This was all new territory for me, but there was something exciting about it. I had never been in danger before. Maybe I wasn't now, but it felt like it. The thought of going back in to my boring job the next day—yes, it was a holiday, just not for me—was suddenly distasteful.

I pulled up to my mother's house and she came out to meet me. My mother was a good-looking woman of sixty-eight. Full of energy, she devoted herself full-time to numerous charities as a volunteer. She always had a great outlook on life, and I could count on her to cheer me up when I was down.

"So what made you suddenly decide to go through your father's things?" she asked without a preamble and giving me a hug.

"Oh, have I got a story for you," I answered.

"Well, come inside," she said. "I made chicken." She stopped and looked at me. "Something's different," she said. She studied my face. "You're excited about something. You're never excited about anything. I like it. It's a good look for you." She smiled and took my arm as we went into the house.

Over dinner I told her the story, leaving nothing out.

"That's dreadful about the woman," she finally said.

"So did dad ever say anything about his father?"

"Not anything that you don't already know. And I can't believe he knew some secret about him that he didn't tell anyone."

As expected, my car alarm started screeching. I jumped up from the table and ran to the door.

"Be careful, Del. You don't know what these people are capable of."

Actually, I did. But I wasn't listening. I ran out the door in time to see a man in a hooded sweatshirt jump into the passenger side of a late model pickup carrying the box from the front seat.

I flicked the alarm off from my key fob and approached the car. The passenger window was broken, as I figured it would be. I opened the door and pretended to brush away glass, quickly checking under the driver's seat. The package was still there.

It was real. My life and Izzy's life—and death—were intertwined. There was a deep dark secret in my family's past, and I wanted to find out what it was.

Chapter 3

My mother suggested that I open the package with her, but as curious as I knew she was, I wanted to get it far away from her. It had probably been a mistake to involve my mother at all. She wasn't scared, but I could tell that she understood my reasons for heading home.

While I duct-taped some plastic over my broken window, she put together the leftovers for me, as she always did—even though I ate quite well, it was never good enough for her—and I hastily kissed her goodbye and was on my way home.

Again, I decided to take the Mass Pike, this time for safety sake. There were portions of Route 2 that could be a bit lonely, whereas the Mass Pike was a major highway with almost no chance that "they," whoever they were, could get to me. Once I got home it was going to be a different story. I lived in East Boston, not the safest place in the world to begin with. If Izzy knew where I lived, chances were that they did too. Would they be waiting for me?