“She’s sound asleep finally.” Yelina’s voice startled me. “You can rest if you want…you’ve been staring at her for the past two hours. I don’t think she’s in any danger right now.”

She was right, Crystal had finally settled down and was now sound asleep. I hadn’t even noticed that two hours had already gone by without me moving from my spot on the edge of the bed. I’d been so engrossed in trying to find a way to make all this go away. No luck.

“Whatever you are trying to come up with…will not work Alex. The only thing you can do is do what they are asking.”

I stood up and ran a hand over my face. Yelina knew about me, but not everything. “I’m not who I used to be, I can’t get over the fact that I shot that girl last night.” I’d seriously gone soft. Well, not exactly soft, I just wanted to be normal. I’d been for only six months.

Yelina took a step towards me and placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a weak smile. I could see the love in her eyes and my gut coiled. “You are a good man and I know that whoever Jack was has died…but, if we want to survive this...then you have to revive him. You have to bring him back.”

I didn’t want to bring Jack back.

She let out a pain filled giggle and looked towards the bed, “Do it because you love her.”

My eyes reverted to the young sleeping girl. She was huddled up, hands under her cheek, blonde hair cascading onto the pillow and her face. Yelina was right, there was only one way to get out of this mess and it was to be my old self; like it or not. And to do whatever these assholes wanted me to do.

“I’m going to do it for all of us…”

She smiled, I was saying it, but she knew damn well that it was mostly for Crystal. “We’ll think of it that way.” Her hand touched my face, “I have to go for a bit. My dad is in a huff because I’ve gone missing. I promise I will be back tonight.” She quickly pressed her lips to mine and walked out the door.

I just stood there staring at nothing.

“Where was she going?” Crystal’s sleepy voice had nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. Fuck, I hate being on edge. It’s not me.

“Uh…she…um…” Say something idiot.

Crystal sat up and rubbed her eyes she was smiling sheepishly. “Wow…you get nervous now. I guess with a girl like that who wouldn’t, right. You really haven’t changed much you know. Still detached from people…can’t you see how crazy in love she is with you?” She shook her head.

I rolled my eyes. “I can see that the excessive talking hasn’t changed.” All this love talk had to stop. Women are so emotional. It’s sick.

“You definitely still have issues with showing affection.” The smile didn’t last long on Crystal’s face she was staring at her hand where the thick black band was tightly wrapped around her small wrist. She chuckled, “I thought maybe I was dreaming, fat chance.”

I stuck my hands into my pockets and rocked on my heels, there wasn’t much I could tell the kid that would make her feel better. “I’m sorry…anything I could try to do get that shit off would only—“

“Yeah I know. Blow me up!” She ran her fingers through her long blonde hair and let out a sigh. “So, what about the cop? You said he needed to see me.”

There was a moment of silence, and then I spoke up “Yeah I think we should go there, so that I can talk to him. Maybe he’ll come clean…”

Her brows raised and she looked at me puzzled. “You used to be ready to blow anyone’s brains out and now it seems that you make up any excuse not to hurt anyone.”

I shrugged, now that she said it. I felt like a pussy. “Well I changed a lot. Plus I don’t get paid to kill people anymore, so what’s the point?”

“True, but these assholes are trying to kill us! And if we don't come up with a plan…they are going to succeed."

I let out a loud sigh and ran my hand over my face. The kid was right, who the hell was I kidding, at some point I was going to have to grab my balls and be who everyone wanted me to be. Anyways, seems like once you’re a killer that shit chases you everywhere.

“Get ready we are going to see Jenkins. I’m going to talk to him and if he doesn’t tell me the truth then we have to come up with plan.”

Yelina didn’t come back and we ended up at Jenkin’s house on our own. He gave us a warm smile as he signaled us to enter. Deep inside of me, I knew that Jenkins was a good guy whether or not he took the money. Anyone in his position would have done the same thing.

“Hey Yelina is missing? Is she jealous you got yourself another sidekick?” Jenkins joked as he lead us into his living room. I smirked cause he wasn’t too off. “So Crystal, about this car that you were driving. You say this Jack guy gave it to you?”

We both weren’t expecting him to question her in regards to Jack. She went a little pale and fumbled with her words. “Um…well…he…” Jenkins raised a brow and I really wanted to butt in and save her, but it would only make it more suspicious.

Crystal turned to look at me, as if to apologize for what she was about to say. “Well see…this Jack guy appeared at my house one day. He was hurt and well my best friend and I helped him out. He stayed at the house for a bit and then--” She looked around, “It turned out that the asshole was a hitman and he was out for my dad. Don had sent him.”

“Jesus!!” Jenkins commented. “Is he the one that…?”

Crystal shook her head and gave a weak smile. “Don killed my dad…and Jack.”

Jenkins smiled at us, like he’d found a gold mine or something very valuable. “And the report said YOU killed Don?”

“Well Don--”

“She did…shot him right in the neck.” I had to butt in. I couldn’t let Jenkins know that Don was somewhere out there. “Listen I have to talk to you…” I looked at the kid, she wasn’t going to like having to be away from me, but I had to talk to him alone. “alone.”

He gave Crystal a smile and stood up. “Alright let’s go outside.”

Crystal looked at me terrified. I didn’t think we would walk much, it wasn’t like Jenkins had a mansion. “Are you sure I…”

“Oh come child! We should let the men talk. Maybe…you should rest for a bit. You haven’t slept well in days, I’ve heard.” Miss Jenkins kindly escorted Crystal back to the sofa, as I followed Jenkins out to their yard.

I’m no math wiz, but I’m guessing that ten feet isn’t that far…or is it. Would something go off to warn us? Jenkins was saying something, but I was busy worrying about the kid and the fact that Jenkins was walking further and further away from the glass door.

“So what’s going on Alex? You seem jumpy.”

I still hadn’t thought through how I was going to bring up the money question, but he wasn’t giving me much time to think either. So I had to go with the flow. “I was wondering if a reporter has visited you lately?” Jenkins gave me a puzzled look, but didn’t say anything. “Yeah, he came by asking about the big bust. He mentioned something about one of the officers in charge finding a very important key.”

There was silence for a beat or two, he sighed heavily and then looked up at me. “You’re father was the righteous man. He didn’t want to keep the money…but, Richardson insisted that our pay wasn’t good enough for the bullshit that we went through. So he kept it and we made a pact to divide the money between us three. But, when Don took down your family…Richardson got scared and greedy. He disappeared.”

Although I knew Jenkins, something about what he was saying sounded really off. Richardson had the farm, but it wasn’t fancy or anything. Yet, here was Jenkins with the big house, new pool…Oceanside view and he was blaming all this on Richardson. “So you are saying that Richardson kept dirty money. Money that Don and his men would probably want at some point. I mean if he was alive to claim it? Richardson didn’t seem like that type of person, though.”

Jenkins shook his head and smiled. “We all get a little desperate sometimes. He’d been planning on going far away, probably starting a family…that money was a perfect opportunity for him to start all over.”

Some of it made sense, he was running from it all and if he took the money with him…probably in his head, no one would ever find him. Crystal was not going to like this. I was so engrossed in the conversation and information that he was giving me, that I hadn’t noticed that we were almost at the shore.

I spun around quickly and started almost trotting back to the house, Jenkins following without asking me why the fast pace. Suddenly the sliding door flew open and out ran Crystal, like a bat out of hell. I watched her legs shuffle across the nicely manicured lawn and then she took a leap and landed with a splash into the pool.

“Holy shit it’s cold” she gasped and looked at us, her cheeks flushing red. “I…just…thought I’d go for a swim.”

I blinked a couple of times and turned to look at Jenkins and gave him an ‘I don’t know’ shrug. I knew damn well, that the whole taking a swim was bullshit, She’d come to the conclusion that water would deactivate the wrist bomb. It was pretty clever...unfortunately it didn't seem to work. I wasn’t sure if I should grimace or actually laugh a little.