On the other side of the wall…systematic torture, mutilation, and defilement. The victim wasn’t the first so abused by this family of three, and would not be the last. Or so the man who was something more than a man hoped.

What the two adults within had done to the ones they’d captured and imprisoned over the years would have been sustenance enough for this man. But the fact that they had debased their own child and made him a willing participant in the systematic defilement of another human being…this was exquisite.

He flattened his back more firmly against the wall, drinking, feasting…

3

After stopping at Julio’s for a couple, Jack fell into bed when he got home. Jankowski could wait till morning for the good news.

Somewhere around 3 A.M. the ringing of the front-room phone dragged him from slumberland. The answering machine clicked on and out came a voice he hadn’t heard in fifteen years.

“Jackie. This is your brother Tom. Long time no see. I assume you’re still alive, though it’s hard to tell. Well, anyway, Dad was in a car accident earlier tonight. He’s in pretty bad shape, in a coma, they tell me. So give me a call, prontissimo. We need to talk.”

He rattled off a number with a 215 area code.

Jack had been up and moving at the mention of his father’s accident, but didn’t reach the receiver in time to pick up. He stood over the phone in the dark.

Dad? In an accident? In a coma? How the hell—?

Unease trickled through his gut. The past he’d cut himself off from was worming its way back into his life. First he runs into his sister Kate last June, and a week later she’s dead. Now, three months after that, he hears from big brother Tom that his father’s in a coma. Was he detecting a scary symmetry here? A pattern?

Deal with that later, he told himself. First find out what happened to Dad.

Jack replayed the message, writing down the phone number. He used his Tracfone to return the call. That same voice answered.

“Tom? Jack.”

“Well, I’ll be. The long lost brother. The prodigal son. He lives. He returns a call.”

Jack didn’t have time for this. “What’s the story with Dad?”

Jack had never particularly liked his brother. Hadn’t disliked him either. They’d never had any sort of a relationship growing up. Tom—Tom, Jr., officially—was ten years older and seemed to have viewed his little brother as an inconvenient pet, one that belonged to his parents and his sister but had nothing to do with him. He’d always been self-involved to a fault. Kate had said he was on his third wife and hinted that the latest marriage was headed for the same fate as his others. Jack hadn’t been surprised.