clean it like a fussy old maid first. Wadding the paper, he tossed it into the nearest trash can, then laced his fingers loosely together, arms resting on his knees, waiting.
“I know we agreed I’d leave you out of the stolen-parts business. That’s why I never told you about my other, uh, income source. I wouldn’t be telling you now except I’ve got a big problem and it involves your sister.”
Sean had wondered if he’d be able to fake surprise when Craig brought up Maggie, but he didn’t have to fake anything. His eyes narrowed, and he felt the blood leaving his face, turning his skin pale. His lips barely moving, he said, “If you’ve gotten her involved in anything—”
“I wouldn’t do that, man. You’re my family, and she’s your family. I would never have let anything happen. I just didn’t know about it in time.”
Craig dragged his fingers through his hair. He paid a hundred bucks every few weeks for a haircut that always looked as if he’d just dragged his fingers through it. His shirt cost two hundred, his shoes three, his watch five grand. His jeans, on the other hand, looked a lot like Sean’s—old, faded, ragged along the hems. Maybe thirty bucks a lot of years ago.
“Moving auto parts from the South to New York isn’t the only thing that turns big profits. I expanded into the drug market a few years back.” Craig raised his hand to head off any reaction Sean might have. “Don’t preach to me, okay? I knew you wouldn’t go for that. That’s why I kept it secret, totally separate from the garage. Anyway, my guy in Copper Lake obviously isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. He hooked up with your sister—did you know she has a meth problem?” He waited long enough for Sean to shake his head grimly. “They started living together—him, her, her kids. Did you know she has kids?”
Sean’s gut knotted, and his hands grew sweaty. That girl’s gonna be pregnant before she’s sixteen, their dad always predicted. On her sixteenth birthday, though Sean was locked up, he said his annual prayer. Don’t let her be pregnant. On her seventeenth, the prayer had been, Don’t let her get arrested. Every year since then, it had been, Let her have a better life than all those bastards in Copper Lake thought she deserved.
A meth head with kids and a drug-dealing boyfriend.
Apparently, God hadn’t been listening.
“Yeah, two girls.” With two fingers, Craig pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it across. “Pretty little things, aren’t they? Someday I’m gonna have kids. A whole houseful of ’em. I’ll join the PTA and we’ll go to church on Sunday mornings and have dinner together every evening. You know, they say kids who sit down to dinner with their parents regularly get in less trouble.”
Sean took the picture, and his hands began to shake. Two familiar little faces—dark eyes; lank hair awkwardly cut, straight, black. The younger one grinned from ear to ear, while the older scowled, arms folded over her chest, one hip cocked and one bony knee turned out.
They were Maggie twenty-some years ago, happy when she was younger, convinced everyone in the world loved her, sullen and put out when she was older and discovered what a lie that had been. She shone in the little girl’s face and lurked in the shadows of the older one’s.
Craig knew when to talk and when to be quiet, and he didn’t know that Alexandra Baker had already coerced Sean into agreeing to his yet-unasked request. He waited, giving Sean plenty of time to notice every detail in the shot. The house in the background, shabby and well-worn when he’d lived there himself. The yard, mostly bare of grass thanks to the tall pines that covered the ground with their needles. Two rusted lawn chairs, one missing a screw so it tilted drunkenly to one side, the other with a hole punched through it. The carcass of a beat-up pickup, wheels missing, balanced on cinder blocks. Birds had made nests on its dash, and the bed was half-filled with trash.
Trash. That was what the Holigans had been for the past hundred and fifty years. Poor white trash. Drunks, fools and thieves; irresponsible, lazy and worthless, uncaring about the children they brought into the world.
Heat ignited inside Sean, burning outward until his face gleamed with it, until it felt as if it would singe off his ears. It was fueled by anger and resentment and bitterness, but mostly shame. He was so damned ashamed of where he’d come from, who he was, what he was. Yeah, he’d gotten out; he’d escaped the town and his family and made something better for himself, but he’d left Maggie behind to ruin her life just as surely as he would have ruined his.
He’d left her to ruin her babies’ lives.
“So.” Craig leaned forward, hands together. “The thing is, my guy got arrested a couple weeks ago, along with Maggie. I know he’ll keep his mouth shut, but...Maggie isn’t exactly known around town for her discretion. If the D.A. offers her some sort of deal, she might tell him everything she knows.”
After committing the two faces to his memory, Sean looked up and offered the picture back to his boss, but Craig gestured. You keep it. Sean held it carefully in one hand. “So you want me to...”
“Impress on her the importance of staying quiet. She’s a doper, Sean, a meth head, and she’s locked up. She’d sell her soul for a little comfort. She’d sell her kids’ souls. She needs to understand how bad that would be for everyone.” Craig waited a moment before adding, “Especially those pretty little girls.”
His skin that had been burning a moment ago cooled with the chill that exploded through him. Sean had never been any more violent than was necessary. In Copper Lake, it just wasn’t possible for a Holigan to reach eighteen without his share of fistfights, but he’d never let it go beyond self-defense. Even at twelve, fourteen, sixteen, he’d had a plan to get out, and self-control was a part of it.
But right this moment, he wanted to hurt Craig. Wanted to hurt him bad, to smash his face in, to beat the hell out of him for even implying that he or his people might hurt Maggie’s kids.
It took a moment to make his voice work, and it came out rough as gravel with sharp, pissed-off edges. “You want me to talk to Maggie. Convince her that going to jail is the best thing for her now. Make her keep her mouth shut or...”
Craig’s only response was to pointedly look at the picture.
A muffled sound came from the shadows at the back, Goober shuffling his oversize feet, probably moving to stay limber in case he needed to spring into action. Sean and Craig both glanced that way, and Sean muttered, “Freakin’ rat.”
It was hard to tell from Craig’s grin whether he suspected which of them Sean was referring to.
“I know you left Copper Lake for a reason, man, and like I said, normally I wouldn’t ask you to get involved, but when it’s family...we gotta make exceptions for family, right? Little sisters, little nieces... Man, I’m sure you wouldn’t want me sending anyone else, would you?”
Muscles so taut a few were on the verge of spasm, Sean stood. “Yeah, right.” He walked a few paces before turning back. “If she keeps her mouth shut, if she doesn’t roll on you...”
“If she stays quiet and still doesn’t go to jail, I’ll pay for the best rehab around. We’ll get her clean. If she does do time, when she gets out, she and the kids will have a new start. I’ll set ’em up wherever she wants to go. Either way, I’ll take care of her.”
“Okay.” Without further conversation, Sean crossed the bay to the door, let himself out and strode to his car.
Craig’s
