3am

Chapter 10

At Sanchez's restaurant, the hostess escorts Liam and me to the same corner booth as before. José meets us there and tells me Maria is away visiting their daughter and grandson. He offers to wait on us personally, and within moments of us sitting down, he brings out a bowl of queso, a basket of tortilla chips, and a plate of memelas. We place our drink orders, soda for Liam and Horchata for me. After José leaves, I tell Liam to order whatever he wants from the menu. "Within reason, of course," I add. "I am not a millionaire you know."

Liam peruses the menu as I step outside to check in with Sergeant Easmon. When I return, José is there and waiting. I order my usual, Camarones Rancheros. After José leaves, I ask Liam what he ordered. "And please don't say everything on the menu..."

"No, I just ordered the taco salad," Liam says with a grin. I shake my head but say nothing. After the morning he has had, I won't begrudge Liam one bit of comfort. I just hope he doesn't make it a habit...

José returns with our food and Liam and I eat in silence for a while. Once Liam has made a sizable dent in his taco salad, he turns toward me. "Zeke, what on earth have you gotten us into?" he asks, a serious look on his face.

"What do you mean?" I reply, swallowing a bite of shrimp.

"Those men who broke into my house and took us hostage," Liam explains. "They claim you sent them."

"You... you can't believe that is true," I stammer in shock. "Liam, you know I would never do something like that!"

"Calm down," Liam says kindly, laying a hand on my shoulder. "I know that, Maura knows that, the kids... hell, even baby Morgan knows that. But those men sure seemed convinced that you were the ones to send them."

"Liam," I begin carefully. "Tell me exactly what those men said to you."

"Well, I can only speak for the one who took me to the bank for money. As we went down the road, I asked him what he wanted. Why us? That sort of thing. And he told me explicitly to shut the fuck up. Then he sort of mumbled, 'Frost didn't tell us there was a whole damn family to control.' I took it to mean you, but that made little sense. Number one, you would never sic a group of experienced criminals on us. Number two, even if you snapped and did that, you would know roughly when the family would be dispersed and when we would all be together. And you would have told the criminals to plan accordingly. It makes no sense that you would send a group of criminals in unaware of who would be in the home..."

I shake my head, trying to wrap my brain around the whole thing. Someone is impersonating me? And siccing gangs of criminals on my friends? Suddenly, a thought dawns on me, a thought so horrifying I almost gasp out loud. What if this fiend sends someone after Becca and the kids?! Excusing myself from Liam, I rush outside of the restaurant. I open the door to my car and slide into the driver's seat, shutting the door behind me. I want complete solitude.

I dial Becca's cell phone number and offer up a prayer that she answers. But it dashes my hope when her voice mail picks up instead. "Dammit!" I mutter. I wait for the 'click!' to begin my message. "Becca, it is Zeke. Listen, I know you want nothing to do with me but please, for the love of God, call me back as soon as you get this message. I just want to know that you and the kids are all right. This is serious, Becca. Please, please, PLEASE call me back."

I hang up and let out a sigh. I climb back out of the car and trudge back into the restaurant where Liam is working his way through a couple of churros topped with ice cream. My lunch plate is still where I left it, but the food is cold by now. Besides, I am not hungry anymore. I slide back into the booth and motion for the bill. As I wait, I push a few of the shrimp around the plate. Liam watches me out of the corner of his eye. "You okay, buddy?" he asks.