Page 80 of Night of Shadows
"Yes."
"Hold me."
He pulls me to him with his good arm, without speaking. I press my face into the side of his throat and I let go of every piece of held-together I have been carrying since the dawn phone call, and I cry without sound, and Lex's hand comes up and covers the back of my head, and his face goes against the top of my hair, and we sit like that on the couch in the brownstone with our daughter asleep down the hall and the city outside doing what the city does.
I fall asleep against him.
I do not know I am falling asleep until I have already fallen.
Chapter 25
Lex
Andreev
? ? ?
Iam up at 4:47 AM.
Maeve is asleep in our bed. I carried her there at 1:14 AM after she fell asleep on the couch, and I sat with her for an additional forty-three minutes. She’s in our bed under our duvet. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts. Her hair is still damp from the shower she took at midnight. She’s not opened her eyes since.
I get up carefully. I shower and dress in dark clothes. I pull a coat off the rack in the foyer and check the inside pocket for the second Sig and the third magazine.
I am going to kill Marcus Andreev today.
I have been thinking about it since the warehouse. I have worked it out. There is a pit at the rear of the Konstantinos warehouse on the south side of Worcester that has held five other men in the seventeen years it has existed, and Andreev will be the sixth.
I have imagined the pit, what I will say to him before I do it. I have imagined the part where I leave the warehouse, drive home, shower, get into bed beside Maeve, and do not tell her.
I have decided I can live with that- maybe.
I do not write Maeve a note. The Konstantinos detail will tell her I left at 5:12 AM. The detail will not tell her where. That is fine. By the time she wakes up, what I am going to do will be done.
I leave.
? ? ?
Petrov is at the warehouse when I arrive at 5:54 AM.
"Where is he?" I say.
"Holding cell B. He’s been there since 11:47 last night. We picked him up at his apartment in Quincy. His wife and daughter were not home; the daughter is at Dana-Farber for an overnight infusion that started at 9 PM."
"Sedated."
"No. He’s not slept. He knows what is coming. He’s been at the table with his head in his hands since 12:30 AM."
I nod.
Petrov says, "Boss."
"Yes."
"Cormac left a message. Dick Foley is at his pub in South Boston this morning. Foley is the one who introduced Andreev to the man Andreev has been working for. Cormac thought you would want to know."
Foley. Richard Foley. Bookkeeper. Gambling debt. The man Cormac has been quietly tracking for nine months is moving money for the Boston Russian network in small, careful pieces while pretending to keep the books for an O'Brien constructioncompany. Foley is the cutout below the cutout. Foley is the man who put Andreev in front of the man Andreev sold us all to.
"Tell Cormac to keep him," I say. "Do not move on Foley until I have spoken to Andreev."
