41
Friday, July 14, 3:30 A.M.
The Kelly-Harriman Home
“You need your sleep, too,” Irene whispered as she came into the guest bedroom.
“Can’t,” he said. “Careful — don’t trip over the dogs.”
“Your head still bothering you?”
“I’ll be all right. It’s a good thing I was awake, anyway — he just had a nightmare about the fire. I think all of this is tougher on him than he lets on.”
Seth and Irene had returned from the rink, worried when Frank hadn’t shown up for his game, pulling into the driveway just after Hitch drove off.
Irene had rolled down a window, said, “Get him into the backseat” to Elena, but Frank went inside long enough to wash his hands and face, get another shirt on, and lock up. In the car, Seth had been frightened and wouldn’t let him out of his sight. Frank thought of lying to him and telling him he had tripped over something in the garage, but decided against it. He wasn’t going to lie to Seth if he could help it.
“I had a fight with a bad guy,” he said.
Seth’s eyes widened.
“He kicked the bad guy’s ass,” Elena said.
“Cool! Is the bad guy dead?”
“What a bloodthirsty kid you are,” she said, making him laugh. “No, he isn’t dead, but he knows better than to mess with Frank.”
“Did you help Frank fight him?”
She glanced nervously at Frank. “No, Frank didn’t need any help from me.”
Irene must have heard Elena’s slight hesitation, though, because she looked into the rearview mirror at them.
“Tell me about skating,” Frank said.
While he was waiting to get stitched up, and out of Seth’s and Elena’s hearing, he told Irene the full story.
Now she sat beside him on the edge of Seth’s bed. He put an arm around her, but left his other hand in Seth’s grasp.
“You’re disappointed in Elena, aren’t you?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Frank said. “I am.”
“What about Hitch?”
“So far he’s leaving Elena’s name out of it.” Hale himself had called to give Frank the news that Hitch had walked into headquarters with his lawyer in tow.
“Do you think he could cause her trouble?”
“Maybe. At some point she knew Hitch was on Dane’s payroll. I don’t think she was on it herself or Dane wouldn’t have let her walk away from her job with the narcotics squad — she would have been too great an asset to him. And he would have kept better tabs on her after she left.”
Irene nodded. “She couldn’t have had much dirt on either of them, or they would have seen her as a big threat.”
“If he had ever really believed that, Dane would have had her killed. He came here tonight because he had questions. I don’t know if he believes Hitch about the anonymous call, but I do. Lefebvre wrote notes about getting an anonymous tip on the night the Amanda was attacked.”
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the steady rhythm of Seth’s breathing. The dogs awakened and moved out of the room. Frank could hear their nails clicking on the floor as they moved toward the front door.
Irene said, “So if Hitch had come forward earlier about the anonymous call—”
“Then maybe the department wouldn’t have stayed so obsessed with the idea that Dane was the killer. And who knows? Maybe Seth Randolph and Phil Lefebvre would be alive today. Instead, an asshole like Hitch is crying for mercy, and four good people are cold in their graves. You can play the ‘if ’ game another way — if Elena had told what she knew about Hitch, maybe he would have caved in ten years ago and Lefebvre would be alive.”
Suddenly, the dogs began barking wildly — startling both of them.
Seth awakened and sat up, wide-eyed with fear.
“Just the dogs,” Frank said, but Seth held his hand more tightly.
They waited, expecting the dogs to quickly settle down. Instead, the barking increased in intensity.
“What the hell has gotten into them?” Irene said, and started to get up.
“For God’s sake, stay here,” Frank said, pulling her back. “I’ll check it out.”
The dogs were growling now, focusing on something beyond the front door. They began barking again.
Seth held tightly to him. “It’s the bad guy. He’s come back.”
“You didn’t believe your mom when she told you I kicked his ass?” Frank said lightly. “Stay here with Irene, okay? I’ll ask your mom to come in here, too. I’m going to take a look outside. The dogs are probably just after a skunk or something, but let’s play it safe.”
“Okay,” Seth said, but he still looked scared.
As Frank stepped out into the hall, he saw that the dogs had awakened Elena. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’ll handle it,” he said curtly. “Your son needs you.”
She looked away from him, but didn’t argue.
Frank took his gun from its locked compartment, loaded it, and moved to the front of the house. He looked through the door’s peephole and noticed it was dark out on the porch. He glanced at the switch — it was on. The bulb was new; he had just changed it about a week ago.
His head started throbbing again.
There weren’t many windows on this side of the house — no way to get a clear view of what was out there. He moved to the back of the house instead, and after taking a moment to look around, opened the door to the patio. The dogs liked the plan, too, and raced out ahead of him, rounding the corner of the house. Dunk, the German shepherd, was pawing furiously at the back gate in a “let me at ’em” style. Frank used their noise to cover his own movements and reached the back gate just as he heard an engine start up. He let them out, and they sprinted toward a white van — Deke, the black Labrador, giving chase even after it pulled away. Dunk, meanwhile, concentrated on Frank’s car, sniffing all around it, especially curious about the driver’s side.
Frank started toward it, then came to a halt.
Watch your back, Detective Harriman.
The thought made him look over his shoulder. His next-door neighbor’s lights were on. Jack was a night owl — and a good friend.
He called the dogs back. Deke had joined Dunk now, and they were reluctant to leave the driver’s side of the car. Frank called to them again, more sharply.
He hurried them inside the house. “Grab some clothes and the animals,” he said to the others, “and let’s go over to Jack’s.”
Once there, he made a series of calls.
Not long after they reached Jack’s, the bomb squad arrived. The explosives experts only looked at the car for a few moments before rapping on the door of Jack’s house and asking for Frank.
“You were right to call us — there’s at least one device on the car. Why don’t you take everybody down to the beach? We’re going to evacuate the neighborhood.”
There was some grumbling among his neighbors, but most were more anxious than angry. Jack had the foresight to bring some wood, and they built a fire. Cody yowled pitifully from inside his cat carrier, and Seth had to be convinced again and again that only the cat’s dignity was wounded and that it would not be a good idea to let him out. Elena sat slightly apart from all of them, looking out at the water and not conversing with the others.
Seth asked Frank where the bad guy lived, and seeing that he was feeling afraid, Frank tried to distract him. The water was relatively calm, and so he showed Seth how to find a good skipping stone and how to throw it. Seth took to it quickly and was soon challenging Jack to try to beat his record.
Frank had wondered if Jack’s biker appearance — his tattoos, shaved head, and scarred face — would make Seth feel uneasy, but the two of them hit it off immediately. Seth listened with rapt attention while Jack began regaling him with stories from his days on the road.
“You’ve heard them all before,” Irene whispered to Frank. “Catch a few z’s. Seth will be safe.” At her urging, he pillowed his head on her lap, and as she softly stroked his hair, allowed himself to fall asleep.