“Where did you get the album?”
“From her room. It was on the bed, I remembered she’d asked me for it. She was taking pictures of some of the older photos. She wanted to post them on Insta.”
I remembered when Lucinda had told her we used to send prints to be developed.
Mom, did you have a horse and buggy, too?
“Dad, you should see this other picture. It’s funny.”
“Oh?” I braced myself. “Show me.”
“Let’s see.” Lucinda started paging back through the photographs, passing Allison at three years old, laughing as she held our gray tabby cat Max in one of Ethan’s baby blankets. Her eyes sparkled, her grin spread ear-to-ear, and I could almost hear her giggle.
My heart ached as Lucinda turned the pages. It was too soon for me to do this. I struggled to even accept that Allison was gone. That Milo murdered her. That lawyers like Hart had enabled him. She should be alive, flesh and blood, not encased in a photo album, flattened behind plastic.
“This is the one we like the best, so far,” Lucinda said softly. Her fingers grazed Allison’s face in the photo, which she had taken. “It was Easter, remember? She was trying to find the eggs.”
Ethan nodded. “Those plastic ones. You guys would put, like, a jelly bean inside, or a dollar.”
“Yes,” I said, suppressing my sorrow. The photo was of Allison at maybe six years old, racing across our backyard, her hair blowing behind her. She had on a yellow dress and shiny black shoes, like a baby chick at speed.
Ethan pointed. “I like this picture the best. She looks like herself in it. She’s always mad when I find more eggs than her.”
“I know.” I forced a smile. My daughter was born wanting to win, and as she grew into a teenager, I used to tease her about it, especially where Ethan was concerned.
Al, why do you have to be so competitive? Let him win for once.
Hell to the no.
Lucinda sniffled. “This picture makes the cut.”
I looked over. “What do you mean?”
“I’m making a video for the funeral.”
My heart wrenched. I dreaded telling her we weren’t going to the funeral, but I wanted to wait until we were alone. Or maybe I wanted to stall.
Ethan pointed at another photo. “Dad, what do you think of this one?”
I looked over to see Allison at about ten, licking rainbow sprinkles off a vanilla ice cream cone. Nobody loved ice cream more than my daughter. Her favorites were vanilla, butterscotch, and mint chocolate chip, but not the green color, nothing artificial. I never minded going to Wawa to pick up a pint of H?agen-Dazs while she studied for finals.
Ice cream has superpowers, Dad.
Her words echoed, but I was doubting the very concept of superpowers. Maybe there was no such thing. Unless you were a lawyer named Paul Hart.
I wondered how he would tell his wife she couldn’t go to the funeral of her own daughter.
* * *
—
I told Lucinda in the living room, while Ethan was upstairs getting dressed.
“What?” Her eyes filled with outraged tears. “We can’t go? The FBI pretends to be mourners? They fake-cry while we watch on TV? You have to be kidding me! Did you say we don’t accept it?”
“Yes, absolutely, I pushed back—”
“Did you?” Lucinda shot me a resentful look. “Or did you go along to get along? You should have raised holy hell.”
I didn’t reply, I let her vent. We’d had this argument before. She claimed I was conflict-avoidant, though I considered myself easygoing, like my father. Plus in my profession, I watched lawyers fight all day, arguing for the sake of arguing. What I knew from being a court reporter was that court wasn’t the answer.
“Why didn’t they tell us that before we came here, huh?” Lucinda’s eyes narrowed, her anger curdling to suspicion. “They wanted us to take the deal, that’s why. They knew we wouldn’t if we weren’t able to go to the funeral. It’s bait-and-switch!”
“I don’t think they intentionally deceived us.” I thought of Dom. “I trust him.”
“Why?”
“I think he cares about us—”
“Jason, really?” Lucinda scoffed. “They only care about us because we’re witnesses. It’s called the witness protection program, not the victim protection program.”
“Whatever the reason, they’re trying to protect us.”
“We’ll see about that.” Lucinda called upstairs, “Ethan, Dad and I are going next door!”
Chapter Eleven
“Dom, got a minute?” I called through the screen, standing next to a simmering Lucinda.
“Be right there,” Dom called back, then opened the door. “Hello, Jason, Lucinda.”
“Hi,” Lucinda answered, clipped, and we entered their apartment, which we hadn’t seen. The window overlooked the driveway, and the small living room had a blue couch, matching plaid chairs, and an entertainment center with a small TV and a videogame console. The tiny kitchen had an oak-veneer table covered with several laptops, empty mugs, and a sports section. I assumed Wiki was in the shower since I could hear it running.
Dom smiled politely. “How are you, Lucinda?”
“How do you think?” Lucinda folded her arms and planted her feet. “You told my husband we can’t go to our daughter’s funeral. You kept this from us intentionally. You knew we would never come here if we knew.”
Dom blinked, his smile fading. “We didn’t keep it from you—”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“All right, I should have. I’m sorry. The issue wasn’t top of my mind that night. The moment was exigent. We were concerned about your safety. That’s our priority.”
“Whatever, I’m telling you now, you are not keeping me from my daughter’s funeral. If you try, I’ll contact the hospital myself, get my daughter’s body, and arrange for her burial.”
Dom frowned. “Please don’t. The Verias can guess which hospital your daughter was brought to. We’ve already sealed her medical records. Hospital employees have been instructed to direct inquiries to a number we monitor.”
“Hospitals follow the HIPAA laws. They don’t give out personal or medical information.”
“Generally, that’s true. But don’t you think somebody would leak information for five grand? How about ten? It only takes one employee to tell them you called. They’ll find out where you are.”
Lucinda shook her head. “But this is our daughter. I’m willing to take a risk to bury her.”
“Risking your life? Ethan’s?”
“You’re exaggerating,” Lucinda shot back.
“Why would I?”
“To get us to do what you want.”
I cringed inwardly. My wife was nothing if not direct. I wondered if she was right. Maybe I compartmentalized, like she said.
Dom pursed his lips. “I can prove the danger, if I have to.”
“Then do.”
“This way.” Dom crossed to the kitchen table, hit a few keys on the laptop, then angled its screen to face us. We walked over together and looked at a color video showing our house, the Corbuzes’ next door with their blue Nittany Lions flag, and most of our street. The scene was sunny and still, and according to a clock at the bottom with the time and date, in real time. “So you see, we have a team monitoring cameras on your house. This feed is raw investigative material. It’s against procedure to show it to you, but you need to understand why we cannot let you go.”