Cross

on the hit man, who wasn’t moving and looked like he’d have to be peeled off the fence.
    “We’re okay,” Michael Jr. said, sounding shaky but still in control of his emotions.
    Sullivan walked around to look at the punk, what was left of him anyway. The only thing keeping him on his feet was the steel sandwich he was trapped in. His head lolled lazily to one side. He seemed to be looking around through the one eye not totally obscured with blood.
    Sullivan went and picked up the remains of the Louisville Slugger from the dirt.
    He swung once, twice, again, and again, punctuating each blow with a shout.
    “Don’t.
    “Fuck.
    “With.
    “My.
    “Family!
    “Ever!
    “Ever!
    “Ever!”
    The last swing went wild and missed; Sullivan put a huge crater in his hood. But it helped him remember where he was.
    He got in the car and backed up to where his boys were watching like a crowd of zombies at somebody’s funeral. When they climbed inside, none of them spoke, but nobody cried, either.
    “It’s okay now,” he told them. “It’s over, boys. I’m going to take care of this. Do you hear me? I promise. I promise you on my dead mother’s eyes!”
    And he would keep his word. They had come after him and his family, and the Butcher would come after them.
    The mob.
    John Maggione.

Chapter 67
    I HAD ANOTHER SESSION with Kim Stafford, and when she came in, she was wearing dark sunglasses and looked like someone on the run. My stomach just about dropped to the ground floor of the brownstone. It struck me that my professional worlds were colliding on this case.
    Now that I knew who Kim’s fiancé was, it was harder for me to respect her wish to keep him out of this. I wanted to confront this piece of crap in the worst way.
    “Kim,” I said at one point, not too far into the session, “does Sam keep any weapons in the apartment?”
Sam
was the name we had agreed to use in our sessions; Sam was also the name of a bulldog that had bitten Kim when she was a little girl.
    “A pistol in the nightstand,” she said.
    I tried not to show the concern I was feeling, the alarm sounding loudly inside my head. “Has he ever pointed the gun at you? Threatened to use it?”
    “Just once,” she said, and picked at the fabric of her skirt. “It was a while ago. If I’d thought he was serious, I would have left him.”
    “Kim, I’d like to talk to you about a safety plan.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Identifying some precautionary measures,” I said. “Setting aside money; keeping a packed suitcase somewhere; finding somewhere you could go—if you needed to leave quickly.”
    I’m not sure why she took off her sunglasses at that moment, but this is when she chose to show me her black eye. “I can’t, Dr. Cross,” she said. “If I make a plan, I’ll use it. And then I think he truly would kill me.”
    After my last session that day, I dialed into my voice mail before heading out. There was only one message. It was from Kayla.
    “Hey, it’s me. Well, hang on to your hat because Nana is letting me cook dinner for all of us tonight.
In her kitchen!
If I weren’t scared silly, I’d say I can’t wait. So, I’ve got a couple of house calls to make, and then I’m stopping at the store. Then I might shoot myself in the parking lot. If not, I’ll see you at home around six. That’s
your
house.”
    It was already six when I got the message. I tried to put the troubling session with Kim Stafford out of my mind, but only partly succeeded. I hoped she was going to be okay, and I wasn’t sure if I should try to interfere just yet. By the time I got to Fifth Street and hurried inside, Kayla was ensconced in the kitchen. She was wearing Nana’s favorite apron and sliding a rib roast into the oven.
    Nana sat erect at the kitchen table with an untouched glass of white wine in front of her. Now
this
was interesting stuff.
    The kids were flitting around in the kitchen too, probably waiting to see how long Nana could sit still.
    “How was your day, Daddy?” Jannie asked. “What’s the best thing that happened?” she said.
    That brought a big smile from both of us. It was a question we liked to throw around the dinner table sometimes. We’d been doing it for years.
    I thought about Kim Stafford, and then I thought about the Georgetown rape case and Nana’s reaction to my working on it. Thinking about Nana brought me right back to the present, to my answer to Jannie’s question.
    “So far?” I said. “This is