Wild Justice (2 page)

Six weeks ago, he’d asked me to his cousin’s wedding. I shouldn’t have been surprised. For months, he’d been joking about dragging me to this family dinner or that family party. I realized now it’d been the kind of fake joking where you’re hoping for an encouraging response. Anyway, I missed the signals so I’d said no to the wedding. It escalated to a fight. He wanted more; I wasn’t ready to give more and wasn’t sure I ever would be. He hung up.

A week later, he came to the lodge. He’d done that once before, and Jack tore a strip out of him. Quinn knew better than to show up there when I hadn’t introduced him to that part of my world. Obviously waylaying me at home had not smoothed things over. We fought. He accused me of wanting nothing more than friendship with sex. It got ugly. He said we were through and stormed out.

The hard truth? He wasn’t wrong. I did want friendship. I did want sex. That’s it. We led separate lives, and as happy as I was with him, I didn’t see that ever changing for me. I didn’t want to meet his family, because I knew how close he was to them and I knew that was the first step onto a road I wasn’t willing to travel.

It wasn’t really the hackneyed “friends with benefits.” There was more. It just wasn’t what he wanted.

After that, he’d gone silent. No calls, no e-mail, not even a text. I phoned a couple of times. He didn’t answer. It was over. So there was no calling him tonight. There was no calling anyone.

Normally, I’m up by dawn and out for my jog, but after a rough night, I needed my rest, so I turned off my alarm and dozed fitfully until nine. I ran fifteen kilometers after that, working off excess job frustration. Then I brought breakfast back to my motel room and waited to start tracking Wilde again. By midafternoon he’d leave work for the day, and I’d be waiting to follow him, figure out when and how to finish this.

When my “business” phone rang just past noon, it was Paul Tomassini, which was odd. That’s one advantage of working for the mob. They don’t panic and pester you for updates. I wondered if the client was having second thoughts. Damn I hoped not. As a cop, I’d seen enough domestic violence to know it was only a matter of time before Rose was lying on a morgue slab. I’d much rather see him there.

“It’s me,” Paul said when I answered. “Thought I’d hear from you.”

Ah, so, the client was just getting antsy. “Tell him it’s under control. I can’t promise it today, but it’ll get done this week.”

Silence. Then, “Have you read the paper this morning, Dee?”

My hand clenched the phone. “No. Why?”

“Go read it. Call me back.”

The story made the front page of the regional paper: “Local Businessman Kills Wife, Self.” The subheading: “Preschool Daughter in Intensive Care.”

Alan Wilde had caught up with Rose and Hannah. He’d cornered them in the hospital parking garage. People had heard them fighting. They heard it and hurried on their way, not wanting to get involved.

Wilde had tried to stop Rose from taking Hannah inside. He’d threatened her. Then there’d been a gun. Rose’s gun—that’s what the paper claimed, quoting an anonymous source who said her father bought it for her after the last incident. No one knew exactly what happened, but I could figure it out. She’d pulled the gun and told Wilde she was taking their daughter to see a doctor. He’d wrested the gun away and used it on her. According to the article, he’d shot Rose point-blank. In front of their daughter. That’s when, according to some who heard the shot, the little girl started to scream. Another shot. Hannah stopped crying.

The person who heard called 911, then ran to notify a security guard. By the time help arrived, Wilde had turned the gun on himself.

Rose Wilde was dead. Her daughter was clinging to life. It was my fault.

When Paul Tomassini called back, I let it ring. He hung up and tried again. I continued ignoring it until someone pounded on my motel door, telling me to answer my goddamned phone. I turned it off and tucked it into my bag. Then I walked out the door, turned toward the highway, and kept going.

I walked for hours. Dusk came as a shock, and I snapped out of my stupor to stare, disbelieving, at the sunset. But it was like rousing from sleep just long enough to check the clock before falling under again.

During the day, a few cars had slowed to offer me a lift. I’d waved them off. After sunset, when another one rumbled along the gravel behind me, I stepped onto the grassy shoulder. It pulled up alongside me, passenger window rolling down.

“Get in the car.”

My hand instinctively slid under my jacket to my gun.

“Get in the fucking car.”

I heard the faint brogue and stopped walking.

The car was a nondescript economy model, the cheapest kind you can rent. Through the lowered passenger window, I caught the smell of cigarette smoke, a familiar brand, and I thought . . .
You’re not supposed to smoke in a rental car
. Quite possibly the stupidest, most irrelevant thing I could worry about at the moment.

“Nadia?” The door slammed. “Get the fuck in the car.”

I glanced over, my mind still swimming upward toward full consciousness. I saw a man. A couple inches under six feet. Average build. Angular features. Wavy black hair threaded with silver.

“Jack?”

I stepped backward.

“Nadia . . .” His voice was low. Telling me not to bolt. Warning me he sure as hell didn’t want to have to run after me, not after he’d come from god-knows-where to find me.

You’re not real,
I thought.
You can’t be. I’m hallucinating.

His hand caught my elbow, holding me still, dark eyes boring into mine, the faint smell of cigarette smoke riding a soft sigh.

“Fuck.” Another sigh. “Nadia? Can you hear me?”

He took me by the shoulders and steered me to the car. The next thing I knew, I was in the passenger seat and he was pulling the car back onto the road.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The tires chirped as the car lurched off the shoulder. “Things went south last night? Should have called.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” I looked out at the passing scenery and hiccuped a short laugh. “Which I suppose would have been a lot less bother than this. I’m sorry.” I paused. “Was it Paul?”

“Paul called Evelyn. She called me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” A hard look my way. “What the fuck were you thinking? Didn’t even tell Quinn.”

“Evelyn called Quinn?”

“I did.”

“I’m sor—”

He cut me off with another look. I
was
sorry, for this, of course, and especially for him having to call Quinn. I’ll be generous and just say they don’t get along.

“Why didn’t
you
call Quinn?” Jack said. “Thought you and him—”

“Not anymore.”

He looked over sharply. “Since when?”

I shrugged. “About a month ago.”

“Fuck.” He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Didn’t know about that. Don’t know about this. Never even knew you had a hit. Why?”

“Didn’t think—” I stopped myself and started again, trying not to copy his speech pattern. “I’d have told you about Quinn the next time you called. As for the hit, it seemed straightforward.”

“And last night? After it went south. You didn’t think to call?”

A half hour later, the car turned and I looked up to see we were pulling into a roadside motel.

“Oh,” I said. “This isn’t my—”

“Yeah. Found yours. Twenty fucking miles back. Brought your stuff.”

“I hid my passport—”

“Got it.” He nodded at the motel. “Gonna check in. You need rest. I come back, you’ll be here?”

“I wasn’t trying to run away from you before, Jack. I was confused.” I rubbed my face. “I don’t need to rest. I should head home. If you can just take me back to my rental car—”

“Car’s gone. Phoned it in.”

“Then I’ll rent another and—”

“You’ll stay here while I check in. You bolt . . . ?”

Normally, I’d joke, “You’ll shoot me?” and he’d make some wry retort. He glanced at me, as if waiting. When I said nothing, he reached over and opened the glove box, then tossed a pack of cigarettes onto my lap.

“Have one. Won’t be long.” He opened the door, then glanced back. “Can smoke in here. Already did.”

I fingered the package of cigarettes. Jack’s brand. Irish imports. I used to wonder if it really was his brand, or an affectation, like the slight brogue, presenting a fake background. He really is Irish, originally, at least. The brogue only comes out with those he trusts. Same as the cigarettes.

He’s also usually careful about doing things like smoking in rental cars. It makes him memorable, like the cigarette brand. If Jack had a hitman motto, it would be “stay invisible.” With fewer syllables, and maybe a “fuck” thrown in for good measure.

So smoking in the car meant something. So did the plastic drink cup lid overflowing with butts—he’s been down to a cigarette or so a day since I’ve known him. Jack was stressed. Worried I’d gone off the rails and now I’d do something stupid and put him at risk. He’d been driving around for hours, looking for me and working his way through a pack of cigarettes.

I emptied the makeshift ashtray. I’m not good with messes. When I’m already anxious, I’m really not good with them. As I returned from the garbage, he was coming back.

“I really should go home,” I said as he approached. “I’m fine. Crisis averted. If you’ll just take me to—”

“Room twelve. Go.”

I leaned on the car roof, looking at him. “I’m serious, Jack. I know you have better things to—”

“Nope. Got nothing. Room twelve. Go.”

Once inside I took off my jacket. Jack noticed my gun with a grunt of satisfaction.

“Yes, even during a meltdown, I don’t wander empty roads unarmed.” I sat on the end of the bed. “I know you don’t want me to keep telling you I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to say. You shouldn’t have had to do this.”

“Didn’t have to. Chose to. Owed you anyway. You did it for me.”

“At least you had the sense to stay in your motel room.”

“No choice. Wouldn’t have gotten far.”

Last May, I’d been the one getting a call from Evelyn. Jack had broken his ankle on a job and was holed up in a motel outside Buffalo. He was too stubborn to ask for help, so she wanted me to fetch him back to my lodge to recuperate. I’d walked into a room full of cigarette smoke, and thought something had gone wrong on a hit. It hadn’t. Jack only hurt his ankle in the escape.

The problem was what it meant: that this was a job for young men and he was almost fifty. Retirement was coming. That was tough. A contact of his had retired too late, his reputation shot to shit by the time he went. Jack didn’t want that. Yet he understood the impulse to keep working. This was his life. There wasn’t a retirement plan.

“So we’re even.” He pulled a chair toward the bed. “Wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head.

“Too bad.” He settled in. “You didn’t do anything wrong. What happened to his wife and little girl? His fault. Wilde’s. Not yours.”

“I could have taken the shot. It was a failure of nerve—”

“Not in front of the kid. Even at my worst, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“I could have shot him after they left. If I hit the girlfriend, well, that’s her own fault for hooking up with a guy like Wilde.”

He gave me a hard look that said he wouldn’t dignify that with a response. I would never have taken that shot.

“I didn’t even call Paul until I was back to the car,” I said. “I phoned Emma first, and chatted away about the lodge while Wilde was going after his wife and child. Her father could have gotten there and saved her—”

“Never left the house.”

I frowned at him.

“Paul called the father,” he said. “Told him what happened. Father phoned his daughter’s house. Left a message. That’s it. Wouldn’t have mattered
when
you called. Never left his goddamned house.”

“Which means I didn’t explain the situation clearly enough.”

“What situation? Same shit Wilde’s been pulling for years. Father knew that. You want to blame someone? Blame the idiot who gave her the weapon.
Here’s a fucking gun
. No lessons. No instructions.” He shook his head.

“I still feel—”

“Like you could have saved her. You couldn’t.”

I pulled up my legs and sat cross-legged. After a few minutes of silence, he walked to the door.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, get my shit together or I can mope alone, right?”

He glanced at me, frowning slightly. “No. Not that. Just getting something. Be back.”

Jack was gone about twenty minutes. When he returned, he was carrying two steaming cardboard cups.

“Coffee,” I said. “You’re a mind reader.”

“Not coffee. Not for you.”

He handed me a cup. The smell of chocolate wafted out. I smiled.

“You need sleep,” he said. “Figured you wouldn’t take pills.”

My dad used to make me hot chocolate when I couldn’t fall asleep. I’d mentioned it once to Jack and he’d never forgotten. I wonder sometimes if that’s how he sees me. His student, his protégée, his surrogate daughter.

How
do
I see Jack? Definitely not as a father figure, no matter how many times he brings me hot chocolate. I see him as a mentor. As a friend. And, as I realized this spring, as someone I’d like to be more than a friend. But there’s never been a hint of reciprocation, and it’s for the best. Jack is not dating material in any way, shape, or form. That’s one of the reasons I’d stopped circling Quinn and given it a shot. Which had gone so well . . .