Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

Except she was armed and dangerous, and forearmed too. Molina’s forearm cracked into the descending arm attacking her. Arm bones were the human body’s strongest.

She blocked the blow, which came in lower than she’d thought, but the knife blade burned along her right side, a thin, shallow slice.

It didn’t hurt now, but it would bleed.

Molina’s long leg lashed out, tangling with someone’s ankle. An explosive breath huffed into the dark as a body stumbled and fell. Then stuttering steps pounded in the hall, running by the time they hit the slate floor of the kitchen with muffled thumps.

Sneakers.

Hot blood ran down to her hip as Molina bounded in pursuit. She passed the vague reflective doorway of the stainless-steel refrigerator as she heard the back door bang open and shut. Lights from the left blinded her.

She blinked wildly in that direction, finding the source in an adjoining room, maybe the den. Two table lamps, probably on timers, but controlled by yet a third person in the house.

And she glimpsed the operator.

A man standing by a chair. Wearing pants anyway. A silhouette.

She aimed the Beretta, but didn’t dare shoot a “what if.” What if he was a civilian? A security firm guard? Even a resident, even Max Kinsella? So she’d made herself into a deer in the headlights.

A bleeding deer in the headlights.

Damn, damn, damn.

The man laughed softly.

Chapter 43

Love and Hate: He Said, She Said

“I hate him and he won’t get out of my life!”

“I love her and she won’t let me into her life.”

The phone lines for the “Midnight Hour,” which ran for two hours now, it was so popular, were dishing up double doses of he-she angst tonight.

Matt was riding on the edge of his nerves. The whole male-female apache dance was getting to him.

He couldn’t help personalizing tonight: 1 hate Max Kinsella because he won’t get out of my life. I love Temple and she didn’t let me into her life (check that: bed) for so long.

But those declarations weren’t true in his case. He’d never hated Max; he’d even sympathized with him. He’d always understood why Temple hadn’t seen his fresh young sapling offirst love for the significant redwood forest that was Mighty Max. Matt had been reared to see two sides, even to his own life and loves.

Sometimes lately that felt downright wussy.

He watched the clock. The program’s two hours usually flew by as he probed the callers’ hearts and minds. Now he was impatient, as if something important was going on out there in the night he ought to know about, be in on.

Maybe it was the call that afternoon from his mentor in seminary-turned-FBI agent, Frank Bucek. He was in town to speak at some law enforcement seminar. Wanted to check in with Matt.

“I work really late.”

“You think I’m too old to stay up past midnight? I’ll catch your radio show, then we can hit one of the high-end hotels. Must be bars that serve cocktail menus all night long in this town.”

“Yeah, sure. I guess we can meet at the Venetian,” Matt had said like an old Vegas hand.

The idea of his former religious counselor hearing him on the radio advising the lovelorn and co-dependent unnerved him. Also, uh, his current ecstatic state of living in sin.

Father Frank had been his confessor all through seminary. He’d left the priesthood too, but at a much older age. Matt pictured him as staidly courting an ex-nun and marrying immediately, before any test runs, and having kids right away. Lots of kids that only stopped because the wife was menopausal pretty quick. No birth control, for sure.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. On all counts.

Matt had never regarded his radio gig as a performance, but tonight he did. Afterward, just past 2:00 A.M., he drove the Crossfire to the Venetian, rehearsing what he’d say. If asked.

Frank was at the bar, wearing a good gray suit that the Fontana brothers could probably nail as to designer and price level. Receding hair sharpened his features, and an intelligent, energetic air never failed him, in Roman collar or out of it. Matt realized as he approached that this was the father he’d always wished he’d had. Now that he had an image of his actual father, he still preferred Bucek. The man was brilliant. Why had he left the church after so long? And for the FBI?

Frank stood, holding out a hand with a crippling grip that Matt finally knew how to resist and return.

“Matt! Good work! You always were a remarkable diagnostician of the human soul. No wonder even Elvis called in to your show.”

“That was some pathological impersonator.”

“Not according to Quantico’s top sound analysis people. You could probably exploit those audio recordings.”

“Not my job.”

“No.” Bucek’s quick smile was pleased. “All restless souls deserve privacy, at the end. I ordered you a scotch.”

“Fine. How was the conference?”

“Both boring and exhilarating. The world runs on these things. Half the time I hate them, but half the time I love them.”

“You’re good in front of people.”

“And you’re not?”

“I fake it well.”

“Hmm. You fake the least of anybody I’ve ever known. That’s your problem. So what’s up with you?”

Matt sipped the straight-up scotch. It was almost as good as Max Kinsella’s Millennium brand that he’d shared first with Matt, in a private, bitter wake for Kathleen O’Connor. Almost. Nobody beat Kinsella for taste, especially in women.

“I’m engaged to be married,” Matt said.

“Well! A toast then, to the blushing bride. Who is she?”

“Temple, of course.”

“Not ‘of course.’ Nothing in your life has been ‘of course.’ Hard sometimes, but ultimately rewarding.”

Bucek clinked glass rims. “I must confess that I have mixed feelings about that young woman.”

“How so?” Matt asked cautiously.

“She’s bright, honest, gutsy. I’d be proud to be her father.” So far, so good. Father “Frankenfurter’s” favorable opinion was always hard-won in seminary.

“And I couldn’t help noticing that she is one sweet and delicious girly little number.”

“Am I blushing?” Matt asked.

“Nope. You’re too far gone already.”

“You’re probably right.”

Matt welcomed the combo plate of appetizers Frank had ordered coming down between them, hot and fried and distracting. “So when’s the wedding?” Frank asked after they’d each dipped into the cheese and crab and chicken wings.

“We don’t know. We haven’t met each other’s families yet.”

“You’re from Chicago, right?”

“Right. Temple’s family is in Minneapolis.”

“One quick trip, then, should do it.”

“You don’t know my family, especially since I found my birth father.”

“That’s wonderful, Matt.” Frank clapped him on the arm.

“Not for my mother.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, you don’t need to hear all that. Did you get married soon after you left St. Vincent’s?”

“Lord, no! I shopped around some first.”

Matt nearly choked on a chicken wing. “Dated, you mean.”

“Sure.” He eyed Matt. “You’ve been hooked on Miss Barr from the git-go, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. Knocked over, but she was taken. I tried to see other women. They were nice, attractive, but—”

“But no fireworks. So you outwaited the competition.”

“We’ve always been friends. I’ve always suspected she sensed we could be more.”

Bucek nodded. “You’d have been an idiot not to have been interested in her. Single gals of her quality aren’t out there at your age, and at mine. So, what is she?”