He loved to read.

I love to read, too. Remember that great one, about the stalker who cuts the woman in half?

“Hush. I’m trying to think here.”

No, he needed to make sure he was in Tennessee before he went postal. They killed their criminals dead, dead, dead, dead. And death row was his goal. He giggled. Going postal. That was exactly what he was going to do. Falling Down, like Michael Douglas when he lost his shit and went on that righteous spree. That was cool, but Douglas was weak in the end. That was before his facelift, too. What stupid motherfucking man got a facelift?

He’d enjoyed killing those faggots in the park in D.C. They hadn’t expected him, the Avenger, to glide up to them and open fire. The look on their faces was priceless. They were about to ask him to join their little party, to be a third. Probably wanted him to be on bottom. Dickwads.

The angel start to rap. All the little dickwads, sitting in a row. Pow. Kapow. Blammo, and so. You’re dead. You’re dead. You’re dead, and gone-o.

A thought came to him. A big, beautiful thought. He could find a gay bar. They are always crowded, every night of the week. Oh, imagine that. A whole room full of the abnormal assholes. He knew there was a gay bar in Nashville, a big one. He could go in there, shoot it up. Mow. Them. Down. Oh, my. Oh, that was just perfect.

He got goose bumps, felt them parading up and down his body. His erection was nearly instantaneous. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

The angel was quiet for once, savoring the idea. Fuck the game. Fuck that twisted asshole running it. He was done playing by other people’s rules. He was in control now.

He reset his GPS. Instead of stopping in Louisville and shooting the senator’s gay-as-a-three-dollar-bill aide like he was supposed to, he was heading straight for Nashville.

Good plan, homey. You’re finally getting it.

He lit a cigarette, looked at the bottle of medicine in the console. Rolled down the window and threw it in the trash, followed a moment later by the still-lit cigarette. He was going for broke. No more pretending, no more pills. No more games. Screw the target, that Jackson bitch. He didn’t care about her anyway.

I’m coming for you, motherfuckahs.

Kill the gays, kill the gays, kill the gays.

The angel yelled, Wheeeeeeee.

Thirty-Two

Colleen couldn’t find the place to park that Lieutenant Jackson had suggested, so she went to the underground parking garage across James Robertson Parkway from the CJC instead. She drove down the ramp, surprised at how well lit it was inside. Not bad for the middle of the night.

She positioned the car under a bright light for a little extra safety. She slung her laptop bag over her shoulder, lifted a sleeping Flynn from the backseat of the car, and hurried into the elevator. There was no one around, which made her feel a bit better, but she wasn’t about to take any chance. She had one of Tommy’s old guns tucked into her jacket pocket. She’d be damned if someone would hurt her or Flynn.

The streets were empty. The Cumberland River shone brightly to her right, the murky dark water lit up by the array of lights on the bridge. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. A cold, slithery finger of fear slipped under her scarf, and she pulled Flynn tighter to her chest, no longer worried if she woke him. She sprinted across the street and up the stairs to the CJC. She could have sworn she saw a man follow her, saw a dark blur out of the corner of her eye, but then she was at the door to the building. She rang the buzzer, gesticulating wildly to the guard who was seated behind the glass partition. He buzzed her in and she pulled the door shut behind her, felt it latch securely.

“I think I’m being followed,” she whispered to the man. “Can you watch out for someone who doesn’t belong?”

“I’ll do what I can, ma’am, but we don’t get a lot of normal folks running around in the middle of the night. Are you Mrs. Keck?”

She only flinched a little bit at the Mrs. designation. Too young to be a widow, too old to be a Miss. And Ms. always sounded like a mosquito buzzing out of the person’s mouth. At Flynn’s school they simply called her Miss Colleen, in that quaint Southern way that kept children on a more formal but still personal level with their parents’ female friends. Of course, it was only for the women, she didn’t have a single recollection of someone ever saying Mr. Tommy.

The guard was looking at her, perplexed. Oh, please tell me I didn’t say that aloud. She tried again.

“Yes, I am. I’m here to see Lieutenant Jackson.”

“Yep, you’re on the list. Sorry about your husband, ma’am. They’re waiting for you. Just go knock on that door over there, someone will let you in.”

“Thank you.” She fought back the urge to tip him, almost laughed out loud. After her years as a journalist, she was so used to handing out the twenties when she was in need of information the reflex was ingrained into her.

Flynn had miraculously stayed asleep during her panicked flight from the parking garage. She blessed his father’s genes. Where Colleen would start and wake from the tiniest click or knock in the house’s night, Tommy could sleep through a tornado siren going off next to his bed. He was forever sleeping through his alarm. Flynn was the same way: easy to fall asleep, hard to rouse.

Her third knock was answered by a handsome black man, about six feet tall, impeccably dressed. She almost laughed out loud—who looked that good, that put together, at three in the morning? He smiled at her and she saw the gap between his front two teeth. He looked like a rock star, someone she couldn’t place. She had his CDs though. Damn, what was his name? Lenny something. She racked her brain. Kravitz. That was it.

He saw her trying to place him and smiled wider. He must be used to the double take people did when they saw him. Of course, that was what most folks in Nashville did—the country music capital of the world attracted a bevy of famous musicians, songwriters and singers, not to mention several actresses and actors who enjoyed the illusion of privacy Nashville afforded. Folks might look twice when Nicole Kidman wandered into Starbucks with Keith Urban and Sunday Rose, but they’d never do anything more than smile politely and say good morning. It just wouldn’t be polite to hit them up for an autograph when they were just trying to fuel up on caffeine.

He ushered her inside. “You must be Colleen Keck. I’m Detective Ross. Sorry about all this.”

“You and me both, Detective. Have you heard anything?”

Ross closed the door behind them and gestured for her to follow him. “No, nothing yet. We all just got here. The LT is on the phone to some of her contacts. I think she’s expecting you to brief us, can you do that?”

“I can. Is there someplace I could lay Flynn down? I’m not sure I want him hearing this.”

“Yeah, we can finagle something. I’ll ask one of the shift detectives to keep an eye on him and page me if he wakes up. They’re slow tonight. Will that work?”

“You must be a father, Detective.”

He smiled at her. “Nope. My mom was a reporter, and my dad worked the overnight shift. I got used to waking up in strange corners of the city. Always felt better if someone was around to tell me she’d be back in a second.”

They came to the conference-room door. He took Flynn from her arms and made his way back out of the room.

Taylor Jackson was on the other side of the room, sitting on what looked like a countertop, one long leg dangling beneath her, talking rapid-fire into a cell phone. She must have been sitting on the other foot, she looked like a very blond crane. Two other men were sitting at the table, flipping through files. One was cute, rangy with floppy brown hair, the other more obviously reserved, with blond hair graying at the temples. She mentally dubbed them Frick and Frack. Wondered where the hot guy had gone with her kid. Wondered why she was thinking that.