Lucinda shook her head. “They’re probably trying to call you.”
“Totally. What’s she going to do now? What are any of them going to do? This is awful. My company, gone? How does the government sell it now?”
Lucinda hugged me, and I clung to her for a moment. I loved my employees, and so did she. We threw our holiday party every year at the house. I hosted Happy Hours on Fridays at Baxter’s. Our softball T-shirts read, our word is law. The six of us had worked together for years, and we knew each other’s kids, attended birthdays and graduations. They would have been devasted to hear about Allison. Now, this.
“I’m insured, but when does that settlement come through? How do we keep anybody employed now? Can they even get severance pay?”
“Jesus.” Lucinda sank onto the bed, and I sat next to her. It had taken my whole life to build that business, and I owed so much to my employees. I made sure they got bonuses, and I made a standard thirty percent commission on their deps. My net annual income had grown to $420,000, a sum I never would have dreamed of. My father worked around the clock and never cleared a hundred grand.
It’s only money, he said all the time.
Oddly, I thought of my conference room, newly renovated for out-of-town counsel or solo practitioners. Mechanized pull-down screens. Quality grease boards. State-of-the-art audio and projection equipment. I even sprang for the oak credenza, not veneer. I said I wanted to be buried in it, so we called it the Jason Bennett Memorial Conference Room. “My conference room.”
Lucinda shook her head. “All that work.”
“Yours, too.” My wife had picked out the carpet, a navy blue pattern, all wool. The ergonomic chairs, Herman Miller with lumbar support, not the knockoffs. Glass, not plastic, mats under the desk chairs.
“What about the steno machines?”
“They’re insured, but jeez, that’s forty grand.”
“All your plans.”
“They were gone already.” I had wanted to open an office in Philly in two to three years, then maybe franchise in the mid-Atlantic.
“We should call Dom.”
“I wonder if he knows already.”
Suddenly my cell phone rang, and I got up and went to the night table. I flipped the phone open, and it was him. “Dom, are you seeing this? My office is on fire.”
“Your office, too?”
* * *
—
Horrified, we watched the video on Dom’s laptop. A raging conflagration engulfed our home, turning it into an orange fireball. Flames streaked from the windows, upper and lower. Black smoke billowed from the roof. Firefighters swarmed the front lawn, their silhouettes hazy against the fire, aiming hoses at the blaze. Fire trucks lined up along the curb, boxy shapes amid the smoke.
My house. Our home. I loved our house. I knew every imperfect inch. I had patched its drywall and painted its baseboards. I had fixed the hose on the back of the washing machine. My proudest moment was locating the leak in the wall of the family room. A patch of the stone fa?ade had needed repointing.
“Oh my God,” was all I could say.
Lucinda shook her head. “They did this, didn’t they? They burned our house down.”
“And my office,” I added, as if nobody had figured that out yet. “Did you not know about that, Dom?”
“The team probably knew but they didn’t get a chance to tell me yet. We’re spread thin tonight.” Dom looked from me to Lucinda. The FBI agents were dressed like us, in T-shirts and gym shorts. Wiki stood behind Dom, letting him take the lead. “I have more bad news. Your studio was vandalized.”
Lucinda moaned, stricken. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
“We got a report from the locals. It happened in the early evening, we think. I was about to call you when we heard about the house.”
“Did they take anything?”
“We’re not sure yet. What did you have there of value?”
“My camera’s a Nikon D6, only a year old. The backup camera’s not worth as much, but it’s still valuable, and the lenses cost a fortune. The 105 mm 1.4, I use it all the time, is a two-thousand-dollar lens.” She shook her head. “I keep them in a closet. I never even got a safe. I’ve been there for six years and never had a problem.”
“I’m sorry, honey.” I put my hand on her shoulder.
Dom nodded. “Anything else of value, Lucinda?”
“The backdrops, I rent them both. They’re Oliphants, the best. I had a projector and screen, for showing clients the photos.”
“What about the photos? They’re backed up, right?”
“Yes, but does it matter? What the hell is going on, anyway?” Lucinda sank into the kitchen chair. She rubbed her face, leaving pinkish streaks. “My studio, his office, our house. All my photos of the kids. Allison’s room, all her things.”
“I know, honey.” I sat down and put an arm around her, eyeing Dom. “So obviously, this is a coordinated attack. They’re trying to scare us.”
“Yes, it’s witness intimidation. Milo must have convinced Big George that you killed Junior. They’re both after you, but for different reasons. Big George wants revenge. Milo doesn’t want you to testify.”
“I have a question,” Lucinda interjected. “You have the house burning on video, so you had to know it was happening. Why didn’t you stop them? Did you let them burn it down?”
I blinked, confused. “Dom, you’d stop them, right? Even if it means showing your hand?”
Dom recoiled. “Of course we would.”
Wiki spoke up. “Just so you know, we’re the ones who called it in. We cooperate with the locals. No one will know how the fire was discovered.”
I didn’t understand. “But how did they set the fire, if you were watching? You have a team on the cameras, don’t you? How did this happen?”
“We don’t know. To be clear, this isn’t our jurisdiction. The investigative team has someone on the cameras, not us. They’re investigating, as we speak.”
“The investigative team is investigating itself? Great. When did the fire start? How did it go up so fast?”
“We assume they used an accelerant.” Dom paused, chastened. “We will sort this out financially. I will do my best to make sure you get a fair settlement.”
“What about the businesses? Everything we owned is gone.”
“Jason, Lucinda, there’s something you need to understand. Our job is to protect you and your family. Your property isn’t our charge—”
“Something else we weren’t told,” Lucinda interrupted. “But what about my mother? What if they do something to her? She’s a person, not property. Will you protect her?”
Dom hesitated. “No, I’m sorry, truly, but extended family is not in the budget. We don’t have the manpower—”
“Are you serious?” Lucinda raised her voice. “You protect my mother or I won’t testify to a single thing!”
I understood her anger. “Dom, my mother-in-law is family. Move her here, then you don’t need extra manpower.”
“We can’t do that in her condition.”