Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

“Maybe in other areas, but not where kids are concerned.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“I know you don’t, but you should because sooner or later you’re going to bump up against a situation you can’t wave your magic wand over.”

I scoffed at her.

“Marshal, I promise you, there are not fixes like this in the real world.”

“We’re not Child and Family Services,” I reminded her. “You get that, right?”

“I do. Of course I do. But you’re still a government agency!” she maintained, willing me to understand the point she was trying to make, which I suspected was that there were miles and miles of red tape I was skirting.

“We are, and normally we move slower too, but this is witness protection,” I clarified, “and we don’t work through regular channels for that. We don’t have to.”

“We move fast,” Redeker said, giving her his lazy cowboy grin. “I mean, it’s life-and-death, after all. You can’t dick around with people’s lives, especially kids’.”

She still looked like she was at a loss.

“C’mon, Indian food, my treat,” Redeker said, taking her arm gently and leading her to her car. He drove her car—she was that out of it—and I followed in the Ford.

Kama Bistro was on South La Grange Road, and once we were inside, Macin took a breath and calmed down.

“I just had no idea that kids could be rescued like that,” she conceded. “I’ve been a social worker for three years, and I’ve not seen anything like what I’ve seen today.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s what has to happen in WITSEC. We make quick decisions and hope they’re right. It doesn’t mean we always make the best ones,” I amended. “But that’s why we check and double-check and triple-check to make sure that everything we think we did correctly actually stays that way.”

She nodded.

“Eat, you’ll feel better,” I said, smiling.

“No,” she protested, “you misunderstand me. I’m not upset or—I’m just going to get spoiled if I keep working with you. I’ll want it to work like this for all the kids, not just the ones in WITSEC.”

“It should work like that, and I wish it did. But it takes vigilance, right?”

“It does.”

“We’re not perfect. Look at Cullen. Kids died on her watch. We have one in the morgue right now that we’re trying to get to the bottom of. Sadly everything that happens with kids in the foster care system is only as good as the people administering those services.”

“It takes a village and all that,” Redeker said, smiling up at our server as she approached the table.

After we got our drinks and the appetizers came out, masala fries and chicken lemon tadka, Redeker asked her where we were off to next. Macin just put her head in her hand and looked at him.

“What?”

“I’ll go anywhere with you guys.”

It was nice to hear.

Chapter 8

WE WERE on our way to see a kid who lived in Brookfield when Kage called and ordered me and Redeker back to the office. We waited with Macin until Ryan and Dorsey showed up, taking over for me just for the rest of the day.

I watched Macin’s gaze roam over Mike Ryan from head to toe as he closed in on us. I thought she might like hanging out with Ryan better than me and Redeker. Though if I thought about it, I wasn’t sure Redeker wouldn’t be interested in her. Just because I knew Callahan was into him—and really, he into Callahan—didn’t mean Redeker couldn’t also be interested in Macin. What was clear, however, was Mike Ryan was her idea of pretty.

“So are you two going to be changing the lives of kids today too?” she asked Dorsey, tearing her eyes away from Ryan with difficulty.

“Well, yeah,” Dorsey assured her. “We’re marshals, ma’am. We can do whatever we want to keep a witness safe.”

She rolled her eyes, and he shot me a look.

“She’s not used to things getting done so fast.”

“Ah,” he said like that explained everything.

It took an hour to get back to the office in traffic, and while Redeker tried to find a station he liked—not being into the hard rock Ian was—I called the man I loved.

“You all right?” Ian answered on the second ring, sounding frantic, voice higher than normal.

“Can you stop asking me that?” I teased. “I just wanted to hear how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” he said dismissively. “Tell me how you are.”

“Well, Redeker and I have officially freaked out the nice social worker.”

“Why? What’d you do?” It sounded like he was afraid of the answer.

“Apparently the marshals service moves a little quicker than Child Protective Services.”

A moment of silence. “Well, yeah, I would think so. It’s life-and-death with us.”

“Yeah, but it is with CPS too.”

“And I know that,” he agreed, “but with vigilance on the part of the social workers and decent foster families, a lot of those kids will make it out of the system in one piece, right?”