Vendetta (31 page)

He heard the squawk of the radiophone. The sentry was returning. He had two choices: retreat and wait for another opportunity, or risk it all.

He risked it.

The window slid up. There was a screen, no doubt left over from last summer. He pushed it in. It clattered and he winced. So did Reynolds.

Then he climbed in, grabbed the screen, thrust it under the bed, and closed the window.

The door began to open and as Reynolds watched, Gabe rolled under the bed, on top of the screen, and sucked in his breath.

* * *

“Here’s our Easy Pickin’s report,” Cat said. She handed him a hard copy. She felt like a student who had been given detention. Captain Ward paged through it at an infuriatingly slow pace, then gave her a nod.

“Tell Vargas I want her to give me a rundown on this C.I. tomorrow,” he said. “I need to make sure some of my detectives keep me a little more in the loop.”

That would be all your detectives
, she thought, but did not say.

“Yes, sir.” She remembered the days when they called Captain Bishop “Joe” and “boss” and missed him. She didn’t miss his devotion to the cause of bringing in the Vigilante but, pre-Vincent, he had been a good captain. Except for the part about messing around with Tess.

She called Tess now, to ask after J.T. He’d been jumped on his way to teach a class, shortly after the handoff of Nico to Captain Ward. In New York City it was difficult to know if you had been mugged for a reason or mugged just because. While he was shaken and he had some bumps and bruises, he was basically all right. But she could tell that Tess didn’t want to leave him. And, given that it was possible that J.T.’s attackers might try again, this time invading his home, Catherine told her to stay put.

“You can be the backup to my backup,” Cat said.

Then she got in her car and followed her phone’s driving directions to the street address of the Santangelo Meat Packing Plant, texting Vincent all the way, receiving no response.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she murmured, becoming more and more worried. The sun was down and it was dark. The buildings all around her were like a set for a disaster movie. A total war zone of blasted-out brick buildings, decay, abandonment.

She called Tess. “Have you heard from Vincent?”

“Cat, you’re breaking up,” Tess said. “Where are you?”

Then she saw the ruins of the packing plant. It was a big hulking wreck against a blackening sky. A handful of windows revealed light like yellowed teeth. Wary of rolling right into a trap, she pulled onto a side street and got out of her car. She put on her coat, hat, and gloves, shut the door quietly, and drew her service weapon.

“Tess, I’m going into the meat packing plant,” she said into her phone.

Her answer was static.

“Tess.”

Call failed.

She placed her phone into her coat pocket. Then as quietly as possible, she shuffled through the snow. This situation had turned on a dime. Suddenly this didn’t feel like it was about rescuing Angelo DeMarco.

Vincent’s in trouble
, she thought. She didn’t know how she knew it, or even if she did know it. Maybe she only feared it. But she could feel her cop brain making connections of which she was as yet consciously unaware. Her mind had been trained to piece together sensations, discoveries, suspicions, revelations until the puzzle was complete. Awareness was building, and soon would become answers.

Then the roar of a beast echoed over the destroyed landscape, raging, crazed, inhuman. It rattled her bones and took away her breath.

Vincent.

He had beasted. Why? What was happening?

There was another roar, and another. They were coming from the factory. Cat broke into a run, skirting snowdrifts and piles of rusted chains and machinery. She sucked in icy air and kept going. The snow muffled her footfalls and the darkness cloaked her.

Another roar.

She stopped across the street and took in the large building. There was an open, illuminated loading bay with a gate stretched across it. The light spilled onto a door and beside it, a broken window.

She checked her weapon. Locked and loaded.

Then, as she began to cross the street, someone came up from behind her. She turned, preparing to fire.

But Officer Lizzani of the 123rd precinct brought his gun butt down hard on the crown of her head, and Cat collapsed to the ground.

T
he sentry came in with a cup of coffee and a bowl of soup. The group had commandeered the living quarters of the motel’s manager—the man they had shot—and three more men and one woman entered Reynolds’ room. He was untied and moved to the bed, where he dangled his right foot over the edge, possibly so Gabe would have a reference point… or maybe because he could almost be seen. Reynolds was hiding him, protecting him, and Gabe wasn’t sure why.

“We’re going to move across the border tomorrow morning,” said the woman. “We need to know if you’re with us, Reynolds.”

Reynolds laughed hollowly. “The way I see it, I don’t really have a choice.”

“You do,” she said. “We’ll leave you here with food, water, and a phone. We’ll be across the border by the time anyone comes.”

Gabe listened hard.

“No need,” Reynolds said. “I’m with you. You’re right. I
am
eminently suited for the position you’re offering me.”

“We don’t want another Andrew Martin incident. We want to make absolutely positive that there are no more beasts anywhere. They need to be wiped from the face of the earth.”

“That’s obvious,” Reynolds said.

“Unbelievably, there are some among us who disagree,” said the woman. “They want to make
more
beasts. Of course, their leader’s dead. And we’re pretty sure we got Celeste Ellison, too.”

They must have been watching her. Maybe Bruce Fox is a plant. She doesn’t trust him.
Gabe spared a thought for her, which was the closest he could come to a prayer. He was with Sam Landon: he couldn’t believe in a god who would permit the injustices he had seen. When beastly men died, would such a god allow them into heaven? He doubted it.

“Well, I’m in. The Muirfield Project was an unmitigated disaster and I’m sorry I was ever involved,” Reynolds said. “As you know, I programmed Vincent Keller to exterminate his own kind, but he thwarted me.”

“Do you think he’ll come?” asked the woman. “We have to go. We’ve taken too much time as it is.”

“Oh, he’ll come. I threw down the gauntlet with that bloody T-shirt. He wants to kill me. He’ll risk everything to make that happen.”

But Gabe detected the uncertainty in Reynolds’ voice. He wasn’t so sure of his beasts any more.

And I’m not about to enlighten him
.

* * *

Cat woke up lying on her back on an old mattress that had been covered with a sheet. There was an icepack on her forehead and as she squinted, a figure loomed over her holding a flare of light.

It was Angelo DeMarco with a lantern in his hand, scowling down at her.

“…been looking for you everywhere,” she slurred. She looked around. There were stacks of moldy paperback books in a half-circle around the mattress. This was the setting for the photograph of Angelo and Tori.

“Yeah, and you weren’t too good at it. We had to plant the most obvious evidence on the freakin’
planet
for you guys to figure it out.”

A shape came up beside Angelo. Piercings, dark hair.

“Paul. Dickinson,” she managed.

Angelo blinked and frowned at Paul. “You moron.”

“Whatever.” Paul huffed and turned away.

“He wasn’t supposed to go to the drop,” Angelo said to Cat. “Minute I heard he actually
went
, and took my family’s stuff…” He shook his head. “What an idiot.”

“It actually worked out,” Cat said slowly. “We weren’t getting anywhere. It was Lizzani and Bailey Hart, right? Inside?”

He preened. “Pretty impressive for twenty years old, don’t you think?”

“You’re almost twenty-one. You’re going to be really rich. So why did you do this?” she asked.

“Help her up,” Angelo said.

Officer Lizzani came forward. He bent over Cat and put his hands under her arms, raising her to a sitting position. She was so dizzy that her head fell back. Then he jerked her to her feet. She swayed.

I’ve seen their faces
, she thought.
Would Angelo actually kill me?

Lizzani clamped his beefy hands around one arm and Paul took the other. She shuffled forward. Her clothes were wet and she was shivering. Angelo carried the lantern.

Then Angelo turned to her and for a moment, she saw the same frightened look she had seen on Hallie DeMarco’s face—frightened, drowning. Then it was gone, replaced by his sneer.

He opened the door.

What she saw made her knees buckle.

They were in a black pit, its filthy floor grooved with channels. Coals glowed in a rectangle. There were hooks overhead. Lanterns blazed light on an unholy image:

Vincent was chained to the floor, wrists shackled and pulled through loops, a beast collar around his neck. His face was bruised and cut. He was shirtless and there were horrible, deep wounds in the tops of his shoulders and bruises all along his arms and across his chest. The soles of his feet looked burned. She sucked in her breath and the room spun. She didn’t know how he could withstand such terrible damage. It was mutilation, pure and simple.

Then her gaze moved from his feet to his amber-colored eyes. He was staring at her as if she was the only thing he saw. Half-dead, beaten… and focused on her.

We make each other stronger
, she thought. Her panic didn’t disappear, but she was able to control it.

“He killed her,” Angelo said. “He killed Tori.”

What was she to you? Why are you connected to the Windsors?

“No,” Cat said. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t
think
it. I
know
it!” he shouted. He nodded at Lizzani. The dirty cop picked up a cattle pod and pressed it into the wound in Vincent’s shoulder. A bellow tore out of Vincent’s throat, echoing through plant.
Someone hear him
, Cat pleaded.
Hear him like I did.

Then there was a gun at her temple, pushing so hard into her skin that she imagined it drilling a hold through her skull.

Angelo was holding the gun.

“Vincent didn’t cause her death,” she said again. Even if her captor pulled the trigger, Cat would not be silent.

“Yes! Yes, he did!” Angelo shouted. “He turned her into the monster that he is and killed her!”

“No,” Vincent said. He sounded utterly human… and in terrible agony.

“Liar.” Angelo nodded at Lizzani. The horrible electric zap of the device was lost beneath Vincent’s screams of pain. He slumped forward, his head bowing.

“Wait!” Cat said. “Just wait! I can tell you what happened.”

“I
know
what happened!” Angelo said.

“How?” Cat asked.

Angelo pointed to Lizzani, who sneered at Cat. Then Lizzani grabbed Vincent by his hair and yanked back his head. He was enjoying the torture, the power to cause pain. Try though it might, the New York Police Academy couldn’t screen out all the bad elements—the misfits and miscreants who were drawn to the job not to protect and serve, but to bully and torment. Men and women with rage issues, wounds from childhood that had never healed, only festered through the years. People like Sam Landon who would never stop hating and hurting no matter what vengeance they wreaked. They had holes in their souls that would never be filled.

Angelo, for the love of God, do not be a person like that
, she begged. If he was, he would not only kill Vincent, but take pleasure in giving him a slow, agonizing death. Vincent was drooping forward, prevented from falling onto his face by the chains around his wrists and neck.

“My father the big shot. He thinks he’s the only one in our family who owns people. I’m not even old enough to drink and I got people all over this town. Police department, fire, mayor’s office… You know who caused that blackout?
My
guy.” He snickered, and he seemed younger than his years. He was like a spoiled kid who was bragging about what he had gotten away with. Like a petty little shoplifter or a minor buying beer with a fake ID.

Pieces of the puzzle were still missing. Cat had to put them together so that she could find a way to talk to Angelo, get through to him. Had Angelo and Tori been boyfriend and girlfriend, the Romeo and Juliet of two warring mob families? Had Vincent unknowingly taken Tori away from Angelo? But no, Vincent had told Cat that Tori had been locked away in her family penthouse, like a princess in a castle made of spun sugar. Angelo obviously knew a few things—that Vincent was a beast, and that Tori’s death had some connection to him—but Cat didn’t know how much she should say.

“I know that Windsor was a bastard, and Tori was terrified of him. I know that he—” Angelo indicated Vincent with a wave of his hand “—was sent in by rivals of Windsor’s to assassinate him. But he failed and he kidnapped Tori to use as bait. And he—he…” He seemed to go blank, as if he had just suffered a horrible shock. “…she was
so
lonely, and there he was, rescuing her like some prince charming. But he had a secret. He was a monster.”

Cat opened her mouth to speak, but forced herself to stay silent. She gazed at him steadily, willing him to keep talking. They would find out what he believed Tori’s story to be. And, hopefully, correct the parts he had misinterpreted.

“So to protect this monster, she told me she couldn’t see me any more. She chose him over me.” A heavy sob made his body convulse. “She loved him more than me!”

Wordless, she waited for his grief to submerge again, to be overtaken by his fury. She didn’t have long to wait. He strode over to Vincent and kicked him in the jaw. Vincent’s head snapped back and blood poured from his nose.

Cat balled her fists and lost her breath. She fought wildly for composure.

Angelo loomed over Vincent, glaring down at him. “I wanted to know more about you. I saw pictures of you and her, together, all over town. She was in love with you. She looked so happy. I couldn’t believe that I was that easy to forget.