The exit signs flew past—Andrew Square, Massachusetts 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 brown-stone 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.”