Someone is going to die.
I sat in my car and felt that certainty pump through my veins. I took a minute to distil the violence into a more refined form and tucked it away until I needed it. Then I watched the video recorded on the flash drive a second time. Then a third. I picked up my cel phone and tried to cal Jim Doherty. No answer. I clicked off and cal ed Hubert. His voice mail picked up. My phone indicated a second cal was coming in. It was Rodriguez.
“You done with Gianni?”
“He’s got Rachel.”
“Hold on a second.” There was a pause and Rodriguez came back on the line. “Go ahead.”
“He planted a cel phone in my car. Cal ed to tel me about a flash drive he had planted there as wel. She’s on it, Vince. Some sort of video. Looks like she’s beat up pretty bad.”
“You never talked to her this morning?”
“No. She was reading from a script this guy wrote. Said I needed to do exactly as he instructed. Then she read off two addresses. One was Hubert’s. The other was Jim Doherty’s.”
“The cop who gave you the old files?”
“Yeah. Said I should pick one and not worry about the other.”
“You get hold of the kid?”
“No. Hold on, I got another cal.” I clicked over to the other line.
“Mr. Kel y, you cal ed me?”
“Hubert, fuck yes, I cal ed you.”
“Sorry, I was just hashing through the rest of this material on the crash.”
“Hubert, I need you to listen to me.”
The kid shut up.
“I just got a message from this guy. He dropped two addresses we should assume are targets. One was yours.”
I waited. “Hubert, you there?”
“You told me to listen.”
“I’m gonna have them send a team over to your apartment, but it might be a while. For right now, I need you to lock your door, and don’t let anyone in. No one. Unless it’s me or someone with a badge. You got it?”
“Yes.”
“You have a weapon in the house?”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“I have a steak knife.”
“Get it. Lock the door and get the knife. Stay in the house and you’l be fine.”
“This guy is probably playing us, Mr. Kel y. He likes to do that.”
“Stay in the house, Hubert. Wait for the cops.”
“Right. But, listen, I dug up some more interesting stuff…”
“I can’t right now. Put it al on a disk or something and send it to me. But stay in the house until the badge gets there. Okay?”
“Okay, Mr. Kel y.”
“Good kid. I’l talk to you…”
I clicked off and got back on the line with Rodriguez.
“Vince, that was Hubert. He’s okay.”
“I’l get someone over there.”
“Not yet. This guy realizes I’m headed to the cops and maybe he starts kil ing people.”
“He’s already kil ing people, Kel y.”
“There’s a way to play this. But it’s gotta be just me and you.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“We’re gonna find Rachel.”