Chapter 7: The Tall One

The man in the grey coat was gone by the time I reached the club's front steps.

His car had gone with him.

I called Dario from the parking lot.

"A man in a grey coat followed my sons out of the Lakeshore Club," I said. "He paid cash for Jared's table twice this month."

"Give me ten minutes," Dario said.

He called back in six.

"The coat is a Gallo man," he said. "I'll have his name by tonight."

"Gallo."

"You remember them."

"My father hated them," I said.

"Your father was right," Dario said. "Stay on paper, Marisa. Don't go near them."

"I'm not going near anyone. I'm going to a school."

Monday morning I stood at the gate of St. Brendan's an hour before the first bell.

The hallway where my daughter had been beaten was visible through the glass doors.

I had not decided to go inside.

I stayed at the gate, because the girl I wanted would have to cross it.

She came across the lot at five to eight.

She was the tall one from the bench, and from the kitchen at the lake house.

She wore the uniform and a gray hoodie with the hood up, and she had the walk of someone who has not slept well in a week.

She saw me and stopped.

"Mrs. Cardwell."

"I'm not here to shout at you," I said.

"You should."

"Then we'd both feel better, and I'd learn nothing."

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