“The minute they walk in, the father shot Jon’s partner in the head, then killed his own daughter. Danny wasn’t dead and the father kept shooting. Jon knelt in front of Danny, you know, like a human shield, protecting him. He took four or five shots in the chest—they hit the plate, broke ribs, but didn’t get through. One was low. Hit his leg. Jon killed the father and saved the rest of the family.”
Shaw asked, “And Danny?”
“He lived. Retired, of course. And Jon recovered well enough. The wound healed but there was a lot of pain. He tried everything. TENS, codeine, Tylenol. Nothing worked, so they went to Oxy. Finally, it helped. But... Well, you get what happened next.”
“Addicted?”
“Finally he got off the pills. And the pain came back, big-time. Stayed clear of the drugs. But he found a substitute.”
“The drinking.”
She lowered her head. Repeated in a whisper, “The drinking. The word should come with a capital ‘D’... I suppose it numbs pain, if you drink enough. But it had that other effect on him. Anger, bullying, sarcasm, physical fights.”
“Programs?”
“They worked for a while. Then they didn’t. He had good sponsors, but he still slipped. I went to Al-Anon, Hannah tried Alateen. Pointless. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, change. I had the police out a dozen times, but he always seemed to sober up just enough to convince them I was exaggerating.”
Shaw said, “And they cut him slack. He was the cop who’d saved his partner.”
A sad smile. “The Hero of Beacon Hill, they called him—the neighborhood where it happened. I...”
Control it, she told herself. And kept the tears away, though hervoice clutched and she had to start her sentence again. “I thought about leaving him. Like my mother left my father. He was a serial philanderer. I made plans to get away but then he’d come around. He’d take Hannah to her events, he’d bring us presents. It was all back to normal—until out came the bottle. And it was coming out more and more.”
Inhale, exhale...
“Then, November, last year, Jon was helping Hannah with a project for class. They were building something, soldering, bolting it together. Having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, like a switch got flipped, he stands up. I know he’s going out. And I know what that means. I tried to stop him. Begging.”
She could picture it so clearly. Her hand on his denim shirt, gripping the cloth. But he just kept going, into the snow.
“When he comes back, he stinks of whisky, he can hardly walk. And then, ten minutes later I’m on the ground, a broken cheekbone, blood everywhere.” Parker looked out the window and took in her daughter’s earnest job of setting up their security system. “The police couldn’t let that one go. Attempted murder, a firearm, me in the hospital. They had to arrest him. And I pressed charges. His lawyer and the prosecutor cut a plea deal. They dropped the attempted murder and gave him thirty-six months.”
She scoffed. “Except apparently in his case that meanttenmonths.” She lifted her hands, a gesture that silently repeated the mantra “Hero Cop.”
And the man who listened well listened now. He nodded, his face suggesting he was taking it all in. But then he looked her over closely and said, “Aren’t there a few gaps you want to fill in?”
Allison Parker stared briefly, then could only laugh.
She thought: As a matter of fact...
But the coming narrative was interrupted at that moment by a loud repeating blaring from the field in front of the house. Frowning,Hannah walked inside quickly from the back porch, and the three of them looked up the drive.
“It’s Frank,” Parker said.
Villaine’s silver Mercedes SUV rocked slowly up the driveway.
They walked outside to greet him.
The vehicle pulled to a stop about fifteen feet away.
The man who stepped out of the vehicle, though, was not Frank Villaine, but a hulk of a creature in a black suit and tie. His unsmiling face was ruddy with a rash. He leveled a pistol at the trio. He uttered an odd word. Parker wasn’t certain, but it sounded like “Dawn-doo...”
His black eyes scanned them all quickly, then settled on Colter Shaw. The faintest of smiles, then he shook his head.
65
Shaw didn’t bother to judge sites of cover and shooting preference-point angles and distance. At the smallest defensive movement, one—or all—of them would die.
He was just wondering about the second man from the motel when he heard behind him, “Hey, there. Be smart, be smart.”