When Darkness Ends (Moments in Boston #3) - Marni Mann Page 0,66
right now.
Forty-Eight
After
Ashe
I stared at my phone while it rang, not wanting to answer the captain’s call, thinking of every goddamn excuse not to. Once I’d told her what happened with Dylan, she’d left me alone for three days, giving me the space I needed to be with Alix and his family. Not a single person in my life was holding it together, including myself. But if I didn’t answer her call now, it would be my ass.
I looked at the empty bottle of whiskey next to my bed, the dark room spinning as I sat up. I held the phone to my face, clearing my throat. “Flynn.”
“I don’t have time to ask how you’re doing. I’m calling to tell you I need you in Watertown as fast as you can get there.”
My hand stretched across my forehead, rubbing the top of it, and then raked through my hair. “I don’t know. I’m not in good shape—”
“Flynn, we found them.”
Them.
Her voice told me exactly who she was referring to.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers who had bombed our city and killed my best friend.
My hand dropped, and my eyes shot open—I hadn’t realized I’d been keeping them closed. “Where?”
“I’m going to text you the information. Get there quickly. We’ll assign you once you arrive.”
A surge of adrenaline shot through my chest, my empty hand clenching the blanket, revenge building with each second that ticked. “I’ll leave in five minutes.”
“Flynn … we need you there. We can’t do this without you.”
“You can count on me.”
I disconnected the call and went into my closet, dressing in tactical gear. I ensured each tie was bound and every strap was pulled tightly, and I spent a good amount of time brushing my teeth before I grabbed my wallet and keys and rushed out the door.
When I got into my car, my hands on the steering wheel, only one thought was in my mind.
The next time I was behind this wheel, those motherfuckers were going to be in custody.
I wanted nothing more than to put bullets through both of their heads. But a punishment far worse was having them sent to a supermax facility, where seeing the sun for an hour a day would be the only privilege those bastards got.
“Police,” my team yelled as they kicked in the front door of the house we’d been assigned. “Hands up where we can see them.”
Several different police forces, the FBI, SWAT, and National Guard had been divided into a twenty-block area, as the brothers were suspected to be hiding somewhere in those borders.
As I stepped into the home, there was a man sitting on the couch in the living room, the TV on, his hands raised in the air, one clenching the remote.
Helicopters were circling above in the air, and blue lights were flashing through the windows.
The newscasters were covering every second of this manhunt.
There wasn’t a fucking person in this state who didn’t know what was going on right now.
“Don’t move,” one of my team members yelled at him. “Are you alone? Who else is in this house?”
“Just me,” he replied.
The team split—half running upstairs to scour the second floor, the other staying on the main level—dividing to cover each room.
I approached the man, showing him a photograph of the bombers. “Are you housing these men?”
“No,” he answered. “You’re not going to find them in here.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” I told him.
As I entered the kitchen, there wasn’t anything in the sink, the counters were mostly bare, and nothing was underneath the small table. Everything in here had a place.
“Clear,” I yelled and went back to the living room, a cat weaving between my feet as I gripped my rifle with both hands.
“Clear,” one of my guys yelled from the back of the house.
“All clear,” an agent said from the front.
Once we had been assigned areas, we had been given blueprints to review each home, so going in, we would know the layout, how many floors, whether the house had a basement or attic.
This house only had the latter.
While we waited for the team upstairs to report back, my training caused me to study the living room. There were framed photos sitting on the TV stand, a few more on the end table by the couch. Several peculiar, abstract art pieces were on the walls, which I had a hard time dissecting. I stepped closer to the television to get a better look at the pictures and the faces that were in each one.