Tears threaten to roll down my face. I do not want to talk about my mother with him.
“She is. I’m hoping she can come home soon. I’m hoping I can, too.”
Tyler scans the room again. “It won’t be long, I promise. Thomas plans on making his move soon. If it all goes as planned, you could be headed home in a couple of days.”
“Do you really think he’ll let us leave? You’ve been unmasked. And now we’ve seen this place.” I gesture to the house around me. “How did you explain we got away?”
“Yes, I think you’ll be going home soon,” he answers with such conviction that I’m sure he believes it. “And I told him everything.” The last part comes out in a whisper.
“Was he mad at you?”
“He wasn’t happy.”
“Will you please answer a few questions, just between you and me?” I move in a little bit closer, maintaining eye contact with him. “This whole thing is making me crazy and I just don’t know how you could be a part of it. Please help me understand.”
His eyes lock on my mouth just like Ethan’s do right before he comes in for a kiss. It takes everything in me not to back away. I’ve reeled him in; now I just need to keep him on the hook.
“What do you want to know?”
“If you’re Daniel Sanders, who did Agent Williams have in custody?”
I’m starting out with something easy and nonthreatening, hoping to ease him into opening up.
He cracks a small smile and says, “Thomas had someone at my apartment pretending to be me.”
And now I’m going to try to go a little deeper with him. “You and Thomas seem so close but so different, obviously. I don’t understand that.”
“Very different. We had the same mom but different dads. He had a…hard upbringing, living with his dad. I didn’t meet him until I was ten. Mom died and I was just about to be put in the foster system when he showed up. I couldn’t stay with him…since he, um, travels a lot, but he enrolled me in a really nice boarding school. Came to visit all the time. He was there for all the parent stuff. I don’t know what would have happened to me if it wasn’t for him.”
Was not expecting that. It sounds more like the Thomas I knew in Natchitoches than what I see today.
“But how can you be okay with what he does? Why would you help him?”
Tyler looks uncomfortable now, and I’m regretting coming on too strong.
“I didn’t know what he was until after you left Florida. Walked in…in on the middle of something….” He gets up from the stool and takes our empty plates to the sink, rinses them, and loads them into the dishwasher. “You gotta understand, he was raised very different from me. He grew up in that environment. My mom got away, but she wasn’t able to save him. He’s all she used to talk about, and she constantly worried over what kind of person he would turn into…and what he saw…. He can’t help what he is.”
He doesn’t continue and I don’t push because I feel like he’s seconds from closing off and there’s still more I want to learn.
“What does Thomas do exactly? Is he just an assassin? Or does he do other…things?”
Tyler turns his back to me and I scoot off the stool, joining him in the kitchen. I turn him around and step in close. I don’t feel bad playing him like this. At all. He’s under some crazy delusions if he can make excuses for his brother murdering people for a living and for his part in this.
I put my hands in his and say, “Please help me understand.”
I can see him cave before his mouth even opens. “He works for the Vega family. Always has. When he was younger, he did odd jobs and he worked his way up. Usually, the only people he…takes care of…are just as bad as the people he works for. His dad had the same job before he died.”
“You realize he’s sucking you into this same life. He convinced you to befriend a girl he was paid to kill, and you agreed to do it.”
“No! It wasn’t like that. I thought at first he just needed some information from you. When I found out about the contract, I made him swear, on our mother’s grave, that he wouldn’t harm you or your family. He gave me his word. We’re the only family we’ve got. He wouldn’t lie to me.”
I drop his hands and turn away, too disgusted to keep up the pretense any longer. Grabbing the sack with the rest of the po’boys and a few bottles of water, I start to leave the kitchen but I can’t help one last parting remark. “Tyler, just because we’re still alive doesn’t mean he didn’t harm my family.”
Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:
Only use public transportation….
