We might have gotten away with it, Patrick thought, climbing the steps of his father’s house. Two hours had passed. The street was still ablaze with lights from the smoldering fire and EMTs and fire crews.
We might have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for Mrs. O’B.
Mirho was history. Gone without a trace. Hilary had paid off her debts. Patrick had paid off his too. Who would ever even know, if they just wanted to keep it all quiet?
But there was Mrs. O’B. He recalled the last thing she had ever said to him.
“You make him pay, Patrick.” Make him pay.
He’d watched in silent rage after he’d rushed to the house and saw it burn. The house he had been inside a thousand times. Almost like his own house while he was growing up. He had to be restrained like the rest of the street to stay behind the perimeter. As he watched, knowing she was still inside, he had no idea if Landry had been behind this or not. Or whether it was a cigarette she hadn’t put out before falling asleep, as Patrick always warned.
But he suspected Landry was. And there was no way he could let him get away with any of it now. Now that they knew the whole story. Now that they had the one thing that could connect him back to Deirdre. Come morning, it would all have to come out. Whatever happened would happen, he and Hilary agreed.
That was clear when he stood there watching the last of her house burn down.
Deirdre, Tom. The last of her possessions.
They’d almost gotten away with it, but there was no hiding it now.
He was there when they finally carried her out. A small mound on the EMS stretcher. He was able to stop them for a second before they put her into the van. “Family?” they asked. “Yes,” he said. She was almost like a second mother to him. He was as close as she had there. Maybe fifty people from the neighborhood gathered around to watch. Friends, neighbors. He was able to touch her hand, which had fallen out from under the sheet.
Make him pay.
On his father’s porch, Patrick turned and saw a thin orange light start to creep over the towers of lower Manhattan. In a million years he would never have thought it would come to this. He’d spent his whole life doing what was right. He’d gotten himself into a good school, joined the force out of college when he could have done almost anything with his life. Rose quickly through the ranks. Took the community job when it was offered. Lots of cops crossed the line, committed crimes. But he was the last one he would ever have imagined doing it. Now he had and he would have to pay. Even if it had been for a good reason, helping out his sister.
The right reasons maybe, but still a crime. Just like Hilary had.
And now, when it was light, he would put a stop to it. They’d go to the police and turn themselves in.
He opened the door and stepped into his family’s home. The back deck was still partially open and Patrick felt a crisp breeze as he looked out at the bay. He had to call Hilary. He saw she had called him twice in the past hour and texted him where she was. At her friend Robin’s, she said. He was glad she was safe.
As he looked out, he saw in a flash how everything was linked. As if part of a vast chain, a chain that had linked so many unsuspecting and disparate parts. His dad. Mr. and Mrs. O’Byrne. Deirdre. Hilary. Even Rollie.
A car that drove off the road leading to an unsolved murder twenty years ago.
All connected to a storm, a storm that at first took everything they had and then washed some of it back onshore. He saw it that way, maybe for the first time.
He took out his phone and went to text Hilary back.
He never felt the person who came up from behind him. Only the hand that wrapped across his face, wrenching it backward, the blade driven deep into his side, unleashing a shock wave of searing pain.
He let out an agonizing gasp.
He was trained to protect himself, though he’d been behind a desk for many years. And maybe if he hadn’t been preoccupied he would have heard him and swung around. Or at least faced him, the person who was about to rob him of the one thing he’d sworn to do.
Make him pay.
But his killer had been trained too. For a lifetime.
Patrick reached back around him, the phone falling out of his grasp. He stabbed for his gun, but his strength leaked away, like water slowly circling down a drain. His assailant’s hand was viselike across his throat. The other hand removed the gun from Patrick’s belt and kicked it aside.
“You should have just left it all alone,” the man said into Patrick’s ear. “It was just a stupid little diary. It didn’t mean anything to anybody anymore. Just some old bitch . . .”
He dug the knife in deeper.
Patrick’s knees buckled. Yes, it did. It did matter. He reached for his side and felt the thick pool of blood matting there. It did! With a gasp, summoning everything he had, he bent and lifted his assailant into the air, staggering to keep upright, fighting the pain and his sagging strength, and rolled him over his back and onto the floor. He faced him, his legs jelly, the knife still in his abdomen.
Deirdre’s killer.
“It does matter,” Patrick said. It does.
He wanted with everything he had to show him just how much. Instead, he dropped to his knees. He dug at the knife, trying to pull it out. Everything grew gauzy.
He had to make him pay.
Landry got up. Patrick felt him come up behind him. He put his foot on Patrick’s back and pushed him onto the floor—Oh, Jesus, he wanted so bad to be able to show him—but now his gaze faced no farther than the man’s shoes.
“You’re probably wondering,” Landry said, “so I’ll tell you. It hardly matters now. I set the fire. After I killed her, of course. But I doubt they’ll ever know. I had to. I couldn’t let her bring me down. Or you, right? I mean, there were only three of you who knew. Who knew what those pages meant. The old woman. And we don’t have to worry about her anymore. You . . .”
He paused.
Hilary. Patrick flashed to her with trepidation. He wanted to say, No, no . . . He deserved this maybe, but she, no. . .
But by that time all his strength had pretty much emptied from him and he was able to make out the band of morning light growing brighter over the sky through the open doors.
He heard a voice that sounded very far away as Landry picked up his cell phone.
“Now there’s just one more . . .”