I put in my own call to the FBI field office in Denver. Technically, Kyle was their case, since he’d escaped from prison in Colorado.

Over the phone, an Agent Tremblay told me that they had nothing new to report but that he’d be in touch with all mid-Atlantic field offices right away. This was a priority case for them, too, and not just because of the damage Kyle had done to the Bureau’s reputation the first time around. I had a feeling I’d be hearing from Jim Heekin at the Directorate in Washington first thing in the morning.

Meanwhile, I made another call — and woke up my good buddy and sometimes sparring mate Rakeem Powell.

Rakeem had been with the force for fifteen years, and a detective with the 103 for eight. Then, in the same six-month period, he’d gotten married and shot, in that order, and ended up taking early retirement.

No one ever thought Rakeem would leave the department, but then again, no one thought he’d ever settle down either. Now he had his own close-security firm in Silver Spring, and I was about to become a client.

By seven that morning, we had a whole system in place. The kids were covered to and from school by me and Bree, with Sampson as backup. Rakeem’s firm would provide overnight security, front and back, with daytime coverage as needed. They’d also spend the first day working up an assessment of penetrable areas of the house and try to have them wired up before the kids got home.

Nana tried to put her foot down about FBI agents in the yard, but I came out on top of that one. As instructed by her, I was doing whatever I needed to do to make things happen. She and I were barely speaking at this point, and no one was happy about any of it, but this was our reality now.

Life under siege. Kyle Craig was back in our lives.

Chapter 20

AND THEN LIFE does go on, ready or not.

Once I got the kids to school, I made it over to St. Anthony’s in time for my second appointment of the morning, after missing the first. I’d been doing pro bono counseling for the hospital ever since I shut my private practice. These were high-need folks who couldn’t afford even basic mental-health care, so I was glad to do my part. It also helped keep me sharp and on my toes.

Bronson “Pop-Pop” James pimp-walked into my dank little office with the same too-cool-for-school attitude as always. I’d met him when he was eleven; now he was a little older, and more confident in his cynical assessment of the world than ever.

Two of his friends had died since I’d started seeing him, and most of his heroes — street thugs barely older than he was — were already dead, too.