Walking Disaster

door, but Thomas grabbed my wrist. “You need to be debriefed, first. You’ve spent years on this case.”
    “Wasted. I’ve wasted years.”
    Thomas sighed. “You don’t wanna bring this home with you, do you?”
    I sighed. “No, but I have to go. I promised her.”
    “I’ll call her. I’ll explain.”
    “You’ll lie.”
    “It’s what we do.”
    The truth was always ugly. Thomas was right. He practically raised me, but I didn’t truly know him until I was recruited by the FBI. When Thomas left for college, I thought he was studying
advertising, and later he told us he was an advertising executive in California. He was so far away, it was easy for him to keep his cover.
    Looking back, it made sense, now, why Thomas had decided to come home for once without needing a special occasion—the night he met Abby. Back then, when he’d first started
investigating Benny and his numerous illegal activities, it was just blind luck that his little brother met and fell in love with the daughter of one of Benny’s borrowers. Even better that we
ended up entangled in his business.
    The second I graduated with a degree in criminal justice, it just made sense for the FBI to contact me. The honor was lost on me. It never occurred to me or Abby that they had thousands of
applications a year, and didn’t make a habit of recruiting. But I was a built-in undercover operative, already having connections to Benny.
    Years of training and time away from home had culminated to Benny lying on the floor, his dead eyes staring up at the ceiling of the underground. The entire magazine of my Glock was buried deep
in his torso.
    I lit a cigarette. “Call Sarah at the office. Tell her to book me the next flight. I want to be home before midnight.”
    “He threatened your family, Travis. We all know what Benny is capable of. No one blames you.”
    “He knew he was caught, Tommy. He knew he had nowhere to go. He baited me. He baited me, and I fell for it.”
    “Maybe. But detailing the torture and death of the wife of his most lethal acquaintance wasn’t exactly good business. He had to know he couldn’t intimidate you.”
    “Yeah,” I said through clenched teeth, remembering the vivid picture Benny painted of kidnapping Abby and stripping the flesh away from her bones piece by piece. “I bet he
wishes he wasn’t such a good storyteller, now.”
    “And there is always Mick. He’s next on the list.”
    “I told you, Tommy. I can consult on that one. Not a good idea for me to participate.”
    Thomas only smiled, willing to wait another time for that discussion.
    I slid into the backseat of the car that was waiting to take me to the airport. Once the door closed behind me, and the driver pulled away from the curb, I dialed Abby’s number.
    “Hi, baby,” Abby lilted.
    Immediately, I took a deep, cleansing breath. Her voice was all the debriefing I needed.
    “Happy anniversary, Pigeon. I’m on my way home.”
    “You are?” she asked, her voice rising an octave. “Best present, eve r.”
    “How’s everything?”
    “We’re over at Dad’s. James just won another hand of poker. I’m starting to worry.”
    “He’s your son, Pidge. Does it surprise you that he’s good at cards?”
    “He beat
me,
Trav. He’s good.”
    I paused. “He beat you?”
    “Yes.”
    “I thought you had a rule about that.”
    “I know.” She sighed. “I know. I don’t play anymore, but he had a bad day, and it was a good way to get him to talk about it.”
    “How’s that?”
    “There’s a kid at school. Made a comment about me today.”
    “Not the first time a boy made a pass at the hot math teacher.”
    “No, but I guess it was particularly crude. Jay told him to shut up. There was a scuffle.”
    “Did Jay beat his ass?”
    “Travis!”
    I laughed. “Just asking!”
    “I saw it from my classroom. Jessica got there before I did. She might have . . . humiliated her brother. A little. Not on purpose.”
    I closed my eyes. Jessica, with her big honey-brown eyes, long dark hair, and ninety pounds of mean, was my mini-me. She had an equally bad temper and never wasted time with words. Her first
fight was in kindergarten, defending her twin brother, James, against a poor, unsuspecting girl who was teasing him. We tried to explain to her that the little girl probably just had a crush, but
Jessie wouldn’t have any of it. No matter how many times James begged her to let him fight his own battles, she was fiercely