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  This is what happens to rats.

  It was unprecedented stuff. Some were saying that someone in US federal law enforcement had to be tipping off Perrine. It also had to be someone pretty high up in the FBI or the DEA, since the identities of the slain informants were top secret.

  It was almost too incredible to believe that things were actually getting worse. Almost fifty thousand people had died in the last few years of the cartels’ domination. Five thousand people were missing. Now, with the attacks on the Mob, our worst nightmare was coming true. Border be damned, the cartels were expanding into the Mob’s territory. No different from terrorists or an invading army, they were here among us, killing Americans with impunity.

  Emily had also explained the egregious political horseshit that was going on in our government. With the approach of an election year, the president, looking for the Hispanic vote, had backed off on strong border policies. In fact, the Justice Department had actually put some pressure on the state governments in Arizona and Texas to tone down their “aggressive border-related law enforcement.”

  No doubt about it. It was Alice in Wonderland crazy time. No wonder Perrine was on the rise.

  And that wasn’t even the only new terror-inducing bit of inside scoop Emily had given me. Apparently, an insanely toxic and strange white substance had been found at one of the Mob hits in Malibu.

  Emily had actually shown me pictures of the Mob boss and his wife, who had been exposed to the substance, and it was something else. Their skin was a shade of purple I’d never seen before. It looked as if they had been turned inside out.

  I was standing there, trying to get the frightening images out of my head, when one of the kids hit a Wiffle ball off the windowsill. I looked out the window at my kids, running around oblivious in the side yard.

  Jane was in a lawn chair with her nose deep in a Pokémon encyclopedia, while Ricky and Eddie were shooting at each other with gun-shaped sticks. Brian had arranged a game of Wiffle ball for the younger kids, and as I watched, Chrissy hit the ball and began running toward third until Fiona grabbed her and turned her around.

  After a second, I pulled open the back door and lifted a second foul ball before Shawna could pick it up. Shawna squealed happily as I actually picked her up as well.

  “OK, butterfly girl,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “Playtime’s over. Who’s going to be the first one to try to deal with Daddy’s screwball?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Mary Catherine’s hair was still wet from her shower when she came down the stairs into the kitchen the next morning before dawn.

  She smiled as she turned on the oven to warm yesterday’s blueberry scones. The scones had been Juliana’s idea: switch out the raisins in her Irish soda bread recipe with blueberries, and dust it with sugar. Could she be any prouder of Juliana? She was going on seventeen now, and instead of being a drama queen, the eldest Bennett just dug in every chance she got, with very little grumbling about it.

  She’d be leaving them soon enough, Mary Catherine knew. Juliana had recently confided that she wanted to join the Coast Guard, of all things. She said she loved the ocean and thought it would be a great way to serve her country and learn something. She could also save money for college, knowing how difficult a challenge tuition would be for their huge family. What planet do these kids come from again? Mary Catherine thought.

  She’d been worried about the transition for them, but they were adjusting. In the beginning, she’d had to peel them off the couch in front of the TV, but now they actually preferred being outside. They’d stay out there all day if she let them, running around in all that space or exploring the little stand of trees beyond the creek.

  They really were a special bunch. They all had their quirks, of course, but overall, they were happy and obedient and well-mannered beyond their years. Sure, they liked to goof around, but the amount of general goodwill and fellowship they had for each other was quite remarkable.

  Had Mike instilled that in them? Their deceased mom, Maeve? Whoever it was, they deserved a medal, because through thick and through thin, somehow these guys made it work. She’d never met a nicer, tighter, more down-to-earth group of caring kids.

  She smiled as she looked around the room. She loved the old kitchen. The handmade cabinets, the huge pine table they used as an island, the pots and pans hanging on the rack above the new Kenmore stove.

  There was even a real mudroom with a sink, where they stored the slickers and the wellies. The mudroom reminded her of the one on the farm where she’d grown up, in Ireland. So much so that on some dark mornings, coming down to get breakfast going, she would look through the mudroom doorway and could almost smell the acrid scent of turf smoke, almost hear the whistle of the kettle coming to a boil.

  Even though we’re in hiding, it actually is a good place here, Mary Catherine thought for the hundredth time. It felt warm, safe. It felt like home.

  CHAPTER 15

  Five minutes later, Mary Catherine had the big pine table covered with four different types of bread, spreading mayo here, peanut butter there, portioning out cold cuts.

  She hadn’t made the kids brown-bag lunches since New York and had almost forgotten what a Herculean feat it really was. It would have been fine if she could have made, say, just ten bologna sandwiches and been done with it, but of course they all had their idiosyncrasies. Shawna had to have a plain bologna sandwich, while Chrissy would tolerate only grape jelly with her peanut butter. Some would eat only turkey, others only ham. Ricky’s order was the biggest pain: yellow American cheese (not white, heaven forbid) and mustard on wheat toast.

  She’d already made potato salad and a couple of loaves of banana bread the evening before. It was all for the surprise picnic she had planned. After milking, Mr. Cody wanted to take everyone to a part of the ranch they’d never seen before, the rugged, hilly southeastern section. Cody had been out riding on his horse, Marlowe, the afternoon before and had spotted a huge, hundred-head herd of wild antelope that he wanted to show the kids.

  Mary Catherine looked out at the sun, just cresting the top of the Sierras. She couldn’t believe this place. Every day was like a new show on the Discovery Channel.

  After she’d Sharpied each of the kids’ names on their tinfoil-wrapped sandwiches, she went into Jane’s room to wake her up. Jane was sleeping in the lower-left bunk of the girls’ two sets of bunk beds. Mary Catherine smiled when she saw the latest Rick Riordan paperback on the floor over the flashlight Jane wasn’t supposed to use to stay up late reading.

  Mary Catherine gently shook her shoulder.

  “Rise and shine, kiddo,” she said.

  Jane opened her eyes and stared up at her strangely. Then she let out a low groan.

  “I’m not feeling well, Mary Catherine,” she said.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you feel hot?” Mary Catherine asked, putting a hand on her forehead.

  “No, it’s mostly my stomach,” Jane said. “Maybe it’s something I ate.”

  It’s probably nothing, Mary Catherine thought, squinting at her. Too much popcorn from the National Treasure movie-a-thon the girls had watched the night before.

  “I’ll go and get you a ginger ale,” Mary Catherine said.

  Before she went downstairs, she went into the boys’ room and shook the first foot she could find.

  “Time to get up, Eddie,” Mary Catherine said. “It’s getting late. Could you wake the others for me?”

  After a moment there came another low groan.

  “Mary Catherine, my stomach’s killing me,” Eddie said. “I’m sick. I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Me too,” Brian said a moment later.

  “Me three, MC. I really feel like I’m going to yack,” called out Ricky.

  What?! Mary Catherine thought, panicking. They’d had a turkey for dinner the night before. Is it food poisoning? she thought. Salmonella? That was all they needed. She hadn’t even had a chance to find a pediatrician.
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br />   “Oh, no, guys. Jane’s sick, too,” Mary Catherine said. “Hang in there. You must have caught some sort of bug. I’ll wake your father. We need to find you guys a doctor right away.”

  “Actually, you don’t need to go to all that trouble, Mary Catherine,” Brian said, sitting up across the room.

  “What do you mean?” Mary Catherine said. “Of course I do.”

  “We’re not that kind of sick,” Brian told her.

  Mary Catherine stared at him, confused.

  “What kind of sick are you?” she asked.

  Brian sat up against his headboard and folded his arms.

  “We’re the sick-and-tired-of-doing-all-these-stupid-farm-chores kind of sick,” he said. “Nobody asked us if we wanted to become agricultural slave labor, OK? We’re hereby done with the milking. Hereby done with the whole cock-a-doodle-doo, crack-of-dawn hick routine.

  This is a strike.”

  CHAPTER 16

  I woke up to a whole heap of commotion the next morning. It wasn’t even the rooster this time. There was yelling at first. Then it stopped, and then came something that shot me out of bed like a skyrocket.

  A loud, cacophonous clanging was coming from downstairs. It was amazingly loud, like an old school fire alarm or the hammering of a boxing bell after the last round.

  I tripped out of bed and found my robe and headed down the stairs two by two. It was coming from the boys’ room. What the hell now? I couldn’t believe it. It was Mary Catherine. She was yelling like a drill sergeant as she banged two pots together.

  “That’s it! Out of your beds, you lazy so-and-sos! Everybody up now. I said up! And on your feet! You think you can sleep in, you’re wrong! Every last one of you, rise and shine!”

  Mary Catherine fired the pots into the corner and stood there sweating, her fists balled. I was about to say something, but when Mary Catherine glared at me, I immediately shut my trap.

  “What the heck did you do?” I mouthed to Brian.

  He just swallowed as he stood there, as wide-eyed as the rest of us. I’d never seen Mary Catherine so fired up.

  “Trent!” Mary Catherine barked.

  “Yes, Mary Catherine?” Trent said, like a nervous miniature recruit about to start marine boot camp.

  “Get the girls in here, pronto! They’re part of this. I know they are.”

  “Yes, Mary Catherine.”

  The girls came into the room sheepishly, followed by a groggy Seamus.

  “Now, whose idea was this? Tell me now who organized this little work stoppage.”

  Everybody glanced at each other.

  “We all did,” Brian said after a moment.

  “Oh, you all did? How creative of you. That’s just great. After all I do for the lot of you, you plot behind my back? That’s just a real fine how-do-you-do after the nice meal I cooked for everyone last night. Speaking of which, I have a question for you. Where did that food come from?”

  “Mr. Cody,” Eddie said, raising his hand.

  “Wrong,” Mary Catherine snapped at him. “Also, you all slept warm in your beds last night under this roof. Where did this house come from?”

  “Um, Mr. Cody?” Eddie tried again.

  “Wrong again, wise guy,” Mary Catherine said. “Food, houses, everything good that you use in this world, comes from one place: work. Men and women worked to put food on your plate. Men and women worked to put this house together. Now, let me ask you another question. Where would the lot of you be if all those men and women decided to claim that they were sick and sleep in?”

  “Up a creek?” Eddie said with a shrug.

  “Finally, Eddie, you got one exactly right. Without people working, we’d all be up a certain type of creek without a paddle.”

  Mary Catherine circled the room, staring into each of the kids’ faces one by one.

  “I think you guys know me pretty well by now. I try to help everyone. Sometimes I even let things slide.”

  She stopped in the center of the room.

  “But what I will not do, by God, is sit idly by and watch all of you become a lot of lazy, useless ragamuffins. While I live and breathe, you will do three things. You will work. You will help. And you will pitch in. Or I’m out of here. You’ll never see me again. Understand? No work, no food, no house, no nanny. Is that perfectly clear?”

  “Yes, Mary Catherine,” a few of them said.

  “What? I can’t hear you!” Mary Catherine yelled.

  “Yes, Mary Catherine,” everyone said loudly, including me and Seamus.

  I stepped back as my young, blond nanny hurried out of the room, her blue eyes sparking. I actually had goose bumps on my arms.

  Whoa, Nelly. Talk about a wake-up call!

  “Exactly,” I said to the kids after Mary Catherine left. “Exactly what she said, and don’t you ever forget it!”

  CHAPTER 17

  The next morning, I awoke with a start as my bedroom door creaked open. It was early, I saw, as I glanced with one eye at the still dark-gray window, and someone was out in the hallway.

  Something was up. Of course it was. Something was always up.

  “Hark! Who goes there?” I said into my pillow. “If it’s you, Mary Catherine, please, no pots and pans this morning. I’ll be up in a second, I swear.”

  “Good morning, Michael. Are ye awake?” Seamus whispered.

  “I am now,” I said, sitting up in bed. “What is it? Let me guess. The kids are occupying the barn.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Seamus said, stepping in and closing the door behind him.

  “How are you this morning?” he said sheepishly. “Sleep well?”

  I noticed that he was showered and wide awake and wearing his formal black priest suit with his Roman collar.

  “I was, Father. I was sleeping as well as you please. I remember it quite fondly. What is it? Are you here to give me last rites? What in the Wild Wild West is going on?”

  “Well, I — ” he started. “What I mean to say is that … I guess you could say I have a confession to make.”

  “A confession?” I said, sitting up. “That’s a switch. Wow, this almost sounds good enough for you to wake me in the middle of the night. Please, my son, confess away. Unload thy soul.”

  “Well, you know how you told us all repeatedly to keep a low profile?” Seamus said, wincing.

  I stared my grandfather solidly in his not-so-innocent blue eyes.

  “Yes. I believe we were all there for the conversation with the witness protection folks.”

  “Well, I haven’t been exactly following the rules. I was talking to Rosa, and she was telling me about the local priest in town. She kept telling me what a nice man he was, and I gave him a call. She was right. Father Walter is a very nice man. Actually, we’ve been talking back and forth for a couple of weeks now.”

  What a thoroughly nutty situation this all is, I thought. Seamus felt guilty about talking to another priest?

  “OK,” I said. “You and the local guy are talking shop. Did you tell him who we were?”

  “No, of course not,” Seamus said.

  “Why do I have the feeling that there’s another shoe about to drop?” I said.

  “Well, being the only priest in the parish, he’s swamped. I guess I let it be known that I might be available under extreme circumstances to help out. One of those situations just came up. His father had a heart attack, and he asked if I could fill in today for early-morning Mass.”

  “Holy cannoli, Father,” I said. “Why would you say that?”

  “Fine. I’ll admit it. I want to say Mass. Is that a sin? I haven’t said Mass in a while, and I want to.”

  “But you say Mass for us here at the house every Sunday morning.”

  “That’s not the same thing as saying Mass in a church, at an altar, Detective Bennett. I really miss it, Michael. I feel utterly, completely useless out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  I looked at him. I knew how that felt.

  “Listen, Fathe
r. I feel useless, too, but this guy who’s after us is not messing around. He’s spending a lot of money to find us. We can’t risk it.”

  “I know. You’re right,” Seamus said. “I’ll tell him I can’t do it. What do people’s souls really matter anyway, right?”

  I sighed.

  “Where’s the church?”

  “It’s Our Lady of Sorrows, in Westwood.”

  “When is Mass?”

  Seamus looked at his watch.

  “Starts in an hour.”

  “OK, Father Pain-in-My-Ankle,” I said as I finally stood. “Put on some coffee and let me hop in the shower. I wouldn’t want to be late for Mass.”

  CHAPTER 18

  About ten miles to the northwest, Westwood was a quiet, tiny mountain town that didn’t stand on too much ceremony. There was a farmer’s market, a post office, a couple of streets of small, neat houses with pickups in the driveways and grills on the front porches.

  “Hey, look, Dad,” my eldest daughter, Juliana, said from the backseat. “That’s a pizza place coming up.”

  Juliana had overheard Seamus and me in the kitchen and insisted on coming along to be Seamus’s altar server. She claimed that she wasn’t just trying to get out of her homeschool classes, but I had my doubts.

  “And oh, darn, there the pizza place goes,” I said, driving past it. “We’re in hiding, Juliana. No town pizza. If this weren’t a four-alarm Catholic emergency, we wouldn’t even be here.”

  There were more pickups in the parking lot of Our Lady of Sorrows, beat-up work vans with ladders on top. Seamus had explained that the congregation included a lot of farmworkers, many of them unemployed after environmentalists in the state legislature had head-scratchingly cut down the rural area’s water allowance for the year. Without the water, farmers had been forced to let fields lie fallow, and now there were a lot of unemployed people hurting.