Flash Point

“We both know I didn’t overhear you saying anything to anyone.”

“Then how…”

Kelly resumed her seat across from his desk. She clasped her hands together in that ladylike way women did and met his gaze evenly. “I tried to explain, Sergeant Russo,” she began, a weariness in her voice that matched her expression. “Sometimes when I touch a person or an object, I can see things.”

He looked down at his shirtsleeve where she had grabbed him only a few moments ago, then back up at her. “And when you touched me, you read my mind?”

“Not quite. It was more a case of reading what you were imagining. In this case, you were seeing yourself sitting in a big brown leather easy chair with your feet kicked up. The room had gold shag carpet and there was a small round table next to the chair with a bottle of beer on it. You were watching a football game on TV and you hit the pause button when a woman came into the room,” she told him. “She had red hair and she brought you a tray with a steaming bowl on it. She said the gumbo was hot, but that she didn’t want you using that as an excuse to have another beer.”

Max swallowed hard and tried to digest the fact that the woman had just described his living room and his wife. “That’s my wife, Rosie.” And Rosie was never going to believe him when he told her this story. After a moment, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and started over. “Why don’t you describe that car for me again.”

Jack Callaghan ambled over to his police locker the next morning and the first person he saw was Sal Nuccio. Just what he didn’t need, Jack thought. After tossing and turning most of the night and feeling like shit over how he’d handled things with Alicia the previous evening, the last person he wanted to deal with this morning was Nuccio. The guy had been a pain in the ass since they were kids. And ever since he’d beaten Nuccio for the starting quarterback position in high school, the man never missed a chance to try to one-up him at everything from the type of car he drove to the women he dated, and now to see which one of them made detective second grade first. At thirty-three, the adolescent games had long lost any appeal for him. Unfortunately, Nuccio couldn’t say the same.

“Hey, Callaghan. You hear about all the excitement here last night?” Nuccio asked him.

“No,” Jack replied. Not bothering to even look at the guy and hoping he would just go away, Jack worked the combination on his police locker.

“Well, you missed it. Yes sirree, we had ourselves quite a show here at the station last night.”

Jack yanked open his locker. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t need to take my word for it. Ask some of the guys who were here busting their asses last night and pulling extra shifts while you and your partner got the night off.”

Irritated, Jack slid his gaze over to where Nuccio was leaning against the wall, nursing a cup of coffee. The guy fit the caricature of a lazy cop, Jack thought, from the beefy jowls and beer belly to the straining buttons on his jacket and the sloppy look of his clothes. “If you’ve got something to say, Nuccio, why don’t you just spit it out.”

“Just making an observation. That’s all.” He tossed his foam cup into the overflowing trash can and shoved away from the wall.

Determined not to let the guy get to him, Jack stowed his running shoes in his locker and made no comment. He’d learned from experience that there was no reasoning with Nuccio. What would be the point in telling the prick that the reason he and his partner had scored two days off was because they’d worked fourteen days straight and had cracked a three-year-old homicide case? Nuccio would only argue that it had been the Callaghan family name currying favor for him. Which was what he’d claimed to be the reason they were both competing for promotion to detective second grade, even though Nuccio had put in two years more on the force than Jack had. The truth was, his name being Callaghan hadn’t helped him one iota—a fact that the captain had made sure he understood the day he’d joined the force as a rookie.

“Besides, the way I see it, you and Vicious might have wrangled the night off, but you also missed out on all of the fun around here.”

Jack clipped his shield on his belt, then slammed the locker door shut. “If you say so.”

“It’s true,” Nuccio insisted, obviously irritated by his response. “Things were really hopping here last night and you missed it.”

“Hear that, Leon?” Jack called over to his partner, homicide detective Napoleon Jerevicious, affectionately known among his fellow officers as Vicious, the nickname he’d earned on the college and pro football fields. “Nuccio says we missed all the fun last night.”

Leon slammed his own locker shut. The former pro football running back, who had been both his partner and friend for the past two years, walked over to join him. “I don’t know about that. I had me a pretty good time last night. Tessa and I took the kids trick-or-treating. And after we put them to bed, we did some trick-or-treating of our own, if you get my drift.”

“Talk about lame,” Nuccio declared with a snort. “I’d have thought a hotshot former jock like you could find something better to do than chase after a couple of snot-nosed kids and bang your old lady.”

“Hey man, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Leon advised him, unfazed by the other man’s derisive tone.

“No way,” Nuccio replied. “I’ve got better things to do with my time. But anytime you get tired of palling around with Callaghan and want to have some real fun, you just let old Sal here know. And I’ll introduce you to a few of my ladies, make sure they show you a good time.”

“That’s real nice of you, Sal,” Leon said in that low, easygoing voice of his that still held a trace of his Arkansas roots despite the years he’d spent in New York playing football for the Jets.

“Anytime.” Nuccio puffed up his chest. “Just say the word and I’ll make a few calls, set something up for you.”

“I appreciate that,” Leon told him. “I really do. But the thing is, I’m afraid having you set me up with your ladies would be a problem.”

“Say, if you’re worried your old lady’s going to find out, don’t sweat it. These gals are discreet.”

“I’m sure they are, but that’s not the problem,” Leon explained.

Nuccio frowned a moment, then his eyes widened. “Holy shit! Don’t tell me you’ve never screwed around on your wife?”

“Come to think of it, no. I haven’t.”

“Hot damn, if that don’t beat all.” Nuccio let out a hoot. He slapped his leg. “Instead of calling you Vicious, they should call you Choirboy. What in the hell’s wrong with you, man? Here I am offering to cut you in on my female turf and you’re turning me down because you’re married?”

“Actually, that’s only one of the reasons I’m turning you down. The other reason is I don’t pay women for sex.”

Jack muffled a laugh. But the other guys hanging around the lockers didn’t. And as the whoops of laughter rumbled around the locker room, Nuccio’s face grew beet red. Jack almost felt sorry for him. Almost but not quite, since the jerk had been riding him for months now—ever since Jack had gotten a citation for his efforts in solving an eight-year-old murder that had languished in the cold-case files. A case to which Nuccio had once been assigned.

Nuccio glared up at the much taller Leon. “Up yours, pal.”

“No thanks,” Leon said, and flashed his pearly white teeth.

“Some sports hero you are. The only woman you’re making it with is your own wife.”

Leon’s smile widened. It was the smile of a man who was content with his life and with himself. A man who wasn’t going to be rattled by the barbs of some sorry ass jerk like Sal Nuccio. “Like I said, don’t knock it till you try it.”

“Or maybe you don’t have any choice, because the chicks aren’t impressed with washed-up football stars. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that you never were a babe magnet—not even during your playing days,” Nuccio continued with a laugh. “No wonder the chicks ignore you now.”

“Nuccio, my man, you’ve been reading way too many groupie magazines,” Leon said patiently. “The truth is, the ladies don’t ignore Napoleon the Vicious. But when I tell them I’m married, they naturally put the moves on my pal Jackson here.” Leon slung his arm around Jack’s shoulder, dwarfing his six-foot-two, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame. “Ain’t that right, Jackson?”

“Sure,” Jack responded.

“Yeah, right,” Nuccio told him.

Leon released him and drew himself up to his six-foot-six height. “It’s the truth. Jackson here is a real player. Why, just last night he was at some fancy party at the Royal Sonesta, and the man had to practically fight the ladies off with a stick. Ain’t that so, Jackson?”

“Sure is,” Jack said, going along with his partner’s story but wondering how Leon knew about the fund-raiser he’d attended since he hadn’t mentioned it to him.

“In your dreams,” Nuccio countered. “Maybe the chicks give Mr. Ex-Football Star here a second look because he used to be somebody, but no way do they notice your sorry ass.”

“According to Tessa’s friend Milly, they were noticing a lot more than his ass last night,” Leon informed him.

“No shit! That true, Callaghan?” a first-year rookie named Doug called out. “You really have women crawling all over you last night?”

“I don’t know if ‘crawling’ is the right word. But there were about a hundred women at the party,” Jack said, doing his best to keep a straight face as he referred to the fund-raiser his mother had guilted him in to attending. “And by the time the night was over, I’d say that at least half of them had hit on me.”

“Aw, man,” came a comment from behind.

“Some guys have all the luck,” someone else grumbled.

Nuccio narrowed his eyes. “You expect us to believe you had fifty women trying to jump your bones last night?”

“Actually it wasn’t my bones they were after,” Jack confessed. Although, in truth, Alicia Van Owen had made it clear to him that she was more than willing to resume the steamy affair that he’d put the brakes on two months ago. “It was my checkbook. Most of the ladies were members of the Junior League or friends of my mother’s or both. And they were hitting me up all evening for donations.”

Leon roared with laughter. So did the other guys gathered around who’d been listening to the exchange. The only one who didn’t seem to find the story amusing was Sal Nuccio.

“You’re a real comedian,” Nuccio told him.

“Thank you,” Jack said, and took a bow.

“Maybe you ought to turn in your badge and try using that smart mouth of yours to earn a living. Oh, wait a minute,” Nuccio continued, a hard look in his eyes. “That’s right. You don’t actually have to worry about earning a living like the rest of us ’cause your daddy left you a shit load of money. All you gotta do is have your mama make a phone call and wave her checkbook. And the next thing you know you got yourself a citation and the press makes you out to be some kind of hero.”

Jack sobered instantly. “I earned that citation, Nuccio. And as far as the press is concerned, I don’t have any control over what they write and neither does my mother.”

“Uh-huh. And we’re all supposed to believe that the Callaghan bucks didn’t influence any of it.”

“They didn’t.”

“Yeah, try telling it to somebody who doesn’t know any better. The truth is, that if it weren’t for your family’s money you’d still be a beat cop.”

Jack shook his head. And that was the crux of Nuccio’s problem with him, the same problem the guy had had since they were kids—even before he’d shared the quarterback slot in high school. His family had had money and Nuccio’s didn’t. “It still burns your ass that my family has money, doesn’t it, Sal?”

“The only thing that burns my ass is the way you get special treatment because of it,” Nuccio told him.

When Jack started for him, Leon clamped a hand down on his shoulder. “If I were you, Nuccio, I’d go crawl back under that rock where you live before I set Jackson here loose and he turns you into the city’s latest homicide.”

“You think I’m afraid of him? Of either of you?”

“You should be,” Jack told him, his voice deadly soft in contrast to the anger racing through him.

“Why? Because you’re gonna sic your big black partner here on me?”

“No. You should be afraid because I’m going to whip your fat white ass.”

Nuccio made a show of laughing at the remark, holding his sides and wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “You hear that, fellows? Callaghan thinks he can whip my ass.” When none of the other cops gathered to share his amusement, Nuccio curled his lips in a snarl. “Go ahead and turn him loose. And let’s see who whips whose ass. I’ve yet to meet a rich boy who knew how to handle his fists.”

“This one can,” Jack assured him.

“Come on, guys, ya’ll are cops. You’re supposed to fight the bad guys. Not each other,” one of the other police officers pointed out. “Besides, if the captain gets wind that you’ve been fighting, you’re both gonna be in a heap of trouble.”

“The kid’s right,” Leon said. “I’d listen to him if I were you.”

Jack said nothing. He simply stood there, temper and adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Leon tightened the hand he had on Jack’s shoulder. “Let it go, Jackson. He’s not worth it.”

His partner was right. Jack knew he was. But the urge to plant his fist in Nuccio’s face was so strong, Jack nearly gave in to it. And he would have if the door leading to the lockers hadn’t suddenly burst open.

“Callaghan! Jerevicious,” the lieutenant called out. “The captain wants you in his office.”

“What’s up?” Nuccio asked as he followed them through the door.

“Looks like the sarge’s psychic lady from last night was right after all. Someone just reported finding a stiff in a parked car with a bullet through his chest.”

Three

What a night, Kelly thought as she sat in the parlor of the convent the next morning and waited for the Reverend Mother. After the chaos at the police station the previous night, the quiet serenity of the convent was a welcome contrast. She sighed, wondering if reporting her vision had made any difference.

Had they found the man in time? Or had she opened herself up to all the speculation for nothing?

It was too late now to second-guess her actions, Kelly told herself. She’d done what she’d had to do. Doing her best to forget about what had happened, she focused on her surroundings. The dark heavy drapes that hung from the windows had been pulled open, allowing morning sun into the somber-looking room. She could smell the hint of lemon on the freshly polished furniture, and the tile floor gleamed as though it had just been waxed. Shelves of books lined one entire wall, while another wall was adorned with an oil painting depicting the Blessed Mother’s Assumption. Ivory candles and a vase of pink roses with baby’s breath rested on a table beneath the portrait.

Wandering about the room, Kelly trailed her fingertips across the open Bible lying atop a table. Her lips twitched as she caught herself remembering Sister Grace’s infamous white-glove tests in the rooms at St. Ann’s. Not a smidgen of dust to be found in here, Kelly mused. Which came as no surprise. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years at St. Ann’s it was that the nuns truly believed in that old adage, “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Ms. Santos.”

Kelly swung around at the sound of the nun’s voice, surprised that she’d been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard the nun enter the room. “Not at all, Reverend Mother,” she told the tall, energetic woman in the flowing blue-and-white habit. “I only arrived a few minutes ago.”

“That’s good. I’m afraid we had a little problem with the choir practice after mass and it has my whole morning running behind schedule.” She held out her hand. “I’m Sister Wilhelmina. I’m supposed to be the one who keeps everything in line here at the Sisters of Mary Convent, although I’m not at all sure I succeed.”

“From what Sister Grace told me, you do an excellent job,” Kelly said, already liking the woman. She shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You’re most gracious as well as lovely, Ms. Santos. Thank you.”

“Please, call me Kelly.”

The nun bowed her head. “As you wish. Why don’t we have a seat over here,” she said, motioning to the settees grouped around a coffee table. “I’ve asked that tea be brought in for us.”

Kelly took the seat indicated. “I appreciate you agreeing to see me on such short notice, Reverend Mother.”

“Nonsense,” the nun told her as she sat down across from her. “I only wish it could have been under happier circumstances.”

“So do I.”

“Since I’ve only been here for a short time, I’m afraid I didn’t know Sister Grace very well. But I do know she was devoted to ‘her girls,’ as she called her former charges from St. Ann’s. She was particularly proud of you and your success as a photographer.”

Kelly swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Thank you for telling me.”

The Reverend Mother dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Ah, here’s Bess now with our tea,” she said as a plump, rosy-cheeked woman brought in a tray bearing a silver teapot, china cups and serving pieces. She placed it on the table. “Thank you, Bess. I’ll pour.”

“Yes, Reverend Mother,” the woman replied, and quietly exited the room.

As the Reverend Mother served them both tea, Kelly experienced a moment of déjà vu. Suddenly she was ten years old again, seated in the parlor of St. Ann’s on Christmas Eve. The other girls had all departed for the weekend to spend the holiday with extended family members while she had remained at St. Ann’s because she’d had no place to go, no family to visit. Evidently Sister Grace had picked up on her loneliness, because shortly after the last of the girls had left, she had called her down to the parlor. When she’d arrived, the nun had prepared a pot of tea for them and had served it in the convent’s good china cups. It had been the first of many holiday afternoons that she had spent in the nun’s company.

“Kelly?”

At the sound of her name, Kelly shook off the memories. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I asked if you’d like sugar with your tea?”

“No, thank you. Just milk, please.”

“You looked as though you were a thousand miles away just now,” the nun pointed out as she added milk to Kelly’s cup and then to her own.

“I was remembering Sister Grace,” Kelly admitted. “She served me my very first cup of tea in a silver pot very much like that one. And we had old-fashioned English scones and lemon curd with it.”

“Well, I’m afraid we don’t have any scones,” the Reverend Mother informed her, a smile in her voice that matched the one in her hazel eyes. “But Bess’s chocolate-chip-walnut cookies are excellent. Would you like to try one?”

“Yes, thank you,” Kelly replied, and took one of the cookies from the dish and placed it on the plate beside her tea.

The nun placed a cookie on her own plate and sat back. “So tell me about your tea party with Sister Grace. Was it for a special occasion?”

“Actually, it was Christmas Eve,” Kelly told her. “It became sort of a ritual, you might say. After that, every year, whether I was at St. Ann’s or in a foster home, she and I would still meet to have tea and scones together.”

“It sounds like a lovely tradition.”

“It was,” Kelly replied. And instead of dreading the Christmas season because she had no family to share it with, she’d come to look forward to her time with Sister Grace.

“Were you and Sister Grace able to continue your tradition after you left New Orleans?”

“No,” Kelly admitted. “When I left St. Ann’s, I left New Orleans.” And she’d sworn never to return. Kelly put down her teacup and broke off a piece of the cookie. “This is the first time I’ve been back since I left ten years ago.”

“I see. I seem to recall Sister Grace mentioning how demanding your job is. She said you traveled a great deal.”

“Yes.” But her traveling and her job hadn’t been her reason for staying away, Kelly admitted silently. “I should have come back to see her.”

“I’m sure Sister Grace understood about the demands of your career, Kelly. I do know that she was happy that you and some of her other girls stayed in touch with her.”

“I still should have come,” Kelly replied, unable to take any comfort in the nun’s words. She met the other woman’s eyes. “A couple of months ago Sister Grace asked me to come. She said she needed to talk to me about something. But I…I put her off and took an assignment in Europe instead.”

“And now that she’s dead, you feel guilty.”

Kelly nodded. She returned the untouched cookie to her plate. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Probably.” The Reverend Mother put aside her tea and leaned forward. “But there was no way any of us could have known that she would be taken from us so soon. You have no reason to feel guilty for your decision.”

“I have every reason to feel guilty,” Kelly insisted. “I could have turned down the assignment and come back like she asked me to do. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to come back here.”

“Why not?” the nun asked.

“Because I knew coming here would dredge up unhappy memories,” Kelly confessed. She clasped her hands. “Except for Sister Grace, there were few bright spots in my life here. I swore to myself that as soon as I was old enough, I’d leave and start over. Build a new life for myself, a happy life.”

“And did you succeed?”

“I enjoy my work and I’m good at it. And I’m not unhappy,” Kelly responded, knowing as she spoke the words that the description of her life left much to be desired. “But I wish…I wish I had known how ill Sister Grace was. If I had, I’d have come.” And if she had, maybe she wouldn’t be plagued with such a sense of loss.

“I suspect that she didn’t want you to know. As I told you on the phone, Sister Grace’s heart wasn’t strong. She’d been on medication for quite some time.”

“But she died so suddenly.”

“I know, my child. But that’s how heart attacks are,” the Reverend Mother told her. “You must try to take solace in knowing that she’s with our Lord now in paradise.”

Kelly knew the nun was right. Yet it did little to ease the ache in her heart. When the church bells sounded, Kelly stood. “Thank you for your time, Reverend Mother. And for the tea.”

“You’re most welcome.” The Reverend Mother rose and escorted Kelly from the parlor to the entrance door. “Will you be returning to New York now?”

“Probably in a few days. I have to meet with Sister Grace’s attorneys first and I want to visit her grave.” And just saying those words made her want to weep. She still couldn’t imagine never hearing Sister Grace’s voice again, never receiving another one of her letters.

The Reverend Mother touched her arm. “Sister Grace is at peace now with our Lord, Kelly. Try not to grieve for her, but be happy for her.”

“I’ll try,” Kelly promised. But even as she left the convent to go visit the nun’s grave, she knew that it wasn’t for Sister Grace that she grieved, but for herself. Because now she was truly all alone.

Jack surveyed the stripped-down, older-model Lincoln in the alley that contained the city’s latest homicide. The car’s hubcaps and wheels had been stolen, along with the license plate. He stripped off the disposable gloves he’d put on to check the scene for evidence. “Any ID on him?” Jack asked the cop who had been first on the crime scene, where a man had been found with a gunshot wound to his chest.

“No, sir. His wallet’s gone and he’s not wearing any jewelry.”

“Chances are whoever took the wallet, took the jewelry, too,” Jack remarked. “What about registration papers on the car?”

“The glove box was empty, too.”

Which meant any papers identifying the car’s owner were gone, too. “Get a couple of officers and start canvassing the area within a six-block radius. Maybe someone saw or heard something,” Jack instructed, even though he suspected that with all the Halloween hoopla going on last night, they were likely to get more than a few reports of strange happenings.