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Kaj sighed. “He would. He worries about everything, which I suppose he gets from me.” He grimaced self-deprecatingly. “I worry about everything, too. Heather, on the other hand, was a planner. She made sure we both had life insurance policies that were sufficient to take care of Elijah if anything happened to us. Hers was more than enough to cover Burke’s fees. I’ll make sure that Elijah knows not to worry.” He stuck out his hand. “Thank you, Miss Sorensen. I’d be happy if you guarded my son.”
She stood to lean over the desk and shook his hand, her grip firm. “Call me Val.”
He considered her for a moment. “My friends call me Kaj. It’s spelled K-a-j but rhymes with ‘pie.’ ”
A smile bloomed, brightening her already pretty face. She was a very attractive woman. And he shouldn’t notice that. This was business. This was about Elijah.
“Your parents must have wanted names with a European flair, what with a Scandinavian first name and a French middle. And Cardozo?”
He stared at her smile, still gripping her hand. He hadn’t let go. But neither had she. It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to think about why that might be.
He released her, letting his hand drop to his side. “Cardozo is Portuguese. My father was from Portugal and my mother was Danish. Kaj was her father’s name. My godfather was Jean-Pierre, so I’ve kind of got a mishmash of names. When I was Elijah’s age, no one could pronounce my name properly. Bullies like to push buttons, so when I started middle school, I started going by Jean-Pierre. The bullies still teased me and called me Jean, like the pants, but the girls swooned, so I called it a win. Jean-Pierre just carried over into college and then my career. But my closest friends and family know me as Kaj.”
She grimaced good-naturedly. “My birth name isn’t Val,” she confided. “It’s Ingrid, but nobody calls me that except for my family. I played a Valkyrie in a high school play, because I was the only one tall enough to fit into the costume. Kids started calling me Val and it stuck.”
“What’s your legal name now, after the name change? Ingrid or Val?”
“Val. The Marines in my unit knew me as Ingrid Kristiansen, so using Val felt safer once I got out.”
“Why didn’t you change your name back after the stalker was no longer a threat?”
She shrugged. “By then I’d built an identity as Val Sorensen. I had a teaching career and my roller derby friends. I’ve considered it a few times since Van died, but it’s a lot of bother, so I just haven’t.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up difficult memories about your brother.”
“Thank you, but you don’t have to be sorry. I miss him every day, but life does go on. Which you know as well.”
“Yes, I do.” He sometimes still reached for Heather in those hazy moments between sleep and waking up. Brusquely he pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote his cell phone number on the back. “My office number and work cell are on the front. My personal cell is on the back. Please don’t give out the personal number. Not many people have that.”
“I’ll keep it safe.”
He knew she would, just as she’d keep his son safe. “I’m going to take Elijah home. When can we expect you?”
“I can follow you right now. I have a go-bag in my car. That way you can get back to work or wherever you need to go. I’ll ask Burke to arrange a backup bodyguard so I can go home and pack more clothes if this stretches on more than a few days.”
He gestured to the door. “Then... after you.”
5
Bayou des Allemands, Louisiana
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 12:45 P.M.
COREY RELAXED AS he steered the boat around the final bend, his camp now in sight. It was back in the bayou, off one of the many little tributaries, nearly impossible to find if you didn’t know exactly where it was. No one “just happened” upon them, which was how Corey liked it.
The camp had been just a plot of cleared land four years ago when Aaron had taken it over from the former head of Sixth Day. The old leader had apparently planned to build his own camp, but never got the chance.
In that first year, Corey, Bobby, and Ed had built two structures. The first had been for Aaron, yet another contribution that Corey had made to his brother’s drug business. For Liam.
Aaron had needed a place to make and store his meth, far away from Dianne and Liam. He hadn’t wanted his family to know how he was paying the bills, and the fumes generated by meth production would have given him away.
Corey had thought at the time that the health risks to Dianne and Liam from the fumes and the explosion risks from the meth production process were better reasons for Aaron to do his making far away, but he’d held his tongue. Aaron had been under such financial pressure and Liam had been so sick. Plus, Aaron had no handyman skills. He was a white-collar man all the way. At least he had been four years ago. It was Corey who’d worked for a construction company as a teenager to help his mother pay the bills. It was Corey who’d had the skills.
Please, Aaron had begged. For Liam.
I’ll build it, he’d replied, but I want half the land. Aaron had been desperate enough then to agree.
So Corey had built his brother a small cabin with a working kitchen for his meth production. It had taken a few months to build, partly because it was the first thing Corey had ever built from the ground up by himself, but mainly because he’d had to transport all the materials by boat. But it was a good cabin, strong enough to withstand the hurricane or two that had blown through. Within hours of its completion, Dewey and Aaron had set up production. The two had made meth and Corey had helped them distribute it.
