She put her hands on her knees, yoga style.
Jake glanced left and right. “A lot more people here than last week.”
C.C. gave him a look.
Jake sighed, put his hands on his knees in the same manner as hers.
“Eyes,” C.C. said.
Jake closed his eyes. And immediately eased one back open, stole a glance at C.C. Her eyes were open, watching him, like a mindful teacher. She scowled, and he closed the eye.
“Good,” she said. “Now quiet your mind.”
Jake smiled with his eyes closed. “Hey, you! Mind! Yeah, you. Zip it before I sock you a good one!”
“Jake…”
“Fine.”
He took a deep breath.
“What thoughts are in your head?”
“The same ones that were there when my eyes were open. Why there appears to be a schism forming in the gang. How this is going to play out in terms of arrests. Hell, not even arrests. I’m jumping the gun. Warrants. All the warrants that are going to be needed. God, what a nightmare. And, of course, with some of these, Tanner and I are going to need to find the right judges, and around here—”
“Love?” C.C. said gently.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up. Quiet your thoughts. Forget the details of the assignment for the time being. Be here. Right now. Find the silence of the present.”
Jake smirked through his closed eyes again. “The silence of the present? Babe, do you hear all of this?”
He lifted one of his yoga hands from his knee and gestured broadly toward the cacophony of sounds around them—squawking seagulls, laughter, children screaming, pounding waves.
“Where are your feet?” C.C. said, still with her gentle tone, unperturbed.
“Just below my ankles.”
“Jake…”
He grumbled. But when he spoke again, he tried to be more accommodating, less stubborn. He’d done these exercises with her before, and though he didn’t particularly like them, he knew the drill.
“They’re folded beneath my legs.”
“Yes, pressed against your beach towel. How does the towel feel?”
“Soft. Fuzzy.”
“Good. And warm?”
“Very warm. Hot, actually. The sun’s hot.”
“Now your touch points. Other than your feet, where is your body making contact with the earth?”
Jake was quiet for a half moment as he monitored.
“My butt. And the outside edges of my thighs.”
“Good. Now begin with the top of your head. Do you feel the sun on your part? The breeze tussling your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Relax your scalp. Let all the tension wash away. Your face next, releasing all pressure, letting all the tiny muscles go soft and slack. Very good. Continue down. You carry a lot of tension in your neck. Let it go. Down through your chest and shoulders, through your arms, all the way to your fingertips. Let all of those tiny muscles melt, all the stress drifting away, into the sea. Good, love. Down through your stomach, into your thighs, your calves.”
The sound of the waves grew quieter. Echoey. And then abstract. Lines on a canvas. Seagulls were pinpoints. Laughter became phosphorescent blossoms.
“How do things sound now?” C.C. said from the other side of the beach, the opposite end of the canvas, a parallel plane.
“Quieter,” Jake whispered.
“Good. Now listen to your mind, love.”
Val laughed.
Silence jumped.
Her lips stopped mid-story. “You okay, Rob?”
Silence nodded.
She continued. “So, yeah, I just need the money so damn bad. Even a single class is expensive, ya know. And without a way to…”
Silence had to clear his mind. The parallels between this assignment and the undercover work in his past were creating a confused muddle. The Ramirezes. The Bowmans. Intercepted protection payments. It was all getting jumbled.
He needed to meditate.
Normally in a situation like this he’d close his eyes and meditate right there, wherever “there” might be. But he couldn’t now. Not with his unintentional companion still talking. If he could—
Movement. At the Ramirez house.
Though Silence hadn’t checked the house for several minutes, he had kept it carefully in his periphery. His mind might have had a tendency to get overcrowded with thoughts, but his situational awareness was expert.
He turned, looked through the window, into the darkness.
Two blocks away, Adriana stepped out of the front door, headed down the porch steps, and went toward an old Volkswagen Beetle, keys in hand.
Shit!
He knew it.
He popped out of his seat and bolted toward the entrance.
“…so when the time is right, I need to— Hey! Where you going?” Val shouted after him.
Silence didn’t turn around, just sprinted for the door.
“You can’t leave! I’ll get a point for this! Hey!”
He pushed through the door and sprinted into the thick, warm night.
Chapter Ten
In New Orleans, years earlier, the nighttime air was also dense with humidity, but the temperature was lower, almost cool, the strange phenomenon of mugginess that can make a person sweat at the same time they’re feeling chilly. The window in the Bowmans’ kitchen was open, and the cool, moist air wafted in through the screen.
The kitchen was as typically middle class as the living room—light-stained maple cabinets with white drawers, decorative copper cookware hanging on one wall, dirty dishes mounded in the dual-basin sink, the lingering scent of that evening’s dinner.
Jake sat next to Wesley at the wooden table, which was covered with a simple cloth, a washed-out coral color, red once upon a time.
Kip was the only other person in the kitchen, but he wasn’t seated at the table. He circled around the room, muttering, his tone switching periodically from pitiful to outraged. Half the time he couldn’t look at Wesley; the other half of the time, he glared into the younger man.
Wesley looked at neither his father nor Jake but the tabletop in front of him. His head drooped between his lowered shoulders, hands knitted in front of him, twisting.
Jake watched Wesley, waiting for the answer to his question.
“I thought joining the gang would be a way to escape this life,” Wesley said, his voice small, completely devoid of all the gun-toting bravado it had moments earlier. “I thought—”
“‘This life?’” Kip shouted, halting his endless loop around the kitchen. “What life would that be? This comfortable home I raised you in? That you still live in as a nineteen-year-old man?
