Darkness, Take My Hand (Kenzie & Gennaro 2)

“My pleasure,” Evandro said.

“What am I wearing?”

“What’s that?” he said.

“What am I wearing?”

“Patrick, when I took the pictures of your girlfriend and her—”

“What am I wearing, Evandro?”

“—little girl, I—”

“You don’t know, because you’re not watching this house. Are you?”

“I see a lot more than you can imagine.”

“You’re full of shit, Evandro.” I laughed. “Trying to come off as—”

“Don’t you dare laugh at me.”

“—some all-seeing, all-knowing master criminal—”

“Change the tone of your voice. Immediately, Patrick.”

“—when from where I’m standing you look like a punk.”

Devin looked at his watch, held up three fingers. Thirty seconds to go.

“I’m going to cut the child in half and mail her to you.”

I turned my head, saw Mae standing over her suitcase in the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.

“You’re not going to get anywhere near her, jerkoff. You had your chance and you choked.”

“I will annihilate everyone you know.” His voice was ragged with rage.

Bolton came through the front door, nodded.

“Pray I don’t see you first, Evandro.”

“You won’t, Patrick. No one ever does. Good-bye.”

And another voice, huskier than Evandro’s, came over the line: “We’ll be seeing you, laddies.”

The connection broke, and I looked at Bolton.

“Both of them,” he said.

“Yup.”

“You recognize that second voice?”

“Not with the phony accent.”

“They’re on the North Shore.”

“The North Shore?” Angie said.

Bolton nodded. “Nahant.”

“They’re holed up on an island?” Devin said.

“We can lock them down,” Bolton said. “I’ve already alerted the Coast Guard and sent police cars from Nahant, Lynn, and Swampscott to block the bridge leading off the island.”

“So we’re safe?” Grace said.

“No,” I said.

She ignored me, looked at Bolton.

“I can’t take the chance,” Bolton said. “You can’t either, Doctor Cole. I can’t risk your safety and your daughter’s until we’ve got them.”

She looked at Mae as Mae came out of the bedroom with her Pocahontas suitcase. “Okay. You’re right.”

Bolton turned to me. “I have two men on Mr. Dimassi’s place, but I’m stretched thin. Half my men are still on the South Shore. I need the ones I have.”

I looked at Angie and she nodded.

“Those are state-of-the-art alarms on both front and back doors of your house, Ms. Gennaro.”

“We can protect ourselves for a few hours,” I said.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve got them, Mr. Kenzie.” He looked at Grace and Mae. “Ready?”

She nodded, held out her hand to Mae. Mae took it and looked up at me, her face a mask of confusion and a sadness older than herself.

“Grace.”

“No.” Grace shook her head as I reached my hand toward her shoulder. She turned her back to me and left the house.

The car that took them away was a black Chrysler New Yorker with bulletproof windows and a driver with cold, brightly alert eyes. I said, “Where are you taking them?”

“Far away,” Bolton said. “Far away.”

A helicopter touched down in the center of Massachusetts Avenue, and Bolton and Erdham and Fields jogged gingerly to it on the ice.

As the helicopter lifted up and blew trash against storefronts along the avenue, Devin and Oscar pulled up beside us.

“I put your dwarf buddy in the hospital,” Oscar said, holding out his hands in apology. “Cracked six of his ribs. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. I’d make it up to Nelson someday.

“I’ve sent a unit to Angie’s house,” Devin said. “I know the guy. His name’s Tim Dunn. You can trust him. Head back there.”

We stood together in the rain and watched them pull into the police and FBI car caravan and head down Massachusetts Avenue, and the patter of the rain against the ice was one of the loneliest sounds I’ve ever heard.

33

Our cab driver maneuvered the icy streets with a deft touch, keeping the needle around the 20 mph mark and rarely touching the brake unless he had no other choice.

The city was encased in ice. Great glassy sheets covered building facades, and gutters bent under the weight of cascading white daggers. Trees shimmered platinum, and cars along the avenues had turned to sculptures.

“We gonna have many blackouts tonight, man,” the cab driver said.

“You think so,” Angie said absently.

“Oh, you bet, pretty lady. That ice, she gonna pull all those power lines to the ground. You wait and see. Nobody should be out on this bad night. No.”

“Why’re you?” I said.

“Got to feed the little ones, sure. Little ones don’t have to know how tough this world is for their papa. No. Just got to know they get fed.”

I saw Mae’s face, scrunched in confusion and abject terror. The words I’d spewed at her mother echoed in my ears.

The little ones don’t have to know.

How could I have forgotten that?”

Timothy Dunn clicked his flashlight beam at us twice as we walked up Angie’s front walkway.

He crossed the street to us with careful steps. He was a slim kid with a wide, open face under his dark blue cap.

It was the face of a farm boy or a boy whose mother raised him for the priesthood.

His cap was encased in plastic to keep it dry and his heavy black raincoat was slick with drizzle. He tipped the cap as he met us at the front steps.

“Mr. Kenzie, Ms. Gennaro, I’m Officer Timothy Dunn. How we doing tonight?”

“Been better,” Angie said.

“Yes, ma’am, I heard.”

“Miss,” Angie said.

“Excuse me?”

“Please call me Miss or Angie. Ma’am makes me feel like I’m old enough to be your mother.” She peered at him through the rain. “I’m not, am I?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I sure doubt it, Miss.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Whew.”

“And you?” he said.