“So … she’s your accountant?” I gathered.
He looked at me, smiling. “Yeah, I guess she’s my accountant.”
I could hear the pulsation of car stereo systems resonating in the distance. The sound was
becoming louder and louder. I tried to ignore it.
“And Spider works for you too?” I continued.
He nodded his head in affirmation and, anticipating my next question, added, “Spider deals with
all of the security issues.”
“And the … guards?”
“Yes, Emily, they all work for me,” he answered with slight impatience. “Everyone here works
for me.”
“Rocco doesn’t work for you,” I noted.
“No, I guess you’re right. Rocco is the exception. He’s my brother. He can live here as long
as he wants, but he doesn’t need to work for me.”
“But he wants to work for you.”
Cameron’s smile disappeared.
“Rocco is young and has the chance to do anything he wants. Anything,” he emphasized and
looked me in the eyes. “I won’t let him make the same mistakes I made.”
The desperation on his face reminded me of that day, in the cemetery … when he had turned
around to find me as his witness to his crime.
“Cameron,” I said and took a breath, “I don’t know what happened in the cemetery or why you
killed that man … but I’m sure you had your reasons.” His brown eyes were still locked on
mine. I was feeling my nerves fading. “You have to know that I would never tell anyone what I
saw. You don’t need to keep me here to keep me quiet because I’m not going to talk.”
“Things are a lot more complicated than that. It’s not just up to me. There are other people
who have an interest in this.”
“Spider?” I asked, remembering his furious glances at my expense.
He smiled. “No, it’s not Spider.”
I mustn’t have looked convinced because he added, “I know that Spider comes off a bit …
intimidating, but he’s a good guy who’s just trying to do his job of keeping us safe. And
believe me, sometimes I make his job very difficult.”
Like his ears were burning, Spider came through the doors of the main floor and walked to the
edge of the balcony, peering down at us.
“We gotta go,” he directed Cameron, tossing a harsh glance in my direction.
“I’ll be right there,” Cameron replied, waving Spider away. Spider reluctantly turned around
and went back into the house.
Cameron got up, rolled the legs of his jeans back down, stuck his feet back into his sandals and
looked down at me. “I know that this is hard for you to understand, but I promise you that this
house is the safest place for you to be right now.”
“I don’t know what that means Cameron.”
“I know,” he said, softly. “You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
“How long am I going to stay here for?” I had finally asked the question—one of the questions
—that I really needed the answer to.
“A while,” he admitted and a sly smile crossed his lips. “At least you’ll finally have room
to unpack your stuff and won’t have to live out of those rubber bins anymore.”
He took a few steps, before looking back. “I need to ask you a favor.”
I peered up.
“Don’t use my real name when there are other people around … I mean when there are people
other than Rocco, Carly and Spider around.”
This then brought a smile to my lips. “What am I supposed to call you then?”
“Anything you want—just not the real thing.”
“Sure thing, boss,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “You can’t call me that either. It’s too freaky … We’ll have to think
of something good later.”
The boss walked away and, with Meatball at his heels, followed the cobblestone pathway that led
around the house. They both disappeared as they turned to make their way to the front of the
house.
Chapter Seven:
Sand Castles
What I remembered was that Bill’s sand castles were always bigger and better than mine. I was
six years old, and my brother and I were sitting on a beach in Martha’s Vineyard. Our nanny
Maria was standing on her tiptoes, batting her eyelashes at the bronzed lifeguard who sat in his
high chair, savoring the attention. Bill had already stacked three buckets of sand perfectly,
one over the other, and stuck a leafed branch on top as a flagpole.
There was no competition: my first attempt had crumbled as soon as I had overturned the bucket;
the second less-crumbled attempt was washed away by a pestering wave.
Bill had a knack for showing up just as I was ready to give up, or throw a tantrum. Leaving his
castle unguarded, he rushed to my rescue and built a princess palace, according to his baby
sister’s specs. In the end, my sand castle had roads, bridges over a circling sea-salt river
and a princess made of candy wrappers waiting in the tower.