“Dom—” I started to say.
“Warm up.” Dom stretched at the bottom of the stairs, one leg, then the other, methodically.
“Usually, I don’t.”
“You should.”
“I know, I’m old. Forty-seven.” I realized he knew already. “Listen, I don’t think I can—”
“Let’s go.” Dom took off, and I hesitated, then went after him, running across the driveway. We turned left at the street, going away from the bay beach. Coarse brown sand drifted across the asphalt, gritty under my sneakers. Dense scrub pines and oaks lined the street, and there were no other houses in sight. Seagulls squawked, and a silvery plane glinted overhead.
We ran without talking, and I tried to match Dom’s stride, which was longer than Allison’s. It felt so strange to run with him. He was all business, facing front and pumping his corded arms. Allison and I didn’t take running so seriously. She used to shove me, and I’d tickle her.
Dad, cut it out!
Ha! You can dish it but you can’t take it!
Dom glanced over as he ran. “There’s a three-mile or a six-mile loop around the marsh. Which one you want?”
“Three.” I didn’t know if I could make it even that far. My legs felt already like lead. My arms ached. My wind was lousy.
“You okay? I can slow it down.”
“No, it’s okay.” I couldn’t stop the memories of Allison. She always chewed gum while she ran, yakking away. She would give me an earful about Troy and his nosy mother. Or her new French teacher, who overshared. Or her beloved field hockey coach.
“When was the last time you ran?”
“With my daughter,” was all I could answer. I knew he meant when, but I didn’t remember when. Anything that happened before Coldstream Road was gone. “Usually, we run three times a week, or four, but I’m already tired.”
Dom fell silent a moment. “That’s grief, man. It gets in you. Your body carries it. It’s embedded.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
I didn’t know whether to ask or if it was prying. We hadn’t talked, except about cookies. I still didn’t know if we were supposed to be friends. I hadn’t had a close friend since my father. Lucinda was my best friend.
Dom cleared his throat, his arms pumping. “I lost my partner. I wasn’t always in The Babysitters Club.”
“Oh?” I sensed it rattled him, still. Beads of sweat popped onto his smooth, high forehead.
“I used to work undercover, until a buy-bust went south.” Dom’s tone softened. “It messed me up.”
“How long ago?”
“Three years, this winter. I kept going after, I thought I was fine. I wasn’t. My body knew. I slowed down. I was tired all the time. A beat behind, mentally.” Dom shrugged. “Finally I did the counseling thing. Not ashamed of it. Now it’s a different life. Denise likes it better. Undercover’s dangerous.”
“I bet.” I noted his wife’s name.
“And I like this gig. Wiki’s a good guy.”
“He seems like it.”
“Let him talk to your son. He’ll take him out on the marsh, tell him all about it. He knows about the birds, the grasses, the muskrats.” Dom chuckled. “He’s like a light switch. You throw it, and he talks.”
“Good to know.”
“Meantime, keep a routine. Run. Stay strong. You gotta get them through this. You gotta get Lucinda through this.”
“Right,” I said, because it struck a chord. It sounded like something my father would say. The center did have to hold. I wasn’t crazy.
“It’s a lot, plus the house burning down.”
“I didn’t see any mention of it online.”
Dom nodded, wiping his brow.
“Why? I mean, the neighbors know it happened.”
“Damage control.”
“But our friends aren’t stupid. They’re putting it together. They’re connecting the house fire to the office fire.”
“How do you know?”
Shit. I’d let my guard down. I didn’t know whether I should tell him about Lucinda going on Facebook. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, so I did.
“She’s lurking under an intern’s name?” Dom pursed his lips.
“She followed the rules.”
“She’ll be tempted to post.”
“No, she won’t,” I said defensively. “Let’s deal with what she knows, rather than how she knows it. Facebook changes the ball game. All her friends are online. They know about the house, her studio, my business.”
Dom picked up the pace, but didn’t reply.
“Were you able to talk to your boss about my mother-in-law?”
“I emailed last night. He said he’d get back to me.”
My side stitch was killing me. “What about Melissa, Lucinda’s best friend? We think you should get a message to her, saying we’re in the program. She’s posting about a search party. If you don’t get ahead of this, she’s going to raise a posse.”
Dom smiled slyly. “Torches and pitchforks?”
“Yes.” I chuckled. “So what do you think?”
“About a message to them? We never have.”
“Did you ever have to? Have you ever had a family as applicants?”
“No.”
“So, we come with connections. Friends, school, employees, people. Normal families are connected, and we’re a normal family. You have to bend the rules.”
“No, we don’t.” Dom shook his head. “We’re not negotiating. That wasn’t the deal. The deal was that you follow the rules.”
“You just said you never had a family before. There’s new rules when you have a family. You guys have to compromise. I am, I’m not going to my daughter’s funeral.”
We ran in stride, breathing hard. I prayed the stitch would go away. Ahead was a line of mailboxes painted with fish, seashells, and crabs. Some had family names. Lovell, Sinclair, Tyson. The houses were obscured by the woods. There were no signs of occupants, like recycling bins or delivered newspapers.
“Dom, listen, who’s the usual applicant? Gang members? Murderers? Drug dealers? Have you ever even had an applicant with no criminal record?”
“What’s your point?”
“So usually, you’re putting up a witness that’s a criminal himself. Somebody who’s flipping, right?”
Dom looked over, flinty-eyed.
“I know the lingo. I’m a badass court reporter.”
Dom burst into laughter. “Okay, yes, a snitch.”
“Okay, and their credibility is terrible. I bet the defense always makes the same argument. ‘Were you lying then or are you lying now?’？”
We passed a row of crudely hand-painted signs—free firewood, toro mower for sale, for sale car runs good—clustered in front of one house with a front yard full of washing machines, a refrigerator with the door off, a few battered cars, a truck rusting on cinder blocks, and other junk. The mailbox read thatcher, and an old man smoking a cigar in a BarcaLounger watched us run past.
“There’s one in every neighborhood.” Dom rolled his eyes. “I got a guy like that on my street. Drives me nuts.”