by Brent Pilkey
Thank God for Justice. A slight smile twitched Jack’s swollen lips as he shuffled across his neighbour’s front yard.
“Holy shit, Jack. Are you okay?” His neighbour stared at him in shock.
“I’ll live,” Jack assured him. “Just had a run-in with someone. I’ll tell you the whole story some other time, Mick. Right now I just want to grab Justice and drug myself to sleep.”
“I guess.” Mick hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Justice is out back playing with the kids. I’ll go get him. He may be a bit wet; the kids were playing with the sprinkler.”
Jack smiled. Or tried to. “That’s okay. Thanks for looking after him.”
“Any time, Jack. I’ll be right back.”
Jack leaned against the wall and gently closed his eyes. A run-in with someone? That was one way of putting it. One fucked-up, juiced-up crazy lady.
Furlington had escaped the fight with the fewest injuries. Her skull was thicker than her delusions. She was facing a slew of charges, starting with attempted murder and going from there. Mason had still been typing when Jack had left and probably wouldn’t stop until Furlington was hauled off to Show Cause court tomorrow morning. Not that Jack figured she’d ever face any of her charges in court. It was a safe bet she’d be declared mentally unfit for trial and end up in a padded room somewhere.
And once the current charges were all typed up, Mason would be digging through four years’ worth of old occurrences to see how many could be laid at Furlington’s feet, starting with her girlfriend’s death. Jack remembered the distraught, frail girl from the night Furlington had mutilated herself after being raped by that savage Kayne. She’d been hysterical and had obviously cared for Furlington deeply. And she was dead.
Did Furlington kill her or did Sherry jump off the balcony? Only Furlington knew the truth and Jack had serious doubts about her memory. Anyone who could convince herself she was her dead brother could easily recall a homicide as a suicide. And in the end, it really didn’t matter. Sherry was dead and nothing would change that.
It was the same with Furlington’s father. The Sault Ste. Marie police could question her all they wanted, lay as many charges as they deemed appropriate, but it wouldn’t matter. Dead was dead.
The frenzied skittering of nails on tile brought Jack out of his thoughts. Justice bounded onto the porch, turning circles and barking excitedly. All the shit and darkness weighing Jack down sloughed off his shoulders with Justice’s animated greeting.
Slowly, carefully, Jack knelt. The shepherd — and yes, he was indeed wet but Jack didn’t give a damn — calmed almost immediately and gently nosed the bandages on Jack’s face. He tenderly licked the stitches holding Jack’s lip together and whined softly as if to say he understood Jack’s pain.
Jack smiled — fuck the stitches — and felt his eyes tearing up. It was good to have someone who loved him waiting for him to come home.
BRENT PILKEY is a Toronto police officer who has spent the majority of his twenty-four-year career patrolling the tough streets of 51 Division and serving on the Crisis Intervention Team. Visit him online at BrentPilkey.com.
Copyright © Brent Pilkey, 2012
Published by ECW Press
2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
416-694-3348 / [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Pilkey, Brent
Secret Rage / Brent Pilkey.
ISBN 978-1-55022-965-3
ALSO ISSUED AS: 978-1-77090-247-3 (PDF); 978-1-77090-248-0 (EPUB)
I. Title.
PS8631.I479S42 2012 C813’.6 C2012-902701-4
Cover and text design: Tania Craan
Cover images: apartment building © Tania Craan; falling woman © Masterfile
Author photo: Andrew Hay
The publication of Secret Rage has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
