“You know what, Luther? I’m out. You can keep the money from the last shipment, you can keep the contacts. I want out.”
“You just can’t walk away from this, Shields. You owe me.”
“I don’t owe you jackshit, Luther. I did my job all along. I handled the security in Santa Estela, I handled the cops down there. I did everything you needed me to do. But I’m done.”
“This one last thing, and we’ll call it even.”
“I can’t help you kill Annie.”
“It’s her, or it’s you, Shields. You make the call.”
The pause on the other end of the phone had been laughably brief.
“What do you want me to do?”
He’d listened to Luther’s plan, and his stomach had turned. He’d known Annie for years, they’d been friends. They’d worked together, socialized. How in the name of God could he let this happen?
And yet Luther had made the consequences very clear.
He crossed the room and gazed out the window, wondering how his life had gotten so crazy.
Oh, he knew the answer; there was no big mystery there. Back in the beginning, it had all seemed so easy. He was just the lookout, back then. That’s all. It was just an easy way to make some extra cash. Enough for a new car-nothing flashy, of course. No one in the Shields clan went for the flash. Expensive cars, expensive jewelry, designer clothes-none of that was understood. He’d never have been able to explain a Mercedes, not even one of the smaller ones. In his family, work was honorable. You worked for the sake of the work itself, not for the rewards.
And that had been his downfall, going for the rewards.
The irony of it was that he’d barely spent any of it. The single largest purchase had been to buy Melissa’s silence. He knew he’d gone overboard there, had given her way too much, but he figured she’d given up a lot. Her job, her home, and, he’d thought at the time, her relationship with Grady. He’d felt obligated to give her more than enough to help her start and maintain a new life. It had never occurred to him that Grady would miss her, would find her. Would fall in love with her.
Would marry her.
All he’d really wanted was to keep her quiet, to keep her in the background.
And, he admitted now, to keep her off Luther’s radar.
He was sweating profusely and pacing like a caged animal.
He went into the bathroom and stripped, dropping his clothes thoughtlessly on the floor. He turned the shower on high and stepped in, letting the hot water beat against him until his skin was red. Even then, he didn’t want to leave the steamy shelter.
It all went back to that moment when Luther had asked him to do a little side job for him-to serve as a watch while Luther conducted a little business. There, in Central America, everyone, it seemed, was on the take. It hadn’t seemed like such a big deal.
Then he’d run into Connor in the alley in Santa Estela.
His life had been all downhill from there.
He’d murdered his own cousin, for Christ’s sake. Worse, he’d murdered the wrong cousin.
Killing Connor would have been one thing. They’d all grown up in his shadow, and since Connor was older than the rest of them, he never really felt he’d known him at all. But Dylan… oh, they’d had their differences growing up, sure, but shit, he hadn’t wanted him dead.
When he saw what had happened in the aftermath, how the family had crumbled, how his own old man had sobbed uncontrollably, well, it had made him sob, too. He cried as he served as one of Dylan’s pallbearers, cried through the funeral mass, and wept like a child as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Every detail of that entire day had been etched into his brain so deeply that even now, two years later, he could recount every minute.
He woke up many nights shaking, having relived the entire thing. At those times, only his own cowardice had kept him from shoving his Glock down his throat and pulling the trigger.
He hadn’t dared tell Luther that Connor was now asking about the report. The report that didn’t exist, about an op that never took place. If he knew anything at all about Connor, it was that he was tenacious. He wouldn’t let go of this until he got what he wanted.
He stayed in the shower until he couldn’t stand the sound of beating water any longer. He got out and used a towel to wipe the steam off the mirror. He stood and stared at his reflection, and realized he barely recognized himself anymore.
He forced himself to shake it all off, to get control of himself. He couldn’t think about Melissa anymore, couldn’t think about Annie. He put both women from his mind, wiped their names from the slate as if neither existed. They were no longer of consequence.
He dried and went into the bedroom to dress. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and realized most of the afternoon was gone. He picked up the pace and dressed as quickly as he could. He hated to be late, especially today, when he was expected at Grady’s, where he’d offer his condolences to his grieving brother.
21
Outside the Broeder police station, it was a typical early August morning in eastern Pennsylvania, with temperatures and humidity in the eighties and rising. Inside, the faulty air-conditioning system pumped a steady warm breeze into the small room. Evan stood behind the glass for several minutes, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck and watching what was happening on the other side to get a feel for the way things were going with Perry Jelinik. Apparently, they were going okay.
Jelinik sat in a high-backed plastic chair in the Broeder PD interrogation room, his hands folded on the tabletop, his head down. Every once in a while, he’d look up at the clock, but he pointedly avoided making eye contact with the Broeder detective who was leaning against the wall, his arms folded, a look of disgust on his face.
Evan rapped on the door with his knuckles, then let himself in.
“Detective Carr, good to see you,” he said as he stepped into the room.
Carr nodded without smiling. He clearly was not happy with the way things were playing out.
“So what’s going on here?” Evan asked Carr.
“Here we have Perry Jelinik, who we picked up at three this morning selling coke out of the back of his station wagon,” Carr said without expression.
“Who was he trying to sell to?”
“Detective Olensky.”
“Not smart, Perry.” Evan shook his head. “Not smart at all.”
Perry wisely said nothing.
“So, where’s your lawyer?” Evan asked.
“I only got one call,” Jelinik told him, “and that was to you.”
“Really? I’m flattered.” Evan sat on the edge of the table.
“I figured you were a better bet. Last time, my lawyer didn’t do such a great job keeping me out of jail.”