“I know.”
“You don’t work for us anymore, Gloria.”
She nodded slowly. “I was scared of losing everything, Russell.”
“So was he,” I said. “He was twelve.”
Colleen and Dolores came home that Thursday. I met them in the driveway with Sandra standing beside me. I’d already had the locks changed.
Colleen got out of the SUV first. She was tan, wearing sunglasses pushed up into her hair, and for one second she looked like the woman I’d met at that gallery. Then she saw Sandra and stopped walking.
“Where’s Mason?”
“Safe,” I said. “Somewhere you can’t take his phone.”
Dolores came around the back of the car, holding her tote bag against her chest. She looked at me like I’d tracked mud onto her carpet.
“That boy was always too sensitive.”
“Mason didn’t want to go on the trip,” Colleen said.
“He wasn’t invited,” I said. “And you took his phone.”
