Tick Tock - James Patterson [89]
I thought Mary Catherine might like to go for a goof.
I parked and went inside the Bennett compound. The tiny house was still and quiet. I found Seamus asleep in front of the TV. Instead of waking him, I tossed one of the girls’ pink Snuggies over him, then took out my phone and snapped a picture of him. I couldn’t resist.
I peeked inside the door of the girls’ room and smiled. There was more bed in the room than floor space. I stood for a moment, watching them sleep. The sight of them lying so peacefully warmed me in the way only being a parent can. While my day might have sucked, they’d managed to tack on another hopefully happy memory or two, grown another day older.
Who knows? Maybe they’d even grown a little stronger, a little more capable of dealing with this chaotic world they would one day inherit. I hoped so. I had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get, the way things were going.
Kids could be challenging, oftentimes a downright pain in the ass, but in rare moments they made you see that maybe you were trying after all. Maybe you really were doing the best you could.
Stoked from my warm-and-fuzzy moment, I went into the kitchen, searching for a beer. I was popping open a can of Miller High Life when Mary Catherine came in from the back porch, a book and a blanket in her hands.
A smile started and spread wider and wider over my face as I stood staring at her. Beer foam spilled over onto my hand, and I kept smiling. I don’t think I can properly describe how happy seeing her made me.
She was tan and glowing and looked fabulous.
“You look… fabulous,” I said.
“Yes, I do, Mike,” she said. “Is that so surprising?”
“No. Fortuitous, is how I’d put it.”
“For who?”
I was speechless for the second time that night. I was really losing my touch.
“Hey, you want to hear some rock music at the Sugar Bowl?”
Mary smiled.
I smiled back.
“You wake up Seamus,” she said, rolling her Irish eyes. “I’ll get my flip-flops.”
Chapter 98
THE SAFE HOUSE APT had rented on 29th Street between Lexington and Third was a small brick town house that actually had a one-car garage. After he coded open the box on the sidewalk, he drove the S65 in and closed the gate behind him. He left the convertible running as he grabbed the money-filled suitcases piled on the front seat. This wouldn’t take long.
In the back of the loft-style space’s bedroom closet, he took out a North Face knapsack. Inside were several driver’s licenses and passports with his picture on them.
He’d paid a hundred thousand dollars for them to a Canadian counterfeiter who’d just gotten out of jail. They were excellent forgeries, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. He’d picked up a few things from the Intel people he used to run with in his other life. Names of folks who could get you things. Guns. Documents. Whatever. It was all about the networking.
As he shouldered the bag of documents, he glanced at the bulging garment bag above it. In it were the clothing and equipment and research he’d done to prepare for his final hit. He stared at it for a second, regretfully. All that recon for nothing. A shame, he thought, heading outside. Oh, well. Next life.
Back inside the garage, he sat for a moment in the front seat of the S65, thinking. He’d been planning on heading down to New Orleans, where a pretty girl he’d gone to City College with was living, but now he wasn’t so sure. He’d stirred up one hell of a hornet’s nest here with all these killings. What if the news had gotten to her?
He finally decided to ditch that idea and head down the coast to Key West for some extended R & R. Dip his toe into the Gulf of Mexico until he figured out his next move. With the bulging suitcases beside him now, he could certainly take his time.
He hit the garage door and cranked the Benz. He sat in