Prior Bad Acts

“No,” he conceded. “He won’t cooperate. The first thing he’ll do is squeal for a lawyer, and then we’re fucked.”

He looked away and sighed. “I don’t know what to say, Boss. I’d throw the jerk into a snake pit if I could, but if we bring him in on what I’ve got, that just gives him time to circle the wagons, tip off the doer.”

Dawes nodded. “All right. We can put a tail on him.”

“You can get the overtime for that?”

“Already blessed from on high. The brass wants this doer’s head on a silver platter.”

“I mean to make that happen,” Kovac said. “I’ll even stick an apple in his mouth for the ceremony.”

31

THE TRIAL WAS over. It hadn’t come out well for Ke

Stan was shaking, sweating, exhilarated. There was still a small part of his brain that was horrified and terrified of the other emotions roaring through him. But that part was smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker. With justice came strength. Might with right.

Stan’s justice was pure and simple. There were no games, no loopholes, no getting off on a technicality. There was only right and wrong.

For the first time in his life, Stan Dempsey felt powerful.

To any casual observer going down the street, Ke

If his former colleagues discovered Ke

He calmly drove to another neighborhood and parked his uncle’s truck. In the back, under the camper shell, he ate a couple of bologna sandwiches with slices of midget gherkins in them and drank some coffee from his thermos.

He didn’t think about what he had just done. He didn’t try to recall the panic in the lawyer’s eyes, the screams the man had to swallow behind the duct tape that covered his mouth.

The rush the memory of meting out punishment gave was a thing unique to criminals, to serial killers, to men like Karl Dahl. That reaction belonged to the criminals who indulged in cruelty because it excited them. For those men, the memories were as important as the crime itself. They would relive their exploits over and over in their minds.

Stan didn’t think of himself as a criminal. He was just doing a necessary job no one else would do.

He finished his lunch and cleaned his hands off with a wet wipe. It was time for him to move on to the next name on his list.

Carey Moore.

32

IT SEEMED TO take days for the hours to pass. Carey spent the rest of the afternoon in her bedroom with Lucy, playing nurse, taking her temperature with a toy thermometer, and giving her “medicine”-M amp;M’s.

They napped, though Carey couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. The tension was exhausting. She passed the time second-guessing herself.

Maybe this wasn’t the time to confront David. Maybe she should wait until the rest of this nightmare was over. Except that she didn’t know her husband wasn’t a part of it. She didn’t want to stay under the same roof with a man who might have arranged to have her killed. She didn’t want her daughter in the same house as him.

She worried about Lucy, who was already feeling insecure and clingy. But was there ever a good time for a child’s parents to end their marriage? No.

She thought about sending Lucy to Kate and John Qui

She would wait to speak to David until after Lucy was asleep. Anka would make sure Lucy didn’t go downstairs in the event she woke up. Carey was very thankful the na

What a sad thing, Carey thought, that she could trust her na

David ordered Chinese for di

“How’s your moo goo, Lucy Goosie?” David asked, smiling at his daughter.

“I’m Fairy Princess Lucy now, Daddy! Detective Sam said so.”

“Detective Sam?” He looked at Carey.

“He was at the courthouse, Daddy,” Lucy went on. “He was my pretend giant, and he carried me all the way to the car. Isn’t that nice?”

“Yes, very,” David said. “Why was he at the courthouse?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy said with a big shrug, going back to her di

“I’m his case,” Carey said. “He was keeping tabs on me.”

“You should have stayed in the hospital,” David said for the tenth time.

“So I could not eat there?” she said too sharply. “So they could force-feed me Jell-O?”

“I like Jell-O,” Lucy piped up. “I like green Jell-O best. My friend Kelly’s mom puts pieces of carrots in her green Jell-O. Isn’t that weird?”

Carey smiled at her daughter.

“I like pineapple in mine,” Lucy said. “It’s pretty.”

“You look ready to collapse, Carey,” David said. “And you’re out ru

He actually looked concerned for her, and she wondered if any of that look was genuine. A part of her hoped so, even though her practical side told her no. If David cared about her, he wouldn’t have been doing what he’d been doing. The more likely explanation was that he wanted her out of his hair so he could do whatever he wanted to do over the weekend. What had Kovac said her name was? Gi

“Did you get your paperwork?” he asked. “I didn’t see you bring anything in from the car.”

“I forgot it was in my briefcase, which was stolen.”

“So you went down there for nothing.”

“Do I need to pay you back for the gas I used?” Carey asked with a fine edge of sarcasm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

He went to say something more but stopped himself, held up his hands in surrender, and pushed back from the table. “Excuse me, ladies. I have work to do. I’m applying for a grant for the film.”

Carey didn’t comment. Before this day, she would have encouraged him, tried to be supportive, even though she had long since tired of that game. The time for being David’s cheerleader had passed. The time to move on had arrived.

The evening was passed with Lucy, painting toenails and reading stories. After she had tucked her daughter in bed and sat with her until she’d gone to sleep, Carey showered and dressed in a loose pair of jeans and an oversized black button-down shirt. It was one of her father’s old shirts. Wrapping herself in it was like wrapping herself in the memory of her father’s strength.

It was important to her to feel as strong and secure as she could. Confronting David in pajamas wouldn’t do that.

Lucy had been in bed nearly an hour. Once she was sound asleep, it was rare for her to wake up before morning. The sleep of the i