Remembering, John smiled. But as his mind took him through the nightmare that followed, the smile made him feel as if he’d just bitten into a rotten piece of meat. “Vic and I had a snitch inside Vespian’s operation. I don’t remember where we found this guy. Just some dipshit junkie by the name of Manny Newkirk. Couldn’t think his way out of a bag. He’d spill his guts for twenty bucks. One night I set up a routine meeting with him, but I got sidelined. Kid stuff—frickin’ basketball or something—and I couldn’t make it. Niswander went in my place.” He blew out a breath to ease the pressure in his chest. “Someone ambushed them. Sons of bitches doused both of them with gasoline and burned them alive.”

John didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. Not with those ugly images running through his mind. “Everyone knew Vespian was responsible, but we couldn’t prove it.”

“But why burn a cop like that?” she asked.

“Vespian wanted information. And he got it.”

“What information?”

“My home address.”

Her recoil was minute, but John saw it. She knew what came next. “He went after your family.”

He nodded. “They broke into my house when I wasn’t there. Vespian and a couple of thugs. They raped my wife, raped my little girls, then murdered all of them. Burned them alive the same way they had Vic.”

Reaching across the table, she laid her hand over his. “I can’t imagine how horrific that must have been.”

“Some of the details never made the papers. The bodies were so burned, there was little evidence left. I didn’t find out about the rapes until I got my hands on Vespian.”

He couldn’t talk about what he’d seen when he broke through the line the fire department had set up. He wasn’t a strong enough man to voluntarily recall those horrific images. “The brass put me on sick leave. Somehow I got checked into a hospital. Fuckin’ psycho ward.” He tried to smile, but didn’t manage. “To tell you the truth, I barely remember.”

“I don’t understand why the cops didn’t go after Vespian.”

“Oh, they did. You know how cops are. They pulled together. Went after him. But the son of a bitch was untouchable.”

“I can’t imagine what that did to you,” she whispered.

“Well, while all that is going down, I’m in the hospital drooling all over myself. One morning I’m in this One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest group therapy shit, and some crazy guy tells me all I need to get myself cured is a mission. I got to thinking about that, and realized he wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought.” He looked at Kate. “So I found a mission.”

“You went after Vespian.”

“A cop can make a pretty good criminal when he puts his mind to it.” John stared hard at her. “Do you want to hear the rest?”

She nodded. “If you want to tell me.”

“I started following Vespian, got to know his routine. Where he went. Who he spent time with. Every other facet of my life went by the wayside. I didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. But I was never hungry or tired. That crazy guy was right. I fixated on Vespian and it cured me.