Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [4]
Giordano hadn’t been aware that he’d spoken aloud. For the briefest of moments, he’d been revisited by those choking black emotions that had all but swallowed him whole that day he’d walked into the house he’d shared with Diane—that ungrateful little bitch—and done what any real man would have done under the circumstances.
No one takes what’s mine. No one. Not my wife, not the court. And no judge—no one—can tell me I can’t see my kids.
The words he’d shouted across the courtroom at the custody hearing rang in his ears. They’d earned him forty-eight hours in the county prison and a protection from abuse order for Diane. Like a piece of paper could stop Vince Giordano from doing what had to be done.
Giordano squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment, pushed his words back into one of those deep holes inside. Pushed it all away. Brought himself back to this place, this time.
“Where are your kids now?” Channing was asking in a way that hinted that he might have already guessed.
“They’re with their mother.” Giordano met Channing’s eyes and dared him to comment.
Channing wisely declined.
“How ’bout you, Archer? What would you do, if you could do anything and not get caught doing it?” Giordano asked calmly. “You get three, too, remember.”
“I don’t know,” the kid said. He appeared to be giving the question a great deal of thought. “Maybe . . . I don’t know, maybe that guy, that guy who kept bothering my girl. Maybe him, if he’s still around. And maybe that neighbor of hers, that nosy bitch.”
Archer’s anger was building. Giordano wondered what would happen if it peaked.
“What about your girl?” Giordano asked to see how far the kid’s anger could be stoked. “Seems like she’s the real problem here. She’s the one who called the cops on you. Seems like you’d want to be calling on her. I know I would.”
“Oh, I’m gonna call on her, all right. I’m gonna call on her first thing I get out of here.” Archer’s rage had him tottering on the edge, and Giordano—no stranger to rage himself—sensed that it would take little to push him over.
Rather than push the kid—though it could be fun watching him lose control while chained to a chair—Giordano turned to the room’s other occupant.
“What ’bout you, Channing? Three you’d go see?”
“Don’t know, Vince.” Channing shrugged.
“Oh, that’s right.” Giordano nodded. “You’re in here because of mistaken identity. After being picked up for a traffic violation. Guess the first guy you’d be going to see is that other Curtis Channing. Then maybe the cop who arrested you—”
Channing laughed out loud.
“Hey, Curtis, we’re just bullshittin’ here. There has to be someone, some place, who you’d like to show a thing or two.” Giordano watched Channing’s face, knew instinctively that this man had seen dark places, too. There was no mistaking what he was beginning to recognize behind the eyes of Curtis Channing.
“Hmm, three people from my past . . . Well, I guess I’d make a stop at my stepfather’s. He wasn’t really my stepfather—he and my mother never were married. But him, yeah. I’d want to see him.”
“That can’t be all.” Giordano urged him on.
“There’s a writer I wouldn’t mind having a chat with.” Channing was nodding almost imperceptibly.
Strange, Giordano thought, wondering what kind of writer would draw the attention of a man such as Channing. He’d love to find out.
“That’s only two,” Archer noted. “You got one more.”
“Well, there’s a cute little FBI agent who I’d like to see again.” Channing smiled enigmatically. “Just to see if the chemistry is still the same.”
FBI? Giordano was even further intrigued. For a man who’d only broken a minor traffic law, Channing certainly had an interesting agenda.
“Course, if we really did these things, if we really ever did go see ’em and . . . well, you know, did ’em . . . it isn’t like the cops wouldn’t know who to look for,