“Have you recently remarried?” Hawk asked.
She shook her head. “I can’t bring myself to let go of Ned. He was such a good man to me.”
“Is that why he beat you?”
She scowled at Hawk. “You seem to know an awful lot about me, yet you said that you’re here to talk about my son.”
“We are,” Alex said, intervening with a gentle touch. “My partner can get a little sidetracked from time to time.”
“The reason we’re here is to learn more about your son because of what he’s done,” Hawk said. “And I happen to think it might be related to all your dead husbands. I mean, your next husband should have serious reservations about marrying a woman whose previous four husbands have all been murdered.”
“What are you suggesting, Mr.—”
“Mr. Flannigan will suffice,” Hawk said.
“What are you suggesting, Mr. Flannigan?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. This is a direct question. Is your son the one who is killing all of your husbands? I read about how your first husband, Grant Walsh—the father of your son—died in an accident while hiking on a trip in the Grand Canyon.”
“Accidents happen,” she said, remaining evasive.
Hawk continued his attempts to get her to crack. “I also know you had filed to divorce him and he had employed one of the toughest divorce lawyers in Los Angeles to make sure you got as little as possible.”
“Is there a point to all this, Mr. Flannigan?”
“You tell me,” Hawk fired back. “Why do all your husbands—albeit abusive ones—die in some strange accident that could very well be interpreted as murder?”
“If you know so much about me, you’d know that I’ve always been more or less cursed,” she said. “Like when my parents died when our house exploded due to a gas leak.”
“Seems like your luck was pretty good since you were sleeping at a friend’s house that night.”
“Or that my first baby was kidnapped and I never saw him again.”
“And the next week you were driving a new car,” Hawk said. “The black market for babies was pretty lucrative during those days.”
“If you’re with the government, why don’t you go ahead and arrest me since you’ve already convicted me in your own mind. It’d save us a whole lot of time bantering about this.”
“What he means to say,” Alex said, placing her hand on top of Mrs. Templeton’s, “is that we’re sorry for all the incredible loss you’ve suffered in your life. We can’t make it go away, but we want you to avoid experiencing any more excruciating pain.”
Mrs. Templeton sighed and looked up before turning her gaze toward Alex. “So, what do you want to know about my Mack?”
“Have you spoken with him lately?” Alex asked.
Mrs. Templeton shrugged. “I don’t know what you would consider recently, but I did have a conversation with him on the phone last week. He told me to be careful and that he probably shouldn’t have done what he did.”
“Did he give you any details?” Alex asked.
“No, but I just figured it was his usual mischief. Nothing too serious.”
Alex nodded. “Is this something he did often?”
“At least once every few months,” Mrs. Templeton said. “It’s like he’s worried somebody’s going to show up at my house with a gun and shoot me.”
“I didn’t come here to shoot you, Mrs. Templeton,” Hawk said as he narrowed his eyes. “I’m not half the animal your son when he gutted my mother like an savage and left her body on her front porch, using her blood to write a message and get my attention.”
“But you’re definitely here threatening me,” she said before breaking into a coughing fit.
Hawk glanced at the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. “Need a smoke break?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s take this to the back porch,” Hawk said. “You don’t have any snoopy neighbors, do you?”
“What other kind is there?” she said with a chuckle. “They’re all at work right now. We won’t have to worry about them.”
They followed Mrs. Templeton to the back porch. Hawk didn’t want to continue the conversation outside without doing his due diligence. He searched the perimeter, peeking his head over the top of the privacy fence in all three directions to make sure there wasn’t anyone lurking who could eavesdrop on their conversation. Once satisfied that the area was free of any bystanders, he sat down.
“So Mack finally crossed the line, huh?” Mrs. Templeton said before flicking her lighter and igniting a cigarette.
Hawk nodded. “I’d be surprised if this was the first time. Maybe the first time you heard about it though.”
Mrs. Templeton shrugged. “I should’ve seen it coming. You never want to believe the worst about your own kid. Everybody else’s kids are the problem, but not your own. And even when deep down you know they are, you can justify their actions and make excuses for them. It’s what we do best as the human race. We have loads of grace for our family and zero tolerance for others.”
“Look, I know I may not have gone about this the right way,” Hawk said. “But I need your help. There is a serious threat not only to our country but to the rest of the world—and Mack is the only link we have right now to the people who are behind this.”
“My Mack? He’s an evil villain who’s going to destroy the world?” she asked before laughing, which quickly devolved into another coughing fit.
“I’m not sure how much he knows about what he’s doing,” Hawk said. “But he knows enough to understand how dangerous things are. And he’s obviously unhinged since he’s now out slashing throats at the behest of his employer.”
“If all this stuff that you’re telling me is true, what do you want me to do about it? It’s not like he ever listened to me in the first place.”
“We want you to ask him to come home,” Alex said.
Mrs.
