“It was just a precaution for your court appearance today,” she said as three drab-fatigue-clad FBI agents with large guns suddenly emerged from the foliage along the side of our house.
“Additional security was ordered,” she said. “I kept it low key because you guys have been through enough. I didn’t want to get you upset.”
“In that case, I guess I’m not having a heart attack,” I said.
“Listen, you should be the last one to talk about jokes, Mike,” Emily said. “You know how many people are looking for you? Ditching the marshals after that verdict was beyond childish. We thought the bad guys got you. We’ve been worried sick.”
“Ditched? I texted Joe. Besides, I’m a grown man, Parker,” I said. “A grown man who needed some fresh air.”
“During a gang riot?”
I shrugged.
“Taking my life back needs to start somewhere. I’m tired, Emily, of the death threats, all the worrying. I came out here because of Perrine, and now he’s in the ground, and I’m done hiding. You and I both know the cartels are too busy killing each other for Perrine’s turf to bother coming after me. Perrine was a monster. Monsters don’t get avenged, last time I checked. Judge Barnett has seen to that. What was it that BP oil spill CEO guy said? ‘I want my life back.’”
I walked over and knelt down and finally paid my cabdriver, still facedown on the asphalt.
“What’s the quote, Emily? ‘Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both’?”
“What’s that other quote about a well-balanced Irish-man?” Emily said, hopping from the van. “‘They have a chip on both shoulders’?”
Then she surprised me for the second time in two minutes. She walked up and wrapped her arms around me and pressed her face hard against my neck.
“I going to miss you, Mike…working with you. Just working. Don’t get the wrong idea,” she whispered in my ear.
“Good-bye yourself, Parker. It was fun strictly and platonically working with you as well,” I whispered back as she broke it up.
She hopped back into the fed van with the rest of the agents. As they pulled away, I looked up to see Mary Catherine standing at the top of the stairs by the iron railing of the porch.
I immediately gave her my brightest smile. The on-again, off-again relationship I had with Mary Catherine had most definitely become on-again during our close-quarters California exile. She’d actually had to kill a cartel hit woman to protect the kids. We’d talked about it, cried about it. I don’t think I’d ever been closer to this incredible young woman. Or more attracted.
I thought her dander might be up a little at seeing me share a hug with Parker, who I’d once or twice almost had a romantic relationship with, but to my happy surprise, Mary Catherine’s slim hand slid easily into mine as I got to the top of the stairs.
“Time to go home, Detective Bennett,” Mary Catherine said in her musical brogue as she suddenly broke my grip and playfully pushed me toward the door.
EIGHT
IT SEEMED LIKE EVERYBODY in LA had decided to come to see us off at LAX that evening.
There were people just about everywhere, packing the garish fluorescent-lit corridors, riding in humming golf carts, escalating up and down escalators, floating along on those George Jetson moving sidewalk thingies. Undeterred, our Bennett troupe trekked onward—under, over, and around the billboards and luggage carts and mobs of distressed-looking travelers.
I was a little distressed myself as I watched a tatted-up young street hoodlum in a flat-brim Dodgers cap saunter up from the opposite direction. I know it’s not polite to stare, but I did so anyway, keeping my eyes on the illustrated young gentleman’s hands until he was well past us.
Even in the airport on the opposite side of the TSA security checkpoint, I guess I still wasn’t completely over my fear of our being attacked by some gang fools looking to get in good with the cartels.
We kept rolling. Somewhere ahead in the crowd, Mary Catherine was on point, trying to get us to Terminal 4 and our American Airlines flight home. Seamus and I were taking up the rear to keep track of the laggards.
Public Lollygaggers One and Two, respectively, were Eddie and Trent, who, when they weren’t screaming and chasing each other around the banks of pleather seats, wanted to stop to get something from every Wendy’s and Starbucks and gimcrack souvenir stand we passed.
I knew the box of Mike and Ike movie candy I’d let them purchase at the gas station on the van ride over would come back to haunt me.
“Dad, can we get Lakers caps?” Trent said.
“No,” I said.
“Dad, can we at least get a Kobe bobblehead?” said Eddie.
“No, there are enough bobbleheads in the Bennett family, thank you. I’m talking to two of them right now, in fact.”