The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [28]
Quincy had not thought it would be this hard. He was an academic, a Ph.D. who’d studied the five stages of grief and the resulting physical and emotional turmoil. You should eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, engage in some sort of vigorous exercise, and avoid alcohol—it never helps. He was a professional, an FBI agent who’d been present numerous times when the word came down that some wife, husband, brother, sister, child would not be coming home again. You should maintain focus, revisit the last days of your loved one’s life as objectively as possible and avoid hysterics—they never help.
He was a man after all, an arrogant father who’d assumed tragedy would strike someone else’s family and never his. He was not eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. He was not objective about the last few days of Mandy’s life. Some days he desperately craved alcohol. And some nights he knew he was dangerously close to hysterics.
The great Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy. Quantico’s best of the best. How low the mighty have fallen, he thought, and it disturbed him to find himself still so egocentric, even when dealing with his daughter’s death.
He wished Rainie would call. He had thought that he would’ve heard from her by now, and it bothered him that he hadn’t. He rubbed his temples wearily, feeling the low beat of a headache that never really went away these days. And as if on cue, the cordless phone on his kitchen counter began to ring.
“Finally,” Quincy muttered and scooped it up. “Hello.”
Silence. Strange background noises, like metal clanging against metal.
“Well, well, well,” a voice said. “If it ain’t the man himself.”
Quincy frowned. The voice stirred memories, something in the back of his head. “Who is this?”
“You don’t remember me? Aw, and here I thought I was your loco simpatico. You fed boys break my heart.”
All at once, the voice clicked with a name. “How did you get this number?” Quincy asked sternly, while his palms began to sweat and his gaze flew to his security system to assure himself that it was still armed.
“You mean you don’t know yet?”
“How did you get this number?”
“Amigo, relax. I just wanna talk. Revisit old times on this fine Tuesday evening.”
“Fuck you,” Quincy said without thinking. He hardly ever swore, and a moment later he wished he hadn’t done so now, because the caller simply began to laugh.
“Ah, Quincy, mi amigo, you even swear like a suit. Shit, man, we’re hardened criminals here, you gotta do better than that. Fuck your mother, maybe. Fuck your mother up her mother-fucking ass. Yeah, that’s a good one. Or maybe,” the voice turned silky, “fuck your dead daughter in her dead-fucking grave with a white fucking cross. Yeah, I’d like that.”
Quincy gripped the phone harder as the words penetrated, and the first wave of anger washed over him like a tidal wave. He wanted to smash the phone. He wanted to smash it against his bare hardwood floor or black granite countertop. He wanted to smash it over and over again and then he wanted to fly to California just so he could beat the crap out of Miguel Sanchez, thirty-four years old and already sentenced to death, and he had never felt himself this angry, the rage throbbing in his temples and his whole body rigid with the need to lash out.
Then he saw his answering machine. The red blinking light indicating that there were messages. And the red digital display screen giving him the new-message count: 56. Fifty-six new messages on what should’ve been his unlisted telephone line.
He amazed himself with how calm he could keep his voice. “One call from me, Sanchez, and you’ll be sent straight to solitary. And remember, I’m the one who knows how much you hate to be alone.”
“That mean you don’t like talking