When Darkness Falls

chapter 34

E xplosives changed everything-especially for Vince Paulo.

Since losing his sight, Vince had heard all the amazing stories. The guy who blew his nose so violently that his eye popped out. The firefighter whose eye was left hanging by the optic nerve after a blast from a fire hose. The child who ruptured her eye on a bedpost while bouncing on the mattress. Metalworkers with steel shards embedded near the optic disc or with splashes of molten lead on the eyeball. A soldier shot at arm’s length, the projectile entering the inner canthus of the right eye and lodging under the skin of the opposite side. What made these cases remarkable was that in each instance, the ultimate visual impairment was nonexistent or negligible, or so the tales of medical miracles went. On the other side of the spectrum were patients who seemed to suffer only minor ocular trauma, the globe still intact, but whose vision was lost forever. They were the unlucky ones, the Vince Paulos of the world.

“Bomb squad is standing by, Sergeant.”

Vince heard the message over his earpiece, but he didn’t answer right away. Theo Knight’s mere mention of explosives had Vince seeing that pockmarked door again, the opening at the end of the hallway to his personal and permanent tunnel of darkness.

“Vince?” said Alicia. She was standing at his side.

“Yeah, I heard. I was just thinking for a minute.” It was a lie, of course-at least the part about “a minute.” Vince had been thinking and rethinking for months, imagining how different things might have been if he just hadn’t pushed open that door. He keyed his mike and told the bomb-squad leader to stand down until he made one more attempt to reestablish contact with Falcon.

Alicia said, “Just because this Theo says there’s a bomb doesn’t mean Falcon has one.”

“We have to assume the worst.”

“Do you really think he has the know-how to make one?”

“He had two hundred thousand dollars in a Bahamian safe deposit box. He’s packing a nine-millimeter pistol with plenty of ammunition. He shot two officers in a gunfight in the dark, and now he’s more than holding his own in a hostage standoff against the entire City of Miami. I think it’s time we all erase from our minds the image of a hapless homeless guy atop a bridge and focus more on the sick bastard who for no apparent reason beat a defenseless woman to death with a lead pipe.”

“I was just asking, Vince.”

He could hear the change in Alicia’s tone, and he realized that his own intensity was getting the best of him. It was time to get control over those feelings that lingered just below the surface and never really went away, time to quell the useless anger over a risk he should never have taken. “Sorry,” he said. “Guess I should just catch my breath and chill a little, huh?”

He felt the gentle touch of her hand on his forearm. She said, “This is a different ballgame than the one Chief Renfro and I invited you to. Are you okay with it?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Too much like the last one, maybe.”

“No, you’re wrong. It’s nothing like the last one. This time I have a warning. I can see what’s coming.” The unintentional pun drew a mirthless chuckle from somewhere inside him, like a reflex.

The phone rang, but it wasn’t on the dedicated line to the hotel room. It was Vince’s cell. The call was from Detective Barber, the lead homicide investigator. “Got an update for you on the body in Falcon’s car,” he said.

“Good. Alicia Mendoza is right here with me. Let me put my cell on speaker.”

“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” said Barber.

Vince wasn’t sure how to interpret the detective’s concern, but he obliged. “Okay, no speaker.”

Barber said, “In fact, I’d prefer that this information and everything you say in response to it be just between us. It might be important to your negotiations.”

“All right.” He covered the phone and said, “Alicia, could you excuse me for a minute?”

He sensed some confusion on her part-just a vibe that he picked up from her hesitation-but it was only for a moment.

“No problem,” she said. “I’ll get some coffee.”

Vince waited for the door to open, then close. “I’m back,” he said into the phone.

“I have an eyewitness who claims to have seen a well-dressed, twentysomething-year-old man, either light-skinned black or dark-skinned Hispanic, speaking to Falcon two nights ago by the river.”

“What time?”

“Just after dark. If I tie that in with the medical examiner’s report, it’s not long before our Jane Doe ended up dead and stuffed inside the trunk of Falcon’s car-Er, home.”

“Any idea who it might be? Your physical description could fit half the young men in Miami.”

“True. But fortunately our witness got a license plate number.”

“How did it come back?”

“This is where it gets interesting. It’s a guy named Felipe Broma. He works security for Mayor Mendoza.”

Vince suddenly understood why the detective wanted Alicia out of earshot. “You talked to Broma yet?”

“No.”

“How about the mayor?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

There was silence on the line, then Barber said, “I’ve been a detective a long time. I listen to my instincts.”

“What are your instincts telling you?”

“There’s only one way to find out what’s really going on here. And talking to the mayor or his bodyguard is not the answer.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I need to talk to Falcon,” said Barber. “Through you.”

Vince considered it. “Let me see if I can get him talking again. We’ll take it from there.”

“One other thing,” said Barber. “Not a word of this to the mayor’s daughter. Agreed?”

Vince wasn’t entirely sure what the detective had on his agenda, but he wasn’t hot on the idea of keeping secrets from Alicia-at least not without a more compelling explanation from Barber. “Like I say: I’ll see if I can get Falcon talking, and we’ll go from there.”