A shadow moved in the corner of her eye. She turned to the dark hall and caught sight of the butt end of a shotgun as it slammed against the side of her head.
58
‘It was one of those wrong place, wrong time kind of things,’ Father Humphrey said.
Jamie’s eyes fluttered open. He was still lying on her bed, still holding the glass against his stomach and staring up at the ceiling. The bottle of Johnnie Walker, she noticed, was almost empty. How long have I been out?
‘Danny was doing this home extension for a… mutual friend, I guess you could say. This gentleman was looking to fix up a house rather quickly, turn it around and put it back on the market – he’s an absolute genius when it comes to property, this man. He’s made a fortune. I knew Danny was struggling to get his business off the ground so I gave him Danny’s name.
‘And your husband jumped at the opportunity, Jamie. I mean he jumped through hoops when he found out this gentleman was willing to pay cash to get the job done fast. No receipts, nothing to report to the IRS. You should have seen the look in Danny’s eyes. It was like I handed him a winning lottery ticket.’
Humphrey grinned, proud of his magnanimous gesture, and took a long sip of his drink.
Jamie managed to lift her head. It took some effort but not as much as before. That warm, blissful feeling from what seemed like hours ago had started to trickle away. Pain had started to seep through the cracks. She could feel a dull throb from where her head had hit the wall, the scratching and soreness around her throat from the priest’s fingers.
‘The gentleman who hired your husband was very impressed by the quality of your husband’s work. Danny had a gift, no question – and by God, what a work ethic! He cleaned up the work site at the end of each day no matter how late it was, no matter how tired he felt, just in case this gentleman I mentioned decided to swing by and take a look around. Danny knew this was a big job for him and he wanted to impress. He probably should have just headed home instead of turning around to go back and clean up.’
She forced her head back, then let it roll to the side so she could see the hall.
‘So your husband goes back to the house to clean up and he finds this man’s wallet sitting on this half-finished kitchen worktop. Danny calls the man and leaves a message on his mobile. Your husband wants to impress, wants to show what a good guy he is, and you know what he did?’
Jamie didn’t answer. She swallowed, tasting blood.
Michael pulled back the valance. She saw Carter. He was scared but no longer crying. He turned and whispered something to his brother.
‘Your husband,’ Humphrey said, ‘remembers that his client spends most of his time on his boat at the Marblehead Yacht Club. It seems the two of them had several conversations about boats, Danny being some sort of yachtsman-in-training. So instead of pocketing the wallet and going home, your husband, the kind and generous soul that he is, gets back in his car and drives an hour north to deliver the wallet to the marina, finds the boat and guess who he sees sitting on the deck or whatever it’s called drinking beers along with his client?’
She wanted to hold Carter. Wanted to hold him and Michael in her hands and press their cheeks up against her and tell them how sorry she was for letting them down. Again. Wanted to scream the words so her boys could hear them, hear her hurt. Her guilt.
‘Danny hands over the wallet,’ Humphrey said, ‘and his client tells him to stay for a beer. Only Danny refuses because he recognizes the man sitting on the deck – Francis Sullivan. Only Francis isn’t going by that name any more, being dead and all. And, truth be told, he doesn’t even look like Francis Sullivan, not with all the surgery he’s had, and – wait, I forgot. You already know this part, don’t you?’
Jamie watched as Michael slid his foot out from underneath the bed.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Danny didn’t tell you?’ Humphrey said. ‘I thought he would have shared this with you since you were a cop.’
Michael was inching out from underneath the bed.
‘Cops,’ Jamie said. ‘Call… ah… cops.’
Humphrey propped his head up from the pillow. ‘You called the cops?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Dan… ah… didn’t… tell. Me.’
‘Danny recognized Francis,’ Humphrey said. ‘Danny told me. I don’t know what transpired at the marina, mind you, since Danny didn’t give me the exact details when he came to confession. But I could tell your husband was having this… crisis of conscience, I guess you could call it, at having the cursed luck of actually recognizing Francis Sullivan. Danny did a little research on the internet, found out that Francis had died tragically at sea and felt that he should come forward with what he’d seen – he wasn’t exactly sure if the man he saw was Frank Sullivan but he looked goddamn close. I couldn’t let that happen.’
Michael had slid out from underneath the bed. Carter held up the valance, a finger pressed up against his lips, telling her to be quiet.
‘I’m a man of God,’ Humphrey said. ‘I don’t want you to be tortured to death. The man who’s coming here, he’s… he’ll do things to you until you tell him the truth. Tell me what you did to Francis and I’ll give you a hot shot now, have you ride a nice warm wave right up to the Lord Himself.’
Get him out of the house. It’s the only way to keep the kids safe.
‘Take… ah… you.’
Humphrey sat up and cupped a hand over his ear. ‘What’s that, love?’
‘Take you… to… ah… see, ah, him. Sullivan.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Show… ah… you.’
Downstairs a door opened and slammed shut.
‘Too late now,’ Humphrey said, sighing. ‘You had your chance.’
59
Darby drifted back to consciousness, heading towards a hot, roaring pain that covered what felt like every square inch of her head, jaw and face. She thought she smelled fried seafood and it triggered a hazy childhood memory (or is this a dream? she wondered) of a summer sunset at Maine’s Kennebunk Beach and her father sitting next to her on a blanket, paper plates of fried clams between them, the white, waxy paper fluttering in the soft, warm breeze blowing up from the water, where her mother walked along the shore collecting sea glass and shells that she’d later put in a glass vase inside the kitchen. Darby couldn’t remember how old she’d been or what she and her father had talked about (although, given the season, it probably had something to do with baseball), and as her eyes fluttered open she had the sense that her father had, at least during that moment in time, been truly happy.
The room was semi-dark. Hot. Her head hung forward and she saw her lap. She was bound to a chair – hands tied behind her back, thick strands of rope wrapped around her thighs and ankles. Her head was no longer throbbing; it was screaming like a fire alarm, triggering her panic.
The pain can be managed, she told herself. The pain can be managed.
She took in a slow, deep breath, catching the faint smell of machine oil behind the fried seafood.
‘How’s your head?’ a man asked.
Darby swallowed, tasting blood. She took another deep breath and held it as she slowly lifted her head.
To her left, large bay windows dripping with rain. They looked out to a street light, the sky dark beyond the glass. Dull yellow squares of light with shadows from the raindrops covered a pale-coloured wall in front of her and, just a few feet away, the scarred top of a wooden table littered with paper cups, green beer bottles and a box that had probably been used to carry the grease-spotted cartons of fried clams, scallops and shrimp set up in front of the man who had talked to Baxter.