Later that night, someone burned the trailer down.
As of this day, no one had been arrested for any of it. Emma’s body was still at the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s office, because we didn’t have the money for a funeral. We spent that first night at my friend’s house, but when we learned about the fire, the detectives working the case suggested we might want to leave the area until they made an arrest. Mom pulled me out of school, even though there were still six weeks left in the school year, and someone from her church drove us to Nashville.
Where we now lived in limbo without any money to our name. I’d been attending the small private school attached to the church, which I hated compared to public school. I missed my friends, I missed my teachers. I’d loved school.
I missed Emma. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my big sister.
I finally tuned back into the conversation when Mom burst into tears again. When Ms. Blaine’s gaze met mine, I felt something spark within me.
Which I assumed meant I was a horrible person.Hello, my sister had been brutally murdered, we were now homeless, and I was sitting there trying to corral my fourteen-year-old libido.
Ms. Blaine switched to English, which I didn’t understand why, at first. It wasn’t until weeks later that I realized it was because she didn’t want Mom to understand what she was saying.
“Have you ever met your father?”
I shrugged. “A couple of times, when I was really little. I barely remember him. I haven’t seen him in years.” I shoved a bitter flood of anger aside. I didn’t even have any pictures of me with him, or of him with Emma. “He moved away for work and never got in touch with us again.”
That’s what Mom and Emma had told me.
Ms. Blaine shuffled through some papers she’d brought with her, then consulted her laptop. “You’ll be fifteen in two months?”
“Next month,” I said. “Three weeks.”
“We need to change your last name.” She leveled a serious gaze at me, practically ignoring Mom now, who sat there crying.
Her observation didn’t make sense. “Why?”
Her gaze cut to Mom, then back to me, while a shiver of the not-so-good kind washed down my spine. “I think it would be safest if we changed your last name.”
“To Gutierrez?” It was what Mom used, even though her full last name was Espinoza Gutierrez. Emma and I both had Ronald as our last name, because it was our father’s last name. Hell, I had no idea where the guy lived to tell him Emma was dead, not that he’d probably give a flying fuck.
Ms. Blaine smiled, but I could see it was for Mom’s benefit, not mine. “No. To something completely different. Under the circumstances, I can get it pushed through tomorrow, unless I can see him in chambers today. I have a judge who will be sympathetic. We need it donenow.”
“Why? Before school’s over?”
“Sure, let’s go withthat.”
That was something else I liked about her the more I got to know her, that she didn’t treat me like a kid. She was honest with me.
Like recognizes like, I guess. Even back then.
It also immediately clicked why she wanted to push this point. “You think Emma was targeted? That they might come after me, too?”
Her gaze never left mine, but when she next spoke, it was in Spanish to Mom, suggesting she take a few minutes to go wash her face and blow her nose. Mom excused herself, leaving the door standing open behind her.
Ms. Blaine glanced at me and didn’t even have to speak. The look and slight head tip she gave me had me standing and hurrying to the door to close it, then back to my seat.
She leaned in and dropped her voice, speaking in English again. “You’re in danger, Declan. I can’t tell you everything because it could expose me and you and your mom to stuff I can’t protect either of you from, much less myself.”
A chill washed through me. “We don’t have the money to pay you. Father Benjamin put in the request for an attorney to talk to her. We…” I choked back tears. “We can’t even bury Emma.”
She sighed. “That’s going to be taken care of.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry about it. Pick a new last name. Something not your mom’s last name. We’ll add it to your name.”
“Why not a full new name?”
