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to Pam and nodded. They'd talked about this and he figured she could get out a few words.
    “I loved Dwayne,” she said. “Like Matt said, I couldn't live with him. He could be mean when he drank and he preferred to be off saving the world, but it didn't mean I didn't love him.”
    Matt felt a guilty pang there. Mercenary work was about thrills and cash, not valor. But the mom and the kid didn't need to know that. Pam either. Let them keep their image.
    “And I'll be forever grateful for the gift of my son,” she said. “He was a good man.”
    Matt looked at Mrs. Paxton and then Trevor. He wondered if either of them would talk, but when they didn't, he held out the shovel. “Trevor? You want to toss the first dirt?”
    The boy shook his head.
    “You should do it,” Mrs. Paxton said to Matt.
    Matt scooped up a bit of sandy soil and tossed it, then handed the shovel to Pam who did the same. Once they had, Trevor and Mrs. Paxton seemed to think the symbolism was okay and each tossed on their own scoop of dirt.
    “I'm afraid I don't know many prayers,” Matt said. “Mrs. Paxton, do you have one you'd like to say?”
    She said the Lord's Prayer. It was simple and Matt figured he maybe could have remembered it if he'd thought to try, but it was good to have Dwayne's mother end the ceremony. She brought him into the world. Let her send him out.
    When it was over, Pam walked over to her former mother-in-law and whispered something. Matt kept shoveling and didn't pay much attention. He just wanted to make sure the body was buried enough that none of the night predators would get to it.
    The three of them waved and walked around to the front of the house, but Pam returned ten minutes later with a bottle of tequila, a shot glass and a Tupperware container with lemon wedges and a salt shaker.
    He grinned. “Now there's a fitting send-off.”
    “Alaine is taking Trevor for the night. This seems more like Dwayne to me, too.”
    He dashed the shovel into the pile of remaining dirt and joined Pam for a shot. By the time he'd licked some salt and bit the lemon, she'd poured him a second.
    “Gimme another twenty minutes and then we can polish that off,” he said.
    “I won't be able to drive.”
    “That a problem?” Matt said, only half-registering the double entendre of the question.
    “Not for me.” She picked up the goods and went in the house.
    Twenty minutes, several shots, and some life-affirming sex later, Matt wondered if he'd regret this. He liked Pam, but he didn't need someone being needy. He had stuff to do. In the morning he was sure he had misjudged it, but for different reasons. He woke up to her sitting on the side of the bed looking at him.
    Shit. His honor had abandoned him somewhere mid-bottle. This was Pax's wife. Ex-wife. But still, a guy didn't do that to a brother. And here she was looking at him like she expected something.
    “I want you to promise me something,” she said.
    Uh oh . “What's that?”
    “If you find out this wasn't an accident... if my son's daddy was killed by terrorists... promise me you'll kill the motherfuckers who did this.”
    He nodded. That was a promise he'd be happy to keep. He turned to her again and she was gone. She'd just needed the same comfort he had: to share some of the life they'd lost and remember they were still here and would go on. And to exact a promise from him that he was happy to give. Pax would have understood.

1. 5. Dorene Radcliff:
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    Daddy's Girl
     
    There were times Dorene Radcliff wondered what the hell she was doing with a man like Corbin Tildon. He could be such an ass. Sure, his prospects were great. He was an Orleans Parish prosecutor only six years out of law school. He’d sworn when he hit ten years he'd tip his nose into politics and there would be no looking back.
    Days like today made her fear for that eventuality. Because it was surely going to happen, but he could be so uncaring. Even about her. How could he ever