The Mark

31

The Ringer’s shoulder throbbed as if rubber pellets were being bounced at 100 miles an hour. His only anesthetic had been damaged beyond recognition. He was just about to enter Ken’s Coffee Den on Interstate 55 when his cell phone rang.

“Yes?”

“This is Blanket. From Mr. DiForio’s.”

“I know who you are.”

“Right. Anyway, Mr. DiForio just received word from our contact at the Manhattan Transit Authority. Apparently they’re very interested in a certain train that left from Union Station in Chicago yesterday, heading to Penn Station.”

Chicago. Not far from here…

Blanket continued. “Mr. DiForio would like to remind you how important it is that we find whatever carry-on luggage these commuters had on them. He wants to remind you not to get overzealous in finding these commuters, and that you’re not to damage whatever carry-on luggage you find.”

The Ringer remained silent. He clenched the phone until he felt the plastic bend beneath his fingers.

Anne. I’m so close. I can see your face, your beautiful face. And I see his face crushed in my hands as he begs for his life. I want you to see it, too, baby. I want you to see what I will do for you. I’ll be with you soon. But I have one more mission to accomplish.

“Do you understand what Mr. DiForio wishes of you?”

Shelton Barnes hung up. He was no longer the Ringer. The facade had been lifted. The man underneath the mask revealed. Once again, he was nobody’s servant but Anne’s, and Shelton Barnes was the name she’d always known him by. The name he’d discarded years ago when his life exploded in a fiery ball. The name he was finally ready to reclaim.

Barnes took Anne’s photo from the flap in his breast pocket. A gasp escaped his lips. The pain would never die. Her delicate features obliterated. Now, the only true memory of her was in his mind.

A tear streaked down Barnes’s face as he gently placed the photo back in his pocket. The sky was darkening, a harsh wind blowing through the air, chilling him to the bone. A dark storm of vengeance was coming for Henry Parker, and the chase was drawing to an end.

Anne. I miss you so much. Soon the day will come when I can join you. I wait for that day with open arms, open lips. To feel your kiss, your touch. We’ll be together soon.

But not yet.

Not yet.

Barnes started his car and pulled onto the Interstate, following the signs toward I-90 East. Toward New York. Toward Henry Parker. Toward the man he had to kill.