Something! Anything!
BOOM!
The door exploded inward, carrying part of the door frame with it.
Lucy rushed to Kevin, whose small fingers were still struggling with the latch. Before she could help, strong hands seized her and threw her across the room. She smashed into the closet door, knocking it off its tracks. She slid to the floor, her head swimming.
Her son, more Jack than Kevin, leapt to defend her—an impossible task, even with the skills and knowledge of his long-dead father. Tait grabbed the boy, thumped him onto the chair at the desk, and held his small, squirming form in place with a meaty hand.
Lucy pulled herself into a sitting position next to the ruined closet door.
Tait had his gun out. He pointed it at her.
“Got a little project for you. How are you with knots?”
Lucy felt her consciousness transform. She felt the same cold clarity that had saved her from her bumbling abductors in Stephen Gregg Park. The same bloodless determination that had propelled her through Carla Scarlatti’s front door.
This time it wasn’t just about her. This time she had Kevin to protect.
She already had a plan, but it required extreme care.
Outside, the wind shrieked like an enraged banshee. The house seemed to shudder on its foundations.
Lucy looked up at her assailant.
“So, Tait. You and Carla, huh?”
Kevin stopped struggling against Tait’s grip. Lucy realized he was trying to listen.
“I know who killed Jack,” Lucy continued. “Which one of you killed Parrish? You, I’m guessing.”
Tait ignored her. He pulled a length of thick cord out of the pocket of his tunic.
Lucy felt her heart contract.
Think!
Forcing herself to sound calm, she said, “Whatever you’re planning, you’re too late. The prosecutor’s office already has all the evidence.”
Tait looked unconcerned. “Evidence is useless without witnesses. You wouldn’t have paid that little visit to Scarlatti if you’d found anything with her name on it. Or mine. You were fishing.”
Kevin caught Lucy’s eye. He had his free hand on the handle of a desk drawer, and he was inching it open.
Lucy suddenly remembered what was in that drawer.
It was something Jack had given her.
She couldn’t believe the boy’s coolness.
She spoke quickly, trying to keep Tait’s attention locked on her. “Don’t be so sure. I gave them a nice little tape recording of Scarlatti admitting she killed Jack.”
“Doubt that. Woman’s tough.”
“You weren’t there when I had her handcuffed to the stove.”
“She told me. If you’d taped her confessing, she’d already be in custody.”
“How do you know she isn’t?”
“Because I just talked to her.”
Kevin’s little hand slid into the drawer.
Lucy kept the pressure on. “You’re way out on a limb here, Ernie. You should be running. Maybe you can make it to Mexico before they come for you.”
“I can buy a lot more time than that.”
“How?”
“It’s pretty simple. You were so screwed up, so obsessed about your dead husband, you finally unraveled. Lost it. Started dreaming up crazy stories about left-handed killers, and bumper stickers, and weird company names. Your son was a constant reminder of your dead husband. You’d smothered his development and screwed him up so bad the poor kid thought he was your dead husband.”
“You sick bastard! You killed Clooney!”
“Only after he told us why he was seeing your kid. Some voodoo reincarnation shit. When Scarlatti conducts a second search of Clooney’s office later this week, she’s going to find an uncompleted referral form.”
Kevin’s hand came back into view.
“What referral?” Lucy asked vaguely, her mind focused on her son’s careful movements.
“The one from Clooney to the Hudson South Child Protection Office, stating that in his professional opinion, Lucinda Hendricks is an unfit mother who is psychologically damaging her vulnerable child.”
Lucy could see where this was going. “How’s Scarlatti going to explain missing such a key piece of evidence on her first search?”
Tait ignored the question. He resumed his mocking narrative. “You were so completely deranged after Clooney told you he was going to turn you in that you killed him and dumped his body in the same place Jack’s was found. That spot had become some kind of weird shrine for you. But you weren’t finished. Next, you stalked and assaulted Scarlatti, the detective who had investigated Jack’s activities after his death, and was now investigating you for the murder of your kid’s psychiatrist.”
Kevin was holding an object that looked like a lipstick container.
Only it wasn’t.
Lucy shifted slightly. The opening into the closet created by the ruined closet door was now next to her hand.
Tait didn’t react to her movement. He was too busy enjoying his story. “It was too much for you. After you attacked the poor cop in her own home, you knew you were going to jail. You knew you would lose your kid permanently. In your demented state, you saw only one way out.” He held up the length of cord. “You strangled your kid, and hanged yourself.”
“Hey, Tait!” Kevin called.
Tait turned, and five-year-old Kevin Hendricks, aka Jack Hendricks, gave his old partner a face full of oleoresin capsicum.
Otherwise known as mace.
Tait roared. He swatted at Kevin. Too late. The boy was already off the chair and scampering for his mother.
Lucy jumped into a crouch, spun, and grabbed the unsheathed dive knife that still lay next to the boxes of dive gear after all these months.
Kevin arrived at her side. They locked eyes. He nodded.
BOOM!
A bullet whipcracked past Lucy’s face and blew a hole in the back wall of the closet. The still-bellowing Tait had fired blindly, wildly, obviously hoping to terminate her existence before they could get away. Lucy flung herself across the space between them and plunged the knife into the brute’s thick throat … once, twice, three times. As he staggered back, she thrust the blade with all the force she could muster deep into his chest.
The ex-cop coughed, spraying blood. He dropped the gun. Kevin darted past Lucy and kicked it away. Tait sank wheezing to his knees, blood pumping, and then toppled to the floor.
Together, mother and son stood over his body as it lay twitching in an expanding pool of blood.
Lucy looked at Kevin’s face, expecting to see utter horror.
But in that second, behind the face of her little boy, lay the face of a man.
A man, saddened but resigned.
A man who had done his duty.
The storm was getting worse, and now they were hearing the gurgle and slosh of agitated water. Kevin, suddenly a boy again, darted to the sliding door and struggled to open it.
“No, Kevin! Wait!”
The boy rolled back the door and scuttled out onto the patio.
Lucy started to follow but then, tense with premonition, she turned back to scoop Tait’s gun off the floor. She stumbled out of the house, into the tumult, seconds behind her son. The winds howled, rain lashed at her, and she tasted salt spray on her lips.
Kevin! Where…?
The boy was nowhere to be seen.
“KEVIN?” she screamed.
“He’s over here!”
A woman’s voice, barely audible over the fury of the storm.
Lucy wheeled to her right, targeting the source of the sound.
Twenty feet away, Carla Scarlatti stood against the hedge at the end of Lucy’s driveway. She was ankle-deep in water. She had one arm tight around Kevin’s throat, and the muzzle of her Glock jammed against the boy’s head. She screamed out: “TAIT! I’VE GOT THEM!”
“Tait’s dead!” Lucy called back.
“Luce!” Kevin yelled. �
�She’s the one!”
Lucy kept her voice calm. “How do you know, Kevin?”
“The smell!”
Lucy felt impenetrable coldness lock into place.
The sensation was familiar now, and stronger than ever.
Her mind swiftly analyzed what her eyes were seeing:
Scarlatti had her left arm around Kevin’s throat. The wrist was heavily bandaged. It was the wrist Lucy had cuffed to the stove door.
She was holding her gun in her right hand.
Everything Jack had taught her on the PBA range came back. Everything he’d taught her about terminating a hostage-taker. She raised Tait’s gun. She trained the foresight on a spot just above the sneering detective’s upper lip.
Her hands were steady.
Scarlatti looked disbelieving. “You’ll risk your own son?”
“LET HIM GO!”
“I don’t think so!”
A single shot rang out … and Carla Scarlatti’s head exploded. The woman’s body flew into the hedge, and Kevin fell sprawling into the rising waters. As Lucy rushed toward him, a man appeared out of the darkness of the driveway.
The man was holding a huge revolver.
He lifted the boy to his feet.
Lucy recognized him. He was one of the men who had tried to abduct her in Stephen Gregg Park.
The one who had held her down in the back seat.
The one she had sprayed in the face.
She pointed Tait’s gun at the man’s head. “I’m a very good shot,” she said calmly.
A familiar voice startled her from behind. “You don’t need that, Lucy. Kevin is safe.”
Dominic Lanza appeared at her side.
“You knew this? You knew she was coming?”
“I guessed. Sorry we got here a little late. Had to avoid a couple of roadblocks.” Gently, he removed Tait’s gun from Lucy’s grip. The other man set Kevin on his feet on the patio. Water streamed off the boy as he hugged his mother’s leg, but he remained stoic and silent, watching and listening.
“Name’s Bernardo, lady,” the gunman said. “Pleased to properly meet you.” He added, “That’s a brave boy you got there.”
Lucy glanced at Dominic. “You said you’d dealt with this man.”
“Bernardo did his penance. But we needed him. Like you, he’s a very good shot.”
“Then I guess I’m glad I didn’t blind you.”
Bernardo grinned. “Me too.”
The moaning wind gusts were whipping their words away.
“This area is nearly cut off by flooding. Take your boy and head north. The cops are using boats and jet skis to evacuate people. They’ll take care of you.”
“I’ve got a bag packed. It’s by the stairs.”
“I’ll get it.” Bernardo ducked inside.
Lucy gestured at the doorway. “Tait’s in there.”
“What’s his condition?”
“Dead.”
“You?”
“Kevin helped.”
Dominic tilted his head. “Can you deal with it?”
“You mean, guilt?”
“Yes.”
“I took your advice and dealt with it in advance.”
Admiration tugged at the corner of Dominic’s mouth. He looked down at Kevin. He laid a gentle hand on the boy’s head. “And … Kevin?”
“He was Jack, saving his wife. If he remembers at all, his conscience will be clear.”
Dominic nodded. “We’ll clean this up,” he said. “The storm will do the rest.”
“Clean up?”
“The cops are going house to house. How much explaining do you want to do about dead bodies on your property?”
“I don’t.”
“Then leave this to us.”
Bernardo materialized with Lucy’s travel bag. “There’s a stiff in there, boss. A cop.”
“You can thank our lady here.”
Bernardo gaped at Lucy. “You’re one tough lady.”
“I’m a mother.”
The water level was still rising. Lucy figured her basement was already flooded. She slung the travel bag on her shoulder and grasped Kevin by the hand. She faced Dominic. “The money my father used to buy the bar … that came from the family, didn’t it?”
Dominic’s nod was almost imperceptible. “Go now.”
“How will you get out? You said the police are using boats.”
“That’s not everywhere. We’ve got a Hummer. We’ll make it.”
Lucy glanced at Scarlatti’s body, hung up like a rag doll in the hedge. “What about their car?”
At that second, they were interrupted by the sound of wading feet, and Carlo appeared out of the darkness of Lucy’s garden. He nodded politely to her and said, “Evening,” as if cleaning up murder scenes for schoolteachers and their little boys in the teeth of a hurricane was just another day in the working life of a mobster. He addressed Dominic: “We found an unmarked cop car parked down the street. Jimmy hotwired it and he’ll dump it somewhere up off Four-forty. Just in time, boss. Water out front’s getting too high to drive through. I moved the Hummer to the back lane. We need to move fast.”
Dominic squeezed Lucy’s arm. “Leave this to us. You need to go. Carlo, go with her so she’s on the right track. When you see the cops, come back.”
Carlo lifted Kevin into his arms, and he and Lucy set out into the raging night.
Dominic called out after her. “When the storm’s over, come and see me.”
She turned. “I still don’t get it! You were safe! Why all this? Why all this for me?”
“Not just for you, dear Lucy. For your father.”
PART
III
CASTIGO
29
On the fifth day after the storm, Olivetti showed up at Nicholas Oresko School. He’d heard reports that because 60 percent of Bayonne still didn’t have power, and nighttime temperatures were dipping into the teens, several hundred people were still using the school as a makeshift shelter.
The reports had been right.
He threaded his way along malodorous hallways, past throngs of morose adults and wailing children, and eventually found Lucy’s classroom. Its entire floor space had been converted into a dormitory, complete with rows of army-style cots and improvised privacy screens. Despite cheerful wall decorations and whiteboard notices to students that pre-dated the storm, the pervasive atmosphere in the room was one of gloomy exhaustion.
He found Lucy sitting on a cot, folding clothes and tucking them into a travel bag. Her response to his eager hug was not quite as heartfelt as he clearly had hoped.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get over here sooner! Too many blocked roads and too many Sandy issues! We’re down to half-staff at the office, and I’m up to my neck in looter files.”
Lucy sincerely wanted to soften her response. She would have liked nothing better than to throw her arms around Robert’s neck and just surrender to the feeling of relief. But there was no way around what she now had to face.
There was no way around the lying.
“It’s okay, Robert. Kevin and I were fine.”
First lie
“I tried to call you, but it kept going straight to voice mail! I don’t get it—the phones were only out for a day.”
“I lost my cell when Kevin and I were wading through the flood.”
Second lie
“Wading? You left it that late? What about your car? What happened?”
“The car got swamped.” Lucy quickly edited the truth. “The wind wasn’t a problem, and I was keeping an eye on the park. But when the surge came over the seawall, the water rose so fast it caught me off guard. I realized we had to get out of there, so we escaped out the back and headed north. We made it up past Second, but then we got cut off by another part of the flooding. Luckily, two officers in a boat found us.”
“Have you been back to your house?”
“No. We’re going there now. The police are using a DARE van to drive people ho
me.”
“I heard the power’s still out down there.”
“My contractor says I can use his generator.”
“Contractor? It hasn’t even been a week! How could you get a contractor so fast?”
“The insurance company arranged it.”
Third lie
Olivetti stared at her in disbelief. “You haven’t even seen the damage and you filed a claim?”
“The adjuster’s a friend,” Lucy replied smoothly. “He picked up my keys yesterday, and he and the contractor went down there together.”
Fourth lie
“How did you get hold of him?”
“One of the other teachers let me use her phone.”
Fifth lie
“You might have called me.”
“I’ve been a bit busy around here. They elected me dorm mother.”
“I’ll take you home. There’s something we need to discuss.”
“There’ll be roadblocks.”
“This is Hudson County. They’ll let me through. Where’s Kevin?”
“Playing in the gym.”
* * *
The ride down Avenue E was reasonably clear—some downed trees, crushed fences, and a few shattered business signs blocking sidewalks. The most disturbing sight was a blocks-long lineup of people carrying five-gallon gas cans, waiting their turns at the pumps of a crowded gas station.
When they reached the intersection at Broadway and turned south, the scene began to look more and more like a war zone.
“Mommy, look at that!” Kevin was sitting in the back, with his face pressed to the window. Outside, two men were using chain saws to dismember an uprooted oak that lay across a flattened car.
When they reached First Street and turned west, they ran straight into a BPD roadblock.
“Road’s in bad shape up ahead,” the officer said. “And we’ve had some looting. We’re only letting residents in.”
Robert showed his ID and explained he was taking Lucy and her son to their house.
“I’ll need to see some ID, ma’am. Something with your address on it.”
Lucy gave him her driver’s license.
The cop stared at it. “Hendricks? So that’s your place?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t know how you worked it, ma’am, but your house is the only one down here that’s got a full crew working on it.”
Storm Rising Page 20