‘No, but I know their faces. They’re probably watching the house right now.’
‘That woman you… met in the basement.’
‘I don’t know her name. And I’m proud to say that, being the stand-up guy I am, I never bothered to find out. Feel free to use your psych degree to draw your own conclusions. Just don’t share them with me.’
‘Ezekiel told me Kendra Sheppard was working with my father to help bring down Sullivan.’
‘And look how well that turned out.’
‘Did you know?’
‘I knew Sullivan had a thing for her, kept her close. I found out about it after the prostitution bust.’
‘And the other remains in the basement?’
‘No idea. I’ve got a favour to ask.’
‘What?’
‘Take a long vacation until this blows over. Fake a heart attack. Buy a plane ticket and go somewhere, just do something. You need to get as far away from this as you can.’
‘It’s a little too late for that.’
Coop stood up and placed his sleeping niece on the sofa.
‘You remember how my old man died?’
‘Hit-and-run,’ she said. Someone had run him over after he stumbled out of a bar in Lynn.
‘What I didn’t tell you was the phone call I got after we buried him. That Federal agent who’d brought me to Reynolds’s house, Special Agent King? He called me at home and told me to keep my mouth shut or I’d be burying my mother next to my old man. That’s why Jackie and I decided to stick around in Charlestown. We wanted to keep an eye on my mother. Thank God she moved to Florida at the beginning of the year.’
‘Kendra Sheppard taped conversations with these –’
‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. I don’t need anything else floating around my head, and whatever it is, it’s not going to make a shit’s worth of difference now anyway. You can’t take these guys down. They’re like vampires. They came here, what, twenty something years ago, and turned Charlestown into Salem’s Lot. Now they’re back, and if you think you can kill them, you’re wrong. You put one down and there’ll be another one to take his place. They’re –’
Darby heard the screech of car tyres.
Coop scooped up the Glock and ran for the front door.
57
Darby jumped to her feet, hand reaching for her sidearm. Coop, leaning against the wall near the foot of the stairs, peered through a window overlooking the front street.
His body relaxed. He let out a long sigh.
‘It’s Jackie.’ He tucked the nine in the back waistband of his jeans, covered it with his tank and threw back the deadbolt.
He ran to the sofa and picked up his niece. ‘Stay here.’
Darby stood wobbly on her feet and watched as Coop ran barefoot through the rain pounding the streets and parked cars. He opened the back door of the car and placed the baby in the child seat.
Jackie rolled down the window. Darby could tell that the woman had been crying.
She looked around the street as Coop talked to his sister. Lots of parked cars. She couldn’t see anyone behind the windows.
Coop ran back inside the house. He didn’t shut the door and Jackie didn’t drive away. The woman’s face was pale, frightened.
‘She wants me to go with her,’ he said, picking up his sneakers. Water dripped down his face. ‘She thinks she’s seen some guys watching her house.’
‘I’ll call some people, have them guard her until –’
‘Until what? Don’t tell me you think this is going to blow over.’
‘The commissioner’s head of Anti-Corruption has taken over the case, this guy named Warner. He can –’
‘No police. I don’t want them involved – I don’t want anyone involved. Guys like King don’t work in a vacuum, Darby. They always have help.’
‘Warner knows I came over here to speak to you.’
‘Tell him you couldn’t find me.’
‘He’ll come looking for you.’
‘Let him come looking. Better yet, buy me some time. Tell him I called you and promised to speak to you later, say, around eight. I’ll already be at the airport.’
‘And what if they go looking for you there?’
‘Then I’ll figure out a way to handle it.’
‘Stay here, Coop. We can figure out a way –’
‘I’m not staying here. I can’t. I need to do this. I can’t risk having anything happen to Jackie or my mother.’
‘Your mother’s in Florida.’
‘Not for long,’ he said. He straightened, gripped her lightly by the shoulders. ‘Please let me do this my way, okay?’
‘What can I do to help?’
‘Lock up my place before you go.’
‘I will as long as you keep your mobile phone on and promise to pick up when I call.’
‘I promise. Make sure you do the same. I’ll call you later, after I get Jackie squared away.’
Coop stepped into the rain. She wanted to go to him but her feet felt nailed to the floor.
He turned and rushed back to her. Grabbed her gently by the face and then leaned forward and kissed her hard on the lips. She kissed him back, just as hard, not wanting to let go.
He let her go. He swallowed back tears.
‘I’d stay here if it would make a difference, I swear to God I would, Darby. But these guys are slick. They never go to jail. They always have inside help. How the hell do you think they managed to slip a bomb inside the house and on the Explorer?’
‘I’ve got to see this through, Coop. I can’t walk away.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, then swallowed. ‘Take care of yourself, Darb. Be careful.’
‘You too.’
Darby watched him get inside the passenger seat.
Get out, she wanted to say. Come back.
The Honda tore down the street and disappeared. She shut the door and turned back to the empty house, water dripping down her face and back.
Bono had stopped singing. Her eyes roamed across the boxes, the pictures still hanging on the walls, the dishes still piled in the kitchen sink. She stood there and took in the room, wanting to preserve it in her mind, wanting to try to hold some piece of him, knowing, right then, that this was it. Coop was leaving. He wasn’t coming back.
Darby locked the front door and checked all the downstairs windows. She took the stairs to the first floor, reminding herself to go into the basement and double-check the hatch doors to make sure they were locked.
She was heading back downstairs when her phone rang.
‘You’re a genius,’ Randy Scott said. ‘Mark fumed the inside of the binoculars and found a print – a damn good one. It rang the cherries in the database, but here’s where it gets weird. The print belongs to another dead person, only this guy’s named Daniel Russo from Wellesley.’
‘What happened?’
‘He died in some sort of home invasion five years ago. The database doesn’t give all the details. I have a case number but I don’t have access to our computer system – I don’t have the authorization. I know you do.’
‘Is Warner still there?’
‘No, he’s gone. They’re all gone, as a matter of fact.’
He’s probably still with the computer guy, she thought. ‘I’m on my way back to the lab. I’ll see you in a few.’
Darby hung up and dialled Warner’s number.
‘Warner.’
‘It’s Darby. I’ve –’
‘Your computer guy still hasn’t broken through the password protection. The commissioner is here, and she wants to know if you spoke to –’
‘Listen to me for a moment.’ Darby moved across the living room, heading for the basement door to lock down the bulkhead. ‘I’ve come across some information regarding the binoculars we found in the woods. A fingerprint. It –’