As soon as I got to Remmey's, I walked straight to the room where Claire was staying and told her to pack her stuff. She wasn't staying there anymore.

Claire stretched and looked down at the baby, who was sleeping peacefully next to her.

"Jazz, what are you talking about?"

"You can't stay here with Remmey anymore. He does...shit."

She looked at me oddly because I almost never cursed, and more importantly because I wasn't making any sense.

"Like what?" Her face was calm, and then her cheeks reddened a little. "Did he do something to you?"

"No." I started pulling her stuff out of the drawers.

Claire got up from the bed and stood in my way. "Jazz, stop. I'm not going anywhere."

"Papa have to take you back."

She went pale and then looked over at the baby. Then she looked back at me.

"Hell no."

"Claire..."

"No."

"Claire, I just saw Remmey...do something. Really bad."

"What you see?"

I stared at her. I couldn't say it out loud.

Claire shook her head like she couldn't believe I was just figuring out what everyone else already knew.

"Jazz...you know...that's what he do...right?" She stared at me. "He a killer, Jazz. That's what he do. That's why he here. Why he go to Houston. Why he...Jazz..." Claire put her hand on my face. "You didn't know what he did?"

"I knew. I just...never seen it. He don't even use a gun." I whispered the last part.

"I know." Claire looked at my sympathetically. "Sometimes he do, but not all the time. He say, sometime he have to...send somebody a message that their people fuckin' up."

I gasped. "Claire!"

"Jazz, I'm grown. I can say whatever I want to say."

"You fifteen."

Her eyes trailed over to the baby on the bed, and then back over to me.

I left it alone.

"Jazz, Wally B do that, too. You ain't got no problems wit' him." I didn't answer. "All the kids at school know that's what they do. How they got everyone to cooperate." She looked at me oddly. "How you ain't know?"

I shrugged. "You ain't scared?" I felt like I stepped out of Farm School and into The Twilight Zone.

"No." She looked back over at the baby again. "He ain't gone hurt us." Her eyes went back to scanning my face, looking for...something. "Wally B ask him to look after us. Make sure nobody hurt us. That's what he been doin' while you been gone, Jazz. Remmey don't hurt us. He won't hurt us. What you saw was...his job. But he ain't like that for real. And he make a lot of money, too. A lot." Her voice dropped down to a whisper. "I saw some of it one time. It was all over the living room." She kind of pouted like she was talking about her own money when she said, "And then they moved it."

"Claire...I'ma talk to Papa. You and the baby can't be here with all this. You can't stay here anymore."

"Jazz! Don't you dare open your mouth about what you know."

I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm not stupid, Claire."

"What you gone tell him, then?"

"I don't know yet."

"Tell him if he touch me or my baby, Remmey gone make him disappear. That's what you can tell him."

Then she climbed back in the bed next to her baby like the conversation was over and ignored me until I finally left the room.