At Peace (79 page)

“Down how?”

“Don’t know. They’re both breathin’ but
they’re also both in ambulances.”

“Vi isn’t at her house,” Colt informed
him.

“Mike called. She isn’t at the garden center
either.”

“She didn’t have a shift today.”

“Yeah, Mike talked to Bobbie,” Sully said
then hissed, “Fuck, why did we not know this?”

“Where was Chris found?”

“
Car on the side of the road outside town
found by a Good Samaritan. Door open. Radio smashed. Chris
unconscious in a ditch.”

“Any idea why he was there?” Colt asked.

“No clue, but it looks like he didn’t make
his shift,” Sully answered.

“Adam?”

“Mike found him.”

“Where?”

“Mike left the garden center, went to Cal’s
offices. He found Adam in his car outside.”

“Cal?”

“No sign and his girl isn’t there
either.”

“Struggle?”

Silence and Colt started walking again, his
eyes on Vi’s house, both girls looking out the window at him.

“Sully, were there signs of a struggle?”

“Colt…” Sully stopped speaking and Colt
stopped on the sidewalk, turned with his side to the girls but
faced away, across the street so the girls couldn’t see him when he
reacted to what he was about to hear.

“Sully, tell me.”

“You’re friends with Cal.”

“Sul –”

Sully sighed then spoke fast. “Mike says it’s
bad. Boys are goin’ to the scene. Two men at the scene shot dead.
Mike doesn’t know either of them but says there was no muss no fuss
with the gunshot wounds. Mike says prelim looks like warning shots
fired meant to incapacitate, not meant to take them out, kill shots
fired when they didn’t stop. But he says there’s lots of blood,
place is a mess, looks like it was bad and there’s no Cal.”

“Cal said he’d keep his gun on him, he wasn’t
with the girls,” Colt muttered.

“Any chance he’d have Vi with him?”

“Girls say they left together this morning.
Them for school, Cal headed for the office. Kate said Vi was
hungover. He left her in bed. Somethin’ got her out of that bed but
she didn’t make it and she also didn’t make a mess gettin’ ready.
Nothin’ that looks like she even left in a hurry.”

“Cal wouldn’t –?”

“Grab her and go? Not without the girls.”

“I’ll get a man at the school, just in case
they turn up,” Sully said.

“I’m doin’ another sweep of the house,” Colt
told him then asked, “Where’s Mike?”

“Climbin’ the bloody walls at Cal’s office,”
Sully answered, not being funny, being almost literal.

“He may need to be locked down,” Colt
advised.

“Boys headin’ his way know, everyone knows.
Sean’s off today but he’s been called and he’s headed to Mike.”

Colt looked back at the house to see the
girls hadn’t moved.

“I gotta get into that house,” he told
Sully.

“Yeah. I’m command central as of now. You get
anything, you feed it to me.”

“Got it and what you get, you feed to
Pryor.”

Sully didn’t have to agree, he’d do it.
Instead he said, “While you’re lookin’ around, pray.”

Colt didn’t normally have time for that. He
was of a mind that God didn’t need to be informed of his own
business but with what was going down and those two girls looking
out the window, he’d make time.

“Out,” he said to Sully.

“Later,” Sully replied and disconnected.

Colt forced himself to walk calmly to the
house. He opened the door and both girls were no longer at the
window. They were at the door waiting for him.

“Mom?” Kate asked and Colt shook his
head.

“We’re lookin’. Feb’s comin’ over. Can you
make coffee?”

Kate nodded but Keira spoke and what she
asked meant Kate didn’t move.

“Where’s Joe? Has anyone called Joe?”

Jesus. How did he answer that?

Shit.

“We can’t find Joe,” he answered and Keira
turned to Kate, her movement jerky, panicked.

Dammit, where the fuck was Feb?

Kate’s arms slid around her sister but her
eyes stayed on Colt.

“Keirry, let’s make Colt coffee.”

“But –” Keira started and Kate looked at her
sister.

“Coffee,” she whispered, Keira’s lip quivered
and then she nodded.

Both girls moved to the kitchen and Colt went
to the bedroom.

He stood in the center of the floor space and
looked around. Unmade bed. Cal’s jeans on the floor. All of Vi’s
clothes, including bra, tossed to the floor around Cal’s jeans. The
top of the dresser was tidy, the drawers all closed, no clothes
hanging out as if hastily pulled out and the drawers shoved closed.
Some jewelry sitting on top but there was more on Cal’s
nightstand.

She’d taken off her clothes before she hit
the bed and she hit the bed on Cal’s side but he’d taken off her
jewelry last night, put it on his nightstand. Her nightstand had a
lamp, a book and a jar of moisturizer. Nothing else. If she took
off her jewelry in bed, it’d be on her nightstand. Cal took it off
her.

“Talk to me,” he muttered as he walked to the
bed and he saw it.

The covers weren’t thrown back like you do
when you get out of bed. It was like she slid out from under them.
Colt walked to them, carefully lifted an edge of the covers and saw
a phone in the bed.

“Fuck me,” he murmured and picked up the
phone. He flipped it open and went to received calls. The last one
was from Cal. Colt looked to the bedside clock. She got the call
just over thirty minutes ago.

He looked back to the clothes on the
floor.

Cal’s jeans, socks, Vi’s skirt, top, bra.
Colt’s eyes scanned – a pair of sandals that looked like they were
kicked off, sitting by the side of the dresser.

Cal wore tees and Colt reckoned Vi wore
underwear.

He went to the clothes and toed them.

No tee and no underwear.

She’d put on Cal’s tee and her underwear from
last night.

“Fuck me,” he repeated.

She
had
been in a hurry. In such a hurry that she hadn’t even
dressed. Just pulled on Cal’s tee, her underwear and took off. She
got the call while in bed, dropped the phone, slid out without even
moving the covers off her, got dressed and went.

Whatever Cal said to her made her move. Or
whatever someone said to her on Cal’s phone made her move.

Colt opened his phone, hit Sully’s number and
put it to his ear.

“Talk to me,” Sully said.

“My guess, she’s in Cal’s tee, black, not
wearin’ shoes. She left her phone in the bed.”

“How you guess that?”

“Yesterday’s clothes are still on the floor,
her underwear missin’, Cal’s tee missin’ and her phone was in the
bed. I don’t picture Cal as a man who picks his clothes up off the
floor. Vi does it like Feb does for me, in the morning when she
gets up. He stripped off before goin’ to bed like he probably
always does. She stripped off because she was drunk. This morning
she got a call from Cal’s phone thirty minutes ago. She grabbed
what was handy and she moved.”

“But moved where? Eric reports her car in the
drive.”

“No clue.”

“We need to see if we can track the GPS in
his phone, got his number?”

“I’ll text it to you.”

“Do it fast.”

“You got it. I’ll keep lookin’.”

“Not much, just knowin’ Vi moved out quick
and she’s wearin’ a black tee.” It sounded like a complaint but
Sully was just bitching because he was worried.

“Get Pryor on the line. I want Daniel Hart’s
MO. And get him to call Sal Giglia. This is family and Giglia could
use some brownie points with the cops.”

“Giglia’s got issues, he needs to focus.”

“
Giglia’s issues are with Daniel Hart. He
cooperates, his war gets a lot less bloody.”

“You ever hear of a big man in the mob
sittin’ down with cops, family or not?”

“Nope, but I’ve heard about Giglia and I know
he’s unpredictable, he’s got brass balls and he does shit just
because it amuses him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this’ll amuse
him.”

“
Yeah,” Sully muttered, “maybe we’ll get
lucky,” then Colt heard the disconnect.

Colt scrolled to Cal’s number, memorized it
and then texted it to Sully.

He moved into the bathroom as he heard Feb
call her hellos to the girls, thank Christ.

* * * * *

“I don’t wanna hear this shit,” Vinnie said,
sitting out on Sal’s back porch, Sal’s breakfast and coffee dishes
on the table, most of the food untouched, the coffee, though, was
gone.

“Vincent,” Sal muttered.

“Somethin’ happens to Cal –” Vinnie
started.

“Got my boys on it,” Sal stated, his face
closed.

He was locked tight. This was because he was
worried.

Sal was an asshole and Vinnie hated him.
Vinnie grew up with him and never much liked him but when Sal took
his son, the hate began. But Sal was a family man, you worked for
him or not. He felt what happened to Vinnie Junior and he felt it
deep. It wasn’t just one of his boys who he also thought of as
family. It was just plain family and that went deeper. Cal, the
same. Vinnie Junior was family, he was one of Sal’s boys. But Cal
was also family and he was smart, sharp, honest and didn’t take
shit. And Cal had taken a bullet for Sal. Cal was not only family
to Sal, Sal respected him. That went even deeper.

This shit cut to the bone beyond Sal
surviving last night’s bloodbath. It wasn’t Sal who screwed the
pooch but it was his responsibility that his man missed. This was
on him and he felt it.

“What I hear, Hart doesn’t fuck around. He
finds his mark, the bullet goes into the brain,” Vinnie noted, he
hated saying it, hated even thinking it but that was what he
knew.

“He won’t get Cal,” Sal remarked.

“He does –”

“He won’t.”

The two men stared at each other and then
Sal’s eyes went over Vinnie’s shoulder.

“You get Cal?” Sal asked and Vinnie turned to
see one of Sal’s soldiers standing just outside the house.

“No, but the cops are on the phone,” his boy
answered.

“Talked to the cops last night. Today got
things to do. You call Indianapolis like I asked? Get someone down
there to move in?” Sal pressed and the boy’s face stayed solid. He
was locked tight too.

Vinnie knew why when he spoke. “They’re
steerin’ clear. It’s all over the radio. Joe Callahan and his woman
are both missin’. Cops in some ‘burg fifteen miles west of Indy are
on the hunt. Two boys shot at Callahan’s offices. Chicago PD
preliminary identification from pictures puts them in Hart’s
army.”

Vinnie’s ass came off the chair. He didn’t
stand but he also wasn’t sitting.

“Vi’s girls?” he asked and the soldier’s eyes
came to him.

“What?”

“Cal’s woman’s daughters. They safe?” Vinnie
explained.

“Haven’t heard anything about them,” the man
answered.

“Find out and tell the cops to go fuck
themselves,” Sal ordered and the man looked at his boss.

“
They want a meet. They want
co
operation. Feds are in
town and they got news for you. They say they think this meet could
be mutually beneficial,” the soldier said to Sal.

This was news, such news it was shocking. The
Chicago PD and Feds sitting down with family to make mutually
beneficial deals? In this mess, that was a ray of light. Theresa,
if she knew about it, which she fucking didn’t, would call it a
miracle.

Vinnie forced himself to sit down and he
forced his voice to a whisper when he demanded, “Take the
meet.”

Sal didn’t take his eyes from his boy and his
face betrayed nothing.

“
Sal, take the fuckin’ meet,” Vinnie kept
whispering, “this is about Cal.”

“Tell them we meet here,” Sal ordered his
man.

* * * * *

“Tina reports she saw Vi get into a black
Cadillac sometime after eight o’clock. She said Vi was wearin’
nothing but a t-shirt. No shoes. She just ran out of the house,
caddy was on the street, the door was thrown open, she got in and
the car took off,” Eric told Colt and Colt studiously kept his eyes
from going to Tina’s house. If they went to Tina’s house, he might
feel the need to walk over there and shake her until her fucking
teeth rattled.

“That bitch knows Vi has a situation, fuck,
the whole town knows, and Vi’s jumpin’ into cars wearin’ nothin’
but a tee and she didn’t say shit until I knocked on her goddamned
door over an hour after Vi was taken,” Eric continued, his voice
vibrating and Colt knew Eric had similar thoughts in his head about
Tina.

Colt bit his lip then he asked, “She see
Cal?”

“Nope, but she reports a black truck was
behind the caddy.”

“Cal’s truck is in his office lot,” Colt
informed Eric.

“She says it wasn’t his truck. An SUV.
Escalade.”

“She get plates?”

“Said she wasn’t payin’ that much
attention.”

Colt knew that was a lie. She was paying
attention just not to the license plates.

“Highway Patrol been notified?” Colt
asked.

“Yeah,” Eric replied.

“What about Lindy?”

“She’s not home. Her man says she works seven
to four.”

“She was at the office,” Colt whispered.

“She was at the office,” Eric repeated.

“Pryor says Hart’s MO is not to mess around.
Go for the kill,” Colt noted.

“He may have done him in the SUV but he
didn’t do him at the offices. Blood’s from the boys Cal took out,”
Eric remarked.

Colt called it down. “Been to Cal’s offices.
Lindy sits out front. Cal has an office in the back, doesn’t use it
much, but he’s got it. They went in, Cal put up a fight but they
got to her and somehow managed to use Lindy as leverage. This meant
they’ve probably got Lindy and Cal. They got his phone, called Vi
from it while sittin’ in front of her house. She knew, the call
comin’ from his phone, bad shit had gone down and she didn’t think,
husband dead, brother dead, she just acted and she did it hungover
and fast, doin’ exactly what she was told.”