Annalisa awoke facedown on her mattress, hair plastered against her cheek. She jerked upright, immediately on threat alert because of a shadowy presence in her room. “Relax.” Nick’s voice penetrated the adrenaline rush in her brain. He stood by her door wearing a pair of snug jeans and a smirk. “It’s just me. I made coffee and I thought you might like some.”
“Be there in a minute,” she mumbled, yanking her nightshirt down over her bare thighs. When he left, she staggered into the bathroom and took the world’s hottest shower. She hoped the stinging water would revive her enervated skin and wash out the vague nausea rippling in her stomach. She felt hungover and strung out, whirled backward by a sinister time machine that left Nick Carelli once again shirtless in her kitchen and the monster from her childhood prowling the streets. She stood under the shower spray for a long time and felt almost human when she emerged. She pulled on some clothes, and thankfully, Nick had done the same. He wore a crisp white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, which somehow failed to show a single wrinkle despite the fact that he’d slept on her couch. He held a coffee mug in one hand and the framed picture of her family and the Duffys in the other.
“I remember you had this back at our old apartment,” he said. “I didn’t know then what it meant.”
You never asked, she thought, but she couldn’t blame him. They had been careful not to ask each other anything that mattered. She took the other steaming mug from the counter and tried a small sip. Milk with a hint of sugar, just the way she liked it. She hid a smile in the rim of the cup and went around the island to stand next to him so she could see the picture too. “After she died, I stared at this photo for hours. I wanted to crawl inside it.”
“I know what you mean.”
She regarded him curiously. He took a breath and set the photo gently in front of them. “My father shot my mother to death when I was eight years old.”
Her jaw fell open in horror. “What? And you never told me?”
He gave her a pointed look. “I guess that makes us even.”
“You said your mother died in an auto accident and that you never knew your dad.”
“That’s the story I told everyone.” He took a deep breath. “She was leaving him. We’d moved out into a new apartment. My bedroom had pink walls and I hated it. She told me I could pick out any new color I wanted, but I never got that chance. One night, I woke up to hear him shouting at her, and her crying. She was begging him. Don’t hurt Nicky. Don’t hurt Nicky. Then the gunshots. They were the loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life. The neighbors called 911, but it was too late.”
She shook her head as she tried to absorb the story. “What happened to him?”
“The cops went on the hunt. They found him in his car outside an abandoned Burger King. He’d shot himself in the head.”
“Nick … I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “I went to live with my grandma, my mom’s mom. She was nice, but every morning for a year I’d wake up thinking maybe it was all a dream. But then I’d see the blue walls, not pink, and I’d remember the truth.”
“You never told me.”
“You have to understand,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be true. I spent my whole childhood as the kid whose mom got shot by his dad. First thing I did when I hit eighteen was to leave Jacksonville as far behind me as possible.”
“You came up here,” she said, piecing the story together.
“Yeah. I got real good at convincing myself it was over, that I was happy. Got my own place with my own white walls. Got a job and some friends who had no idea what happened when I was a kid. I ignored the part where if I was alone for two minutes, I felt like I was coming out of my skin.”
For her, it had been a depression, a lead weight on her chest. She’d lain in bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the silence in the house—Vinny and Tony were gone away at school, Alex was off drinking, Pops was out driving the streets, hunting a faceless killer. Ma cooked so many dinners that no one ever ate.
“When I met you,” Nick continued, “I had a sense of recognition, but I didn’t understand why.” He gave her a ghost of a smile. “I think I see it now. We have the same holes, you and me.”
At that moment, she felt like Swiss cheese. “You may be right.”
He looked down at the picture of her and Colin with their arms around each other. “I guess there are a lot of things we kept from each other.”
Her phone started ringing on the far end of the counter, and they shared a look of instant panic. “It’s my personal cell,” she said, reaching for it. The caller ID said it was Alex. “Hello?”
“Hey, sorry to bother you so early, but we have a situation. Pops fell and broke his hip. He’s in the hospital being prepped for surgery now.”
“What hospital? When did this happen?”
“Northwestern. Mom found him at the bottom of the ladder to the attic early this morning. From her description, he took quite the crash.”
“What the hell was he doing upstairs, let alone trying to get into the attic?”
“You know Pops. He refuses to believe he’s disabled. I’m here with Ma and Tony. Vin’s on his way, too.”
“I’ll be right there.” As she hung up, she remembered that her car was still parked downtown at the station. Nick already had his keys at the ready.
“Your dad?”
“He fell and broke his hip. They’re going to operate to fix it.”
He drained the last of his coffee and nodded to the door. “Let’s get over there, then.”
Annalisa fidgeted in her seat, her anxiety rising as they hit the Monday-morning traffic. Chicago streets became gridlocked, entire light cycles passing with no forward progress or movement as cars crammed the intersections. “I should get out and walk. It’d be faster.”
Nick remained loose and calm even as people started laying on their horns around them. “Your dad is as tough as a Bears lineman. He’ll be all right.”
Annalisa snorted. “The toughest part of him is his thick skull. He knows better than to be climbing around in the attic.” At last, traffic inched forward half a block. Annalisa bit back a groan as they halted again. Nick used the wait to bring up a sore spot from the night before.
“St. Thecla’s church,” he said. “You said it’s the one you go to?”
“Used to go to,” she corrected. “My parents are still active there.” She should say a prayer for Pops now, she realized with a sudden shame. She might be lapsed, but Pops still attended Mass every Sunday. The least she could do was to put in a good word on his behalf. She closed her eyes and prayed for his health and safety. As if her silent hopes were granted, traffic opened up after the light and cars moved more freely down the street. Relief flowed through her, and she leaned her body forward in the seat, urging them on.
“You need to tell them, then,” Nick said.
“Tell who what?”
“Your caller last night didn’t pick that church at random. There’s got to be a thousand to choose from, and yet he hangs a noose in the one you attended as a kid. How’s he supposed to have guessed that if you don’t go to Mass anymore?”
“He was watching my parents,” she said as she followed his logic. She cursed softly and balled her hands in her lap. “Can’t you go any faster?”
At the hospital, she discovered all three of her older brothers managed to beat her to the waiting room, as usual. She was always the last to know, the last to get a say. The Vega family had run just fine for years before she’d joined it already in progress, and they had never granted her a seat on the family council even as a legal, voting adult. Her elders still treated her like she was five years old and wanted to name the family schnauzer Mr. Stinky Feet. Vinny engulfed her in a big hug. “You made it,” he said, as though she had been missing for days. She reached up and rubbed his bald head.
“How’s Pops?”
“Ma’s back there with him. The nurses are doing something with him now, and we’re waiting on the surgeon to get scrubbed in or something. We’re hoping to see him again before they slice and dice him.” He looked past her for the first time and saw Nick hovering by the water cooler. “What’s he doing here?”
“He gave me a ride.”
“I didn’t know he was back in town,” Vinny said, making a face like he’d just learned of a disease outbreak.
Alex came over to join the party. “Is that Nick Carelli?”
Nick waved and edged toward the group. “Hey, Alex. Sorry to hear about your dad.”
Alex wasn’t having it. He stepped forward, his chest puffed out. “If I remember right, I still owe you a punch in the face.”
“Alex, please. Not now.” Annalisa laid a hand on his arm.
“What’d you bring him for? He’s not family.”
“It’s about work. We’re working together.”
“Work? You dragged the job in here with you now? When Pops is about to go under the knife?”
His agitation brought Tony over to the conversation. “What’s going on?” he asked as he put a large, gentle hand on the back of Annalisa’s neck. He rubbed the tension there and she slipped an arm around him in thanks. His black curly hair was thinning on top, but the bottom curls just brushed his shirt collar. Annalisa would bet a year’s salary that Ma had already nagged him to get a haircut, hospital or no hospital.
“Look what trash Annalisa’s brought with her,” Alex said, thrusting his chin in Nick’s direction. “Better hide the candy stripers.”
“Nick.” Tony the peacekeeper stepped forward to offer his hand. “It’s been a long time, man. You look good.”
Nick gave him a quick, embarrassed handshake before hanging back. “I’m not here to intrude. If you want, I can step outside and you guys can take turns hitting me in the gut.”
“I’d go first,” Annalisa said mildly, leading Alex away by the arm. Tony chatted up Nick while Vinny joined them by the magazine rack. “Look, I can’t go into a lot of details, but if you’ve seen the news, you know why work is a major priority right now.” Alex’s gaze went to the TV mounted in the corner. It was tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel and set to closed-captioning. The image showed footage from St. Thecla’s church last night, while the voice-over text read, “Chicago Police deny connection between late-night church raid and the Lovelorn Killer.”
Alex grew pale as he watched the cops encircle St. Thecla’s. “That’s Mom and Dad’s church. They had some sort of bomb scare there? Jesus.”
“Yes. I need to talk to Ma and Pops about that.”
He looked at her aghast. “Now? Jesus, Anna, they need you to be a daughter for two seconds here, not Nancy Drew.”
Her hackles rose. “I’m not playing dress-up in our backyard, Alex. It’s my honest-to-God job to investigate these things now.”
“Let him go do it.” He shot a venomous look at Nick. “You have more important stuff to worry about. Like family.”
“All right,” Vinny interrupted them. “Alex, why don’t you go get everyone a soda? Take a walk. Clear your head.”
“No, I want to be here for Pops.”
“We’ll text you if anything changes.” He nudged Alex on his way. “Go. Call Sassy. Talk to your kids. We’ll be here when you get back.” When Alex reluctantly left the room, Vinny glanced at the TV and back to Annalisa. “It’s true, then? He’s back?”
“It’s more probable that he never left,” she replied in a low voice. “But he’s above ground for the first time in years, so now we have a real chance to nail him.”
“Yeah? No offense, but I’m glad I moved out of his radius. I’ve got Carrie and Quinn to worry about,” he said, naming his wife and young teenage daughter. “So, Nick is working the case too? Shouldn’t he be out beating the bushes or questioning witnesses? I highly doubt the killer’s in this waiting room.” He scanned the other anxious people sitting in the nearby chairs.
“Nick is on the job.” Annalisa rubbed her tired eyes. “He’s watching me.”
“I can see that. The dude’s barely taken his eyes off you. Maybe if he’d kept that kind of focus while you were married—”
“He’s watching me because the killer is watching me too.”
Vinny’s long jaw snapped shut. He looked again at the horror movie playing out on the morning news. “What did you say?”
“The killer has my phone number,” Annalisa murmured. “He saw me on television and called me up.”
“Called you to say what?” Vinny demanded, and the heads around them swiveled at his burst of noise.
Annalisa made a motion for him to calm down. “It’s fine. He just wants to brag about how smart he is.”
“Yeah? He is smart! Look how many women he’s killed and gotten away with it. Now he’s calling you?”
“I’m fine.” She held out her arms and turned around to prove it. “See? Not a scratch on me. Nick is staying at my place, and my commander has parked an undercover unit on the street in front of my door. Nothing is going to happen to me. I just…” She broke off and ran a hand through her hair. “I need to tell Ma and Pops to be careful. This guy tracks his news coverage super closely. I’m sure he knows that we were friends with the Duffys and that Pops was a cop who worked with Owen. I don’t think he’d hurt Ma or Pops at this late date, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to taunt them or scare them, just for his own sick amusement.”
“That’s the last thing they need right now.” He cast a worried look in the direction that Alex had gone. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Alex any of this, okay?”
“Why?”
“He’s been stressed out lately.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Stressed out how?” Sassy hadn’t said anything to her about trouble with Alex.
“Keep it down, will you?” He looked around before continuing. “A couple of weeks ago, he was chaperoning the school dance, and he caught a couple of boys with a bottle of vodka. Naturally, he took it from them and sent them home. Unfortunately, he didn’t toss the vodka.”
“Oh, no.” She leaned against the nearest wall, a sinking feeling in her gut.
“It’s fine,” Vinny said, a desperate tinge in his voice, the way they’d reassured each other a hundred times in the past. This time, Alex would get clean. He’d hit bottom. He’d stop. But there was always a lower level, and Alex kept rolling right downhill. “It’s just one slipup. But some busybody history teacher saw him drinking and she’s threatened to tell the principal. Alex says it’s like walking around with a bomb strapped to his chest. He’s never sure when or if she’s going to go off.”
“What would happen if she told?”
“I don’t know. Worst case, maybe he gets fired. But it might be okay. She chewed him out and he apologized. He says he wasn’t falling down drunk or anything…”
They’d all heard that one before, too. She tilted her head back against the wall and stared at the particleboard squares on the ceiling until they blurred in front of her. “Do you ever blame him?” she whispered to Vinny. “Not Alex, but the man who murdered Katie. It’s like he broke in and stole everything at once—Katie, Owen, Alex, Pops. He created this … this hole that everyone kept falling into, and sometimes it feels like we’ll just keep falling until they catch him.”
“Catch who?” Alex reappeared and handed her a can of Coke that was slippery with condensation.
“Uh, no one. Nothing.” Her personal cell rang, saving her from further stammering. She checked the caller ID, but she didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Anna, it’s Colin. How are you? Was everything okay at your place last night?”
“Yes, fine,” she said, relaxing at the sound of his voice. “How are you doing?”
“Jittery. I’ve been up for an hour and I’m on my third cup of coffee. I’m wondering if it would be all right if I came by for my suitcase.”
“Oh,” she said regretfully, turning to face the waiting room full of people. “I’m not home. I’m at the hospital, actually. Northwestern. My father fell and broke his hip.”
“George is in the hospital? That’s terrible.”
She wondered if he knew Pops had been sick. The Parkinson’s symptoms hadn’t begun until years after Colin left town, but in her mind, the whole downward spiral started at the same time. She’d read theories about a relationship between stress and Parkinson’s disease. The damage occurred in brain areas responsible for movement, when neurons producing a certain chemical called dopamine all died off. Why did they die? She had pored over inscrutable medical journals, looking for answers, and that’s where she found stress cited over and over. The brain cells, when stressed, didn’t clean up their proteins correctly. Too many junk proteins accumulated inside the cells like overflowing trash and caused the cells to die. Near as she could tell, the doctors weren’t claiming that mental stress literally caused the protein pileup, but they couldn’t say it didn’t. No one knew the cause. All Annalisa knew for sure was that Pops had been healthy and strong before Katie Duffy died, and that he was never the same afterward. She’d seen the stress piling up in the way he lost his hair, lost weight, lost the spring in his step and the cheery whistle he gave to announce he’d come home.
“I’m not sure yet when I’ll be back,” she said to Colin, her voice watery. “They’re going to operate on Pops at any minute.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll come to the hospital. Maybe I can take your keys and hop over to your place while you wait.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll see you soon. Give my love to Pops.”
“I will.” She hung up and went back to the waiting area. Her brothers sat together against one wall while Nick sat by himself some distance away. She saw he had one eye on the TV. After a moment of internal debate, she took a careful seat next to Nick and cracked the lid on her Coke. “Any developments?”
“None in the news. I don’t think they’re buying the bomb scare story, though. The cameras caught Don Harrigan at the scene, and he’s only known for one case.”
“Great.” The PR angle was at least someone else’s headache, not hers. She took a cold swallow of soda and leaned back in her seat. “You don’t need to stick around. I have no idea how long this will take, and I think we can be sure this guy won’t make any moves in a crowded hospital. The security cameras alone make it high-risk even to set foot in here.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stay.” He stretched out his long legs, settling in.
“Suit yourself.” She eyed her brothers across the room, all of whom were watching her and Nick with varying degrees of bemusement and fury. “Right now, I can’t tell if you’re protecting me or I’m protecting you.”
“If they want to take a swing at me, I can’t blame them.”
“Fifteen years ago, maybe. I think they have bigger concerns now.”
“How’s your dad?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Still waiting to hear.”
“Your dad always told the best stories. I remember after dinner, he’d take his drink in one hand, a cigar in the other, and he’d say, ‘So I was rolling Code 3,’ like it was his version of ‘Once upon a time,’ and you knew you were in for some crazy tale. I think my favorite was the time some guy called 911 because his neighbor stole his pizza.”
She smiled, remembering. “Pops showed up to investigate and found out there was no theft. The neighbor had just ordered the same pizza.”
“Oh, and remember that time someone was out on the street yelling ‘Help! Help!’ and your dad rushed over to find out the emergency. Only it turned out the idiot had named his cat ‘Help.’”
She laughed. “That’s nothing. I got called out once because a preschool teacher reported a strange man staring at them for hours in the window across the street, scaring the children. I rolled up thinking I was going to bust a disgusting pedophile, only it was a life-size cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
“You’re freakin’ kidding me. Well, I got one even better. Down in Florida, I answered a call from a woman who reported that two boys were in her yard cutting down her marijuana plants.”
“Oh my. Did you bust her?”
“I told her to think really hard before making an official report. After some consideration, she declined to go on the record.”
She chuffed. “Imagine that.” The merriment faded, but she felt lighter than she had in several days. Shyly, she nudged his knee with hers. “Thanks for staying.”
“Hey, he was my Pops too. For at least a little bit there.” He measured the time by separating his thumb and forefinger.
“Yeah, well, if you’re lucky, he still likes you that much,” she replied, making the same gesture with her hand. Nick laughed, but he shut up quick when her mother emerged from the swinging doors. Annalisa got up and went to her.
“Ma, how’s Pops?”
“Anna, you’re here.” Her mother held Annalisa’s face between her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. “He was just asking for you.”
“Can I see him?”
“If you hurry, maybe for a second. The surgeon is here so they’ve just paged the anesthesiologist. He’s in room 322.”
Annalisa pushed through the doors and jogged down the hall until she reached Pops’s room, where she slowed and tiptoed over the threshold. He lay in bed with his eyes closed, looking thin and gray next to the white sheets. She went to take his hand, which was rough but reassuringly warm. His eyelids fluttered open as she squeezed him. “Hey, Pops, it’s me.”
“Annalisa?”
“Yes. The doctors say they’re about to fix you up.”
His speech came out garbled and soft, difficult to understand, but she thought she heard him say, “Too late for that.” He gave her hand a clumsy pat. “I tried to be a good dad to you.”
“You are. You’re the best father we could’ve had.”
He shook his head against the pillow. “Mistakes. Too many.”
“Shh. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s not what we remember. Nick’s outside right now, telling some of your greatest hits. Vinny, Tony, Alex—we’re all here because we love you. The only mistake you made is thinking you should be rooting around in that dusty old attic.”
His eyes, dark and dazed from the painKillers, bore into hers. “I didn’t listen. I didn’t see.”
“See what?” He dozed off and she shook his hand. “Pops, what didn’t you see?”
He licked his chapped lips. She saw the grizzle on his chin as his mouth worked, but no sound came out through his lips. “Should’ve … should’ve stopped him.”
She didn’t have to guess which him. “No, Pops. It’s not on you.”
“It is,” he said, sinking back into unconsciousness. “It was.”
She couldn’t press him any further because the nurses showed up to shoo her outside. On her way back to the waiting room, her work phone started buzzing in the back of her jeans, sending a shockwave up her spine. She dug it out and the number was not the one the Lovelorn Killer had been using, nor was it identified. She ducked into a nearby alcove for privacy and answered the call. “This is Vega.”
“Detective Vega, it’s Barnes from the Grave Diggers. Do you remember me?”
“Of course,” she said, breathing easier when she recognized his voice. “What’s up?”
“I don’t like to bother you, but you seemed like the best person to call. After the interview last night, I was completely exhausted. The L wasn’t running as often at three in the morning, and I had no immediate way to get home, so I called a friend and crashed at her place on the couch. We had a late breakfast this morning and she’s just taken me home now.”
“Uh-huh,” Annalisa said, wondering what the point of this story was.
“Someone broke into my apartment last night while I was at the church.”
“What?”
“My computer is gone. In its place is a noose.”
“Get out of the apartment and don’t touch anything,” she said, already in motion. “I will be right there.”