Page 14 of Out Of A Fix

“There’s an alarm, but we don’t really need one,” Darwin told me. “Our street is super safe and⁠—”

“No. We’re setting the alarm. Who knows the code?”

Darwin made a face like he didn’t want to say.

“It’s best to spit it out,” I prodded him.

He bit his bottom lip.

“Everyone knows the code,” Tatum confessed. “So setting it won’t do anything.”

“Okay.” I sighed and put a hand on Darwin’s shoulder. “Don’t ever be afraid to tell me anything, all right?”

He nodded quickly.

“Good. Now show me the panel.”

Once there, I was very thankful it was the same one I had at home. As soon as the kids got all the windows shut, I reset the code, tested it, and then set it to give a notification whenever a door or window was opened or closed.

“Are you going to give us the code?” Darwin asked as I was backing out of the garage, driving what I was guessing was a 1982 Jeep Wrangler. It was white with black leather seats and was in pretty good shape.

“I will if you promise not to share it with anyone else,” I said to the young man sitting in the passenger seat.

“You’re trying to keep us safe, so I promise. I’ve been thinking that the guys Mom is going to testify against might want to hurt us.”

“Probably not,” I soothed him. “But just in case, that’s why your uncle Abel hired me.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“I do.”

“And you were in the Army and a police officer, so you know how to shoot.”

“Well, as I was telling your sister, I do other things before shooting, but yes.”

It was like the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders, and he turned to the right, consumed, it seemed, by whatever he was looking at off in the distance. I got the feeling he had not merely been thinking about his mother testifying, he had been worrying about it, obsessing, and had been scared. Perhaps even terrified.

A picture was forming in my head about Luke Duchesne, and I tried not to get angry. That wouldn’t do anyone any good.

The fact of the matter was, things were happening with each of his kids, and as the sole parent, he was overwhelmed. And lots of people were single parents and managed beautifully, but for seventeen years, he’d had a partner, and then, suddenly, she was gone. He’d been dropped into the deep end, and I needed to make allowances for that.

THREE

The kids were confused about the new code.

“Amity?” I asked at the stoplight, turning to look at Darwin, then Tatum. “You don’t know what that is?”

They both seemed unsure, like maybe I was nuts.

“Amity, as you know, means friendship,” I said, quoting Murray Hamilton from Jaws, and then waiting a moment.

“What are you talking about?” Tatum asked, squinting at me.

“Jaws? Have you guys never seen that movie?” From their vacant expressions, I was thinking no and informed them how horrible that was.

“Is this, like, a black-and-white movie?” Darwin wanted to know.

“What kind of name for a movie is that? Are you making this up?” Tatum was skeptical.