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“Maybe, but I need your help.”
Jack glanced at me with a half-grin. “You don’t even have to ask.”
Friday
Fifty-Eight
Jack Angelhart
Margo’s plan was so absurd that it just might work, Jack thought as he hooked up the camera and recorder in the rectory at St. Dominic’s.
Convincing Uncle Rafe to be involved was the hard part, but Margo did the hard sell, explaining that if Carillo snuck in once when they weren’t here, he might do it again.
“I’m not asking you to lie,” she had told him last night when she came up with the plan.
“I feel like you are,” he said.
“You want to mediate. Imply, but don’t say that Annie is interested. He wants to believe it, so he’ll come.”
Jack hoped Margo was right, because they would only have one shot at this. If they screwed up, Peter Carillo would be a threat to people Jack loved—his uncle and his sister.
Jack wasn’t certain that Margo had fully played out the odds, because she would ultimately be Carillo’s target if they failed.
“Okay, we’re good here,” Jack said after testing the equipment.
Rafe didn’t say anything.
“Talk to me. You’re worried.”
“Of course I am.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. That’s why you’re going to wear a Kevlar vest under your shirt.”
Rafe frowned. He hadn’t wanted to wear a vest, but Jack had talked him into it.
“Just as a precaution,” Jack said, not for the first time. “Hopefully, it doesn’t go that far.”
“I feel I’m being deceptive.”
“You’re not. You can be as honest as the day is long—just don’t tell him where Annie’s relocated. In fact, the more honest you are, the more he’ll talk. To justify, to beg, to threaten.” Jack narrowed his eyes. “You don’t feel sorry for him, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” Rafe said. “Not for what he did to his wife, but because a man like him who turns to violence against those he purports to love must have been hurt in the past. He’s still a man, still a child of God, and deserves forgiveness and mercy.”
“If he asks for it,” Jack said. “And means it.” Which, in Jack’s experience, wouldn’t happen. Abusers and rapists like Peter Carillo would never ask for forgiveness from anyone—their victims or God.
“I told Margo I would make the call if I could truly mediate. I will not back down from my word.”
“I know.”
Margo’s initial idea was that Rafe call Carillo, but then leave the rectory and let Margo handle him. Rafe declined. If he made the call, he would be here because he didn’t want anyone hurt.
But if Rafe knew the other part of Margo’s plan, he might not help at all. So Jack agreed to remain silent.
“Do you regret helping Annie?” Jack asked as he cleaned up his tools.
Rafe looked surprised that he had asked. “Of course not.”
“Then that’s it. A woman, a mother, was so desperate that she reached out to a man of God to help her because she trusted you. You gave her Margo’s name because you trusted Margo could help. Trust us now, Uncle Rafe.”
