The truth burned.
He was barely aware of the door opening behind him. His words were flying out of his throat now like boiling drops of acid, scalding him to his very core. “You asshole . . . you devil—” He struggled when Garnier put him in a restraining hold, locking his arms down next to his body, but
his baleful stare remained locked with the man who had transformed into a monster before his very eyes. “I’m going to send you away forever, do you hear me? I’m going to see you roast. You’re finished.”
In a fit of wild rage he dropped the Glock and broke free of Garnier’s restraint. Spinning, he clocked Garnier on his square jaw, the solid punch splitting the skin on his knuckle. He followed with a left to Garnier’s solar plexus that made the big, gray-haired man double over and gasp for air.
Thomas snarled and put all of his pent-up rage into a vicious kick to Garnier’s face.
“You’re going down with him, asshole,” Thomas seethed. “You worked for him back then. Did he send you to my parents’ house that night? Were you the big man who murdered two helpless people in their bed while their kid slept in the other room?” Garnier started to stand—blood gushed out of his nose and ran down into his gaping mouth.
Thomas sank another punch to his gut. Garnier gasped and then howled with fury.
“Thomas? Joseph? What in the—Oh my God.”
Iris Carlisle stood in the doorway to the den wearing a green robe, her usually meticulously coiffed brown hair mussed and slightly greasy, the skin of her face looking like pale parchment paper stretched thin over the delicate bones. Her familiar light green eyes pinned Thomas with a bewildered, anxious stare.
“Mom . . . I’m sorry,” Thomas whispered gruffly.
Garnier took a measure of revenge while Thomas was distracted by the sight of Iris. Light flashed in front of his eyes and then air rushed by his ears.
He hit the floor before pain shot through his head like a jolt of electricity.
He must have passed out for a moment; he couldn’t be sure. Garnier had nailed him on the temple. The next thing he heard through the dense haze of pain and confusion that encompassed him like a thick cloud was his mother’s frantic, fearful voice, and then Joseph’s roar, cutting through everything else.
“Leave him alone, you moron; that’s my wife standing there. Just get him out of here!”
Thomas realized that Garnier had hauled him into a sitting position, and that one of his fists was cocked, ready to strike Thomas again. Garnier growled at Joseph’s order, but he did his boss’s bidding. Instead of hammering Thomas again, he jerked him up off the floor. Thomas staggered when Garnier shoved him toward the door.
His memory of leaving the house was spotty. He vaguely recalled his mother’s frightened face, her calling out to him, and Garnier’s snide insults and threats as he shoved Thomas out of the house he’d grown up in.
It’d been a living nightmare . . . Worse, an acid trip choreographed by the devil.
Thomas couldn’t even recall most of his drive from the Carlisle’s home back to the city. Garnier—and likely Joseph—had probably hoped he’d crash, he was so out of it. By the time he’d pulled over at a gas station just before the junction of the Kennedy and Edens expressways, however, Thomas was thinking more clearly. He wasn’t himself; not by any means. He was an automaton, moving and thinking, but not feeling. In the past few days, feeling had grown dangerous.
In the past hour and a half, feeling had become agony.
He’d walked into the gas station, bought a bottle of water and some Tylenol, and asked for quarters with his change.
Then he’d used the pay phone in the parking lot to contact the FBI. He’d had a long conversation with an agent named Fisk. He’d told Agent Fisk that he was in possession of a tape that incriminated his adoptive father, Joseph Carlisle, in multiple crimes, including the murder of his real parents, James and Marion Nicasio. At the conclusion of their talk, Fisk had told him about some leaks at the Bureau and warned Thomas not to speak with any other agent about the information. Thomas had agreed for no other reason than through the haze of his shock he’d made an assessment of Fisk, and decided he seemed all right.
Thomas’d explained that he’d turn over the evidence to Fisk within a few days. He’d hung up to the sound of Fisk asking him repeatedly where he planned on going following their conversation.
“You’re in danger, Nicasio!” Thomas had heard the agent shout right before he’d replaced the receiver in the cradle and walked away from the pay phone.
He’d lingered at the gas station, ensuring himself that he wasn’t being followed. Joseph and Garnier must have been nearly as discombobulated by his unexpected visit as Thomas had been. They’d regroup, though. Eventually.
When he was convinced that he hadn’t been followed, Thomas got into his car and removed the battery from his cell phone.
He drove, longing for distance from a terror that Joseph Carlisle had just confirmed as a reality—desperate for something to hold onto while his life careened wildly off balance.
He thought he’d been driving aimlessly, but now, as he sat at the side of that country road, the roar of the blue Buick’s engine still humming in his ears, Thomas knew he’d traveled with a single-minded focus. He’d seen a luminous face in his mind’s eye, said her name silently like a mantra that might save him.
Dr. Gable.
Sophie. Sophie.
And somewhere in the monotonous process of driving down a strip of interstate for miles and miles, a fever of forgetfulness had settled upon him. The toxic memories became distant. They faded.