Outside the Lines (2 page)

He grabs my wrist as his eyes narrow. “You're not the boss anymore, Rob. Get the fuck over yourself.”

Grant is only a few inches shorter than me, and though I've got about thirty pounds on him, he's quick and can hold his own in a fight. Even against me. I need him to know I
am
still the boss, despite what he might think. Left to his own devices, he's the loose cannon that will blow this whole thing wide open.

I hold him pinned against the wall another second while I give him a look that is meant to relay just how goddamn serious I am, then release him and slick back the damp hair from my face. “I'll take the room with Sherm.”

“Then I call the bedroom downstairs,” Ulie says.

I push past them toward the stairs to the first floor, leaving them to fight it out. When I reach the bottom, I find Sherm curled up in the corner of the sofa and the TV on a stand in the corner playing some cartoon I've never seen before. Lee is in the kitchen.

“It looks like there are sheets and towels, and the kitchen's stocked as far as dishes and stuff, but I'm going to have to make a grocery run,” she says when she sees me. “We passed a market in town.”

I move deeper into the room to a door past the stairs. It's another bedroom, this one with a queen bed. Beyond that is a door into a laundry room that leads to a back entrance.

I watch the rain sheet down the window in the back door. “We're going to be okay here, Lee.”

She steps up beside me in the doorway, lays a hand on my shoulder. “We are.”

I hate that I need to know she believes we can make this work. But if she does, then maybe I will.

I turn and catch her eyes flicking toward Sherm, the one thing all four of us have always agreed on. Sherm is the most important thing right now. We have to do whatever it takes to keep him safe.

“I'm going to register him for school tomorrow,” Lee says. “The sooner he gets settled in, the easier this is going to be.”

“What if he talks?”

She shoots another concerned glance his direction. “He's barely opened his mouth since we left Chicago.”

Our pet name for our baby brother has always been motormouth, and he's earned it. He even talks in his sleep. His current silence is deafening.

“But if he opens it to the wrong person?” I push.

She bites her upper lip. “I'll talk to him again.”

A wave of some emotion that I don't have the luxury to feel rolls over me. It takes me a second to recognize it's homesickness—not for the Chicago we left, but for the home we lost when Mom died.

Every day, I think Lee looks more and more like how I remember Mom looking—long sandy brown hair that turns blond in the summer, a narrow face with high cheekbones, and big hazel eyes. Now I see Mom shining out of the maternal concern in her expression.

I pull the handful of rings from my pocket and hand them to Lee. “I don't think we should wear these, but they weren't something I could leave behind either.”

For a long second she stares at them, her wide eyes moistening. “They took these. How did you . . . ?”

“They slipped off the table into my pocket totally by accident,” I say with a wry smile.

She pulls mine from her palm and hands it back. “You should wear yours. I'll get chains for the others. They can wear them around their necks if they want.”

I nod and slide the thick gold band on my right pinky finger. Where mine has a round topaz stone set in its center, hers has an emerald. The pair of ruby rings are Grant and Ulie's, and the diamond is Sherm's. We swore to wear them to remind us, but I'm not sure it worked. I nearly choke on the acid climbing up my throat when I close my eyes and see my mother's face.

“What did you do to your hand?” Lee asks, snapping me back to the present.

I lift my hand, look at the gouged knuckles. “Scraped it.”

She gives me a look because Lee is the one person who's always been able to read me. But she spares me having to explain it when she asks instead, “How's the leg?”

“They said it was fine,” I say dismissively. The truth is, I'm constantly aware of it, not because of the pain, but because it's a reminder of how close we came to losing this battle.

“Let me see,” she says, nudging her chin at the kitchen table.

I drop my thick frame into a rickety chair, hike up the leg of my jeans.

She sits and pats her thigh. I swing my foot into her lap. She pulls back the dressing on my calf and looks over the wound. Two black stitches hold together both an entrance and exit wound on the outside of my left leg, just below the knee. A memento from the gun of the guy who tried to kill us. Lee did a better job fixing me up that night with a sewing kit at the seedy hotel we ran to while we waited for the Feds than the doctor at Safesite did. Skills she's acquired over the years patching me up. To look at her handiwork, you'd think she'd graduated from medical school. The truth is, she's a money whiz and has been doing Pop's books for the last five years. She's a semester from completing her MBA at Northwestern—another reason to find the bastard responsible for us being here and put him out of his misery, so we can go home.

“Have you been keeping antibiotic ointment on this?” she asks.

I take a deep breath. “I've kind of had other things on my mind the last few days.”

She sets my leg down and goes for her bag near the sofa, giving Sherm's hair a ruffle on her way back. He doesn't take his eyes off the cartoon. She pulls a tube of ointment and a box of Band-Aids out of her bag, sets them on the table in front of me. She tears open a pouch and starts cleaning the wound with a Betadine wipe.

“If you don't take care of this, it's going to get infected, which will mean a trip to the emergency room,” she warns as she doctors me up.

“Got it, doc.”

She lifts her head, cuts me a look as she yanks down my jeans and slides my leg to the floor. “They report gunshot wounds, Rob.”

I blow out a breath and lower my voice. “You know I'll do anything to protect this family, Lee.” My eyes flick to the staircase, where the twins' raised voices waft down. “Except Grant, who I might end up killing in his sleep.”

Her gaze follows mine and she cracks a smile, a little of the tension smoothing out of her face. “You'd think they were still twelve.”

The stone fist crushing my chest tightens. “This is going to be tough on them.”

“It's not like any of us had a choice,” Lee says, her smile fading.

Christ, how did I fuck this up so bad?

“Looks like the rain is slowing,” she says, standing. “We should bring our stuff in, then I'll head to the store.”

I look to the one shutterless window and see she's right. There's even a patch of blue on the horizon over the roiling sea.

“Grant! Ulie!” I bark up the stairs as I haul myself up. “Come get your crap out of the car.”

They stampede down the stairs, and we grab our bags from the trunk and load them in.

“What's going to happen to the stuff at my apartment in New York?” Ulie asks, frowning at the large rolling suitcase they gave each of us at Safesite—all our new life's possessions crammed into one rollaway.

I don't know the answer to that question. I don't even know for sure what's happening to the family house in Chicago. Pop is in lockup, and technically not in witness protection, so, though I'm sure the Feds will be raking through it after what happened there, I don't think they can take it away.

“Maybe we can get word to your roommate to ship everything back to Chicago,” Lee answers.

“Then what?” she asks. “It's not like I can go home and get it.”

“I don't know, Ulie,” Lee says, a hint of frustration bleeding through. “None of us knows how this is going to work. But this is what it is now and we just need to deal.”

Ulie's frown deepens as she drags her suitcase toward the downstairs bedroom. Grant glares at her back as he hauls his up the stairs. So I guess Ulie won that battle.

“Keys,” Lee says, holding out her hand.

I dig the car key out of my pocket and hand it to her.

She squeezes my hand as she takes it and moves to the door. “If I don't get washed into the ocean, I'll be back in about an hour.”

I give Sherm a glance, then carry his and my bags up to the room at the top of the stairs with the twin beds. I unpack our stuff into the dresser, load my Glock from the hard-sided case they gave me at Safesite, and tuck it into the back waistband of my jeans. It's the only thing the Feds let me keep, probably because they knew I'd just go out and buy another one. This way, someone shows up with a bullet through their brain, they can trace it back to me if it's mine.

When I'm done, I move to the window. It sticks when I try to lift it but lets loose when I give it a hard yank. I pull the screen and unlatch the shutters. The hinges groan in protest as I push them open. The storm has passed, for the most part, and yellow rays of sun stab through the dissolving cloud cover. I lean out and hook the shutters back against the house, then stand here for a long time trying to figure out what happens now.

I'll contact Pop, but only after I know what's what and who's who. My mind ticks through everyone at the table the day I was made—all Pop's key guys. Most of them, I grew up calling Uncle. One of them is dead. Another, I put a knife into when he questioned my authority. They all needed to know just because I'm not Pop doesn't mean they should fear me any less. I don't think he's in my fan club, but he's in the pen with Pop right now, so he's not in a position to benefit from my absence. That leaves Pop's consigliere Salvador; my real Uncle Peter; a few-second tier guys; and my cousin, Jimmy D, who keeps the Bienville Hotel, our legit business front, up and running. If the organization is still functioning, it's because one of them picked up the reins when I dropped them two weeks ago and vanished into WITSEC.

So the real question is, which one?

If it came from our side, whoever grabbed power is the guy who ordered the hit. On the other hand, if the organization is floundering with no one at the helm, then I know it
wasn't
a power grab. In that case my money's squarely on Savoca.

I move from room to room upstairs, pulling back shutters. When I get to Grant's room, I see he's just dumped his suitcase on his bed like he doesn't think we're staying. I head downstairs and find him settled in next to Sherm, firing up the Xbox. As I move around the room, pulling back shutters, the fist around my chest loosens a little when he's able to coax Sherm into playing something with him.

Ulie comes out of her room and sinks onto the sofa on Sherm's other side, hooking her arm around his shoulders. He doesn't look at her, but I see him shift into her side as he pushes buttons on his controller.

There's only one way to make this right. I'm going to take revenge on the sorry bastard who did this to us, serve his head on a platter at the next
borgata
sit-down, and bring my family home.

Even if it kills me.

Adri

“Is this straight?” Dad asks, peering in the mirror across from the front door and messing with the badge on the breast pocket of his blue shirt.

There is almost no crime on our little island because Dad is legendary for taking down drug rings and poachers, but when it comes to the little things, like pinning his badge on straight, he still needs help.

That's why I'm here.

When Mom died last spring, I came back from Jacksonville so I could live at home and help Dad. He and Mom were high school sweethearts and married not long after graduation. He's always been taken care of. I don't want him to be alone.

I move to where he is and turn him, unpinning the badge and straightening it. I smooth his salt-and-pepper hair off his forehead and stretch up on my toes to kiss the smooth patch of cheek above the line of his beard. “I seriously doubt they're going to send the chief of police home for a dress code infraction.”

“We'll see,” he chuckles, giving my blond ponytail a gentle tug. “You ready for your first day influencing the youth of Port St. Mary?”

I was over the moon when I got the call three days ago that Mrs. Martin had had surgery and they needed a long-term sub for her class. Not that I'm happy they hacked out her gallbladder or anything, but her loss is my gain, so to speak.

I come from a long line of educators. Mom was my first-grade teacher. Both of her sisters, her father, and her grandfather taught as well. You could say it's in my DNA. I resisted it for a while, thought I wanted to go into finance, but by my junior year at Clemson I had to finally admit to myself that teaching was what I really wanted to do. I changed my major to education and finished my credentials just before Mom died.

Since her death, it's felt even more urgent to me to teach—like maybe following in her footsteps will somehow keep her spirit alive. I had a position all lined up in Jacksonville for the fall, but had to give it up to come home. I've looked here, but Port St. Mary and the surrounding communities are small, and teaching jobs are pretty scarce. I was afraid I was going to have to try elsewhere and suffer a miserable commute come fall. This was a prayer answered . . . which makes me a little afraid I might have had something to do with poor Mrs. Martin's gallbladder flaring up. And now it's starting to feel like one of those “be careful what you wish for” scenarios.

I rub my sweaty palms down my slacks. “What happens if they hate me?”

Dad wraps me in his arms and squeezes me in a bear hug, crushing the air out of my lungs. “They're going to love you, punkin. Your mom would be so proud of you right now,” he says, a catch in his voice. “I hope you know that.”

I swallow back the lump in my throat and look up at him. I can't even remember the last time he's brought her up out of the blue like this. “I know, Dad, but thanks for saying so.” He lets me go and I shoulder my messenger bag. “Time to face the music.”

We step out the back door to where my old electric blue Chevy Lumina is parked in the driveway, next to Dad's only slightly less conspicuous cruiser. Dad watches as I slide in and turn the key. The engine chugs but doesn't turn over.

I blow out a breath and pop the hood. By the time I grab the monkey wrench on the floor of the passenger side and get out of the car, Dad already has the hood propped up and is looking over the engine compartment.

“Don't mess with Frank, Dad.” I point my finger in a circle at the guts of my poor Frankencar. My best friend Chuck and I rebuilt most of the insides from junkyard parts when we took auto shop our senior year in high school. “It's a delicate balance.”

He grins and steps back, his hands in the air. “Wouldn't dream of it.”

I will always love Frank—he was my first—but I know I need a new car. Dad's offered me Mom's T-Bird, but I'm twenty-three. I'm supposed to be responsible for myself at this point. And besides, I'd rather he sold Mom's car and put the money toward his retirement. Even though Port St. Mary is pretty sleepy most of the time, every day he goes to work, I worry.

I reach between the radiator and the engine and give the alternator a sharp rap with the wrench, then slip back into the driver's seat. When I turn the key, Frank chugs twice, same as always, then rumbles to life.

Dad ducks into the cruiser and gives me a little salute as I pull out.

Port St. Mary Elementary is only about two miles from home. It takes a grand total of eight minutes to drive there. Technically, it's a one-room schoolhouse. The tiny twelve-space parking lot butts up against an octagonal building, which, in fact, is just one big room inside. In the exact center of the building are the bathrooms and storage closets, and from there, folding accordion partitions section off each wedge of the octagon. Each wedge is a grade level, kindergarten through sixth, and a multipurpose room. To the right of the parking lot is a double-wide “portable” that houses the school offices and small staff room. Behind that, children are already gathering in the playground, which is really just a weed-infested lot with a slide and a jungle gym that has been there since before I started kindergarten here.

When I walk around the octagon to the door marked with a big yellow four and step inside, it's like déjà vu all over again. Mrs. Martin (she told me to call her Pam when we talked on the phone about the lesson plan yesterday, but I can't bring myself to) has had the same posters on the walls since the dawn of time. The presidential chart ends with Reagan. She had already been teaching fourth grade in this same classroom for, like, twenty years when I had her.

I move to her desk, to the right of the door, and set my bag on it. And that's when I see the note from Principal Richmond.

A new student.

I brush my palms down my slacks again, a fresh jolt of nerves twisting my insides into knots. I was already going to be way over my head with a classroom full of nine-year-olds fresh off Christmas vacation and all sugared up on candy canes.

I look over the instructions. Sherman William Davidson needs his reading comprehension assessment, writing and grammar evaluation, and his math skills worksheet completed by the end of the week.

I blow a wisp of hair off my forehead and unpack my toothpaste and toothbrush, my journal, and a few of my favorite colored pens into Mrs. Martin's desk, careful not to displace her things too much. I'm just pulling the assessments for the new kid from the file cabinet when the classroom door opens. I hear Principal Richmond's gravelly voice before I turn around. “. . . and his classroom is here. We just got word a few days ago that our regular fourth-grade teacher is out on medical leave, but Sherman will be in good hands with Ms. Wilson. She's a very capable substitute.”

I take a deep breath as I turn and hope he's not lying.

I substituted five times during fall semester. For the most part, everything went great until I subbed for Mrs. Yetz's sixth-grade class the week before winter break. Somehow, what started out as a math lab on probability devolved into a liar's dice tournament, complete with money changing hands. I wasn't sure they'd call me back after that.

But when I see Principal Richmond waddle his round frame through the door, I straighten the scarf I tied over my favorite teal sweater and try to look as confident in what he said as he does.

“Ms. Wilson,” he says, waving me over. “This is your new student, Sherman.”

Sherman is a wiry little thing with unruly brown hair and clothes that hang off him a little. He looks as if he'd vanish into himself if given the chance.

“He goes by Sherm,” the man standing next to him says.

I look up into some of the most amazing eyes I've ever seen. Heavy dark brows curve over irises the color of honey with burgundy flecks through them. Thick brown waves are loose around a strong face with angled cheekbones, and a square jaw covered in two-day stubble. Set in flawless olive skin are lips so firm and red they make me forget the frown that's turning them down slightly at the corners. He's just so . . . gorgeous, like something out of a magazine or a movie. And he's tall—well over six feet of broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips under his blue button-down shirt. The tails are loose over pressed jeans that fit him just so. Everything about him is tailored and cultured and nothing like any of the year-rounders who live on this bumpkin island. But it's not just the way he looks. A blend of confidence and something else I can't identify but that makes him seem a little intimidating wafts off him with the spicy cologne I keep catching hints of. He's nothing like anyone I've ever met, even at Clemson.

I feel my jaw dangling and snap it closed, pulling myself together long enough to extend an arm. “I'm Adri.”

Principal Richmond clears his throat, and when I flick a glance his direction, I know my ogling didn't go unnoticed. His brow is deeply furrowed, and his frown curves so low it makes him look like one of those marionettes, where their chin is a whole different piece of wood than the rest of their face.

My eyes bulge and I shift my outstretched hand to Sherm. “I mean, Miss Wilson. Welcome to Port St. Mary, Sherm.”

The boy just looks at me with sad eyes the color of his . . . father's?

My gaze gravitates back to the guy towering over me. Could he be Sherm's dad? He looks way too young to have a nine-year-old. He also looks all business. There's nothing soft or nurturing in his cold, sharp gaze as it flicks around the classroom, silently assessing.

“What's on the other side of those partitions?” he asks Principal Richmond.

“The third– and fifth-grade classrooms,” he answers.

The guy's eyes continue to scan the room. “He'll spend all day in here?”

The principal nods. “Except when he's on the playground.”

“Is there security on campus?”

Principal Richmond looks momentarily perplexed, rubbing his round stomach as if he's thinking with it. “Not as such. We have yard monitors during recess and lunch, and the teachers are responsible for the children when they're here in class.”

“What about lunch?”

“He can bring his own lunch, or buy a bag lunch from Nutritional Services for three dollars. Either way, if it's nice weather, the children eat outside at the picnic tables. On rainy days, we open the partitions and they eat inside as a group.”

The guy reaches into his pocket, but Principal Richmond holds up his hand to stop him when he comes out with a thick wad of cash. “We don't allow students to carry money on campus. When we're done here, I'll take you to the office and have you purchase a scan card for Nutritional Services.”

The guy nods, then moves to the door and jiggles the knob. “The exterior doors are left unlocked?”

“During school hours, yes,” Principal Richmond answers, moving to my desk and shuffling through the papers I pulled for Sherm.

The guy's full lips narrow into a tight line and he scowls at the door. He spins and starts toward the door in the back of the room, leaving no stone unturned.

I wipe my hands down my slacks again and decide just to ask. “So, you're Sherm's father?”

His feet stall on the chipped linoleum and he seems to finally notice I exist. “Brother,” he answers, and that one word seems to carry the weight of the world with it as it falls from his mouth.

His eyes make a slow sweep of my face, and as they trail down my neck, the front of my sweater, over my hips, and down my legs, I'm frozen in place, paralyzed by the intensity of his gaze.

Principal Richmond shoves some papers in my face, breaking the spell. “You still have fifteen minutes until the bell. Maybe you can get Sherman started on these.”

“Um . . .” I grab the papers out of his hand as Big Brother blinks, some of the thickest lashes I've ever seen hiding those incredible eyes. “Yeah. We'll do that . . .”

Principal Richmond guides Big Brother to the door. “Let's get out of their way and let them get started. I'm sure Sherman will have a positive experience here. Children his age tend to adjust quickly,” he's saying as the door swings closed behind them.

I look down to see Sherm has pulled a small shark jaw off the bookshelf in front of my desk. I lean down and look over Mrs. Martin's “cabinet of curiosities,” as she calls it—things that fascinated me as a kid. “That's the jaw of an Atlantic sharpnose shark.”

Sherm tugs at a chain around his neck as he turns the jaw in his hands, inspecting it from every angle. A thick gold ring at the end of the short chain slides out from under his shirt. What looks like a diamond sparkles in the center of the band.

“What's that, Sherm?” I ask, ducking my head for a closer look.

He lowers his gaze and fists his hand over the ring, tucking it back down his shirt. He obviously doesn't want to talk about it.

“You know what?” I say instead of asking again. “Let's do the tour first. Okay?”

He looks a little mournfully at the shark jaw then at me, like he's afraid I'll make him put it down.

“You can bring it with us,” I say, standing, “as long as you promise it won't bite me. I'm sort of scared of sharks.” This is not a lie. I've always had a phobia, which is why, despite growing up on the beach, I've never gone into the ocean deeper than my knees.

He shakes his head.

“Okay, then. Let's go.”

We move toward the door in the back of the room that leads to the short hall to the restrooms. “If you need the bathroom, just raise your hand. This is where the boys' bathroom is,” I say, stopping in front of the door.

He holds up the shark jaw and makes it nod.

I can't stop the smile. He's a cute kid, but his eyes seem older than his nine years, making me wonder where his parents are and why his older brother is the one bringing him for his first day of school. And why said older brother seems so concerned about campus security and locked classroom doors. It also hasn't missed my attention that Sherm hasn't spoken a word.