Allison Parker didn’t bother to tell herself: Do. Not. Think. About. It.
Shaw said, “Jekyll and Hyde?”
A nod. “It came from his father. Being emotionally changed by liquor, I mean. A therapist told me about that. Mood can be passed down. But his dad, he got laid off from a factory on Manufacturers Row and started drinking in earnest. Drank himself to sleep almost every night until the end. But when he drank he mellowed out. Without the booze Harold was a prick, short-tempered, violent. Jon told me the family used to get him drunk so he’d stop insulting people and embarrassing them, whipping Jon and hitting his wife. Jon got the gene in reverse, I guess you could say.”
The coming narrative was as complicated as it was difficult to speak of, but she’d recited it to herself so often, like a journeyman Shakespearean actor, she knew the tale cold. “About three years ago, he was in the field with his partner. He was working a big corruption case. He gets a call that there’ve been shots fired in a house a block from them. This father’s gone on meth and threatening his family and shooting up the place. Jon and Danny were the only ones around. They suit up with body armor and go in.”
She found her throat thick. She could picture the incident clearly, as if she herself had been there.
“The minute they walk in, the father shot Jon’s partner in the head, then killed his own daughter. Danny wasn’t dead and the father kept shooting. Jon knelt in front of Danny, you know, like a human shield, protecting him. He took four or five shots in the chest — they hit the plate, broke ribs, but didn’t get through. One was low. Hit his leg. Jon killed the father and saved the rest of the family.”
Shaw asked, “And Danny?”
“He lived. Retired, of course. And Jon recovered well enough. The wound healed but there was a lot of pain. He tried everything. TENS, codeine, Tylenol. Nothing worked, so they went to Oxy. Finally, it helped. But... Well, you get what happened next.”
“Addicted?”
“Finally he got off the pills. And the pain came back, big-time. Stayed clear of the drugs. But he found a substitute.”
“The drinking.”
She lowered her head. Repeated in a whisper, “The drinking. The word should come with a capital ‘D’... I suppose it numbs pain, if you drink enough. But it had that other effect on him. Anger, bullying, sarcasm, physical fights.”
“Programs?”
“They worked for a while. Then they didn’t. He had good sponsors, but he still slipped. I went to Al-Anon, Hannah tried Alateen. Pointless. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, change. I had the police out a dozen times, but he always seemed to sober up just enough to convince them I was exaggerating.”
Shaw said, “And they cut him slack. He was the cop who’d saved his partner.”
A sad smile. “The Hero of Beacon Hill, they called him — the neighborhood where it happened. I...”
Control it, she told herself. And kept the tears away, though her voice clutched and she had to start her sentence again. “I thought about leaving him. Like my mother left my father. He was a serial philanderer. I made plans to get away but then he’d come around. He’d take Hannah to her events, he’d bring us presents. It was all back to normal — until out came the bottle. And it was coming out more and more.”
Inhale, exhale...
“Then, November, last year, Jon was helping Hannah with a project for class. They were building something, soldering, bolting it together. Having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, like a switch got flipped, he stands up. I know he’s going out. And I know what that means. I tried to stop him. Begging.”
She could picture it so clearly. Her hand on his denim shirt, gripping the cloth. But he just kept going, into the snow.
“When he comes back, he stinks of whisky, he can hardly walk. And then, ten minutes later I’m on the ground, a broken cheekbone, blood everywhere.” Parker looked out the window and took in her daughter’s earnest job of setting up their security system. “The police couldn’t let that one go. Attempted murder, a firearm, me in the hospital. They had to arrest him. And I pressed charges. His lawyer and the prosecutor cut a plea deal. They dropped the attempted murder and gave him thirty-six months.”
She scoffed. “Except apparently in his case that meant ten months.” She lifted her hands, a gesture that silently repeated the mantra “Hero Cop.”
And the man who listened well listened now. He nodded, his face suggesting he was taking it all in. But then he looked her over closely and said, “Aren’t there a few gaps you want to fill in?”
Allison Parker stared briefly, then could only laugh.
She thought: As a matter of fact...
But the coming narrative was interrupted at that moment by a loud repeating blaring from the field in front of the house. Frowning, Hannah walked inside quickly from the back porch, and the three of them looked up the drive.
“It’s Frank,” Parker said.
Villaine’s silver Mercedes SUV rocked slowly up the driveway.
They walked outside to greet him.
The vehicle pulled to a stop about fifteen feet away.
The man who stepped out of the vehicle, though, was not Frank Villaine, but a hulk of a creature in a black suit and tie. His unsmiling face was ruddy with a rash. He leveled a pistol at the trio. He uttered an odd word. Parker wasn’t certain, but it sounded like “Dawn-doo...”
His black eyes scanned them all quickly, then settled on Colter Shaw. The faintest of smiles, then he shook his head.
65
Shaw didn’t bother to judge sites of cover and shooting preference-point angles and distance. At the smallest defensive movement, one — or all — of them would die.
He was just wondering about the second man from the motel when he heard behind him, “Hey, there. Be smart, be smart.”
The man in the tan jacket had dirty blond hair, severely parted at the side and slicked back. He too held a Glock.
Shaw looked at Hannah’s face, less scared than defiant.
The thirty percent chance had come to pass.
It happens. Thirty is not zero.
Parker raged, “Where’s Frank? What’d you do to him?”
Jacket said, “Shh there, pretty lady.”
“No,” Hannah whispered, understanding Villaine’s fate. “No! You asshole!”
Jacket smiled.
People give up information eventually. Everyone does. Pain is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Shaw hoped Frank gave up the address fast, and the Twins ended his agony: both the physical pain, and the psychic, from betraying them.
Toward the front of the property the alarm in Parker’s car shut itself off.
Eyeing Shaw, Suit said, “I know you are of a certain sort. That is clearly on the table. And you have a weapon.”
How did they know that? Both of his guns were hidden from sight. Then Shaw remembered that Merritt had seen him at Parker’s house and must’ve noticed the Glock before he slipped into the garage and escaped. He would have told the Twins about it.
Suit continued, “You do this for a living, I have no doubt. But here.” He aimed the muzzle at Hannah’s neck. The girl gasped and Parker started forward. She stopped when Suit moved the weapon closer.
Shaw said calmly, “I’m taking you seriously. Just move your aim aside.”
The men eyed each other for a moment, then Suit eased the gun to the side. He nodded to Tan Jacket, who handed his pistol over to his partner and stepped forward. Pulling on blue gloves, he frisked Shaw expertly, and relieved him of the Glock, the extra mags, the Colt and the phone. He unloaded the weapons and tossed the ammo into the lake. The guns and phone, he dropped into a fire pit filled with ashes and half-burned logs.