Shadowkiller (18 page)

“Brett?”

“Yeah?”

“How'd you manage to leave it all behind and move on the way you did?”

“What do you mean?”

“The hurt. The memories. The shame of what he did to us, and what Mom did . . .”

“It's simple.” She pictured him shrugging, tilting his sandy head to one side as he said earnestly, “You just don't ever let yourself look back. Just keep looking straight ahead.”

Simple was right. When it came to advice from her big brother, she knew that was about as profound as it was going to get.

“That's all you need to do, Allison. Stop looking back.”

“That's what I've always tried to do. I guess I lapsed for a couple of days there, but it's not going to happen again.”

“Good.” Brett cleared his throat. “I guess I'd better get going. I've got a lot of chores to do.”

“One last thing, Brett, before you hang up? Can you please do me a favor and don't mention any of this to anyone?”

“Like who?”

“Just . . . anyone.” It was private family business, as far as she was concerned.

“Allison, I live clear across the state from Centerfield. I don't talk to folks from back there, or anyone who might know you. Don't worry.”

“What about Cindy, and her parents?”

“What about them?”

“Are you going to tell them?”

When he hesitated, she said, “You already did, didn't you?”

“Cin's known all along—about Allen, I mean. About the fake name, and all the other lies he told us.”

“She knew—but I didn't?”

“I don't keep secrets from Cindy-Lou. She's my wife.”

“I'm your
sister
. He was my
father
. Didn't you think I deserved to know, too?”

“You told me not to tell you if I found him, Allison. You said you never wanted to hear his name again. Now you're mad because I did what you asked me to do?”

Yes. She was. Maybe it wasn't fair to him, but she couldn't help it. Brett should have told her something as serious as this.

“I was just a kid, Brett.”

“Yeah, well, so was I.”

After a moment of tension-laced silence, she said, “Forget it.”

“I will.”

“Good. Go do your chores.”

“Allison, wait—if you want to come visit us . . . you haven't seen the kids since they were tiny, and you've never been out here to the farm . . . Cindy-Lou was just saying last night, maybe you're feeling homesick for Nebraska. Maybe a visit would do you good. You're welcome to come.”

Homesick?

For
Nebraska
?

“Thanks,” she said quickly, “but . . .”

“But no thanks?”

Pretty much.

“That's what Cindy-Lou said you'd say.”

“I'm just really busy, and really broke,” she told him, and it was the truth—just not the whole truth. He ought to understand that, she thought, still smarting over the fact that he'd held out on her—not just for days, but for years.

“Thanks for the invitation. Really.”

“Yeah. You're welcome.”

Dammit. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, and of course she eventually hoped to get to know her niece, Samantha, and nephew, Jeff. She just didn't want to go back to Nebraska, even for a visit, and couldn't imagine that the day would ever come when she might change her mind about that.

“Why don't you come here instead?” she suggested. “I'd love to see you, and I have plenty of room . . .” Ah, a lie. Two of them, actually.

Guess it runs in the family.

She was relieved when Brett told her that he, too, was too busy and too broke for a visit. It wasn't that she never wanted to see him again—but a reunion with her brother wouldn't be conducive to putting the past behind her once and for all.

“Good-bye, Allison.”

“Good-bye, Brett.”

She hung up the phone, kicked off her slippers, and crawled back into bed, exhausted.

M
ack was no stranger to sleepless nights, but it was unusual for him to not make it to bed at all.

His usual pattern was to climb under the covers at around midnight, then read or watch television for another hour, hoping to get sleepy. Sometimes he thought he was, but as soon as he turned off the television or set the book aside, he'd find himself wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Most nights, he tossed and turned till two or three, even four. If he was lucky, he'd finally drift off for a few hours until the alarm went off.

But tonight—rather, this morning—had been a total loss. It was eight
A.M.
and he'd just walked in the door.

After seeing Carrie onto a Manhattan-bound PATH train, he'd doubled back to his parents' house, feeling guilty at the way he'd left the party without telling anyone. When he got there, things were in full swing. Aunt Fiona had succeeded in having the furniture pushed back, the rugs rolled up, and the living room had become a dance floor. Mack noticed that the hospice bed, back in the corner, was covered in coats—there were never enough hangers in the closet.

His sister told him that their mother was sound asleep upstairs despite the commotion. “But Daddy's been having a grand old time,” she added, and Mack could see that for himself. Brian MacKenna was dancing a lively jig with his brothers, laughing his head off for the first time in months.

“Dan took the kids home,” Lynn went on, “but I told him I'd better stay and keep the party going and clean up afterward. No way Mom and Dad can do it.”

“Good idea. I'll help.”

“Where's your friend?”

“She went home. She was exhausted.”

“You didn't even introduce me.”

“Next time.”

“Belinda said she met her.”

Belinda MacKenna was one of their cousins, a friendly, easygoing redhead. Mack could tell by his sister's expression that Belinda hadn't been particularly impressed with Carrie, so he quickly changed the subject.

The dancing lasted well into the wee hours. By four-thirty
A.M.
, they were serving the traditional sausage and eggs with strong Irish breakfast tea; by six, the sun was coming up, the stragglers had left, Dad had gone to bed, and Mack and Lynn were wearily cleaning up the mess.

She drove him home on her way back to Middletown, and their parting conversation wasn't about Carrie. It was about their parents, a somber note upon which to end the night—rather, begin the day.

Just before Mack got out of the car, Lynn touched his arm. “Mack? Wait. I have to tell you something. It's, um, not good news. ”

He turned back to her. “Really? What a surprise. Because all I've had lately is good news, so I thought I was on a roll.”

She smiled faintly. “Black Irish looks, Black Irish humor. That's what Grandma used to say.”

He nodded, steeling himself for whatever was coming.

“Dan and I are separating. We haven't told the kids yet. Or Mom and Dad. I don't think anyone will be surprised, but . . . I don't think anyone really wants to deal with hearing it right now.”

“Except for me.”

“Yeah. Lucky you,” she said, and tried to laugh, but wound up crying. He opened his arms and hugged her.

“It's going to be okay.”

“Yeah . . .” She wiped her tears. “Tell me something I don't already know. The odds were against us from the start. When you get married that young, and you choose someone just like you . . . that's our problem, you know? Dan and I are just way too much alike to have any kind of balance. You know how Grandma used to say that Mom and Dad are like night and day? That's why it works. Me and Dan—we're like . . .”

“Day and day,” Mack said, and his sister nodded.

“Exactly. We have the same strengths, the same weaknesses. It doesn't work. Opposites attract for a reason, I guess.”

Those last words stayed with him after she drove away. Inside his apartment, Mack changed into sweats, brewed a pot of coffee, poured a cup, lit a cigarette, and sank onto the couch, alone with his thoughts at last.

Opposites attract . . .

What Carrie had told him about her past had caught him off guard, to say the least. No wonder she'd come across as so aloof, almost skittish, at the party. After all she'd been through in her life, she must dread meeting new people, with their inevitable questions about her past.

Mack couldn't help but feel honored that she'd chosen to tell him the truth—and he couldn't help but feel more drawn to her now that he knew. He'd always had a soft spot for vulnerable souls who'd been bounced around out in the cold, cruel world.

True, Carrie Robinson wasn't a stray or a defenseless child who needed to be taken under someone's nurturing wing. She was a grown woman.

A woman he'd asked on a third date, and kissed good night with a passion that seemed to have caught her off guard—and maybe Mack as well.

Was he trying to feel alive again after the pall his mother's condition had cast over his evening? Or was he trying to show Carrie that her past didn't matter to him? Whatever the case, he'd kissed her soundly, and when he looked into her eyes before they said good night, he sensed that something had flared up inside her. There was a sense of purpose in her expression that he hadn't seen earlier.

“I'll call you over the weekend,” he told her.

“The weekend—oh, I might be busy,” she said vaguely, surprising him. “But we'll connect on Monday.”

Playing hard to get, was she?

Well, good for her. And good for him.

He'd have plenty of time to plan dinner out next week at a nice restaurant, though just about anything would be a step up from the diner and McSorley's. Meanwhile, he had a Knicks game.

Opposites attract . . .

Mack couldn't help but think that Carrie Robinson was night to his day.

He stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray and reached for the remote control, needing something to take his mind off his troubles for a little while. He turned on the television and flipped past news, news, and more news—all of it ugly. Presidential politics, the global economy, war in Chechnya, mass murder in Uganda, natural disasters . . .

Disgusted, he turned off the TV.

The world beyond his doorstep was harsher than ever.

Maybe Ben had the right idea, taking a break from the news for a while.

Mack decided he was going to do the same thing. God knew he had enough problems of his own right now.

T
his wasn't the worst crime scene Detective Rocco Manzillo had stumbled across in two-plus decades as an NYPD detective, but it sure as hell wasn't the prettiest, either.

He guessed the victim might have been—pretty, that was—before someone hacked her face beyond recognition. Not in the sense that you wouldn't recognize her if you knew her, but in the sense that you wouldn't recognize that the red mass of pulp was even a face, if it weren't still attached—though just barely—to a slender neck and covered in long, blood-matted blond hair.

The case looked pretty open and shut, as far as Rocky and his partner, T.J. Murphy, were concerned.

The woman, Janice Kaminsky, had apparently come home from a date at around dawn and was followed into the building by a homeless guy. The whole thing was caught on the building's surveillance tapes, which had been furnished by the super. He'd called the police after the downstairs neighbor, a night shift nurse, walked into her own apartment to find blood dripping through her ceiling.

Now all Rocky and Murph had to do was catch the perp, who'd ransacked the place and, with any luck, left fingerprints behind.

A flash bulb went off as the CSU team snapped another photograph of the corpse.

Murph winced at the glare and sank into a chair, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Hey, Rock, you got any Advil on you?”

“You took three in the car. That stuff'll burn a hole in your stomach.”

“Maybe, but it didn't even put a dent in this headache. I'm a hurtin' pup this morning.”

Murph had taken last night off to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, and wasn't thrilled when Rocky called this morning to tell him they had a DOA.

Yes, the Irish had celebrated their big March holiday yesterday, but Rocky's Italian family would have theirs tomorrow, Saint Joseph's Day. His wife, Ange, had been cooking since Wednesday and all three of their sons had flown in for the weekend.

If this case went like clockwork, Rocky would be home in plenty of time to enjoy the food and his family. If not . . .

Well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd missed a holiday to work a homicide.

And it wouldn't kill him to miss a meal, that was for sure. He'd moved his belt buckle another notch since Christmas, and his potbelly was making it hard to bend over to tie his shoes.

“This is all your fault, you know,” he'd told Ange this morning on his way out the door.

She was standing at the counter dipping cardoon in egg batter, ready to be fried up for tomorrow's meatless meal.

“How is it my fault?”

“You're too good a cook. You even know how to make vegetables taste great.” He pointed at a platter of battered, deep-fried broccoli and cauliflower.

“You should be eating your vegetables raw, Rocco, and you should be having salad for lunch, and—”

“I keep telling you, Ange, I don't want that rabbit food.”

“Well then you'd better start hopping around like one instead.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The weather's getting nicer. You need to get out and exercise.”

“The weather's crappy. And I get plenty of exercise on the job.”

Ange eyed his belly and said dryly, “I don't think plenty is enough. Hey!” She swatted his hand as he snagged one of the cannoli she'd just filled with sweetened ricotta cream.