The 8th Circle

by Sarah Cain

  “Mrs. Harlan, don’t move,” someone shouted.

  “Stand still.” A chorus of voices. Police at last.

  Patsy Harlan backed up against the wall, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You wanted a story? You’ve got a story,” she said to Danny. “I hope you bleed to death.”

  She laughed as they led her away.

  79

  Painkillers are wonderful things.

  From his bed, Danny watched the activity at the nurses’ station come into focus. A tree decorated with red-and-gold satin balls sat on the desk. Multicolored Christmas lights wound around it and blinked on and off in a hypnotic rhythm, and Danny stared at them until they blended into a smear of pulsating color. Fuzzy numbness overwhelmed him, and his eyes drifted shut.

  “At the end of the world, there’ll be fourteen cockroaches and you.”

  Danny forced his eyes open at the sound of the familiar voice and tried to focus. Novell’s face floated into view.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you to wake up. You were in surgery for that hole Patricia Harlan put in you. You’re very lucky she didn’t nick any arteries.” Novell laid a newspaper on the foot of the bed and peeled off the front section. “Your friend Westy sent it.” He held up the front page. “I guess you’re a big deal again.”

  Danny barely glanced at his own column. Next to it was a picture of Robert and Patsy Harlan performing their tragic dance. Patsy clutched the wine bottle. Goddamn Freddie Santos really knew how to capture the action shots.

  “Senator clings to life?”

  “You didn’t know? No, of course you didn’t. When he fell, he hit his head funny and broke his neck. He’s paralyzed, but not dead.” Novell gave Danny a bleak smile. “Maybe I was wrong. At the end of the world, there’ll be those fourteen cockroaches, you, and Robert Harlan.”

  *

  The hospital kept him for two more days, which was as close to walking away from a knifing as Danny figured he would get. The doctors said he was lucky. He’d suffered nerve damage, but after physical therapy, he would probably be at least 95 percent whole. Danny figured that was as good as he could hope for.

  “Why did you lie about the club?” he said to Kevin. “You could have lost your badge.”

  “That night, the mayor’s chief of staff was there with two transvestites, and the federal prosecutor was upstairs getting his ass whipped. There was no way I could shut down Delhomme’s operation myself, which was a good thing for you. Christ, Danny. You stuck a guy with an eight-inch blade. I damn near shat myself when Novell told me that.”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Did you want to go to trial on that one? Jesus God, when we got to Mason’s house, there were pictures of you all over the place.”

  “You thought I had a connection with Mason Scott?”

  When Kevin flushed, Danny knew he had assumed the worst. “I, uh, found out the DEA has been running an investigation for months. They were hoping Delhomme would roll on the operation. He figured first in to cut a deal would get immunity.”

  “The whole operation?”

  “I guess. Nobody wants to do jail as a child killer.”

  “Will he get a deal?”

  “If he ever wakes up.”

  “And Mason?”

  Kevin’s eyes shifted away. “Mason’s not your concern.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Do you know what he did to Kate? To those girls?” Cold fury filled him.

  “The feds will look into the Inferno. There are plenty of loose ends. It just takes time. And Mason’s done. He’s just done. Let it go.”

  Kevin face turned dark and tense, his lips compressed, and Danny saw the monster in Kevin’s eyes. The old man’s legacy. And he knew that some doors were best left unopened. He would have to accept the fragile trust between them or lose his brother. He gave Kevin the barest of nods.

  “Please tell me the truth about Kate.”

  “I’m sorry, Danny. I truly think she loved you. If it’s any comfort, we wouldn’t have gotten into the club if it wasn’t for her.” Kevin looked down.

  “I got her killed. The old man was right about that.”

  Kevin pressed his lips together for a long minute. “She made a choice.” He squeezed Danny’s arm. “There’s a difference between dying and choosing.”

  Danny plucked at the covers. “So either way, she chose to leave.”

  “Let her go.” Kevin stepped a little closer, his face filled with conflicting emotion. He did the Ryan thing and gave Danny a bat on the head. “I can’t believe you just walked the hell out of here.”

  “You shouldn’t have kept me like a prisoner.”

  “Because I knew what you’d do. What were you thinking, going to that dinner? What the hell did you say to Patsy Harlan?”

  Danny smiled. “I said, ‘Stand by your man.’ Swear to God.”

  Kevin paced the room for a moment and then came back to stand by the bed. “Why couldn’t you just write your story and let it go at that?”

  “I had to. For Conor and Beth and Beowulf. For Kate.” Danny swallowed. He didn’t feel like arguing with Kevin. “If you’d gone through the mail instead of stealing my cookies, you’d have found the discs first.”

  When Kevin spoke, his voice was almost inaudible. “It scared the shit out of me when she stuck you. I thought for sure you were dead.”

  “Novell said at the end of the world, there’d be fourteen cockroaches and me.”

  Kevin made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a growl and then caught Danny in a clumsy embrace that sent shudders of agony across his damaged shoulder, down his left arm, and into his hand. Kevin’s body shook with sobs, and it terrified him because to the best of his knowledge, Kevin hadn’t cried since their mother’s funeral.

  “Jesus Christ. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Dumb son of a bitch.”

  Danny could feel Kevin’s halting breath against his neck, and he laid a tentative hand on Kevin’s shoulder. Love left an imprint, not visible, yet indelible.

  “I love you too.” He wasn’t sure Kevin heard him, but it didn’t matter. He gave himself over to his brother’s embrace.

  80

  The old stone building rose out of fields covered by a fragile layer of fresh snow. It gave the countryside the look of a postcard. Inside, the persistent smell of antiseptic, the pale-green tile floors and florescent lights, and the hospital beds and special handicapped equipment were vivid reminders that this was no country retreat.

  Danny paused outside the suite, knocked on the doorframe, and then approached the figure who sat in the motorized wheelchair by the window. In three months, Robert Harlan had lost a considerable amount of weight, but his black eyes glittered with life. His hair, now closely cropped, was completely white. Danny could see red drill marks on his skull where the iron frame had been screwed to keep his spine from compressing.

  “Senator Harlan, you’re looking well, all things considered.” Danny watched the senator’s eyes go a little colder, though he smiled and lifted his right hand with some difficulty. His fingers latched onto Danny’s, and the touch of the senator’s icy flesh filled him with revulsion. He placed his left hand against the bandage that wound around his neck.

  “I’m so pleased you came to see me, Daniel.” The senator’s voice was weaker these days, but it didn’t diminish his presence. “As you can see, I’m on the mend.”

  “I read you were a quadriplegic.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you read. I don’t.”

  The senator took a breath. Air rasped through the gauze-covered hole in his neck left by the tracheotomy, though he no longer used a breathing apparatus. Conor would have said he sounded like Darth Vader.

  “I have regained much of my body function. They say my will is very strong. I could be walking in six to eight months.”

  “I’m surprised that you wanted to see me, Senator.”

  “Are you?” The senat
or’s lip curled up in what Danny supposed was a smile. “Are you worried that I might be plotting my revenge?”

  Danny knew the senator would never be brought to trial. The feds swooped in and took the discs, the pictures, and the negatives while he was in the hospital. They didn’t plan to return them. Kevin had already warned him to stay out of it. “It won’t just be you who’ll be a target,” he’d said. “Think of what’s left of your family.”

  Drugs were what the feds were after. All those dead children were collateral damage from the million-dollar cocaine operation that had run through Bruce Delhomme’s restaurants and clubs. Of course, it wouldn’t wrap up without an investigation, but Bruce Delhomme, the man who could tie everything together, was lying in a coma at Jefferson Hospital. If anyone was talking, they weren’t privy to much information. The feds were plodding on, but as Kevin had said, it would take time. In the meantime, Senator Harlan and Everett Scott had donated all the profits they had made from Bruce Delhomme’s various restaurants to create an outreach center for runaway teens.

  “Why did you want to see me?” Danny wanted to pull away, but the senator tightened his grip. His fingers were already starting to go numb. A gift from Patsy Harlan: his left hand would always be damaged. He supposed he deserved it.

  “I wished to congratulate you, Daniel. I’m afraid I underestimated you, but you were much more resilient than I thought.”

  “I could say the same for you, Senator.”

  “Did you know they drilled holes into my skull and hung me on a frame? Just like a piece of meat?”

  “That’s a damn shame.” Danny drawled out the words with what he hoped was the right amount of insincerity. “Do you expect me to pity you? If it weren’t for you, Beth and Conor would still be alive.”

  A muscle in the senator’s face twitched.

  The senator jerked his head at Danny to lean close. “My daughter was everything to me. Everything.” The senator’s black eyes burned with an intensity that Danny had never seen. Christ, the old bastard had cared for something. Or was Beth the ultimate trophy? Beth once told him her father loved her because she was the perfect daughter. He never quite understood what she meant until now.

  “You took her from me, Daniel. You weren’t worth the ground she walked on. But you were what she wanted. All she wanted, so I acquiesced. I had no choice but to wait until she recognized her lapse in judgment. I knew she would, so I didn’t interfere. She was planning to divorce you. She told me.”

  “I know.”

  The senator fingered the bandage on his neck, then took a breath. “And then she changed her mind. I couldn’t believe it.” Robert Harlan took a choked breath. “She changed her mind.”

  Danny tried to comprehend his words. “She changed her mind?”

  “Oh yes. She wanted to reconcile right as I was considering a presidential run.”

  Danny stared at him. “So you stepped in to deal with the problem.”

  The senator blinked. “I told you. I never interfered in her life. What were you to me? An insignificant local reporter. My God. If I wanted you dead, you’d be gone.”

  Daddy, there’s a monster . . .

  Conor had always been afraid to go to sleep at night. Maybe he knew monsters wore human faces.

  “In any case, you were as good as dead.” The senator’s right cheek twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. “You should have seen yourself. It was much better than killing you. The arrogant prick of a journalist, so clever with words, the scourge of politicians brought to his knees . . .” He shuddered and wheezed. “You were useless. If Michael Cohen hadn’t come along, you’d probably have killed yourself. But he had to leave you that damn package.”

  “You killed your own daughter.”

  “No. I wouldn’t kill my own child, but someone did.”

  “And you know whom.”

  The senator shrugged. “That would be a strange thing to admit.”

  The revulsion crawled down Danny’s back. “And Conor was . . .”

  “Collateral damage.” The senator leaned closer. “It was unfortunate, but think of it this way: you lived to write the story. You won. Or did you? When you tally up the wins and losses, did you really win, Daniel? Or would you trade it all to have your boy back?” The senator gulped air through his ashen lips, but he smiled. “Don’t bother to answer.”

  Danny couldn’t answer. He’d have destroyed the evidence in a minute to have Conor back. He’d have sold his soul. He wouldn’t have had a choice. Christ, he was wrong. Love didn’t leave imprints. It left the deepest scars of all.

  Danny looked into the senator’s eyes. They were as black as pitch, yet he recognized something in those depths, something akin to his own pain. He jerked his hand away.

  “How is Patsy these days?”

  The senator looked away. “Patricia is not doing as well as we hoped, I’m afraid. Her long-term prognosis is not good.”

  Danny’s skin began to crawl. Patsy may have tried to kill him, but he provoked her. He couldn’t imagine what it was like living with Robert Harlan. He doubted she’d be doing that much longer. She’d go quietly in her sleep. A heart attack, perhaps. Or a stroke. No questions asked.

  “Bruce Delhomme might wake up, you know.”

  The senator smiled. “Perhaps. But he’s been in a coma for three months. How lucid will he be? Anything is possible, of course.”

  “I hope he wakes up tomorrow and remembers everything. I hope they decide to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. I hope you never see the outside again.”

  “The authorities will do nothing.” The senator chuckled, a dry wheeze. “In eight months I’ll be back at work, much to the joy of my constituents, who will have forgotten any of my possible business dealings and will cheer my triumph over adversity. With any luck, by this time next year, I’ll be walking. The twenty-four-hour news cycle is indeed an amazing thing.”

  “You were the one giving the orders. I know you were.”

  “What you know and what you can prove are two different things. In any case, I have always been a man who served the interests of my constituents, nothing more and nothing less. I have never availed myself of the services of the Inferno.”

  “But you saw no harm in profiting by those services.”

  “It was a business arrangement, pure and simple. I made an investment in Bruce’s restaurant. An unfortunate one as it turned out. All that business with cards and memberships. That nonsense was Bruce’s idea. Marketing, really. Exclusivity. Little people like their cards. It shows they’re better than others. What insignificant man doesn’t enjoy his upgrade to first class? He can sit in his leather seat and pretend to be something he isn’t.” He jerked his hand in an impatient gesture. “I assure you, I never needed a card. I burned mine immediately.”

  “You get off on control. Like with Kate. You wanted to control her.”

  The senator took another rasping breath. For a moment, his eyes glittered with that same emotion as when he talked about Beth. Something human. Something horrible.

  The senator’s face grew dark and hard. His breathing became more labored. “You will spend the rest of your life wondering whether or not you could have saved her. Or maybe, more to the point, whether she could have saved you.”

  Danny absorbed the impact of the senator’s words. He had failed Kate. She would haunt him forever. “And you will sit in a wheelchair and wonder how the Irish bum brought you down.”

  The senator coughed and waved his hand. “You pick over people’s lives for a living. That’s your business. You’re no less ruthless about it than I. You, of all people, should know that there are no absolutes, no ironclad truths, Daniel. In this world, everything can be right or wrong. I daresay a skilled journalist can make an argument for anything. Don’t pretend we’re so different.”

  Danny recoiled at the man in front of him. He wasn’t like Robert Harlan, yet he could feel his father’s accusing voice in his ear. God is watching you, boy. A vul
ture. Is that what he was?

  The senator’s eyes lightened with pleasure, as if he could read Danny’s thoughts. “What’s the point of arguing? I won’t be able to run for president. My affairs can’t sustain that level of scrutiny, so I shall remain in the Senate. It too is a club. You, of course, can start over. You are still a young man, but if I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open, especially if you plan to pursue this story any further.”

  “Is that a threat, Senator?”

  “Let’s just call it a friendly warning.” The senator fixed him with a dead-eyed stare. “Remember, Daniel, it’s good to have friends.”

  81

  Danny had to lean against the wall, catch his breath, feel the ground solid beneath his feet. He waited for the surge to hit, but it didn’t come this time. There was only a dull ache that came with the recognition that none of them were winners. They had all paid.

  In the end, the only innocent was Conor.

  Danny approached the information desk, and he managed a smile when he saw the aide. She wore scrubs with shamrocks on them and a light-up pin that glowed “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” in Kelly green.

  “I know, I know. I’m a day early. But the patients love it,” she said and gave him a wide smile. “You okay?”

  No. He wasn’t okay. He’d just sat face to face with the devil and saw more of himself in Robert Harlan than he would ever admit to anyone. He nodded. “I’m trying to find some information about a former patient. A Linda Cohen. She was here at the beginning of January.”

  The aide punched the name into her computer and then frowned. “Is that Cohen with a C?”

  “Yes. Linda Cohen. She was transferred from Franklin.”

  “We didn’t have any Linda Cohen as a patient here in January.”

  “But the hospital told me they transferred her here.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any record of a Linda Cohen.”

  “Her maiden name was Goldman. Would you try that?”

  She punched into the computer again and shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing. Maybe you need to recheck the hospital, honey.”