James Patterson: I, Michael Bennett

My sentiments exactly, I thought as I let out a breath. This sucked, and it was about to get worse. I didn’t even tell them we might have to change our names.

The witness protection team arrived at four in the morning. Four more FBI agents and about a dozen U.S. marshals in cars and vans. Though they tried to keep their weapons under their Windbreakers, out of the kids’ sight, I spotted more than one submachine gun.

This was no joke. They wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if we weren’t serious targets. This was about as serious and scary as it got.

“Okay, Mary Catherine,” I said to her in the lobby as the agents were walking the kids out into the waiting vans. “I guess this is good-bye for now.”

One of the female FBI agents who was coordinating our transport turned around from the front sliding door as she overheard us.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Good-bye? What are you guys talking about?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “This is Mary Catherine, my nanny. She’s not coming with us.”

The brown-eyed, red-haired agent thumbed her smartphone.

“Mary Catherine Flynn?” the agent asked.

“That’s right,” Mary Catherine said.

“Yes, well, Ms. Mary Catherine Flynn, you can’t go anywhere. Not if you value your life. You need to come with us right now.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“We traced the rental truck used for the bomb in front of your building. It came back to a Dominican drug gang affiliated with Perrine. We raided them last night. They had photos of all of you. Folders with information about where you guys work, where the kids go to school, the works. Mary Catherine here was with all the rest of you. Perrine is paying top dollar to take every one of you out. She’s a target as much as you are. She can’t be left behind.”

“But-” I said.

“It’s okay, Mike,” Mary Catherine said. “I’ll go along for now. You’re going to need my help anyway with the children. They’re all so upset. We’ll figure it out.”

How? I thought as I stood there helplessly watching my world, my family’s world, and now Mary Catherine’s world turn upside down and inside out.

How would we be able to figure any of this out?

They divided us between two vans. Mary Catherine and me with the girls. Seamus in the other vehicle with the boys.

We drove west, back into New York State, and straight on through into Pennsylvania. Neither of the jarheaded U.S. marshals sitting in the front seat told me where we were headed, and I didn’t ask.

I didn’t even want to know, I was still so depressed. As we drove along, I asked myself if I regretted pissing off the drug lord so much on the phone, and quickly decided that I didn’t. To hell with his evil ass if he can’t take a joke. Besides, he’d have come after me anyway.

If I had any regrets, it was that Mary Catherine had been roped into it. Especially with the mess I had made of things. Not only had I driven her off, now I’d put her life in danger. I didn’t know how to begin to apologize to her.

I fell asleep as the sun was coming up and when I woke, it was noon. We were somewhere flat. Ohio. Indiana, maybe. I stared out at the side of the highway into empty farm fields, wondering if I was dreaming. Despite everything, it felt good to be in the middle of nowhere and moving. There was something instinctual about it, that feeling of safety in motion.

I heard a strange sound and realized it was the new phone the marshals had given me in exchange for my old one. I looked at the 212 number as I clumsily thumbed it on. Tara, I thought.

But it wasn’t.

“Mike? Hi. It’s Bill Bedford.”

He was slurring a little, I noticed. In fact, he sounded drunk.

“Hey, Bill,” I said. “I take it you heard about what happened at my building?”

“I did, Mike, but that’s not why I called,” Bill said. “I don’t know how to tell you this. I just got off the phone with NYPD Homicide. Tara’s dead. They just found her.”

I sat up.

“No, no, no,” I said.

“They must have gotten her on the street on her way to work, Mike,” Bill said, sniffling. “She was taken to a motel in the Bronx, and God, Mike, they tore her apart. They found her head floating in the bathtub.”

I closed my eyes and let out a breath.

“Perrine did it himself, too,” Bedford said. “They have him on the motel’s security video waltzing through the door with a big grin on his face. He’s not human. That fucker isn’t human.”

“No, he isn’t,” I agreed as my mind spun.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” Bill said.

He sounded completely wrecked. I thought about Tara at the St. Regis, how she’d said I’d saved her.

“Me too, Bill,” I said after a bit. “Thanks for calling. It couldn’t have been easy.”

Mary Catherine stirred beside me.

“What is it, Mike? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, looking back at my kids, then out at the fields, up at the sky.

“It’s okay,” I lied as I fought panic and tears. “Go back to sleep, Mary Catherine. Everything is going to be fine.”