Page 44 of A Favor Owed

Especially Brady. He wouldn’t just walk away if my family brought the heat. He’d run right into it.

There are so many thoughts going through my head as I get ready for work that I can barely keep them straight. I’ve been on dates, but I’ve never felt like this after one—elated, exhausted, excited for more. If I’m being completely honest (not exactly my forte), I’ve never been as close to anyone as I’ve been to Brady over the last twelve hours.

As soon as I’m showered and dressed, I ride my bike over to Legal Aid, Brady still firmly on the brain. All of that changes when I’m confronted with Elisa’s ashen face. She sits at her desk, the phone receiver in one hand, a pen in the other. She waves me in with the pen hand, and I sit down in the chair across from her desk.

“What about the others?… Are you sure?… Okay.” She listens to the person on the other line for a couple more minutes and then hangs up. “That was Sergeant Barstow from the Task Force,” she says, her eyes spilling over with tears as alarm courses through my body. “The boyfriend of one of the seamstresses is in the hospital.”

Brady’s handsome, smiling face immediately flashes through my mind and alarm turns to cold panic.

“He was attacked in Los Angeles coming home from work last night,” Elisa continues. “They think he’ll be okay. He’s at UCLA Medical Center.”

I debate whether to act shocked by the news. I decide against it. “She won’t testify now.”

Elisa swallows. “No, I can no longer counsel her to testify.”

“It was a message,” I say. “He’s lucky they didn’t kill him.”

“They being…the mob,” says Elisa.

I nod. Elisa and I look at each other for a minute.

“And you know this from your…research,” she finally says. She has that same strange look that she had the other day, like she doesn’t quite know who I am. I’m so tired of people not knowing who I am.

Be careful, I remind myself. “There was a lot of field research involved,” I admit.

“I see,” she says slowly, still watching me with dark, uneasy eyes. “And, um, according to your…research,” she continues, “are you and I in any danger? Or our families?”

I shake my head. “No. Hurting us in any way would provide way too much exposure and not achieve anything. The seamstresses are a threat to them because they can name them and testify against them. The bosses sent a message—to her and the others: keep this up, and next time it’ll be a bullet.”

“Oh my gosh,” she whispers, wide-eyed. “Is there, like, anything else I should know?”

No. Definitely not. Then why am I still talking? “I don’t know the people who did this.”

I am not them. I will never be them.I need her to know this. I need to see the trace of relief in her eyes, hear the slight exhalation of breath.

“Right,” she says shakily. “I mean, of course you don’t. Right?”

“Okay, well, I’m going to get to work on the visa applications, unless there’s something else you want me to work on.”

“No, I mean yes, the visa applications. Thanks, Angela.”

I stand up to leave, but Elisa’s voice stops me at the door.

“Angela.”

I turn.

“Did your thesis paper get you in any… I mean, are you in danger at all? I would think doing field research with the mob would be risky.”

“I was careful,” I say. “I’m not in any danger.” Only part of that statement is true.

The news about our client’s boyfriend reverberates in my head for the rest of the day. I think about who would be at risk if my family ever found out I crossed them. Only me. No husband, no kids. No boyfriend.

When I get home from work, I text Brady.

I can’t come over tonight.

I cry for an hour after I send it. Which is precisely why I had to send it. This can’t go any further.

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