Bombshell

Her brother put his fingers over her mouth. “There’s no reason to go through all this again, Delsey. The Mara came after you at the B&B while I was close, in the next bedroom, and that’s too close to home.

“You know Maestro hasn’t been your friend since Friday night. Anna and Ruth and Dix, all of us, want you out of here and safe in Washington with Savich. I told him what happened—namely, our gun runners are desperate enough to lean a ladder on the side of the B&B, climb in through your window, and attempt to stick a knife in your heart. The MS-13 gang member wanted you dead, Delsey, because you were a witness.” Saying the words made his throat clog. He swallowed. “Look, if I hadn’t—”

Hadn’t what? Delsey wondered.

“—if I hadn’t heard you and come in time—” He couldn’t get out the words. “Let me say Anna and Ruth and Dix all want you out of here as well.”

Delsey didn’t bother pointing out yet again that the man had had his hand pressed over her mouth and she hadn’t made a sound, yet Griffin had somehow known. She looked off toward the hills at the low rumble of an incoming airplane. “Look, I’ll be really careful, and I can help. I can be bait; maybe I can—”

Griffin pulled out his killer argument. “Listen, if you stayed, we’d have to protect you, and that could scatter our focus, maybe endanger all of us. You don’t want that, do you? We don’t have the resources to protect you, and there’s no reason to risk your life here. It’s best for all of us if you leave.”

Delsey sighed. “I guess I don’t want to get a knife in my heart.” She shuddered.

“I don’t want you to, either,” Griffin said.

“This wasn’t what I expected to have happen when I decided to study music composition at Stanislaus.” She gave Griffin a crooked grin. “How can I have such sucky luck? But you know, what about my classes? And I’ve got to compose. What if I lie really low, so no one—”

Anna interrupted her, placed her hands on Delsey’s shoulders. “You can compose anywhere on the planet. Your professors can email your assignments. Your brother’s right, you don’t want to be here. I’d be so worried about you all the time that I’d get all my customers’ orders wrong and lose all my tips and maybe even my job. Then how could I afford to practice my violin?

“Listen, Delsey, bottom line, if something happened to you, I’d never forgive myself, and no one else would, either. I’d end up in Nepal, where I’d become a monk and shave my head. A Louisiana girl shouldn’t have to do that. Don’t make me show off my bone-white bald head, Delsey.”

“How do you know it’s bone-white? Oh, never mind. All right, you guys win. Now, there’s something that’s been bothering me, so I’m going to spit it out. I understand my BFF would want to be here to see me off and maybe help my brother talk me into going, but I’m not blind. There’s something more going on here that neither of you have told me. It’s like you’re both guarding defenseless little Delsey for her own good, little brain-dead Delsey, who wouldn’t understand something only you grown-ups would know. And no, this isn’t about the thing you guys have between you—that’s okay, I think it’s great. Maybe you don’t even see it yet yourselves, but you will. Nope, it’s something else, way something else.”

She studied their closed faces a moment. “Anna, you and Ruth behave differently, too, when you’re together. I’m asking you, Anna, because Griffin can stare me right in the eye and lie clean. So talk.”

Delsey saw Anna shoot a look to her brother, saw Griffin start to shake his head, then pause, shrug. “It’s up to you. She’ll be out of Maestro, out of harm’s way, and safe in Washington, and so will whatever you tell her.”

Anna thought for a few seconds, drew a deep breath and prayed. “Okay, here it is. I’m a DEA agent, Delsey, undercover here in Maestro since last September, because we believe some people at Stanislaus, including Professor Salazar, are involved in large-scale drug smuggling. I enrolled at Stanislaus to find out more about it.”

Delsey stared at her like she’d grown a third ear. “What? You, Anna, a DEA agent? My best friend here at Stanislaus, my girl from Louisiana who’s working her way through music school and shot an alligator when she was nine years old, you’re really a federal cop like my brother? A DEA agent?” She was shaking her head back and forth, trying to come to grips with a new reality. “But you and I are friends, we’ve been friends since last fall—but wait—” Delsey smacked the side of her head. “I’m an idiot. That’s not true at all, is it? All I’ve ever been to you is a source of information.” Delsey’s voice had raised a good octave and had begun to shake, with anger, with hurt.