“I heard you.”

  “Then answer it. Who are you?”

  “I’m the guy who patched you up and is about to call for an ambulance. Unless I miss my guess, you’re going to need about three dozen stitches to keep your brains from leaking out and running down the inside of your shirt.”

  “No,” Burke said.

  “No? What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Not familiar with the word?”

  “I’m familiar with it,” Jack said, “but I can’t imagine how it applies in this situation. You need medical attention. Maybe you haven’t noticed the ocean of blood surrounding you on the floor? That’s all yours.”

  “You’re not calling an ambulance. I’ll drive myself to the goddamned hospital when I’m finished here. And you never answered my question. Who are you?”

  “I did answer your question, at least as much as I intend to.”

  “I recognize that voice,” Burke said. His eyebrows knitted together in concentration, causing him to grimace in pain. He shook his head and blew out a shaky breath. “You’re the upstanding citizen who called in the tip that almost got me killed.”

  “The tip didn’t almost get you killed,” Jack answered calmly. “The fact that you didn’t take it seriously was what almost got you killed.”

  “Touché,” Burke grumbled. He didn’t argue the point, though, a fact that raised Jack’s estimation of the man a notch. “You didn’t happen to see where the kid went after he whacked me with the bottle, did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Shocker. Care to share that information with law enforcement? You know, since you’re such a civic-minded gentleman and all.”

  “No problem. He left the house at a trot and headed straight to his car.”

  Burke groaned, and not just from the pain he had to be feeling. “If I’ve been out long enough for you to do…this,” he gestured at the towel wrapped around his head with a shaking right hand, “he could be halfway to Connecticut or Maine or just about anywhere by now.”

  The cop tried to push himself to his feet and to Jack’s amazement he actually succeeded. “I need to get an APB out right now.” He stood in the middle of the living room, swaying but not falling, and all Jack could think was that he looked exactly like an extra in The Walking Dead TV show.

  “No you don’t,” jack said, shaking his head and lifting his hands. “Sit down before you fall down. I said he headed toward his car, but that was before I intercepted him and returned him here.”

  Burke made a show of looking around the living room before dropping to one knee to steady himself. “What did you do, make him invisible?”

  “Nope, I used your cuffs to secure him to a drain pipe in the kitchen. He’s a little uncomfortable at the moment, so I’m guessing most of the fight has probably drained right out of him. See what I did there? Drained right out of him?”

  Burke scowled. “My tolerance for stupid humor is at an all-time low right now.”

  Jack chuckled. “No accounting for taste, I guess. Anyway, I doubt Carson will give you much trouble from here on out.”

  “You used my cuffs?”

  Jack shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea under the circumstances.”

  “Listen, Mr. Good Samaritan, I don’t know what y—” Burke’s voice trailed off as a look of panic came into his eyes. He opened his suit coat and reached for the gun that was no longer tucked into his shoulder holster.

  “Goddammit,” he said, and sighed. “The punk took my fucking gun. I’ll never live that one down. Goddammit.”

  “No one but you and I will ever know,” Jack answered, trying to keep the smile out of his voice but not quite succeeding. “And I’ll never tell. Your weapon is safe.”

  “Let me guess, you took it off the Carson kid.”

  “Again,” Jack said, “it—”

  “I know, I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Jack spread his hands and nodded.

  “So how about you hand it over?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll hold onto it for just a little longer.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, my friend.”

  “I would say, saving your ass and capturing the killer who got the drop on you constitutes the opposite of fucking with you, wouldn’t you?”

  “Give me my gun right now,” Burke said quietly, his voice filled with implied menace. “You’re already in enough trouble. Don’t make it worse.”

  Jack grinned. “See, I was afraid we might not see eye to eye on this, which was why I was holding onto it in the first place. I’m not going to take your gun, I promise. I don’t even want your gun. I’ll drop it in your car on my way out. I’ll even lock the doors afterward so it doesn’t…get away…again.”

  “I’ll follow you out and recover it and arrest you at the same time.”

  “What do you intend to arrest me for? Aiding too much in a homicide investigation? Practicing emergency medicine without a license? Being too helpful?”

  “I’ll arrest you for interfering with an ongoing investigation, goddammit.”

  “By apprehending your suspect and keeping you from bleeding to death?”

  “I’ll come up with something, dammit.”

  “Listen,” Jack said. “It’s a moot point, anyway. The way you feel right now, you’ll be lucky to get Carson into custody by yourself, which, for the record, I think is a bad idea. Call for help.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Burke grumbled.

  “My point is that you’re shaky and injured. You can no more follow me outside and arrest me if I don’t want to be arrested than you could run a marathon right now. And, spoiler alert, I’m not interested in being arrested today. I have dinner plans.”

  “I want to know exactly who the hell you are and exactly what the hell you think you’re doing,” Burke said. He was still down on one knee, but he was a large man, and imposing, even injured and clearly not operating at one hundred percent.

  “We’ve already covered all that.”

  “Not to my satisfaction, we haven’t.”

  “You’ll have to get over it,” Jack said. He turned toward the door and then stopped and returned his attention to Burke. “Try not to lose Carson again,” he said, being sure to keep his tone light and the smile on his face. “I can’t continue cleaning up after you indefinitely.”

  He stepped through the front door and pulled it firmly closed behind him, muffling, but not eliminating, the sound of Detective Matt Burke’s angry threats. It took six seconds to walk to Burke’s car and another four to lock his gun inside it.

  Then he was gone.

  33

  Jack considered attempting subterfuge to lure Amber Spinelli from her plush Four Seasons hotel suite, but ultimately decided against it. He doubted going to such lengths would be necessary. She would show soon enough.

  Everything he’d observed about Rocco Spinelli’s widow during their interview told him she would quickly tire of sitting inside a hotel with only her mother for company, if she hadn’t already. She was a beautiful, rich, suddenly available young blonde woman in a major metropolitan city. If he was willing to exhibit a little patience, he was confident he’d see her.

  Plus, his immediate future included no particular plans that would prevent him from sitting outside the Four Seasons drinking coffee and reading the Boston Globe. Edie was busy at the diner, and he’d heard nothing from Mr. Stanton about any pending assignments.

  If Amber Spinelli didn’t show after a few days of waiting and watching, he would move on to Plan B. It would be easy enough, although admittedly a little risky, to resurrect his cop persona for one more interview if it came to that. And what the hell, he thought, this whole Spinelli business has been one major risk-fest, from the moment I walked into Spinelli’s house until Burke picked the worst possible moment to regain consciousness.

  Seeing Amber Spinelli again wasn’t even strictly necessary. But Jack had a few questions for the grieving widow and it wasn’t in his nature to put partially solved puzzles away.

  So he sat in yet another rental car, drinking coffee from a street vendor that was surprisingly good and stepping to the sidewalk every couple of hours to feed the parking meter. He rarely paid attention to any part of the newspaper, but David Carson’s arrest was today’s lead story. He read it with interest, noting with satisfaction that the official version included nothing about an armed vigilante detaining the accused murderer while the arresting officer lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor.

  It also appeared that Matt Burke was going to be okay, a development Jack was happy to see. For all the man’s bluster and threats, Jack was surprised to discover he liked the guy. In many ways, Burke reminded Jack of himself, an odd development considering they were, at least theoretically, on opposite sides of the crime and punishment fence.

  Theoretically.

  The reality was that The Organization’s goals were more aligned with law enforcement’s than might be readily apparent. They both worked to get the worst offenders off the streets and thereby protect the public. They just used very different methods to accomplish those goals.

  Jack had arrived outside the Four Seasons at six a.m., knowing the likelihood of Amber Spinelli being out and about at that early hour was virtually nil. She hadn’t struck Jack as an early riser during their previous meeting. She seemed more like the “party all night and sleep ‘til noon” type, even with a recently deceased husband.

  So he’d known he probably wouldn’t see her for a while, if he saw her at all. But he’d wanted to beat the commute into the city and also secure a decent parking spot: one close enough to the hotel to observe the front entrance but also far enough away to avoid being recognized by Spinelli should she hit the sidewalk.

  It was now nearly ten-thirty, and Jack was considering whether to leave his observation post for ten minutes to get a fresh coffee—it really was good—when his target showed. She strode out of the Four Seasons with all the haughty regality of a billionaire, passing the doorman without a glance or any form of acknowledgement and heading down the sidewalk away from Jack.

  The best part was that she was alone. No protective mother to filter out a line of questioning she didn’t like.

  Jack smiled and folded the paper neatly in half, then placed it on the passenger seat. He waited a moment to be sure Spinelli didn’t turn around and reverse course—you never knew when someone might realize she’d forgotten her wallet—and then he climbed out of the car, locked the doors, and followed at a reasonable distance.

  She never looked back.

  A block-and-a-half after leaving the Four Seasons, Amber Spinelli veered off the sidewalk and entered a high-end coffee shop called, for reasons Jack could not immediately discern, Save the Bees. He lingered outside as she walked to a display case and picked out a muffin. She then paid for her breakfast, received a cup for coffee, and disappeared deeper into the establishment.

  That was when Jack entered Save the Bees.

  He walked to the same display case Spinelli had just visited, bypassing the muffin but ordering a coffee. He was unsurprised to learn the identical drink would cost almost four times as much here as it had at the curbside vendor he’d visited earlier. Apparently, saving the bees was an expensive proposition.

  He accepted his paper cup—adorned with an artist’s rendering of a smiling honeybee—and turned in the direction he’d seen Amber Spinelli go. The coffee bar was located behind a wall adjacent to the restaurant’s seating area, and while a quick scan of the tables didn’t reveal Spinelli, Jack knew she had to be here.

  Unless she’d seen him following her and ducked out the back door.

  He poured his coffee out of a giant urn and turned toward the dining room. It was good-sized for downtown Boston standards. Jack decided the reason the coffee was so damned expensive probably had more to do with the fact that it was costing the owner of Save the Bees an arm and a leg to lease the dining room than because he was donating money to his favorite cause.

  He stood for a moment and finally spotted Spinell at the back of the dining room, seated alone at a small table. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings as she broke small pieces off her muffin and chewed them slowly while reading a front-page newspaper article. Jack knew it was the same story about David Carson’s arrest that he had read earlier.

  He threaded his way through the crowded restaurant. She never raised her eyes from the paper, even as he approached her table and stopped next to it.

  He cleared his throat loudly and she still didn’t look up.

  “Whatever you’re selling,” she said, placing one slim finger on the article to avoid losing her place, “I’m not interested.”

  “I’m not selling anything,” Jack said. “In fact, the opposite is true. I’m buying.”

  Spinelli pursed her lips in frustration and lifted her eyes to glare at the person annoying her. She said, “Well, I’m not selling anything, eith…”

  Her voice trailed away and her eyes widened and she said, “It’s you.”

  “Yes,” Jack agreed. “It’s me.”

  “What do you want? I told Detective Burke about our ‘interview’ and he said you’re not a real police officer. He said he didn’t know who the hell you were. So who the hell are you?”

  “May I join you?” Jack said. “I promise I won’t take up too much of your time.” He slipped into the empty seat across from Spinelli without waiting for an invitation.

  “No, you may not join me. You’re not going to take up any of my time. In fact, if you don’t get up and leave right this instant, I’ll call the police and report you for harassment. They’re looking for you anyway, you know.”

  “You could call the police,” Jack agreed. “But of course if you do, I’ll tell them exactly why I wanted to see you, and then I won’t be the only one answering pointed questions. And regardless of what happens to me, I doubt they’ll be satisfied with allowing you to eat overpriced food and drink overpriced coffee while they ask those questions. And I especially doubt they’ll be satisfied with your answers.”

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion and she repeated, “What do you want?”

  And Jack smiled.

  34

  “The first thing I want to know,” Jack said, “is how long you’ve been screwing David Carson.”

  Amber Spinelli’s head jerked back as if she’d been slapped. Then she blinked hard, twice, and then she stared at Jack as if he’d suddenly materialized in his chair out of thin air.

  Then she said, “Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Jack laughed as if she’d told a particularly funny joke and then took a sip of his coffee. The brew he’d gotten from the curbside vendor was better.

  He said, “I hope you were a more effective liar with your husband than you are sitting here with me. Because if not, I guarantee he knew about your affair, and probably for a long time.”

  “Affair? You’re out of your mind!” Her voice was shrill and strident, but she never raised it, clearly concerned about being overheard by patrons at other tables. There was little chance of that happening, though, unless she began screaming. The place was busy, noisy with the buzz of conversation and the clatter of plates and silverware.

  “Really?” Jack pretended to consider her statement. “You truly don’t understand what I’m referring to regarding David Carson?”

  “I don’t have the first clue,” she insisted.

  “Then you must have a real problem with reading comprehension. I stood across the dining room and watched you poring over that front-page Globe piece about the man who’s been placed under arrest for the murder of your husband. David Carson’s name is mentioned seventeen times in that article. I know, because I counted.”

  Amber Spinelli stared at Jack. She appeared completely dumbfounded.

  “And, of course, I can’t imagine Detective Burke wouldn’t have mentioned the name of the suspect when he called you to tell you they’d made an arrest.”

  “I…well, I didn’t…”

  “But you were already familiar with David Carson, weren’t you, Mrs. Spinelli? Intimately so. You’ve been seeing him for quite some time, haven’t you?”

  By now a change had come over the young widow. Her entire façade shifted. The flustered, fearful, confused girl was gone and in her place was a cold, calculating, steely-eyed woman who looked less like the grieving spouse of a murder victim than the potential mastermind of that murder.

  The transformation was astounding and chilling.

  “You can’t prove a fucking thing,” she said, her voice low and confident.

  “I don’t need to prove anything. As you so accurately stated, I’m not a cop. And I’m sure as hell no prosecuting attorney.”

  “Then we’re back to my original questions. Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Who I am is a guy with an overdeveloped sense of curiosity. What I want are some answers. And you just gave me the answer to my most important question. Thank you for that.”

  Spinelli then surprised Jack. “How did you figure it out?” She had apparently decided further denials were pointless.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “How so?”

  “I spent a long time trying to understand the timing. How could a street punk like David Carson have known when you were going to be out of town, thereby establishing your alibi, before taking out your husband? And why would he bother waiting? There was only one possibility: you were working together. And if you were working together, the likelihood was overwhelming that you were having an affair.”

  She surprised Jack again by scoffing as though he’d said something humorous. “Are you kidding me? That’s a stretch.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  “Coincidence, dumbass. I just happened to be out of town when that guy you already admitted was a ‘street punk’ broke into our house and killed my husband. It was sheer luck I wasn’t murdered as well.”

  “You think the ‘sheer luck’ angle is going to hold up with Burke? Because if the affair occurred to me, I’m pretty sure it’s occurred to him as well, even with a serious head wound.”

 

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