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“I live out in Avondale, I won’t get there in time, but I can find Sullivan and fill him in.”
“Thank you.”
“I had a suspicion about why she left,” Nunez said, “but nothing concrete.”
“People see the truth when they look,” I said and ended the call.
I had an idea. I didn’t know if it would work, but it was the only idea I had.
I followed Peter Carillo until he got off the freeway toward his house. I pulled off at the next exit, then backtracked, turned into his neighborhood and stopped at the park. And waited for Jack so I could tell him my plan.
He wasn’t going to like it.
Twenty minutes later, I knocked on Carillo’s door. I could practically see him staring at me through the camera on his door, the one that he used to track not who came and went with packages, but his own wife.
He said through the speaker, “Door is unlocked. Come in.”
I checked my watch, then entered.
Carillo grabbed me as soon as I walked in. “Where is my wife?” he demanded.
“She is going to call me in five minutes,” I said. “Let me go.”
He pushed me onto the dining room table and searched me. Took my gun out of my holster, my knife out of my pocket.
He missed my slim lightweight Kahr P380 I had holstered around my ankle, concealed by my khakis. It wouldn’t be super easy to get to, but I had drilled with it.
Uncle Rafe had the vest on under his shirt. Not that Kevlar was perfect protection, but it was definitely better than nothing. Cops were taught to shoot center mass to stop the threat—it was training that became part of their muscle memory so that they could act in the face of danger, adrenaline and anxiety. Still, stray bullets didn’t abide by muscle memory, so I wanted to keep Rafe out of harm’s way.
He put my gun and knife on the top of the dining hutch. I could get to them, but not without a step stool or climbing onto the table. He kept my phone with him.
“Family room,” he ordered and motioned for me to go in front of him.
Rafe was sitting at the table in the nook between the family room and kitchen. His hands were folded on the table in front of him, and he looked okay—alive, healthy, uninjured.
But his eyes showed his concern. Not for himself, but for me.
He should have known I would come for him. He should never have left with Carillo—he knew that Jack and I were near. What had Carillo said that he went without fighting?
Carillo pushed me down to the floor, my back against the wall, and said, “Don’t move.” He looked at his watch. “You had better not be lying to me.”
“Let the priest leave.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yes, he’s also my uncle. You’ve done a lot of miserable things in your life—I wouldn’t tack threatening a man of God onto the list.”
“You and this priest conspired to destroy my family.”
“You destroyed your family, Peter. You did,” I repeated. “You hurt Annie, and she couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I never hurt her. I love my wife.”
“You hurt her all the time,” I said. “You separated her from her friends. You punched her in the stomach when she didn’t behave up to your standards. You raped her every day.”
“I never raped my wife, you filthy liar!”
“She told me.”
