Chapter 10
ROWAN
I’m sitting at the kitchen island with my hands wrapped around a glass of water, staring at the blue and white backsplash behind the stove. I’ve been in this house, alone, waiting for my dad, for hours. He told me to hurry my ass home from the boat yard only to not be here when I arrived. If that isn’t a metaphor for our entire relationship, I don’t know what is. Physically absent he was not—just aloof, domineering, and completely uninterested in anything I’ve ever wanted or felt. So, I learned to take orders, to not want anything for myself, and to keep my feelings to myself. I’m a shitshow of detachment because he trained me to be. No, he tried to. He failed. Because Juliet is right, my coldness is an act. I don’t know whether she’s the first person who’s ever seen through the hard-ass fa?ade, or the first person to be brave enough to call me out on my bullshit, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been discovered. My cover’s blown. And I don’t want it back.
“There you are.” My dad’s voice… I was so ensconced in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the front door open, or the kitchen door swing on its squeaky hinges. Or maybe he’s the Irish-American iteration of a ninja. I notice a brown paper bag in his hand. He tosses it onto the island and it skids to a stop just out of my reach.
“I’ve been here. Where the hell have you been?”
He squints at me. He doesn’t like being challenged. I know that. But right now, I don’t give a fuck what he likes. This is not the time to leave me hanging. He’s the professional criminal here, and for the first time in my life I need his guidance. Shitty father, great mobster. He opens the refrigerator, grabs a can of Guinness, and takes a seat next to me. Guinness. Dark and bitter and such a cliché.
“Cleaning.” He pops the tab and swigs the can. “I never thought Calloway would have the balls to send his own kid to rip us off. How interesting.”
“Teague isn’t his kid, he’s his nephew.”
“It doesn’t make a difference; he treats him like his kid, he’s as good as his kid.” The evil glint in his eyes means he’s acquired a new target. To most people, family is a source of strength. To him, family is a weakness, a tool to be utilized for a person’s destruction. I never should’ve had any doubt: He is a sociopath. “He’s a soft little man. Soft and stupid. This is all the excuse I need to hit him where it hurts, take out the people he cares about most and watch his whole life crumble.”
He’s talking to himself aloud as if I’m not a foot away from him. It’s not something I’ve seen him do before. It makes him seem even more unhinged than I know him to be. The thought occurs to me that he won’t stop at Teague. Juliet has always been far removed from the family business, but merciless is Callum Monaghan’s middle name. She’s unsafe, and neither my love for her nor my desperate desire to protect her can make her safe. She has to be someone else, someplace else.
I feel the rising tide of panic inside me. It must be plain to see because my father, never one for comforting, pats my knee. “You didn’t shoot the kid, no worries. Just some upstart.” And then his hand is gone from me and clenching his beer can again. He takes a long gulp. “Either way, he’s dead?—”
Dead. The whole world falls out of focus, goes hazy and dark like I’m the one who passed away. I don’t process anything he says after that word; all I can hear is my own voice in my head spitting out synonyms for it: Deceased. Departed. Expired. Killed. Slain. Slaughtered. Yes, I did that. Me. I am a murderer.
Oh. There will be a wake. A funeral. A family mourning the loss of a son, a brother, maybe a husband and a father… And I can’t even go to express my sympathies, apologize until I’m out of breath, fall to the floor and plead for forgiveness, for some measure of absolution. My mind conjures the kids I’m not sure Gino has, crying over his cold body, over the casket as it’s lowered six feet into the ground, and in the future on birthdays, at dance recitals, graduations, weddings. So many tears for an absence that will always be felt and a Gino-shaped space that will never be filled. Don’t cry. You can’t cry. He cannot see you cry. “How do you know? How do you know he?—”
“One of our cops heard, called me with the news.” If it came from a cop, it’s real. Official. There might even be a report on a desk in a precinct somewhere, cold, technical, scrawled with scientific words describing a corpse rather than a man. “You’re a made woman now. Congratulations.” Another swig of beer.
Congratulations! Like I achieved a life goal. And I did. His life goal for me. I’m ready to take over for him when he decides he’s done. What is this feeling bursting in my core? It’s not anger or sadness or guilt. It must be a twisted amalgamation of all three. I want to take him by the throat and squeeze until the life drains out of him. I want to watch the light leave his irises. But that won’t fix things. Nothing will. I have to pay.
I leap up from my chair. He shoots his hand out and seizes my wrist. “I know what you’re thinking. If you want to throw your life away over some nobody you whacked, that’s one thing. But they’d try to use you to nail me. I can’t allow that. Toughen the fuck up.” There it is. The truth of who he is, laid bare: Self-absorbed, remorseless. And scared.
He’d deserve it if I ratted him out for every dirty deed I know about. But I’m not built that way. “So, you think I’d snitch. Am I as expendable as everyone else? You gonna kill me, Dad?”
He yanks his hand from my wrist as though I burned him. “I could kill anyone in the world except you. And no, I didn’t raise a snitch, but that doesn’t mean you’d never let anything slip. People fuck up under pressure. Even you.”
“Then what happens now?”
“I took care of it so the cops can’t tie anything to you. Still, there will be retaliation from the Calloways, which means you have to get gone for a while.” He nods at the paper sack. “There’s a hundred grand in there. Pack a bag and go. I don’t want to know where.”
“When and for how long?”
“Now and I don’t know. It takes as long as it takes for me to finish what I’ve started. I have to clean house first, then I’ll deal with the Calloways.”
Alistair. Juliet. Ben. Merrick. All the people I stand to lose, in one way or another. Merrick is on the outskirts of all this, never in on anything I didn’t bring him into, never with hands so dirty that he couldn’t wash them; he’ll be okay. Ben’s a dope but not stupid enough to try to wriggle his way back in, so he’ll be fine, too. Juliet is too big a problem for me to solve on my own; we need to work together on a plan. But Alistair… All it takes is a phone call. It’s not snitching, it’s warning. I owe him that. I owe myself that. I can’t have another man’s death on my conscience, and it would be—regardless of whether or not I’m the direct cause of it.
I crumple the bag of cash. “I pulled the trigger today and ended someone’s life. That’s on me. But the way this all played out is your fault. I’m never going to forgive you for it. I would’ve done anything for you, without question, except kill anyone in the world.”
He’s never once shown an ounce of emotion. I’ve never forced him to until now. He grimaces as he says, “I know.”
Maine. I’m going to a small beach town called Phippsburg, then on to a campsite on Hermit Island in the middle of Casco Bay. It’s Jules’s choice. She’s never been there but says the white sand shimmers like diamonds in the sunlight and the water is warm and inviting, ideal for swimming. “Yes,” I say, sans hesitation. She’s going to meet me there tomorrow morning. We both need it.
She knows that Gino is gone from the world. I hate that I’m the one to tell her almost as much as I hate myself for being the one who took him out of it. I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to the question weighing heavy on me, yet I ask it anyway.
“Do you hate me?” I focus hard on her eyes through the FaceTime video. I know how sly she is, how effortlessly she can hide or bend the truth, but she can’t keep the honesty from her eyes.
“Of course not. But I do hate that it happened, how it happened.” Then she cries. Quiet tears. And at last, after years of not letting myself, I cry. No, I sob. Noisy and trembling. I don’t know how long we cry together before we hang up, but I understand going forward things will be different between us. We both put our vulnerability on full display. Neither of us take that lightly. There’s no doubt left that what we have is real.
I wipe my sodden face, collect myself as best I can, open my closet, all my dresser drawers, and start piling handfuls into an oversized duffle bag—things I might need and things I probably won’t but would miss: Clothes, shoes, sundries, my phone charger, my favorite books, and the tiny Boston Red Sox beanie bear my mom gave me when I was five. It’s the last remnant I have of her. I remember how much she loved baseball. All my memories of her are with her long black hair loose and topped with a Sox cap. My gun is on my nightstand. I’m bringing it, but only so I can chuck it into the fucking ocean. I shove it, and the cash, into my duffle, zip it closed, then pick up my phone again.
The line rings once. “Hey, kid, what’s up?” Alistair sounds happy to hear from me.
I’m not happy to speak to him. As much as I care for him, he still betrayed my father, and trustworthiness is the one thing he instilled in me that I’m proud of. “Don’t come back to Boston. Don’t stay in New York, either. Take your wife and go somewhere far away. My dad knows you’ve been working with the Calloways and he’s going to handle it the way he handles everything.”
“Oh, Christ, Ben!” His voice shakes. That’s how a parent should react when there’s trouble: Priority number one, get the children to safety.
“He’s out. I got him out. But make a plan for him to meet you in case my dad changes his mind. What the shit went through your thick skull crossing him, Al?”
“Callum is dangerous and getting more dangerous by the day.”
“And Patrick Calloway isn’t?”
“He’s the lesser of two evils. He’s hard, but he gives a shit about his people.”
“Fuck ’em both. And fuck you, too.” I hang up on him.
I take a last look around my room and it hits me that it was never mine. My father chose everything in it, even the color of the walls. I hate purple. I’d have picked teal.
I shoulder my bag, turn off the lights, and shut the door behind me.
Downstairs, my father is standing on the black and white checkered tile in the foyer, blocking my path to the front door. What else could he have to say to me? There’s nothing left. We are unsalvageable. “I did the best I could for you.”
He did his best? That’s laughable. I’d have been better off if he left me on the side of a fucking highway to fend for myself. “Sure.”
“I’ll let you know when you can come home.”
Don’t bother. “Okay.”
He moves in a way that makes me think he’s going to try to hug me. I flinch. That’s something I longed for, for years, a small show of affection. Not anymore. He steps out of the way.
I take the porch stairs two at a time. When I reach the sidewalk, I turn around and stare at the brownstone, standing tall and bright against the dark sky over Commonwealth Avenue. For the briefest of moments, I contemplate burning it to the ground. To hell with Callum Monaghan. I am not going to be his voiceless pawn anymore. I don’t care if I never set foot in this house, on this street, or in this city again. My life will be mine from this night forward. I flip the house—and my father—the bird, then head for my Jeep.
Interstate 95 is dark. I forgot how unlit the freeways are once you hit the North Shore. I swear I haven’t seen a streetlamp since Somerville. My HD headlights do a good job of cutting through the darkness, and my Wrangler is a behemoth that could withstand a direct hit from a Russian rocket, yet for some unnamable reason I’m uneasy. It’s a sensation I’ve had since leaving the Back Bay. Try as I might to rationalize, I’m failing. Something’s off. I’m waging a war with myself to get good with the events of the day. There’s nothing I can do to change the outcome, and maybe that’s it: I feel unsettled because I am unsettled.
I glance at my sideview mirrors, left and right, and then my rearview. It’s late on a weeknight so there’s no traffic, save for a dark-colored Mercedes SL Roadster a few car lengths behind me. There’s something familiar about it, which doesn’t track—it’s a very expensive model you don’t see on the road too often, especially in Massachusetts; rear-wheel drive sucks in the snow.
I pull a quick sweep across four lanes, from the fast lane to the slow lane, then watch my rearview. The Merk doesn’t sweep, but it does slink lanes until it’s behind me again. Unnecessary. I pick up speed, sweep the whole roadway again. It follows.
I’ve been sharing asphalt with this car since Boston. I was aware of it but didn’t think anything of it. Now it’s undeniable: I’m being tailed.
I floor the gas pedal. The HEMI engine roars like a pissed-off lion whose slumber was interrupted; the Wrangler charges forward. Ninety, ninety-five, one hundred miles per hour. This bad bitch is made for off-roading, top speed of 120 mph. I can’t outpace a Roadster built for velocity. I’m boxy, not aerodynamic, which means I can’t outmaneuver it either, and whoever’s driving the Merk is determined to stay on my ass. What’s saving me is the distance between us, which is closing fast.
I read the highway sign.
exit 86, newburyport/route 113, 2 miles
Okay, I know Newburyport. I’ve delivered blow to some stupid rich people there. I decide to use the Mercedes’ speed to my advantage. I slow down to seventy, then stomp on the brake. The Wrangler rattles as it skids to a stop a few hundred yards beyond the exit. The smell of burned rubber assaults my nostrils as the Roadster races past me. I throw the car in reverse, then gun for the exit, over the grassy knoll and curb that separates it from the highway.
Route 113 is even more sparsely lit than 95, another thing that works to my gain. I drive a few miles then turn left down a side street. I park the Jeep, grab my phone from the dash, my duffle from the front seat, and hop out. If I were dumping a car under normal circumstances, I’d take all the paperwork, remove the license plates, and file the VIN, but I don’t have time for that if Mr. Hot Pursuit is trying to find me. I settle for the paperwork alone. The worst thing that’ll happen is it’ll get towed, and I’ll have to retrieve it from impound.
Most of the cars in driveways and lining the street are unsuitable for what I have planned, late models with push-button starters and active alarms—not impossible, just time consuming—but at the far corner I find the one, a nineties Chevy Camaro. Bonus, it’s teal! I peer inside, try the handle. The driver’s side door is unlocked; no surprise in a bougie neighborhood like this. I slide in, pop the steering wheel column cover, locate the central wires, and get to work stripping their plastic coating with my keychain knife. Brown to yellow, battery to lights and radio, twist. The car’s electrical system splutters to life. Add the red and green wires for the ignition and starter, twist. Gas pedal to the metal. Vroom vroom. Fuck yeah!
I handle the clutch, pop the gearshift into first and just like that, we’re off. I’m in fourth gear before I even get back to the interstate. Speeding away in a stolen car has always been exciting. It’ll never not be. That’s how I know there are parts of me that will forever be untamable. Felonious. But street smarts aren’t necessarily a bad thing to possess when you’re in a bind. Thanks for teaching me something useful, however messed up, Dad.
I don’t know who’s driving the Mercedes, but there’s no sign of them as I cross the border into New Hampshire. Twenty miles in, fifty miles in. Nothing. I want to call my dad and ask him about it. He knows, or can find out, everything. That was yesterday’s solution to yesterday’s problems. Today’s problems are mine. Anyway, it makes no difference who or why. As long as I can outrun them, I’ll be golden.
It’s close to midnight when I arrive in Phippsburg. There are things I want to get done before Jules arrives tomorrow. If there’s anyone who deserves a vacation, it’s her. I might have ruined it, but there might be something I can do to save some enjoyment for her, and that means I need to get an early start. I find the closest hotel—a shitty Econostay—park the Camaro, laugh at how it fits right in with the rest of the beaters in the guest parking lot, and get a room for the night.
The mattress is hard as a slab of concrete, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I’m so exhausted—mentally, emotionally, and physically—that I could sleep on a bed of hot coals. Tomorrow is going to be better than today.