19. Connor #2
“Good answer. Not a definite, but better than I hoped for. Neither the police nor any other agency can save her, certainly not now that I’ve found you.
I think I’ve proven that since I’m in your house, unbothered.
Now, I want the names of every single person, law enforcement or otherwise, involved in Renne’s case.
Everyone you can remember.” I sling off my backpack and throw it onto the table.
From inside, I grab my laptop. “I will show you pictures. Cops and criminals. You will identify everyone involved in her case. Can you do that for me?”
The parents look at each other. I freeze because I can sense they’re talking without speaking.
I thought only my brother and I could do that, but that’s not the case.
The Richardsons can do that too. Are they soul mates?
People don’t believe in that sort of stuff, but having felt my brother’s absence and his feelings all my life, there is so much more than the eyes can see or that science can explain.
It’s intuition. Connectedness with others. It’s also faith.
“We’ll do what we can,” Roy finally says. “But you have to do something for us.” He juts his chin.
“Okay. Let’s negotiate.”
“How is she?” the mom asks, eagerly leaning over the table. “Is Renne doing well?”
“Mmhm.”
“Is she working? Does she have friends? Is she still going out? Renne loved life. Going out. Meeting people.”
“Yes. She is still doing all that.”
“Good. This is good news. And who are you to her?” the father asks.
“Nobody.”
Roy frowns. “Then why are you here?”
“My brother is about to marry Renne’s best friend.
The women are very close, which makes them part of my inner circle.
People with access to my brother must be investigated and tested.
Renne failed miserably. I’m trying to figure out if she can be saved.
Help me. Help me figure this out. Her life depends on it. ”
“It sounds to me like you’re a mobster,” Mrs. Richardson says.
“Was it the guns that gave me away?”
She scoffs.
I wink. “Tell you what, we’ll have a chat over bread. But now it’s work time. How long before the bread is done?”
“Ten more minutes.”
“Okay, you can ask me anything in ten minutes while we eat dessert. I’m starving. I’ve been on the public bus for hours.”
“Where did you come from?” Roy asks.
He’s trying to get me to reveal Renne’s location. It’s cute, really. “You’ll find it hard to get information out of me without giving me the same in return. I’ve been generous with you already.”
“You have,” the mom says. “You really have.”
Roy gives her the evil eye.
She swats at him. “Stop it, Roy. If this man found our house, anyone can. So much for police protection. And if he can tell me about my baby girl, I’ll tell him whatever he wants to know.
I’m tired of this. It’s been over a year, and they haven’t even started the trial.
If they had, we’d have heard of it. We want this to be over, and I don’t think it ever will be.
I want to see my daughter. And my grandbaby? Is that true?”
Tears fall down the woman’s cheeks. If I weren’t a wall, I’d feel some sympathy. But I am a wall, so I don’t.
“He’s a criminal, Sidney,” the man says.
“I’m the only man interested in keeping her alive.
The others will kill her. The mobster will kill her as soon as he finds out she’s a witness.
Count your blessings that there’s no trial yet, because I promise you, nobody could protect her from that man.
And the cops will throw her under the bus as soon as her usefulness runs its course. ”
“The man will go to prison for what he’s done,” he says.
I’m starting to think the world isn’t stupid, but just delusionally hopeful.
They want to believe in better days and justice.
But that’s just not the case. At least not in my experience.
“The man might go to prison, but he won’t stay there for long, and even if he does, he has a brother or a cousin or a sister, even, who won’t stop until vengeance is served.
A man like that rarely acts alone. Renne and the cops are up against an organization that has existed for over a hundred years.
The authorities can’t take them down with one witness.
They will bury her. You will never find her body.
Or the body of your grandchild. Help me help her. ”
Silence. I’m not sure if the parents know anything. It’s possible they’ve been kept in the dark, but I’ve got a feeling that Renne told them what she saw on the yacht. I need the details. Faces. Dates. Anything they know.
I continue trying to persuade them. “I’m fairly skilled with computers.
It’s extremely difficult to hack into witness protection systems. Even if I can hack into it, the information I’m looking for will be fragmented and walled off, so I can only grab bits and pieces.
None of those bits and pieces will make sense unless I have your story.
I need that so I can put it all together. ”
“If you know Renne, why don’t you ask her yourself?”
“Because she’ll run.” But if I don’t want her to run, does that mean I want her to stay?
Do I? “She’ll run off on her own, and I will have to look for her to protect her.
And I can’t do that if I don’t have the entire story.
I need to know who her contacts are. There are moles who are willing to sell information.
If I can buy your address, they’ll buy it too as soon as the trial starts and they find out there’s a witness.
Bad people will come here and shoot you through the peephole.
I’d rather shoot them first.” I pause, letting them fill the silence.
They’re staring at me. “Guys, please work with me, before I lose interest in doing anything good and walk back to the hell I came from.”
“What do you want to know?” Roy asks.