Remember When

considerably well, considering my age, at following in his footsteps."
    "You ran con games?"
    There was as much fascination as shock in Jenny's tone, and it made Laine smile a little. "Mostly I was just the beard, but yes, I did. Picking pockets was turning into my specialty. I had good hands, and people don't look at a little girl when they realize their wallet's been lifted."
    "Holy cow," was all Jenny could say.
    "I liked it. It was exciting, and it was easy. My father... well, he made it such a game. It never occurred to me that when I took some man's wallet, he might not be able to pay the rent that month. Or when we bilked some couple out of a few thousand in a bogus real-estate deal, that might've been their life savings, or a college fund. It was fun, and they were marks."
    "And you were ten," Max added. "Give the kid a break."
    "You could say that's what happened. I got a break. The direction I was heading in convinced my mother to change her life, and mine. She divorced my father and moved away, changed her name, got a straight job waiting tables. We moved around a lot the first few years. Not to shake my father loose-she wouldn't have done that to him. She let him know where we were, as long as he kept his word and didn't try to pull me back into the game. He kept his word. I don't know which of the three of us was more surprised by that, but he kept his word. We moved around to keep the cops from rousting us every time..."
    She trailed off, managed a sickly smile in Vince's direction. "Sorry, but when you've got a rep for scams and theft, even by association, the locals tend to look you over. She wanted a fresh start, that's all. And a clean slate for me. It wasn't easy for her. She loved Jack, too. And I didn't help. I liked the game and didn't appreciate having it called, or being separated from my father."
    She topped off cups of coffee, though she'd yet to touch her own. "But she worked so hard, and I started to see something in her, the pride and the satisfaction she got from earning her way. The straight way. And after a while, we weren't moving every time we turned around anymore. We weren't packing up in the middle of the night and slipping out of apartments or hotel rooms. And she kept her promises. Big Jack was long on the promises but came up short on keeping them.
    When my mother said she was going to do something, she did it."
    No one spoke when she went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water with lemon slices.
    She poured a glass, drank to wet her dry throat.
    "Anyway, things changed. She met Rob Tavish, and things changed again, for the better. He's a wonderful man, crazy about her, and he was good to me. Sweet and kind and fun. I took his name. I made myself Laine Tavish because Laine Tavish was normal and responsible. She could have a place of her own, and a business of her own, and a life of her own. Maybe it wouldn't have all those wild ups she'd ridden on during the first part of her life, but it wouldn't have all those scary downs, either. That seemed just fine. So anytime you asked me about my background, or growing up, I fabricated whatever seemed to fit Laine Tavish. I'm sorry. That's all. I'm sorry."
    There was a long moment of silence. "Okay, wow." Jenny goggled at Laine. "I'm going to have a lot of follow-up comments and questions after my head stops spinning, but the first thing I have to ask is how all this-and there's a lot of this-applies to you being in trouble."
    "There's probably a quote somewhere about not being able to escape the past, or cover it over.
    William Young." She saw Vince nod slowly and knew he was putting some of it together.
    "The man who was killed when he ran out into the street," Jenny prompted.
    "Yes. He used to run with my father. They were close as brothers, and hell, he lived with us half the time. I called him Uncle Willy. I didn't recognize him when he came in. I swear that, Vince.
    It's been years since I've seen him, and it just didn't click. It wasn't until after the accident and he... God, he was dying."
    She drank more water, but this time her hand trembled lightly. "He looked so sad when I didn't recognize him, when I basically brushed him off. Then he was lying there, bleeding. Dying. He sang part of this stupid song he and my father used to do as a duet. 'Bye Bye Blackbird.'
    Something they'd start singing when we were loading up to skip out of a hotel. I realized who he was, and it was too late. I didn't tell you, and that's