John Gilstrap - No mercy

When that was done, the man, whom she now recognized from her Internet searches to be Carlyle Industries’ security chief and from Mama’s description as the man who’d approached Roman, slid behind her desk and squinted at her computer screen.

“For heaven’s sake!” Venice barked. “Would you please say something?”

Charlie Warren’s head didn’t move as his gaze shifted to her. “Watch the attitude, Ms. Alexander. You are two strips of tape away from suffocation.” A smile bloomed on his handsome face. “There’s also that fine son of yours to worry about. Much too young to die.”

Something inside Venice dissolved. “You wouldn’t.”

“Maybe I already have.” He transformed his voice to a mocking falsetto. “Ow! Ow, you’re hurting me! Please stop! Mommeee!”

Enraged and terrified, Venice pulled at her bonds.

Charlie Warren laughed. “You know I’ll just shoot you if you wriggle free, right? Go for it.” He squinted as he watched the images on the screen. “Ooh, looks like they’re in trouble.”

The world tilted inside Venice’s head. The image of Roman yelling out to her was so real, so vivid. Could this man really do such unspeakable things to a child?

Of course he could. Look what they did to Tibor and to Ellen. When the stakes were high enough, she realized, cruelty had no limits. This man in her chair, behind her computer screen, was a monster.

Why hadn’t he killed her already? He needed her to be alive. But why?

Her role was a tactical one, she realized. He needed her alive for a specific reason. She reran the events of the past week and she landed on her answer. “I’m your insurance policy,” she announced.

His gaze shifted again from the screen.

“You need me alive as a bargaining chip in case Ivan Patrick fails. If Digger-if Jonathan lives through the attack, you’re going to use me to get your weapons back.”

The man tried to maintain a poker face, but she could see that she’d nailed it.

In an unexpected burst of bravado, she added, “And you are Charles Warren, security director for Carlyle Industries. Your picture is on the Web site. That’s probably not very smart.”

“I’d be careful,” Charlie warned, looking back to the screen. “Start thinking too hard and I’ll have no choice but to kill you.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway.” She wanted to sound bold, but angered herself with a tiny catch in her voice.

The man smiled. “Maybe I should get it over with.”

Venice smiled back. “You can’t. Not yet. Jonathan wouldn’t do anything to help you unless he had-what does he call it? Proof of life. Like the mo” Jonathan panted into his radio. When he got no reply, he tried again. “Gail, how are you holding out up there?”

Still nothing. What the hell was going on with the radios? First it was Venice and now the Hugheses. Without either of them, he was blind out here.

It sounded like they were locked in one hell of a war.

Dom hated being outside the loop on Digger’s escapades. Tonight in particular, he had the sense that his old friend was in over his head, and he wanted to do something. The fact that Venice was ignoring her phone made it even worse.

He stayed out of it because Digger wanted it that way, probably to save him from the burden of the violence, but Dom sensed that there was also an element of shame. Noble rationale notwithstanding, he hated being left outside the circle.

He couldn’t take it anymore. As a Seinfeld episode reran on the rectory television, he realized that he no longer cared what Digger thought. Dom’s rightful place tonight was at the firehouse helping Venice cope with the stress of being Digger’s link to the world. If that pissed her boss off, then let him be pissed.

Grabbing a gray jacket to ward against the chilly evening, he called to Father Timothy and told him he was going for a walk.

The breeze off the water made the night feel more like March than April. He shot the collar of his jacket and stuffed his hands into the front pockets as he made his way down the hill toward the firehouse, two blocks away. Scanning the dark, empty streets, it was hard to imagine the madhouse it was going to be in two short months when the tourists returned. He made a mental note to remind the Town Council to repair the streetlights. On a moonless night like this, footing was treacherous for anyone who didn’t know the lay of the land. After years of practice, Dom knew to expect the loose bricks in the sidewalk near the corner at Second Street, and he adjusted his stride accordingly.

Passing the darkened silhouette of St. Kate’s on his left, he fought the urge to double-check the sanctuary doors. He wasn’t a fan of locked churches anyway. If the fear of mortal sin still prevailed in society, he’d have left the doors open to serve the homeless. He considered it a failure of the modern church that such kindness was no longer possible in today’s world.

Just past the church and its grounds rose the six-foot colonial-style brick wall that surrounded the parking lot and back doors of the firehouse. Jonathan had erected the wall within months of purchasing the property as a means to keep people from turning into his parking lot from Church Street, and to provide some element of privacy.

Approaching First Street at the bottom of the hill and the marina that lay across, the temperature dropped another five degrees. Dom had always loved this view of the water through the forest of darkened masts, swaying in the gentle waves of the river.

He turned the corner and knew that the peace would not last. In the otherwise deserted streets, a heavily jacketed man sat across from the firehouse on a public bench in the tiny Veteran’s Park among last summer’s flower carcasses. The newspaper he held spread above his lap could not possibly be legible in the yellow glow of the single streetlight across the street.

“Hello,” Dom said with his most priestly smile.

The man looked startled at first, then grunted a quick, “Good evening, Father,” before he returned to his paper.

Dom noted the formality and ct least a Catholic.

There are no coincidences.

It all felt very wrong. Over the span of a second or two, he inventoried the status quo, beginning with the fact that Digger was in the middle of an uncontrolled shit storm. Add to that the fact that Venice didn’t answer her phone-Venice always answered her phone-and cap it with a stranger sitting in a place where no reasonable man would be, reading in light that allowed him to see virtually nothing.

Something bad was about to happen.

No coincidences.

Maybe something bad was already happening.

Dom said nothing more to the man. He just kept walking. He turned left at the corner of Gibbon Creek Road, at the far end of the firehouse, and fought the urge to quicken his pace as he turned left again and entered the alley formed by the portion of Jonathan’s brick wall that separated his parking lot from St. Kate’s. The night felt suddenly colder, and Dom found himself wishing that he’d grabbed a heavier jacket.

At the height of the workday, there would be as many as fifteen cars parked in the lot on the back side of the firehouse; at this time of night, it was usually barren. Tonight, however, the lot hosted a single vehicle, parked as far from the security light as possible. He thought he could see a silhouette behind the steering wheel, as if someone was watching the back door. He paused there in the mouth of the alley before continuing his stroll back up the hill toward the church.

Dom glanced up at the third floor as he strolled, hoping to see some sign of activity, but the blinds were all pulled, as they so often were when Venice worked alone at night.