In Seconds. Brenda Novak

be in this predicament. But it wasn’t his fault. In her heart, she knew that. They were both victims of circumstance and had done the best they could to handle what was thrown their way. “They have to make a living, too. Isn’t that hard enough? Doesn’t running prostitution rings and—and smuggling drugs and evading police take time and effort? My business is legitimate, yet it takes every ounce of energy I’ve got.”

      “If they need money, they send someone to hold up a liquor store. It doesn’t take much time. They’re profiting off other people’s hard work, not their own. Nothing has a higher priority than nursing a grudge and paying off old debts. Especially a debt as personal as this one. Their lives revolve around planning violence, perpetrating violence or taking credit for violence. They won’t stop looking for us. At Shady’s funeral, Horse swore a blood oath to avenge his death. Rex heard about it while we were living in D.C. Don’t you remember?”

      Mia had come downstairs to play with her Barbies, so Vivian lowered her voice. The last thing she needed was for her daughter to repeat something she’d overheard to the sheriff or someone else in Pineview. “Maybe we should’ve stayed in WitSec.” Without the program to fall back on, they were walking a tightrope without a safety net. “Maybe there was no leak.”

      “What are you talking about?”

      “Rex is the only one who’s contacted anyone from his past,” she said. Because he’d been estranged from his family for years, she and Virgil had never expected him to be the one who’d have trouble forgetting the people he once knew. But the emotional issues he had as a result of those old dysfunctional relationships had kept him in a state of limbo, kept him checking back despite the danger, and once he’d found out about his mother’s death, he hadn’t been able to cope.

      Walking away from everything hadn’t been easy for her, either. What she’d just told Virgil wasn’t strictly true. She’d called her mother a few times. The police had never uncovered the proof they needed to prosecute Ellen for her role in Martin’s murder, so she was still in Los Angeles going from man to man. But now that she was getting older and suffering from arthritis and type 2 diabetes, Vivian felt duty-bound to check on her every few months. She’d always used the pay phone outside the bar, however, or a phone other than her own, and been very careful about the information she divulged. After what Ellen had done to Virgil, Vivian couldn’t trust her.

      “Rex hasn’t been disloyal, Vivian. That’s crazy. They want him as badly as they want us.”

      “He hasn’t been the same since he heard the news about his mother. He could’ve made a deal with them, a trade.” She didn’t really believe this, but she didn’t want to believe the alternative, either, and arguing with Virgil helped blow off some steam.

      “Stop it.”

      “He’s the only link we have left to The Crew!” Unless their mother had revealed that Vivian had been in contact with her. But that was just too horrible to contemplate. They’d been through enough because of Ellen. Surely, after taking her brother’s side all those years ago instead of defending her son, instead of believing in Virgil, Ellen wouldn’t let them down again…?.

      “Then how’d they find you in Colorado?” Virgil was saying. “Rex was still with the gang then. He’s told us someone provided insider information. It took time, but they found us in D.C., and they would’ve found us again if we’d continued relying on law enforcement to hide us.”

      He was right, of course, but she wasn’t ready to stop playing devil’s advocate. “No one in the Federal Bureau of Prisons even knows where we are. That’s why I think it has to be Rex.”

      “It’s not! I trust Rex with my life.” He trusted him more than their mother—with good reason. Virgil hadn’t spoken to Ellen since he went to prison. At least that he’d admit. It wasn’t as if Vivian had told him she’d been calling, either.

      Problem was, she trusted Rex, too. So what was she saying? That if someone had to betray them, she’d rather it was Rex than Ellen? She didn’t want it to be either one, but she couldn’t withstand that kind of rejection from her mother. Better to attribute this betrayal—if betrayal it was—to the drugs Rex used and mitigate his responsibility that way. “You mean you trust him when he’s sober, right?”

      Virgil didn’t respond to that comment, probably because it pained him to doubt Rex. Rex had been his cell mate for nearly a decade. Including their years on the outside, they’d been looking out for each other half their lives. But Virgil was obviously nervous about Rex’s state of mind and his difficulty navigating a world that didn’t include gang affiliations.

      “Horse blames us as the reason Shady and the others are dead and Ink is in prison,” he said.

      Horse. Shady. Ink. Just the names of The Crew members who’d come after them sent a shiver of revulsion through Vivian. Horse had taken Shady’s spot as gang leader, but it was Ink who’d appeared in Colorado. Covered from head to toe in tattoos—even his eyebrows were tattooed into lightning bolts—he was a frightening specter of gang life. His flat, dark eyes added to the unnerving effect he had on her.

      She wondered what he was like now, if he’d changed. After months of physical therapy, he’d recuperated enough from what had happened in Colorado that he was no longer confined to a wheelchair. But according to the U.S. marshal who’d helped them get situated in D.C., he was still crippled. Vivian wasn’t sure how crippled, but it didn’t matter. He was serving a lengthy prison term and wasn’t likely to get out before he died of old age. That was what mattered. “Then you believe Rex is…dead?”

      “I don’t know what to believe!” he snapped, and that was when she understood just how worried he was. He talked as if he had faith in his best friend but he was as scared as she was. Rex could be heroic; he could also be unpredictable, especially when he was using.

      “Except that we’re not safe from The Crew,” she said. “You’re convinced of that.”

      “Completely.”

      Vivian remembered all the calls she and Rex had exchanged when she first came to Pineview. Their breakup had been so rough that they’d contacted each other numerous times, despite Virgil’s edict. And she hadn’t gone to a pay phone. During her weaker moments, she’d almost taken Rex back, almost had him come to live in Montana. She would have if he hadn’t started using.

      Had The Crew found him and exacted their revenge for his part in the deaths of two of their own? Tortured her and Virgil’s addresses out of Rex, then killed him? Or had he gone to Mexico with some woman?

      More likely he was on a drug binge, holed up in a fleabag motel or lying helpless in a gutter.

      The thought of that upset her nearly as much as all the rest of it. If she’d given him one more chance, maybe he could’ve made it. There were so many times he’d seemed close. But he’d pushed her away as often as she had him.

      Bottom line, they weren’t good for each other. She’d been caught in a painful cycle of breakup and reunion for eighteen months before she came here, but she was free now and didn’t want the past to encroach on her new life.

      The question was…would she be able to stop it?

      “What do we do?” she asked. “How do we stay safe?”

      “The smartest thing would be to move.”

      “I can’t,” she said, and realized it was true. She couldn’t sacrifice everything she’d established here, couldn’t drag her children away from the happiness they’d found. Not again. This was her house, the first possession she’d ever really owned. Leaving it behind would be letting The Crew win even if they didn’t find her.

      “I feel the same way,” he admitted. “It was hard starting over when we moved to New York. The idea of doing it again…” He paused. “And I don’t know if Rex is stable enough to go with us. The last move hit him hard.”

      Because of the timing. That move had come soon after he’d heard about his