“Right?” Dom grinned, chewing.
“My daughter loved chocolate chips,” I heard myself say.
Dom’s smile faded, his sympathy plain. “I’m sorry, really. I have two girls, sixteen and twelve. I can’t imagine what you and your wife are going through.”
“Thanks.” My throat went thick. I had to change the subject. “Coffee?”
“No thanks, already had a cup. Then I run.”
“I run, too.” I finished the cookie.
“I’ll run with you.”
I used to run with Allison, I almost said. It was our thing. “You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. It’s my job.”
“Like a bodyguard?”
“Exactly.”
It was strange, thinking I needed one. “Does the FBI know that I run? Is that why they picked you to be our . . .”
“Case agent?” Dom supplied. “No. We all run, except Wiki. He sits.”
I smiled.
“What if I want to go to the hardware store or something?”
“We go for you. We can get you a couple of bikes, for exercise. We go with you if you ride.”
“How about the dog? Do we walk him?”
“No, let him out in the backyard.” Dom chewed his second cookie. “How’s your wife?”
“Not great,” I said, without elaborating. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Lucinda with him. “What about Ethan and school?”
“He’s in eighth grade, right?”
It was strange how much Dom knew about us. “Yes, it’s his last year of middle school.”
“We get him a tutor or you homeschool.”
My heart ached for my son. All of his friends would be moving on to high school without him. The same with Allison. She would never graduate, never even be a junior. She would be fifteen forever, but I couldn’t go there.
“By the way, I have goodies.” Dom brushed off his fingers, dug into the messenger bag, and slid out three Apple laptops and old-school flip phones. They landed on the kitchen table with a clatter and a sealed white envelope. “This is for you guys.”
“Thanks. Who pays for this?”
“Taxpayers. Our budget is good, but we’re careful.” Dom winked. “The Tate’s were my treat.”
“Thanks,” I said, liking him. I was scrupulous with business deductions, too. Then I realized that didn’t matter now.
“The laptops are cleared with secured Wi-Fi. But there’s no email account. Please don’t start any new ones. You can’t communicate with anybody, whether by email, text, or phone. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“The phones are basic but they’ll do. I loaded our numbers so you can reach us anytime. Call us for any reason, day or night. We’re here for you. One of us will be in the apartment at all times.”
“Thank you.” I examined the flip phone, missing my iPhone loaded with contacts, email, and documents on Dropbox. Then I realized they didn’t matter anymore, either. I wondered about my pictures of Allison. “All of my photos are in my cloud. Do we still have access to that? My wife uses the cloud for her photos, too. You know, she has a photography business.”
“No, not yet.” Dom’s tone turned official. “Don’t access your cloud under your name, until we clear that.”
“Okay.” I understood we were living under FBI rules now.
“By the way, there are security cameras around the property. Obviously, for your safety.”
“Where?” I asked, surprised, then realized I shouldn’t have been. “Not in the house, right?”
“Correct. Outside. Back door, front door, and in the trees.”
“In the trees, really?”
“Yes. We monitor them in our apartment.” Dom slid me a laptop, opened it up, and hit the power button. The screen came to life with the unfocused background of Apple’s Catalina. “Wiki set these up. They’re good to go. Feel free to go online—except, as I said, don’t communicate with anyone.”
“What’s the password?”
“Hold on.” Dom leaned over the laptop and hit a few buttons, and the browser came into focus. “There’s a document with the passwords in the envelope. Feel free to reset them. It’s your computer, not ours. In other words, it has no spyware, in case you were wondering.”
I hadn’t been. I was still processing the security cameras in the trees.
“As far as social media goes, you can’t go on Facebook, Instagram, or any platform that shows you as a live user. You can’t open any new accounts under pseudonyms. Obviously, you can’t buy anything. You can’t use any credit cards. You can’t do anything more active than looking. Understood?”
I nodded.
“When you get a chance, we need your passwords for your current social media accounts, so we can monitor them.”
“Okay.” I caught sight of the TV playing in the background. “You know, I didn’t see anything on the news about my daughter or the double homicide.”
“There won’t be, as I said.”
“It’s hard to believe. Can I check online?” I heard myself, asking permission like Ethan. I logged on to Google and searched my name and carjacking, which was a disturbing sensation. I got no results. “Nothing.”
“Correct.”
“Let’s try Allison Bennett and—” I hesitated, not wanting to say murder. I typed it in anyway, and there were more than a few entries, which horrified me. I skimmed them, realizing that each one represented a grieving family, the ripple effects of violence. But none of the entries was Allison. “So there’s no mention? It never happened officially?”
“Correct,” Dom repeated.
I didn’t know whether to be happy or heartbroken. I rested my hand on the laptop, its metallic surface smooth under my fingertips. “Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Dom smiled. “I’ll get going. Call me if you need anything, or come up anytime and knock. Anything you need, just say so.”
“I will, thanks,” I said, preoccupied. I was itching to go online and learn everything I could about John Milo, Junior Veria, Big George Veria, and the double homicide in Jennersville.
“I’ll see myself out. Catch you later.” Dom headed for the front door and left, and I sat down. A moment later, I realized I had forgotten to ask him the most important thing.
I hustled after him.
Chapter Nine
“Dom?” I caught him when he was at the bottom of the stairs, and he looked up, then I remembered the cameras in the trees. I descended the stairs, scanning the branches, but didn’t see anything. The morning was sunny and clear, and a cool breeze blew off the bay. Seagulls called overhead, a constant backdrop I would have loved on vacation, but not now.
When I reached the driveway, I asked, “How many trees have cameras?”
“Four, in front of the house.”
I blinked. “That many?”
“Yes. They’re cheaper than personnel. Safer. It’s our go-to.”
“I don’t see them.”
“Good.” Dom smiled.
“Where’s the camera on the porch? You said there was one at the front door.”