He exhales. “Your father…I can’t talk about him right now,” he says as he looks around his office, conveying a secret message to me. Oh shit. This is bad. “He’s been dead a long time though,” he says, but his eyes are telling me a different tale—a tale he needs me to know now.
I nod. “Yeah, you told me,” I say, playing along. “Anyway, I just needed you to hear this. Do you know who it is?”
He nods but doesn’t say a word. I know we’re being taped or recorded, so I don’t ask anymore.
“Mark...” I whisper. “Cole...” I say, taking a breath between my words, willing my tears to stay in my eyes. “If anything happens to me…” I choke through a sob. “Will you please take care of him?” I cry.
Mark looks at me with sad eyes for a long time before he nods his head.
“Blake,” he says softly. “I’ll always watch over both of you.”
“Promise me, Mark. If anything happens to me, please promise me,” I whimper, no longer in control of my sobbing. “Promise me that no matter what he says, you’ll have two security guards on him. Promise me,” I scream.
“I promise, I promise. Nothing is going to happen,” he says sadly.
“It already has, though,” I reply weakly. “It already has.”
He doesn’t correct me. He knows as well as I do that things we cannot control—and things I do not understand—are happening.
“Do you want to go out for lunch?” he asks.
I don’t hesitate. I’m dying to get out of this office. Maybe we’ll go somewhere we can speak more freely. I send Cole a text message, saying that I’m out to lunch with Mark. I can’t tell him what it’s about over text, or he’ll leave work early. I ask Bruce to please get two of his guys to watch Cole without him noticing.
Mark and I arrive at a Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria, home of the best deep-dish pizza—in my opinion anyway. We sit at a small table in the back of the restaurant and order one large cheese pizza and a pop each.
“So is this the part that you tell me how me and you are connected?” I ask.
Mark laughs. “You never give up, huh?”
“Nah,” I say, smiling sadly and shaking my head.
“Blake, does it matter who I am? You know I’m taking care of you guys.”
“I also know you helped take us,” I retort, raising an eyebrow.
“Touché.”
“Mark, be serious. Why were you involved?” I ask.
He lets out a breath and closes his eyes for a second before he answers.
“I was young—too young. I guess you could say that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was at a point in my life where I was trying to do the right thing, but still wanted to be cool. My brother was always walking on the wrong side of the law, I wasn’t. The guys that took you—were involved in horrible things. Hell, my entire family was. They came to our house that night looking for him. Since he wasn’t there, they took me. At first I thought it was cool because I was going to live my brother’s life for a little while. Then, they held me at gunpoint and asked me where Camden lived. I thought it was a joke. Everyone knew where Camden lived. I took them there, thinking they would let me go. They didn’t. They got Nathan and threw him in the back of the truck with me. The leader of the two drove to your house,” he paused and took a sip of pop, his eyes watering. I wasn’t sure if it was from the sizzling pop or from the memory. “They—” he started in a hoarse voice before he cleared his throat. “Nathan cried the entire ride over. He was screaming for his parents. He kept looking at me like I should help him, but I didn’t know how I could. I didn’t want to get us both killed. When we got to your house, they wouldn’t let me out of the van. They were talking about it in the car. They said they were going to take your dad as ransom. I knew they wouldn’t kill anybody there. I didn’t think they could have possibly been that stupid.
“When I heard the gunshots coming from inside, I got out of the van and ran to the house. The main guy stopped me and told me that if I did anything stupid, he’d put a bullet in...in your head. I told him I wouldn’t, and he gave me two needles with a tranquilizer in them. Nathan had followed me out and was sticking by me when I looked in the kitchen. The other guy, whom I’d never seen before, was carrying your dad on his shoulder. I thought he was dead. When I looked at the floor and saw...I had to step back out. One of the guys grabbed Nathan and took him back to the truck while I went to the side of the house to compose myself. I put on a brave face for you—or I tried to. I had only seen you a couple of times before that. I went in and gave you the tranquilizer, hoping to numb you from your pain and rid you of that awful memory. I’m so sorry, Blake,” he said, tears streaming down his face.
My shoulders are shaking in quiet sobs as I listen to him. We’re getting looks from the people around us, but we don’t care.
“I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know what they were doing. I did what I could for you and Nathan. The head guy took off in another car with your father and left us behind with the other guy. I tried to pay him off. I promised him things. I knew who he worked for, and I knew that he wasn’t happy about the predicament he was put in. He agreed to leave and never come back. I had you guys to deal with, and they wanted you dead, so I took Nathan to Maggie’s because I’d heard of her from my mother, and I took you to Shelley’s,” he says taking a deep breath and meeting my gaze, “because she was my mother.”
I feel the air constrict in my lungs as I sit there, completely dumbfounded. I was looking for the truth, and now I had it. After a couple of minutes of pulling ourselves together quietly, the pizza arrived. We had both lost our appetites, and even though we both agreed that this was our favorite pie, we couldn’t finish it. We could barely eat the slices we had on our plates.
“Do you know the guy with the glass eye?” I ask as I play with the melted cheese on my plate.
He sighs loudly, making me look up and see his mournful eyes. “I did. I knew him well, once upon a time.”
I nod in response. “It’s a lot to take in. I guess it’s different, hearing it from your perspective, since you were older than us and actually remember it.”
“I remember it every day, and every day, I wish I didn’t,” he replies solemnly.
Chapter 20
Present
5 months later
Everything is blooming outside of the full-length windows of the two bedroom apartment Cole and I bought together a couple of months ago. We decided that we’d look for a bigger place later—when we really need one. Our place is close to Soldier Field and to any job that I’ll get once I pass the bar this summer (knock on wood). Aimee and I have been studying for a couple of months now. We’re both excited to put the killer that is law school behind us and get on with our lives.
As I rummage through the kitchen drawers, looking for a spatula to decorate a cake for Cole’s birthday--which is today--I stumble across the Christmas card we sent out months back and smile. It’s a picture of Cole and I standing in front of the tree in Rockefeller Center in New York, as we do our best Home Alone “scream face” expressions. I tuck the picture back in the drawer when I hear the shower turn off. I go back to icing the cake and turn around when I hear the bedroom door open. I turn and find Cole dripping wet, with a towel wrapped around his waist. His wet long hair is flicking up and down every time he blinks, and his crooked grin tells me he’s up to no good.