Chương 10
Traffic locked Boylston Street in both directions. Ortiz forced an unmarked sedan onto the center line while Rafe sat in front and Mave held the back of his seat with her good hand.
The drive took eleven minutes.
It felt less like time than impact.
Police vehicles blocked the clinic entrance. Patients stood on the sidewalk, some wearing examination gowns beneath coats. A security guard sat against the wall with blood along his temple.
Mave pushed through the doors.
“Finn!”
A uniformed officer tried to stop her. Ortiz shouted his name, and he moved aside.
The struggle had occurred near the service stairwell. One plainclothes officer lay on a stretcher with a dislocated shoulder. The second had fired one shot into the ceiling after a masked man struck him with a fire extinguisher. Elena and Finn had escaped into a locked supply room.
Carlo had fled.
Mave found Finn sitting on the floor between boxes of paper gowns. Bear was pressed against his chest. Elena stood behind the door holding a metal instrument tray like a weapon.
When Mave entered, Finn did not run to her.
He looked furious.
“You promised the hospital was safe.”
“This isn’t the hospital.”
“It has doctors.”
She knelt, ignoring the pain. “You’re right.”
“You keep saying places are safe.”
“I know.”
“They aren’t.”
“I know.”
Elena lowered the tray. Her entire body began shaking now that she no longer needed it not to.
Rafe appeared in the doorway. He looked at his sister, then Finn, then the dent Carlo had left in the metal door.
His anger was silent and focused.
Mave stood. “You don’t get to kill Domenic.”
Rafe’s eyes shifted to her.
“I didn’t say his name.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“He sent Carlo after your son.”
“And if you kill him, Finn learns that every terrible thing ends with another man dead.”
“Some do.”
“Not this one.”
Rafe stepped into the supply room and closed the door behind him. “What would you prefer?”
“Evidence.”
“We have Salcedo.”
“A hired attacker whose lawyer will tear him apart.”
“We have the ledger.”
“With initials.”
“We have the device from the apartment.”
“Placed by Carlo.”
“And Carlo is missing.”
Mave’s voice shook, though she hated that it did. “Then find him alive.”
Rafe looked at Finn. The boy’s face remained hidden behind Bear’s worn head.
“I will try,” he said.
It was not a promise.
Carlo called Mave that night.
The number appeared as unknown. Ortiz had installed recording software on a replacement phone and instructed Mave to keep any caller talking. Mave answered from a conference room in the police district near the clinic. Rafe, Ortiz, Pike, and two technicians listened through headsets.
Carlo’s voice sounded unchanged.
“Your son all right?”
Mave gripped the phone. “You know he is.”
“I know I missed.”
“You hit a police officer.”
“Wasn’t personal.”
“People like you say that as though bones care.”
Across the table, Ortiz wrote KEEP HIM TALKING.
Carlo breathed out slowly. “You opened the box.”
“Yes.”
“Domenic wants the ledger.”
“The federal government has it.”
“He doesn’t believe that.”
“He should watch the news more.”
“Mave.”
He said her name the way he had at work when asking her to take the alley exit with another employee. Familiar. Patient. Almost kind.
“Bring the original letter and the blue book to Pier Nineteen tomorrow at six. Alone.”
“I don’t have them.”
“Rafe can get them.”
“No, he can’t.”
“Then Finn’s next appointment won’t end with a locked door.”
Mave’s mouth went dry.
Ortiz wrote ASK ABOUT JAMIE.
“Did you kill Jamie?”
Silence.
Carlo’s breathing changed.
“You were supposed to leave that alone,” he said.
“You told him to drive the truck.”
“He needed money.”
“You used my son.”
“I offered a job.”
“You offered a frightened twenty-year-old enough money to stop asking what was in the container.”
“He took it.”
“Then he tried to fix it.”
“Yes.”
The answer was almost angry.
Mave closed her eyes. “What did you do?”
“He was going to talk.”
“So you killed him.”
“I followed him onto Route One. Domenic’s driver forced him toward the barrier. Jamie panicked. He turned too hard.”
“You watched him crash?”
“I called an ambulance.”
The room blurred.
Carlo continued, softer now. “I told them where to find him.”
“You told them after you made sure he couldn’t speak.”
“I never touched his car.”
“You watched.”
“Yes.”
Mave’s fingers went numb around the phone.
Ortiz pointed at the paper. KEEP HIM TALKING.
“Why did you protect us afterward?” Mave asked.
Carlo did not answer immediately.
“I made sure the company insurance paid the death benefit,” he said. “I got you the job at The Salt Line when the diner closed. I told managers not to fire you when you missed shifts for Finn.”
Mave looked at Rafe.
His face had gone rigid.
“All those years,” she said. “You thought that balanced it?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because Jamie was a stupid kid, and I was tired of seeing his face every time you brought yours to work.”
The cruelty sounded accidental. More honest than anything else he had said.
Ortiz signaled the technicians. They had a partial location trace near the waterfront.
Mave asked, “Why should I come tomorrow?”
“Because Domenic won’t stop until the evidence is gone.”
“It’s already copied.”
“He doesn’t only want the evidence.”
“What else?”
Carlo’s voice lowered. “He wants Rafe to choose family over truth. He thinks once Rafe destroys the ledger, he owns him.”
“And if Rafe refuses?”
“Then Domenic shows everyone what happens when the Colazo name stops protecting its own.”
The call ended.
The technicians narrowed Carlo’s location to a cluster of towers between the harbor and the North End, but the phone was discarded before officers arrived.
Ortiz removed her headset. “The call is useful. Not enough by itself, but useful.”
May you like
“He confessed,” Elena said.
“To participating in a pursuit. A defense attorney will call it panic, coercion, exaggeration, or an attempt to manipulate Ms. Donovan.”
