McCall took over. “Your pal, Cap,” he said. “How is he on his taxes? If he survives this germ, you think he’ll still have a gym to work out of when we’re through? And what about your ex, Renee? And her husband, Steve? Do they have any little skeletons in their closet they wouldn’t want the FBI to know about? That law firm of his doesn’t seem like the kind that would tolerate the agency nosing around. You really want to bring all this down on the people you love the most, Lou?”

“People have died, Welcome,” Vaill said, his voice up half an octave and louder by several decibels, “and until we get something good from you, as far as we’re concerned, you pulled the fucking trigger.”

Lou noticed a legitimate, pained look cross the man’s face, and recalled how Vaill’s agenda seemed to differ from McCall’s when they first accosted him at the Blue Ox Tavern.

“Did someone you love get killed around this?” he asked. “Is that why you’re being so hard on me?”

“Shut up,” Vaill snapped.

Lou continued to press. “Was it your daughter? A son? A wife, perhaps?”

In an explosive burst of movement, Vaill seized Lou by the shirt. Lou was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but adrenaline took care of that. With a powerful jerk, Vaill yanked him out of his chair. McCall rushed around to pry his partner’s fingers open. Vaill slumped back and dropped into his chair, breathing heavily, his eyes daggers.

“Okay,” McCall said. “We’re going to start this dance all over again. Where did you get your information?”

Chapter 34

CHAPTER 34

When the cause is right and just, victory is inevitable.

—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, P. 161

Jennifer Lowe knew that she was going to die.

Not die someday, but die soon.

It was her fifth day in the isolation unit, only this time it was as the patient, not the nurse. She remembered one of her favorite instructors in nursing school saying that the best shortcut to being a better nurse was to be a patient. This hospitalization was definitely one of those shortcuts, except that the chance she would ever get to becoming a better nurse was remote. The sheets had become sandpaper, the meals contained nothing she wanted to eat, the time-consuming isolation procedures made it almost impossible to have her bodily needs met in any timely fashion even though her caregivers were all her friends and terrific at their jobs. And her left arm—swollen and throbbing—felt as if it were going to fall off, which, one way or another, it almost certainly was going to do.

Even the wonderful view of Boston’s skyline was becoming tiresome.