“SRT status?” Her eyes were wide. “How did you get that put in place for two non-high-profile witnesses?”
Special Response Team status was for emergency lockdown situations in case an entire family had to be moved at a moment’s notice. It was normally reserved for organized crime families, cartel heads, or people who had turned state’s evidence. It was not usually put in place for witnesses testifying against single individuals.
“I told them that because the girls were abused, it makes them especially likely to reach out to old friends of theirs, old friends of their parents, people they used to know, which in turn makes them vulnerable to discovery.”
“But you don’t actually think they would do that, do you?”
“I have no idea. They didn’t do it when they were in hell these past few months, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
She scrutinized me. “But you let the office there in… where?”
“San Antonio.”
“You let them think it could.”
“It just puts them on everyone’s radar so they can’t slip through the cracks again.”
“That’s very smart. Did you include that in their transfer paperwork?”
“I did.”
She nodded. “That’s quick thinking, Jones, to have it in as part of their official plan.”
“You know as well as I do that whatever stipulations are included in a witness plan initially are a pain in the ass to get changed.”
“Very true.”
“So this way I figured there would be no question that their aunt would be accompanying them if the new living arrangement was ever discovered.”
“And the aunt was fine with this? Being uprooted if there ever came a need?”
“She said she was all-in for the girls,” I reported, leaving out the fact that Rowan Wu was livid when I told her how Wen and Han had been living. Why hadn’t she been contacted after her stepsister was killed? Wasn’t it usual to ask family before anyone else?
I had no answers for her other than to say no one had any idea about her or her connection to the girls until I was told.
“Well, that seems like a good thing, then, if I want to take them,” Rowan had said over the phone. “And I do want to take them. I may not be mother material, but I can be a kickass aunt.”
I had no doubt. Her absolute willingness to jump in spoke volumes. She had already lined up a therapist for the girls.
“It sounds as though you’re confident about this new arrangement,” Maureen said.
“I am, and the girls can contact me as well. They have my cell number.”
“When are they leaving?”
“They’ll be taken to San Antonio by judicial transport tonight.”
“So the girls only told you about this.”
“Wen did, yeah.”
“Because she knew you.”
“Well, she doesn’t know me that well, of course. She just remembered me from when I did her intake paperwork. I haven’t seen her since then.”
“Which was one time.”
I nodded.
“You must make quite an impression.”
Me?
It was a weird thing to say, because I doubted that was the case. “Actually, it’s Ian who makes the impression. I sort of fade into the background when he’s around.”
“And yet, not for little girls who are looking for a savior.”
“Savior’s laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?”
“What do you think Wen Li would say? She saw you at the hospital today by some freakish stroke of luck, and her whole life changed in an instant. Do you think she sees you as her savior or not?”
“She’s just a little girl.”
“Exactly. A little girl looking for a miracle.”
I shook my head. She was jumbling things up in my head. I knew who I was, and some kind of hero wasn’t it. There was a difference between doing your job and going above and beyond. I did more for Josue and Cabot and Drake because it had been that way from the start. But Wen and Han Li had not been on my radar because they weren’t supposed to be. It hadn’t been my job to….
“Ah,” Maureen said, flashing me a quick grin, pointing at my face. “You got it. It was supposed to be Sebreta Cullen’s job to stand between the world and those girls. She didn’t do it, she didn’t perform her job, and as a result, atrocities occurred. It is heroic in certain instances to simply do what you’re supposed to, and Custodial WITSEC is one of those jobs. If you drop the ball here, it’s a child’s life.”
We fell quiet, just looking at each other.
“You know this is all just crap, right? I mean, I’m not the long-term solution here. You heard Kage: I’m the interim guy. He’ll find the person he wants directing this department. I’m just filling in until he finds a new you.”
“I think you’re the new me.”
“That’s just silly. We don’t even look alike,” I quipped to try to soothe myself after the bomb detonated in my chest. How could she simply say something like that and think she wasn’t turning my whole life upside down? Because if I was the new her, then where did that leave my partnership with Ian? Where did that leave me as a member of the team that had become a vital part of my life? The unit was my family. Leaving was not an option.