“No doubt,” Donnie says, seeming to enjoy the experience.
Ben and Nico exchange a glance, appear concerned about something.
Jenna doesn’t understand why until the car pulls through an underpass that borders a sludge-filled area near the Delaware River.
“Um, Detective,” Ben says as the area turns darker, shaded from the underpass, “this isn’t the way to Savior House. I think you might have the wrong address.”
The detective doesn’t say anything in response. Jenna doesn’t understand what’s happening, but her heart accelerates when she sees the fear in Ben’s face. Donnie’s brow is creased as if he’s baffled. Nico is fiddling with a coin, his face drained of color.
The detective gets out of the car. He opens the trunk. The four twist around, and through the gap Jenna can see he’s removing the bikes. Carrying a bike in each hand, he marches to the riverbank. He then does something that takes Jenna’s breath away. He throws the bikes into the water.
Donnie says, “What in the hell is he—”
His words are choked off as the detective charges back to them. He has his blazer jacket pushed back so his holster is on display, his hand resting on the top of the pistol’s butt.
He opens the back door. “Get out.”
His voice isn’t nice anymore. Like he’s a different person.
Donnie climbs out first, Jenna sliding over after him. Ben and Nico don’t emerge immediately.
“Don’t make me ask again,” the detective says.
Ben finally steps his long legs out of the vehicle and stands, Nico right behind him.
The detective still has his hand resting on his holster. “Walk,” he says, looking toward the river.
They don’t move.
“Walk, goddammit,” he says.
Fear cloaks every part of Jenna. She and the boys walk slowly toward the river. She should run.
They should all jet off in different directions—he can’t get all of them. But it’s an isolated area, grim and barren, and there’s nowhere to run.
They reach the river’s edge, near where the detective threw the bikes in the water.
“On your knees, all of you.”
“Sir,” Ben says, fear in his voice. “We don’t know anything. We don’t have a problem.… You don’t have to…”
“Shut up.”
They lower to their knees. Jenna’s heart is in her throat. She has never experienced so much fear in her life.
“You wanna end up like your missing friends?” the detective says.
“No, sir,” Ben says.
Jenna shakes her head, unable to speak.
A whimper comes from Donnie.
Nico’s eyes are closed.
“You think anyone’s gonna miss a junkie whore’s kid? A kid whose father’s in prison for killing his mom? A kid whose only relatives died in a car wreck? The kid of one of O’Leary’s rejects?”
They don’t respond, fear commandeering every part of them.
“Then you drop this. You understand?”
Jenna manages a nod. She thinks she hears Ben say something, another Yes, sir, maybe.
“Or the next time, it won’t be only the bikes going in the water. Do you understand me?”
When there’s silence, he yells, “Do you understand me? ”
All four manage some form of affirmation.
Jenna hears the sound of steps on soft ground, then the sound of a car engine. Soon she feels Ben’s arms around all of them.
Jenna is torn from the memory by the chime of the smartphone Michael gave her through the speakers in her motorcycle helmet. She reaches a gloved hand into the leather jacket—another gift from her ex
—and manages to answer in time. He also gave her a messenger bag, which he called a “bag of goodies.” She can only imagine what’s inside.
“You in Philly yet?” Michael’s voice says, sounding crystal clear in the helmet’s expensive Bluetooth system. Michael always loved his toys.
“Still about an hour out.”
“Huh. The way you drive, I thought you’d be there already.”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t need any more nostalgic trips back to her days in The Corporation. Her days with him.
“My guys got some intel on your hitter,” he says.
“Who is she?”
“No one knows much. She came out of nowhere. Basically put out a shingle on the dark web.
Billed herself as a low-cost, lower-ethics provider.”
“An amateur. That explains the screwups,” Jenna says. Wet work is much more than pulling a trigger. It requires skill, professionalism, and experience. “Your contacts know how to find her?”
“No such luck. So your plan seems to be the best one: Let her find you.”
Jenna thinks her foster brothers will attend Ben Wood’s funeral in Philly. That’s probably the best bait she can hope for if the hitter is still after them. She careens around a semi too fast. Glancing at the speedometer, she realizes she’s going ninety. The thought of the woman who threatened her family causes her blood to run hot. She slows the bike.
“Thank you,” she says.
“You can thank me by taking care of your problem without it taking care of you.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me.”
“Well, I will. Because here’s the thing: My people all heard the same thing about this chick.”
It’s not like Michael to refer to women in such a way. Jenna listens.
“That she isn’t doing jobs for the money or ideology or the usual reasons.” He pauses. “She’s doing it for the sport.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DONNIE
A commotion at the front of Philadelphia’s Old Pine Street Church that morning causes mourners to spin around in their pews and the reporters stationed by news vans in the makeshift media village outside to perk up.
Donnie feels the eyes of them all as he’s being forcibly removed by two men in plainclothes identifying themselves as U.S. Marshals.
“Chill,” one of them keeps saying to Donnie, who’s jerking around, shouting, making a spectacle of himself.
“This is not how to respect your friend’s memory,” the other marshal says. They’re holding his arms tight, but there’s no menace in their faces. They’re trying to de-escalate. Maybe it’s because they know cameras are filming them, but he senses that they’re decent dudes and don’t want to arrest him.
He’s already made a fool of himself, so he considers doubling down and fighting more. The hotel minibar had mostly whiskey, which always makes him aggressive for some weird reason. But he releases the tension in his arms, extinguishes any fight left in him. It’s the sadness that ravages him—
not being able to say his piece, his tribute, to the best friend he’s ever had. Not being able to say goodbye to the kid who saved him over and over and over again. From the abuse. From himself.
He’ll never forget Mia’s face, twisted with anger, when she called the marshals over. Worse: Bell’s confused expression, unsure why Uncle Donnie was acting this way.
The two marshals escort him through the massive doors and down the steps of the porticoed entrance. They release him on the brick sidewalk on Pine Street and make clear they’re watching to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.