tough call. What does Cindy want you to do?'
'She wants me to run.'
'I don't suppose there's any question about what your old man wants?'
'He wants me to go for the gold. I thought the top of his head was going to pop off when I didn't jump at the offer.'
'But you told him you're thinking about it?'
'Oh, yeah. I didn't want him to have a coronary.'
'It would mean a lot to him, Tim.'
'Yeah, he could brag about having a senator in the family.'
'He wants what's best for you.'
'He wants what's best for William Kerrigan.'
'You're being hard on him.'
'He's a hard man. He always has been. No matter what I did it was never enough. Not even winning that goddamn trophy. It became so much tin to him when I didn't go pro and cash in.
'And he was never around when Mom was dying.' Tim took a drink, then continued. He looked down at the tabletop. 'I always suspected that he was spending time with one of his women. I still can't imagine it. My mother is wasting away from cancer and he's balling some bimbo.'
'You don't know that.'
'No, not for certain. But he sure married number two fast enough.'
Kerrigan could never bring himself to say the name of the woman who had succeeded his mother as mistress of the house.
'Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm being unfair to him, but what business deal could be so important that he couldn't put it off? Mom was dying, for Christ's sake. He knew she only had a little time left. Didn't he want to spend it with her?'
'So Cindy wants you to run,' Hugh said to distract his friend. 'Your father wants you to run and the party wants you to run. What do you want to do?'
'I don't know if I can handle being a senator.' Hugh could see the pain in his friend's eyes. 'Why me, Huge?'
'I'm going to tell you the answer, but you won't like it.'
'That's why I'm asking you. You're always straight with me.'
'They're asking you because they think you can win and that's all that counts in politics. And they think you can win because you're 'The Flash.' And it's time you got comfortable with the fact that 'The Flash' is always going to be part of who you are, whether you like it or not. It's almost ten years since you got the Heisman. I know you think you didn't earn it, but there are a lot of people--including me--who think you did. And it's about time you came to grips with that and moved on.
'Look at it this way. This is a chance to start from scratch, to do some good, to see if you really are 'The Flash.' And I think that's what scares you. You're worried that you'll win and won't be able to handle the job.
'You've heard me quote Oliver Wendell Holmes more than once. 'Life is passion and action and each man must take part in the passion and action of his times at peril of being judged not to have lived.' I believe that. You've been hiding in the DA's office trying to avoid being noticed, but you've got to come out sometime. It'll be scary, pal. You'll be risking failure. But who knows, maybe you'll surprise yourself.'
Chapter Sixteen.
Nightmares wrecked Amanda's sleep and she was drenched in sweat when she awoke in the dark, exhausted and slightly nauseous, an hour before her alarm was set to go off. Amanda usually started the day with calisthenics, occasionally followed by a decadent pancake breakfast at a cafe that had been a neighborhood fixture since the fifties. This morning, she settled for an ice-cold shower, a toasted bagel, and tea.
Amanda's loft in the Pearl, a former warehouse district, was a brisk fifteen-minute walk from her office. She left her car in the garage in hopes that the cool weather and mild exercise would calm her anxiety. She would be sitting opposite a violent killer later this morning but, she reminded herself, it would not be the same person who had inspired the horrors that had invaded last night's sleep. That person was dead. Jon Dupre would be manacled, and Kate Ross would be with her in the interview room. Logically, there was no reason to worry, but she still felt light-headed when she arrived at the law offices of Jaffe, Katz, Lehane and Brindisi. The fear stayed with her while she worked--a tiny insect she could feel skittering across the pit of her stomach no matter how hard she tried to distract herself.
Kate Ross had picked up the discovery in the Travis and Hayes cases from the district attorney's office, and it was waiting on Amanda's desk when she arrived. Amanda read the police reports first and avoided looking at the crime scene and autopsy photographs until she could no longer put off the task.
Amanda spread the photos of Harold Travis's and Wendell Hayes's bodies on her desk, praying that they would not trigger a flashback. She told herself that viewing the pictures was part of her job--an unpleasant part, but an important part. Amanda took slow breaths as she studied the crime-scene photos. She had read the autopsy reports and went through the autopsy photos quickly. When she was done, she shoved the photos into the case file and noticed that her hands were trembling. She closed her eyes, leaned back in her chair, and tried to relax. The worst was over--she'd seen the pictures and had not had a flashback--but still Amanda wondered if she had made a mistake when she agreed to accept the Dupre case.
Amanda and Kate arrived at the Justice Center at ten-thirty. They showed their IDs to the guard at the jail reception desk, and Amanda asked for a contact visit with Jon Dupre. The guard made a phone call. As soon as he hung up, he told Amanda that Jail Commander Matthew Guthrie wanted to speak to her. A few minutes later,
