Blind to Sin Read online

  “I’m getting a hot dog.” Kenneth turned to walk toward the street vendor. “A lot of people were there, Jackson.”

  “It’s too big a coincidence.”

  Kenneth ordered two hot dogs with mustard. “We need him too.”

  “Matt?” The centipede in Donne’s guts was nibbling away now. “Why?”

  “Having a guy tied to the military will help us break into a military building.” Kenneth shrugged. “Maybe we won’t have to break in. Don’t have it all figured out yet.”

  He handed Donne a hot dog. Donne took it as the centipede argued with hunger pangs.

  “He will try to stop you. He won’t want to help.” Donne unwrapped the paper around the hot dog. “You saw him before. He didn’t even want to see you. If you’re going to do this, and if I’m going to help—”

  “You’ll help.” Kenneth wiped mustard from his lip. “He’ll help too.”

  “If I do, we have to be smart. Bringing Matt in, that’s a recipe for trouble. And I don’t think either of us will end up in jail this time. Maybe in the ground. That sounds about right. Getting Matt involved is dumb.”

  Kenneth took a big bite. Toward New Jersey, the sun sagged behind some buildings.

  “Give him some time.” He polished off the hot dog. “We’re family.”

  TAMMY COLE sat in the bedroom and rubbed her chest. There was a dull ache where she’d had the surgery. That was supposed to be the end, wasn’t it? One treatment after the procedure and done. Yet, here she was on her second round.

  But she wasn’t healthy. Still on chemo. The problem was that was all she knew. Elliot had kept information from her, the doctor giving only the barest of details.

  Bastard.

  They were in the other room, Manuel and Elliot moving things. Tammy had been trying to read—some novel about an Irish hitman in the Bronx—but the words kept blending together. Whenever she blinked to focus her eyes, she pictured Kenneth.

  “Elliot,” she said.

  After a sharp thunk in the other room, he came to the door. His face was red and sweaty, and the T-shirt he wore was drenched. He caught his breath as he leaned on the doorjamb. Always leaning.

  “When is my next treatment?”

  She didn’t look forward to chemo, the needle, the boredom—the endless time thinking about death.

  “Tomorrow. We have to get everything out of here and go to the next spot. We’ll move tonight, in the next few hours, and then once we’re set up, I’ll call Dr. Haskins.”

  They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Elliot said, “How are you feeling?”

  Tammy realized her hand was still on her chest. She snapped it back to her side.

  “Tired,” she said.

  “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head. “Not today.”

  Elliot came in the room and took her hand with his clammy right. He went down on one knee and smiled at her. She remembered when he proposed, and he refused to get on one knee.

  “It’s going to be okay. Just a few more weeks.”

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “Once we get to Cuba, you’re going to be fine. I promise.”

  “You think Kenneth will agree to this?”

  Elliot pursed his lips. “I think he still loves you.”

  A shudder went through her. Kenneth was a flowers guy: tulips, roses, and hydrangeas. Whatever was in season. Any time they completed a job, he’d get her a bouquet. Their little apartment would smell like a garden, even though it made him sneeze. He had the worst allergies, but wouldn’t let that stop him from making her smile and helping her celebrate. When they found out they were pregnant with Matt, he got her eight different bouquets.

  Elliot never did anything like that. No thought, just bare walls. Always on the move, always ready to run. Kenneth never wanted to run. That was why he got caught. It was why she was with Elliot.

  “How can you afford another safe house?” she asked. “You don’t have the money.”

  “These were bought and paid for a long time ago.”

  “And Dr. Haskins?”

  “He owes me a favor.”

  Always vague. Never telling the full story. It drove her nuts. But she learned a long time ago not to ask follow-up questions. Elliot cared, but he had a nasty streak. Not that he hit her, but the yelling, the sharpness of his tone would last days. Told her she was stupid and to trust him.

  She never saw him treat Kenneth that way.

  But Manuel took the brunt of it. Anything for money, she guessed. But now that it was drying up?

  “We’re at the end,” she said. “This can’t go on.”

  “It won’t. Next month, you’ll be getting healthy and then we can sip Moscow Mules on the beach.” Elliot exhaled. “I have to get back to work. Why don’t you read for a while?”

  She patted his hand. “Okay.”

  He grinned at her, leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. His gray five o’clock shadow scratched her cheek. They weren’t twenty-five anymore, but she got a chill when his face touched hers.

  “I’m too young to die,” she said.

  “You won’t. I won’t let you.”

  “Kenneth better not let us. And what about Donne, do you trust him?”

  Elliot didn’t answer. He left the room, and she tried to remember what she knew about Jackson Donne.

  Allegedly a badass. A cop killer, an assassin. Seemed like too much for one guy. And probably unstable. Not the kind of person you could trust on a big gig. But if Kenneth needed him…

  It was the only way to live.

  She scratched her cheek where Elliot had kissed her, and then picked up the book.

  “This is not how I die,” she said out loud. The words caught her by surprise, meant for internal monologue. She waited to see if Elliot had heard her. There wasn’t a response, just more furniture behind lugged. Slamming into the walls. Occasionally, she heard Manuel apologize.

  It was probably still Elliot’s fault.

  Matt had been here. She heard him, felt his presence, but she feigned sleep. She wasn’t ready to face that moment. That would break her. Her left eye teared. She wiped at it. The words blurred on the page again.

  Never supposed to have a kid.

  Never supposed to get cancer.

  It was supposed to be a fun, freewheeling life. They loved Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, that movie they saw in their teens. No pressure except hiding from the cops. Time to do whatever you wanted.

  It didn’t work out that way.

  Matt made her happy for a hair over eighteen years.

  She put the book back down again. When she married Elliot, she did it out of panic—they had to hide and she needed a new identity. At least a new last name. Kenneth knew, he even blessed it. And Elliot was a good man. She did love him.

  But she didn’t trust him at all. And that meant keeping both eyes open until Cuba.

  FIFTEEN IN a row. What a waste of a workout.

  They’d been in the gym about an hour. Sarah was doing a stations routine in the weight room—and not a state of the art weight room—leaky pipes, low ceiling and a very musty smell. Donations only went so far at St. Paul’s High School, but it got the job done. Meanwhile, Herrick was working on free throws and three-point shooting. And the best he’d made was only fifteen shots in a row.

  That sucked. He wasn’t leaving here until he made at least twenty.

  Sarah came out of the weight room, drinking water and drying sweat from her hair with a towel.

  Herrick took a free throw and it clanked off the rim. He cursed, retrieved the ball and laid it into the hoop.

  “Tough workout?” Sarah asked.

  “We’re not leaving until I make twenty in a row.” Another free throw, back rim, in the cylinder and then it bounced out.

  “Will they leave the lights on that long?”

  Herrick shot Sarah a look, and forced a smile. A tickle at the back of his neck spread into his shoulders.

 
; “Sorry,” Sarah said. “Talk to me.”

  Talking was the one thing Herrick could always do with Sarah. He tried not to keep secrets from her. His parents had hidden things—he didn’t know they were thieves until high school. He took Yankees tickets from his uncles without asking questions. Christmas gifts, birthdays. Everything was bought with stolen money, and they never told him. They kept secrets, and he promised himself he wouldn’t.

  “I saw both my mom and dad.”

  Sarah took a step toward him. But not before he could take a shot. Swish.

  “Your mom?”

  “Been a long time. I haven’t seen her since I got back from the Middle East. Other than that picture of her being ‘saved,’ I haven’t known anything about her.” He went and got the ball. “And I didn’t expect to see her today, that’s for sure.”

  “Did you talk?” Sarah was standing at the three-point line now. Close enough that he could feel her presence without looking, but far enough away that he still had his space.

  “No.”

  Another free throw. Banked it in. He shrugged. Counted it anyway. Sarah didn’t have to ask why they didn’t talk.

  “She was asleep. She’s sick.” He got the ball again. This time stepped out to the three-point line. Swish. Talking to Sarah was helping. “Cancer.”

  “Matt, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. Made another three. And another. The ball bouncing off the wooden floor echoed across the gym.

  “Yeah, it didn’t really make my day.” Another make. He was finding his rhythm now.

  “Your dad, he wanted to see you. He and Jackson—did they want to talk to you about your mom?”

  He was up to ten in a row now. Maybe they’d make it out of the gym before dinner.

  “Seeing my mom has something to do with why they’re out. My mom’s husband, Elliot Cole, he used to work with my parents as a thief—their partner. And from what I can tell, he’s out of money. The first person I went to talk to was my ‘uncle,’ he used to fund them and now he’s out of the game.”

  Sarah took a step forward. To Herrick’s eye, it was like a defender coming off a screen to help. He ignored it and swished another basket.

  “Are you trying to figure out what they’re up to?”

  Swish.

  “Or are you worried about your mom?”

  “Can it be both? Elliot needs money.”

  Fifteen in a row. Five more and they could go get a drink. A nice glass of Bulleit. Maybe some sushi. Sarah would get a white wine. And then they could go back to the apartment, and he—swish—could get back to work. But he still had to make four more shots.

  Sarah said, “If it’s money Elliot wants, why did he spend what he had on buying your dad and Jackson out of prison?”

  He went back to the free throw line. This should be easy. He could feel the heaviness in his legs from jumping, and the sweat starting to trickle into his eyebrows. Swish, retrieve, swish, retrieve, swish, retrieve. He lined up the last shot.

  “That’s a question that keeps sticking out to me as well,” he said. “They could have used the cash on treatments.”

  “How can you get an answer to that?”

  Swish. That was easy. Why wasn’t it coming earlier? He exhaled. Because he wasn’t talking before. Because Sarah was in the other room, and he was too busy with his own thoughts to focus.

  “I’m going to have to go talk to Uncle Elliot again.”

  Sarah smiled. “Uncle?”

  “Force of habit.” Herrick shrugged and went to get a towel. “I know where he is. He isn’t hiding. Might as well try to go back. I can see my mom awake this time.”

  “You never told me why you went into the military instead of going to college,” Sarah said. “I looked you up, you know. When you first came here to coach. According to some news articles, you should have been a college ball player. You had a bunch of offers. Even UConn.”

  Herrick sat on the first bleacher and wiped the sweat off of him. Sarah came over and sat next to him. She put her head on his shoulder.

  “I’m gross,” he said.

  “I don’t care.” He felt her smile. “But you never answered my question.”

  “Getting away to college wasn’t enough. I had to go far, far away. Afghanistan was as far away as I could imagine. My dad was on trial. My mom had run off with…his partner. Life was weird.”

  “You could have died.”

  Maybe I wanted to, he thought. But he didn’t say it. He could talk to Sarah about anything, but those words just wouldn’t come out of his mouth. They weren’t true anymore. He learned that the day the boy tried to blow them all up. However, weird things crossed the mind of an eighteen-year-old kid.

  “But I didn’t,” he said instead.

  IF YOU didn’t have any money, there wasn’t much to do in New York City after the sun went down. Donne and Kenneth were in Alphabet City somewhere, passing some old bars. Donne craved a drink—beer, preferably. But he wasn’t going to use cash from the wallet Kenneth had stolen.

  He still had his wallet, the one they’d given back to him when he left prison this morning. Maybe the credit cards still worked. They wouldn’t have an address to send him the bill, at least. His old New Brunswick home was probably trashed, sold or rented to some frat boy.

  The world had changed so much.

  Kenneth turned to him. “Okay if I get some time by myself? I’m going to check us into a hotel.”

  “You can afford that?”

  He nodded. “We’ve been walking around for hours, but…” He pointed at his head. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “I’m gonna get a drink, then.”

  “You need cash?”

  “Nah.”

  “Holding out on me? Meet back here in an hour. We’ll have a spot by then.”

  Donne said, “Have a good walk.”

  He turned and headed to the bar, some hipster joint he hoped had a good beer list, and found a seat at the bar—a small miracle on a Saturday. For some reason, this place was pretty empty. Maybe hipsters didn’t show up before eleven. It was only just after seven. The Shining played on a grainy TV screen over the bar, but the soundtrack was drowned out by The Jam Live on the jukebox.

  Donne passed his credit card over when the bartender placed a pint of Brooklyn Lager in front of him. He held his breath while the card was run. The bartender didn’t say anything, so Donne took a sip. Falling back into old habits already—beer, beer, beer. It was amazing how the craving came back the moment he knew he was allowed to drink it.

  An older guy took the seat next to him and ordered a scotch and soda. The bartender nodded.

  With a slight Russian accent, the guy said, “Next one for this guy is on me too.” He pointed at Donne.

  The bartender nodded again. Donne took another sip of beer to hide the burning sensation in his cheeks. His fingers were covered in sweat from the glass.

  “Do I know you?” Best Donne could come up with.

  “We have mutual friend. I’m Adrik.” He stuck out his hand, but Donne ignored it.

  “I’m just trying to enjoy my drink here.”

  “First one when you get out is the best, right?”

  It’s not my first.

  Donne exhaled and put his beer down. “I appreciate the extra beer, but I really just want some time to myself here.”

  “We should talk. It will make Kenneth feel better.”

  Donne blinked. Didn’t answer.

  “Kenneth and I, we were very close.” He took a sip of scotch and grimaced. “Tammy and Elliot, I was very close to them. I helped them.”

  Donne waited. Drank some more beer.

  “Tell me about yourself.” He knocked back some more drink. “You see, Kenneth is going to try to do this job. And without someone he can trust, it will be difficult to accomplish anything.”

  Donne finished the beer and the bartender brought him another. Adrik finished his drink.

  “Our life is a dangerous one,” Adrik said. �
��But these two, Elliot and Kenneth, they can’t let it go. Can’t live without the risk. Not without…” He pointed at his temple with his index finger and made a circle motion. “I say too much.”

  “What about Tammy?”

  Adrik drank and grimaced again. “She is what keeps him somewhat grounded. But maybe this is not all about her.”

  “You know what his plan is?”

  Adrik smiled. “Even though I don’t help anymore, I am still in the loop.”

  “I should have stayed in jail.”

  “That’s not what I want to hear, Jackson. I want to know you’re all in on this. Trust is very important in our situation. And your past, what you did to your partners…I’m not sure we can trust you.”

  “Who’s to say if I help him out we will survive?”

  The Shining ended and the screen went black. The bartender ignored it and cleaned glasses instead. A few guys with mustaches and flannel came in and went over to the jukebox. Whatever replaced The Jam was unrecognizable to Donne.

  “No one can say you will survive. But I think you are changing. You may not see it yet, but you’re definitely not the man you were when you entered prison.”

  “You just met me.”

  Adrik grinned. “But I have heard so much about you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “It’s not hard to figure out.”

  “I can walk away right now. I don’t owe anyone anything.” Donne polished off his beer.

  “You owe Kenneth. How long has he kept you alive?”

  Donne didn’t answer.

  “I’ve read up on you, Mr. Donne. You requested to go to prison. You are a nasty man. A man like you can be very helpful in our situations. But not if we have to worry about you.”

  “You don’t know me at—”

  Adrik cut him off by putting a hand on his forearm. Donne wanted to snap it in half.

  “I need to trust you. To give Kenneth the okay.”

  Donne took a deep breath. “That thing you talk about, when I was a cop. Bill Martin was my direct partner. Not just one of the guys, but the guy I worked with day in and day out for years. And he was probably the most corrupt. When I turned in the division, you know who I didn’t finger? Bill Martin. Because he was my partner.”