The Betrayer (22 page)

Later, Cat and Fiermonte didn’t speak about their encounter — her word for it, spoken only in her head, but it seemed to sum the whole thing up for her because it implied that what happened was the kind of thing that happened between strangers. That, and that it was a one-time thing.

These were both situations that were familiar to her.

She woke after a few hours and, despite her growing pain, passed on another painkiller when Fiermonte offered it to her. He was more than happy to wait on her — hand her the T-shirt he had stripped from her, help her get out of bed and walk to the kitchen area, make her coffee and something to eat. He was clearly pleased with himself. Of course he is, she thought. He finally got to fuck me, after wanting to, apparently, for a long time. What was there for him to be unhappy about?

He was telling her that a composite artist would meet with them whenever she was ready, but all Cat could think about was being back in her apartment — washed, dressed in clean clothes, alone with four walls — her four walls — around her. Maybe then she would have a better idea what to feel about what had happened. Or better yet, maybe she wouldn’t have to do that at all, maybe her search for her brother — brothers, actually — would resume and she would just forget all about this.

Forget it, never speak of it, never reconcile it.

Surrender to distraction and run — the things she did best.

This was beginning to feel like the thing to do.

It was this chain of thought, however, that led Cat to remember that her cell phone was shut off. Walking to the bedside table, she grabbed the phone. The new battery was now fully charged, so she disconnected the charger, pressed the Power button, and laid the phone back on the table.

She was gathering her clothes with her one good arm when the phone beeped, indicating that a voice mail message had come through.

Returning to the table, she picked up the phone again and pressed Talk.

She was holding the phone to her ear when Fiermonte came out of the kitchen. He waited as she listened to the message.

Fiermonte drove. He had expressed concern that Jeremy wouldn’t be where Cat had told him to wait —
Don’t be disappointed if we don’t find him
— but when the sedan turned onto Bedford Avenue, Cat saw her kid brother through the windshield and said excitedly, “There he is!”

Cat kept her eyes on her brother as Fiermonte steered to the curb.

It was then that she saw that the kid had been beaten. His face was bruised and swollen. One eye was barely open, the other was so bloodshot she could see it from a few yards away.

Cat got out and helped her brother into the backseat. She sat beside him and put one arm around him. He slumped against her, laying his head on her shoulder. Whatever had kept him going for this long was gone now. He began to cry quietly; his body was trembling. Cat pulled him closer.

Fiermonte glanced at them in the rearview mirror as he drove. It wasn’t long before Jeremy’s shuddering suddenly ended. Cat looked closely at his face and saw that he was unconscious.

The sudden slumber of someone on heroin? Or passed out from exhaustion?

Cat almost didn’t want to know which.

“Check his arms,” Fiermonte said quietly.

She hesitated, then proceeded to inspect her brother’s arms — first his right, then his left. She found on his left forearm a single injection mark. It was obviously fresh.

“So much for him being clean,” Fiermonte said.

Cat ignored that. “Take us to the apartment.”

“Mine?”

“No. Our father’s.”

“I think my place might be better, don’t you? It’s bigger, and probably more private.”

Cat shook her head. “I want him to wake up there. I want him to know he’s safe.”

“Will it be safe, though?”

“I’ll be there. And you’ll pull some strings, get the PD to park a unit outside.” She looked at his eyes in the mirror. “You’ll do that for us, right?”

Fiermonte nodded once. “Yeah. Of course. That’ll make this official, though. You understand what that means, right? This might churn things up. Your father’s name will probably get dragged through the mud all over again. And people were just beginning to forget.”

She knew that by “people” Fiermonte really meant the FBI.

The men with whom she worked. For whom she worked. Who saw her as the daughter of a traitor, a betrayer.

All of it lies…

For all that to get brought up once more wouldn’t be good at all for her already-troubled career.

But she didn’t care about that. Let the bastards say what they wanted. Let them think what they wanted.

For that matter, let them
do
what they wanted.

Surrender was the thing she did best.

“I’ll risk it,” she said.

Fiermonte studied her for a moment. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll take care of it.”

Cat held Jeremy close as the sedan carried them toward Manhattan.

With one brother retrieved, she was now able to think of the other still out there somewhere.

Why haven’t I heard from Johnny? By getting him involved, have I merely sacrificed one brother for another?

She diverted her mind from questions she could not answer to the one question she could.

The one action left for her to take.

How long do I wait before I contact Dickey McVicker again?

Johnny woke to the sound of something being torn. He opened his eyes and saw that Haley was up and removing a cell phone from its packaging.

She cringed slightly when she saw that she had woken him. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” His mouth and throat were dry; it hurt to talk. He glanced at what was in her hands. “When did you get that?”

“While you were asleep. I got one for each of us.” She knew what he was going to say next, so before he could speak, she said assuredly, “I was careful. Everything’s fine. We’re safe.”

“Did you get the tape?”

“Yes. But you need to rest some more.”

“No, we need to get going.” He made an attempt to sit up but quickly abandoned it.

“I checked you while you were sleeping, and your bruise actually looks worse, Johnny. A lot worse.”

“I don’t care.” He forced himself to an upright position — it took everything he had — then swung his legs so he was seated on the edge of the bed.

He froze there, nearly blacking out from the agony.

Haley was suddenly seated beside him and holding him up.

“You’re going to hurt yourself even more than you already have. And then what good will you be? We’re safe right now. I got us food and water, so we can just sit tight for as long as it takes. Okay?”

There was pain one could ignore, and then there was pain one simply had no hope at all of arguing with. The pain shooting through him now was the latter.

Like endless currents of electricity reaching deep into his bones.

He was naked and the motel room, as dark as a cave, was once again cold. He hoped that might help numb him, but so far his injuries were all there was in the world.

“Yeah, okay,” he said.

“Do you feel up to telling me what’s going on?”

Johnny took a shallow breath, then looked at her and said, “Dickey is up to something.”

“Do you know what?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“He sent me to look for Jeremy, gave me money and a big pep talk, but it seems he has been withholding some important information from me.”

“What kind of information?”

“For starters, that Jeremy has actually been looking for
him
.”

“How do you know this?”

“I went to an old friend of Jeremy’s. A guy named Atkins. He told me that he’d heard from Jeremy about a month ago, and that Jeremy had asked if he could set up a meeting with Dickey.”

“Atkins could do that?”

“He’s a dealer. He works out of one of Dickey’s bars.”

Haley couldn’t help but wonder if the bar they ran for Dickey was a front as well. But she pushed that from her mind.

“How did you find him so fast?”

“That’s the thing, Hay. Dickey sent me straight to him. According to Atkins, Dickey knew that Jeremy had asked about arranging a meeting. He also knew something else, something he didn’t share with me.”

“What?”

“That Jeremy had uncovered some repressed memories.”

“Of what?”

“The night our father was killed.”

“How?”

“Hypnosis.”

Haley thought about that, then asked, “Do you know exactly what it is he’s remembered?”

“No. Atkins didn’t say. Jeremy hadn’t told him.”

“I don’t get it. Why would Dickey send you to find out something he already knew?”

Johnny looked at her. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“Maybe Dickey wanted you out of the apartment so Richter and his men could get to me.”

“There are easier ways to get me to leave the apartment, don’t you think? And anyway, what would grabbing you get Dickey? What purpose would it serve?”

To Haley, there was only one possible answer to that.

One possible motive to everything Dickey McVicker did.

She shrugged. “Leverage. Use me to get you to do something you wouldn’t normally do.”

“But why send me all the way into Manhattan, Hay? He could have sent me on some other errand. He could have sent me to our bar, for that matter, made up some bullshit excuse.”

“Maybe they wanted to be certain there’d be plenty of time. With you all the way in Manhattan, they wouldn’t have to worry about you coming back too early.”

“I don’t think that’s it. And anyway, it only brings us right back to the same question. What would Dickey gain by taking you?”

Haley shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

Johnny began to run last night’s timeline through his head — crossing the bridge in the cab, walking to Vincent’s on Mulberry Street, talking with Atkins, leaving Vincent’s in a hurry, the subway ride back to Williamsburg.

How long had all that taken? An hour? Maybe a little more?

Plenty of time for Richter simply to cross a street and climb some stairs.

More than plenty, actually.

Suddenly a thought occurred to Johnny.

“When exactly did Richter show up?”

Haley needed a few seconds. “It was right after you texted me,” she recalled.

“Yeah, but which text? I sent you a few.”

“The text telling me to go downstairs.”

“Did you make it down there?”

“Yeah.”

“How long did that take you?”

“A minute. Not even. I went to the closet, moved the cases of water, and climbed down, just like we’d practiced.”

“And how long were you there before Richter showed up?”

“Not long. A few minutes, maybe.”

“More than five, less than five?”

“Less. Three, at the most. Why?”

Johnny did the math. “That’s about the time it would take for Dickey to call Richter and for Richter to get out of the watch car and let himself in.”

Haley nodded. “Yeah, okay, but what does that mean?”

“Dickey gave me a cell phone so I would have a direct line to him. I had just assumed that he would use its GPS to track my whereabouts if he had to. I’m pretty sure now that he used it to listen in on everything Atkins and I said.”

“A cell phone can do that?”

“If it’s equipped with a hot mic, yeah. Cops use them, but I’m sure Dickey could get his hands on one easily enough. Richter’s showing up when he did, at the exact moment he did, that can’t be a coincidence, Hay. He didn’t storm our place the minute I left, which he would have done if that had been their plan all along. No, Dickey had to have heard Atkins and me, and something Atkins said caused him to pick up the phone right away and send Richter to get you.”

“But why would Dickey eavesdrop on you if he already knew what Atkins was going to tell you? For that matter, why would he send you to Atkins if Atkins had information he didn’t want shared with you?”

Johnny shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Haley waited a moment, then said, “Tell me everything Atkins told you.”

Fiermonte carried Jeremy into the West Tenth Street apartment and laid him on the bed, then stepped out into the living room while Cat remained behind to tuck her kid brother in.

She drew the blinds to keep out the daylight — heavy wooden blinds from when their father had lived his nocturnal, dangerous life here.

A secret life meant to protect his real life up in Ossining.

The life he could barely be part of.

As always, this place held many memories of the man. Even now, Cat couldn’t take a step without seeing something and remembering him.

She checked on Jeremy — his breathing was slow but steady — then turned to leave. Passing the bureau, on which stood several framed photographs, she paused.

A wedding photo — her mother and father together, laughing, her father so handsome and fit at forty, her mother a thirty-year-old stunner with thick black hair. A photo of John Coyle Sr. in Vietnam, geared up and about to go on patrol. A photo of John Coyle Sr. holding a newborn Cat. A photo of his three children together — Cat, Johnny, and Jeremy when he was just a baby — Cat holding Jeremy, Johnny around five, wearing an army cap and saluting the camera.

All she felt as she looked at these was an overwhelming sense of loss.

This tiny apartment was that last remaining hub of the Coyle family.

A museum to two lives ended too early, and a shrine to three lives that were not at all what they could have been.

Should have been.

The Temple of Squandered Potential.

Cat was heading toward the door when Jeremy suddenly whispered, “Are we alone?”

She stopped and turned. “You’re awake,” she said softly.

He repeated in the same whisper, “Are we alone?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“Donnie? Out in the living room.”

An even lower whisper: “C’mere.”

Cat walked to the bed. The room was so small it only took a few steps.

Now that she was next to him, his whisper grew even more hushed. “I need to talk to you. I need to tell you things.”

Cat nodded. “I know. But I think you should rest first, though.”

“No. Now. Send him away.”

“Why?”

“Because right now, Cat, you’re the only one I can trust.”

She hesitated, knew that paranoia was a potential side effect of heroin use, but this seemed…different. Or maybe she wanted it to be different. She remembered the surveillance video of Jeremy — not for one moment had he looked high to her. She remembered, too, what Elizabeth Hall had said about Jeremy having transformed before her eyes.

From a troubled boy into a determined man.

Still, for an addict like Jeremy, relapse was always a possibility. Perhaps he knew about what had happened to Elizabeth. That would be enough to cause a return to his old ways.

But something told Cat this wasn’t the case.

Something in her gut.

“Are you using again?” she said flatly. “Tell me the truth, okay?”

Jeremy shook his head. “No. This was done to me.”

“By who?”

He shook his head again, then nodded toward the door. “Not till we’re alone.”

Cat paused, then said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll be right back.”

Fiermonte was standing in the center of the narrow living room when Cat emerged from the bedroom. His back was to her and he was holding his cell phone to his ear, listening intently. He turned to face her and held up one finger. Cat waited till he was done. She knew by his face that he had something to tell her, and that it wasn’t going to be good.

He finally ended the call and said, “That was Morris. There was a car crash in Brooklyn last night. One of the cars seems to have been filled with men who work for Dickey McVicker.”

“Johnny?” Cat said quickly.

“No. But one of McVicker’s men is dead, and according to the coroner, he died of injuries unrelated to the crash.”

“What kind of injuries?”

“Someone fractured his trachea.”

Cat couldn’t help but recall the feel of the cord closing tight around her own throat.

“When did this happen?”

“Apparently, about the same time you were up in Chappaqua.”

“Did Morris say anything about Johnny?”

“No. But the way the cops see it, there were five people in the car when it crashed. Three were McVicker’s men — the one found dead outside the vehicle, and two badly injured men found still inside the vehicle. The remaining two were an unknown male and female.”

“How did they determine that?”

“A fingerprint not matching any of the three men was found on the steering wheel, along with male hair on the dashboard. And on the passenger seat were several strands of long red hair. A woman’s hair.”

“And?”

“Johnny runs one of Dickey’s bars in Brooklyn. It’s a small bar and grill — burgers and sushi, popular with the hipsters. According to the owner of the shop next to it, Johnny’s girlfriend is one of the cooks. And she has long red hair.”

Cat didn’t hesitate. “If Johnny killed a man, it was in self-defense, you know that.”

“Unless he’s more involved with McVicker than he led us to believe.”

“You’ve known Johnny his whole life. He’s as straightlaced as they come.”

“Men change, Cat. Shit happens, and they change. God knows what he was up to while he was wandering around Southeast Asia. And when he gets back, the first person he gets in touch with isn’t you or me; it’s McVicker. For the past year, he’s been virtually off the grid — no address, nothing in his name, working off the books. Does that sound like the Johnny you remember? Does that sound straightlaced to you?” He paused. “Either way, I’m not sure that I like the coincidence of you being attacked by a professional killer at the same moment Johnny is being driven around by three of McVicker’s men — being driven around in a car that mysteriously crashes into another, a crash that Johnny himself might have caused.”

“What are you saying, Donnie?”

“Jeremy remembers something about the night your father was killed, and the next thing you know, all hell is breaking loose. The woman Jeremy was having an affair with is killed, along with her husband; some mysterious woman comes out of nowhere and tries to kill you; and Johnny and his girlfriend may very well be the only two people who were able to walk away from a car crash that left two of McVicker’s men crippled and another dead by the kind of blow someone trained in hand-to-hand combat would land. And let’s not forget what started all this off — some nasty-looking guy took shots at Jeremy yesterday morning. It looks to me like Jeremy’s recovered memories are making someone very nervous. Someone willing to kill to keep those memories, whatever they are, secret. Someone with access to hired killers.”