and Miguel Rios are running.”
“Where are you getting this stuff from, Tony? Why do you smell like a gas station?”
