Darkness, Take My Hand (25 page)

Devin said, “Patrick’s father knew about the damage to the windshield. He and his EEPA friends hunt it down, find Hardiman and Rugglestone…”

“EEPA killed Rugglestone,” Oscar said with a note of shock in his voice.

Bolton looked at the file, then at me, then back at the file. He peered at it, and his lips moved as he read over the section detailing Rugglestone’s wounds. When he looked at me, the flesh on his face drooped and his mouth opened. “You’re right,” he said softly. “You’re right.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Devin said. “You prick.”

“A child’s tale,” Bolton said in a low whisper.

“What?”

We sat together in the dining room. The rest of them were in the kitchen while Oscar cooked his famous steak tips.

Bolton held up his hands in the darkness. “It’s like something out of the Brothers Grimm. The two clowns, the cavernous van, the threat to innocence.”

I shrugged. “At the time, it was just scary.”

“Your father,” he said.

I watched fingers of ice congeal on the window.

“You know what I’m getting at,” he said.

I nodded. “He would have been the one who burned Rugglestone.”

“In sections,” Bolton said. “While the man screamed.”

The ice cracked and fragmented as streams of rain tunneled through it. Immediately, fresh translucent veins replaced it.

“Yes,” I said, remembering my father’s kiss that evening. “My father burned Rugglestone alive. In sections.”

“He was capable of that?”

“I told you, Agent Bolton, he was capable of anything.”

“But
that
?” Bolton said.

I remembered my father’s lips on my cheek, the rush of blood I’d felt in his chest as he pulled me to him, the love in his voice when he told me I’d made him proud.

Then I thought of the time he’d burned me with the iron, the smell of burning flesh that had risen from my abdomen and choked me as my father stared at me with a fury that bordered on ecstasy.

“Not only was he capable of it,” I said, “he probably enjoyed it.”

We were eating steak tips in the dining room when Erdham came in.

“Yes?” Bolton said.

Erdham handed him a photograph. “I thought you should see this.”

Bolton wiped his mouth and fingers with a napkin, held the photo up to the light.

“This is one of the ones found at Arujo’s place. Right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you identified the people in the photograph?”

Erdham shook his head. “No, sir.”

“So why am I looking at it, Agent Erdham?”

Erdham looked at me and frowned. “It’s not so much the people, sir. Look where it was taken.”

Bolton squinted at the photo. “Yes?”

“Sir, if you—”

“Wait a minute.” Bolton dropped his napkin onto his plate.

“Yes, sir,” Erdham said and his body rippled.

Bolton looked at me. “This is your place.”

I put down my fork. “What’re you talking about?”

“This photo was taken on the front porch of your three-decker.”

“Of me or Patrick?” Angie said.

Bolton shook his head. “Of a woman and a little girl.”

“Grace,” I said.

I was the
first one out of Angie’s house. I had a cellular phone to my ear as I stepped onto the porch and several government cars screeched up Howes.

“Grace?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” I slipped on some black ice and righted myself by grabbing the railing as Angie and Bolton came onto the porch next.

“What? You woke me up. I have to work at six. What time is it?”

“Ten. Sorry.”

“Can we talk in the morning?”

“No. No. I need you to stay on the line and check all your doors and windows.”

The cars slid to stops in front of the house.

“What? What’s all that noise?”

“Grace, check your doors and windows. Make sure they’re all locked.”

I made my way to the slick sidewalk. The trees above were heavy and shimmering with daggers of ice. The street and sidewalk were a black glaze.

“Patrick, I—”

“Do it now, Grace.”

I hopped in the back of the lead car, a dark blue Lincoln, and Angie sat beside me. Bolton sat up front and gave the driver Grace’s address.

“Go.” I slapped the driver’s headrest. “Go. Go.”

“Patrick,” Grace said, “what’s going on?”

“You check the doors?”

“I’m checking them now. Front door is locked. Cellar door is locked. Hang on, I’m heading to the back.”

“Car coming up on our right,” Angie said.

Our driver punched the gas as we shot through the intersection heading south and the car racing toward us from the east locked up his brakes on the ice and blared his horn and skidded across the intersection as the caravan of cars behind us jerked right and cruised around his back end.

“Back door’s locked,” Grace said. “I’m checking windows now.”

“Good.”

“You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. The windows.”

“Front bedroom and living room, all locked. I’m going into Mae’s room. Locked, locked…”

“Mommy?”

“It’s okay, honey. Stay in bed. I’ll be right back.”

The Lincoln spun onto the 93 on-ramp doing at least sixty. The back wheels skipped over a bubble of ice or frozen slush and banged against the divider.

“I’m in Annabeth’s room,” Grace whispered. “Locked. Locked. Open.”

“Open?”

“Yeah. She left it open just a crack.”

“Shit.”

“Patrick, tell me what’s going on.”

“Close it, Grace. Close it.”

“I did. What do you think—”

“Where’s your gun?”

“My gun? I don’t own one. I hate guns.”

“A knife then.”

“What?”

“Get a knife, Grace. Jesus. Get a—”

Angie ripped the phone out of my hand and shushed me with a finger to her lips.

“Grace, it’s Ange. Listen. You may be in danger. We’re not sure. Just stay on the line with me and don’t move unless you’re sure there’s an intruder in there with you.”

The exit signs flew past—Andrew Square, Massachu
setts Avenue—and the Lincoln swerved onto Frontage Road, passed the industrial waste and Big Dig refuse in a blur as we hurtled toward East Berklee.

“Bolton,” I said, “she’s not bait.”

“I know.”

“I want her buried so deep in protective custody the President couldn’t find her if he wanted to.”

“I understand.”

“Get Mae,” Angie said, “and stay in one room with the door locked. We’ll be there in three minutes. If someone tries to get through the door, go out the window and run toward Huntington or Mass. Ave., screaming your head off.”

We blew the first red light on East Berklee and a car swerved out of our way, jumped the curb, and smashed into the light pole in front of Pine Street Inn.

“There’s a lawsuit,” Bolton said.

“No, no,” Angie said anxiously. “Don’t leave the house unless you hear something inside. If he’s waiting outside, that would be just what he wants. We’re almost there, Grace. Which room are you in?”

The rear left tire ate the curb as we fishtailed onto Columbus Avenue.

“Mae’s bedroom? Good. We’re eight blocks away.”

The pavement of Columbus Avenue was buried under a quarter inch of ice so black and hard it looked like we were passing over a swath of pure licorice.

I punched the door with the side of my fist as the wheels spun and then caught and then spun again.

“Calm down,” Bolton said.

Angie patted my knee.

As the Lincoln turned right on West Newton, black-and-white images exploded in my head like flashbulbs.

Kara, crucified in the cold.

Jason Warren’s head swinging from a power cord.

Peter Stimovich staring out from a face with no eyes.

Mae tackling the dog in the grass.

Grace’s damp body rolling on top of mine in the heart of a warm night.

Cal Morrison locked in the back of that grimy white van.

The bloody red leer of the clown as he said my name.

“Grace,” I whispered.

“It’s okay,” Angie said into the phone, “we’re almost there now.”

We turned onto St. Botolph and the driver put on the brakes, caught more ice under his wheels, and we slid past Grace’s brownstone before the car jerked to a stop two houses up.

The rear cars were pulling to erratic stops behind us as I got out and ran toward her house. I slipped on the sidewalk and dropped to my knee as a man came charging out between two cars on my right. I turned, pointed my gun at his chest, saw him raising his arm in the dark rain.

My finger was depressing the trigger when he screamed, “Patrick, hold it!”

Nelson.

He lowered his arm, his face wet and frightened, and Oscar hit him from behind like a train, Nelson’s small body disappearing completely under Oscar’s bulk as the two of them hit the ice.

“Oscar,” I said, “he’s okay. He’s okay. He’s working for me.”

I ran up the steps to Grace’s door.

Angie and Devin came up behind me as Grace opened the door and said, “Patrick, what the hell is going on?” She looked over my shoulder as Bolton barked orders at his men and her eyes widened.

Lights went on up and down the street.

“It’s okay now,” I said.

Devin’s gun was drawn and he stepped up beside Grace. “Where’s the child?”

“What? In her bedroom.”

He went into the house in a target shooter’s stance.

“Hey, wait.” She rushed in after him.

Angie and I went in behind her as agents tramped through the surrounding yards with flashlights.

Grace was pointing at Devin’s gun. “Put that away, Sergeant. Put it—”

Mae began to cry loudly. “Mommy.”

Devin was sticking his head in and out of doorways, his gun held tightly next to his knee.

I felt nauseous as I stood in the warm light of the living room, my hands shaking with adrenaline. I heard Mae weeping from the bedroom and I followed the sound.

A thought—
I almost shot Nelson
—passed through my brain with a shiver, and then was gone.

Grace held Mae to her shoulder, and Mae opened her eyes and saw me and burst into a fresh peal of tears.

Grace looked over at me. “Jesus Christ, Patrick, was this necessary?”

Flashlight beams bounced off her windows from the outside.

“Yes,” I said.

“Patrick,” she said and her eyes were angry as they stared at my hand. “Get rid of that.”

I looked down, noticed the gun in my hand, realized it had brought forth Mae’s last burst of tears. I slid it back into the holster, then stared at them, mother and daughter as they hugged on that bed, and I felt soiled and foul.

“The first priority here,” Bolton told Grace in the living room as Mae changed in her bedroom, “is to get you and your daughter to safety. A car’s waiting outside and I’d like you two to get into it and come with us.”

“Where?” Grace said.

“Patrick,” a small voice said.

I turned and saw Mae standing in her bedroom doorway, freshly dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, shoelaces untied.

“Yeah?” I said softly.

“Where’s your gun?”

I tried to smile. “Tucked away. Sorry I scared you.”

“Is it fat?”

“What?” I bent by her, tied her shoes.

“Is it…” She fidgeted, groping for the word, embarrassed that she didn’t know it.

“Heavy?” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah. Heavy.”

“It’s heavy, Mae. Too heavy for you to carry.”

“How about you?”

“Pretty heavy for me, too,” I said.

“So why do you have it?” She cocked her head to the left, looked up into my face.

“It’s sort of equipment for my job,” I said. “Like your mom uses her stethoscope.”

I kissed her forehead.

She kissed my cheek and hugged my neck with arms so soft they didn’t seem as if they could come from the same world that produced Alec Hardimans and Evandro Arujos and knives and guns. She went back into the bedroom.

In the living room, Grace was shaking her head. “No.”

“What?” Bolton said.

“No,” Grace said. “I won’t go. You can take Mae and I’ll call her father. He’ll—I’m sure of it, yes—he’ll take time off and go with Mae so she won’t be alone. I’ll visit until this is over, but I won’t go myself.”

“Doctor Cole, that’s unacceptable.”

“I’m a first-year surgical resident, Agent Bolton. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, I do, but your life’s in danger.”

She shook her head. “You can protect me. You can watch me. And you can hide my daughter.” She looked at Mae’s bedroom door and tears welled in her eyes. “But I can’t give up my work. Not now. I’ll never get a decent job if I walk away in the middle of a residency.”

“Doctor Cole,” Bolton said, “I can’t allow this.”

She shook her head. “You’ll have to, Agent Bolton. Protect my daughter. I’ll take care of myself.”

“This man we’re dealing with—”

“Is dangerous, I know. You’ve told me. And I’m afraid, Agent Bolton, but I’m not going to give up what I’ve spent my life working toward. Not now. Not for anyone.”

“He’ll get to you,” I said and I could still feel Mae’s arms on my neck.

Everyone in the room looked up at me.

Grace said, “Not if I—”

“Not if you
what
? I can’t protect you all, Grace.”

“I’m not asking you—”

“He said I had a choice.”

“Who?”

“Hardiman,” I said and I was surprised at how loud my voice was. “I had to choose between people I loved. He meant you and Mae and Phil and Angie. I can’t protect all of you, Grace.”

“Then don’t, Patrick.” Her voice was cold. “Don’t. You brought this to my doorstep. My daughter’s doorstep. Your stupid fucking pursuit of a violent life led this person to me. Your life is my life now and my daughter’s and neither of us asked for it.” She punched her knee with the side of her fist and then looked at the floor, inhaled sharply. “I’ll be fine. Take Mae someplace safe. I’ll call her father now.”

Bolton looked at Devin and Devin shrugged.

“I can’t make you go into protective custody—”

“No,” I said. “No, no, no. Grace, you don’t know this guy. He’ll get to you. He will.”

I crossed the floor until I was standing over her.

“So?” she said.

“So?” I said. “So?”

I was aware that everyone was looking at me. I was aware that I didn’t feel completely like myself. I felt crazed and vindictive. I felt violent and ugly and unhinged.

“So,” Grace said again.

“So he’ll cut your fucking head off,” I said.

“Patrick,” Angie said.

I bent over Grace. “You understand that? He’ll cut your head off. But last. He’ll do that last. First, Grace, he’ll rape you for a while and then he’ll slice off pieces of your body and then he’ll hammer nails through your fucking palms and then—”

“Stop it,” she said quietly.

But I couldn’t. It seemed important that she know this.

“—he’ll disembowel you, Grace. He loves that. Disembowling people so he can see their insides steam. And then maybe he’ll pluck out your eyes while he lets his partner rip into you and—”

The scream came from behind me.

Grace had her hands over her ears by this point, but she pulled them off when she heard the scream.

I turned and Mae was standing behind me, her face bright red, her arms jerking spasmodically by her sides as if she’d been electrified.

“No, no, no!” She screamed it through tears of horror and pushed past me and jumped on her mother and clung to her with ferocity.

Grace looked past her daughter as she held her to her breast, looked at me with a naked and total hatred.

“Leave my house,” she said.

“Grace.”

“Now,” she said.

“Doctor Cole,” Bolton said, “I’d like you to—”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“What?”

Her eyes were still fixed on me. “I’ll go into protective custody with you, Agent Bolton. I won’t leave my daughter. I’ll go,” she said softly.

I said, “Look, Grace—”

She placed her hands over her daughter’s ears.

“I thought I told you to get the fuck out of my home.”

The phone rang and she reached for it, her eyes never leaving me. “Hello.” She frowned. “I thought I told you this afternoon not to call back. If you want to talk to Patrick—”

“Who is it?” I said.

She tossed the receiver on the floor by my feet. “You gave my number to that psycho friend of yours, Patrick?”

“Bubba?” I picked up the phone as she brushed past me, carried Mae into the bedroom.

“Hello, Patrick.”

“Who’s this?” I said.

“How’d you like all those pictures I took of your friends?”

I looked at Bolton, mouthed “Evandro.”

He ran from the house, Devin a step behind him.

“They didn’t do much for me, Evandro.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been working on my technique, trying to play with light and space, respect the spatial tableau, that sort of thing. I think I’m developing artistically. Don’t you?”

Outside the window, an agent scaled the telephone pole in Grace’s side yard.

“I don’t know, Evandro. I doubt you got Annie Leibovitz looking over her shoulder or anything.”

Evandro chuckled. “But I’ve got you looking over yours, don’t I, Patrick?”

Devin came back in holding a piece of paper with the words “Keep him on for
two
minutes” written on it.