This was Billy Dent.

The snort hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“We have every terrorist in the world gunning for this city ever since Nine-Eleven,” Hughes said coldly. “You want to know how many of them have succeeded? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with z and ends with a fucking zero, that’s how many. Your dad is just another terrorist with a string of hits behind him and an NYPD badge ready to take him out in front of him. Bank on it, Jasper. Bank on it.”

For a moment, Jazz believed him. It was quite possibly the best moment of his life.

And then reality set in.

Billy was reality and reality was Billy, the two intertwined into an interlocked set of chains that wrapped around Jazz and sent out steely tendrils to anyone and anything close to him.

“So how’d he get the phone to you?” Hughes asked. “And what are you doing over here all by yourself? Lucky no one recognized you.”

Jazz gulped. He had no choice—he had to tell Hughes the truth.

As he told Hughes everything—everything—the detective’s eyes grew wider, his expression more and more incredulous. Every time Jazz thought he’d told Hughes the worst possible thing about the evening, he would get to the next part of the story—So then I went through his mail, oh, and here’s a photo of the envelope—and the cop’s face would assume an even more tortured aspect.

“Oh, sweet Christ,” Hughes said, visibly ill. “I can’t even tell you how many laws you broke.”

“I think nine,” Jazz said helpfully, hoping to get Hughes to crack a grin.

No such luck. “More like a dozen. To start. What possessed you to—No, no, never mind. Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me….”

“Now we have an alias for him. C. D. Williams. We have confirmation that he’s tied to Billy.”

“We have jack. You broke—”

“I’m not a cop,” Jazz pointed out. “You can use everything I found in there. There’s no prosecutorial conflict. No violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Go ahead and arrest me for breaking and entering and whatever else I did when I went in there. I poked at his mail and took a burner phone. Probably not even fifty bucks’ worth. I’ll plead guilty. It’s my first offense—I bet I walk or get probation. In the meantime, you can use the evidence against Belsamo.”

“Are you some kind of special idiot they grow down South?” Hughes erupted. “Do they fry you up with grits and whatever the hell else they deep-fry down there? No judge worth his robe is gonna let Billy Dent’s kid walk on a first offense, no matter what that offense is. No prosecutor who likes his job—and believe me, Jasper, they love their jobs—would let you plead out to anything but the top count on the indictment. You will go to jail. That’s a guarantee.”

Jazz began to protest, but Hughes cut him off with a threatening gesture. “Beyond that,” the detective went on, “is the fact that you’ve been working with the NYPD and the task force in an official capacity. Approved by Montgomery and everything. Any defense attorney in the world, even the most overworked public defender in the friggin’ Bronx, could convince the deafest, dumbest judge in the city that you needed a search warrant to go into that apartment. None of this evidence is admissible. It’s useless. It’s worse than useless because it’s also going to get you arrested and thrown in jail, where you won’t be able to help us nail this guy and where you’ll get raped and shived to death five minutes after you hit gen-pop.”

“They wouldn’t put me in with the general population,” Jazz said with some confidence.

Hughes glared at him wearily. “Then you get stuck in solitary like your old man. That sound good to you?”

Jazz forced a grin. “Well, he broke out….”

Hughes slammed the steering wheel with his fist. “Don’t joke about that! People died when your dad got out!”

“I know that!” Jazz screamed back at him, and even though he had sworn to himself that he would never break in front of anyone, that he would never show weakness, he couldn’t help himself. It was as though he’d been lugging a net full of boulders for weeks in stoic silence and could bear it—and them—no longer. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know everything that weighs on my conscience? Those guards are dead because of me! And Helen Myerson and Ginny Davis and Irene Heller are dead because I didn’t figure out who the Impressionist was quickly enough. And all the people Billy killed from the time I was around ten—when I could have reported him or killed him myself—those forty-seven people are dead because of me. And Melissa Hoover,” he remembered. “You can add her to my tally, too, Hughes! And let’s put my mom on the list, too, because I should have been able to save her. So you add that up. Go ahead. It’s more than fifty people on my list. I’m like Speck and Bundy and Dahmer combined. I’m one of the greatest murderers in U.S. history!” He kicked at the dashboard in frustration, in rage, leaving a broad scuff.

You’re a killer. You just ain’t killed no one yet.

Billy was right. He was right all along. Billy was always right.

I am Ugly J.

“You gonna cry now?” Hughes asked, somewhat softly.

Was Hughes poking at him again? Trying to prod a reaction out of him? Or was he actually concerned?

Didn’t matter. Jazz struggled to regain control of his emotions, grappling with them like a greased wrestler until he’d subdued them. Like always.

“That wasn’t for show,” he said evenly, “but I could. Do you want me to?”

Hughes sighed and stared out through the windshield. “No. I guess not.” He started the engine. “Damn it, Jasper. Look at this spot you’ve put me in.”

“You risked things to bring me here. This is—”

“This is different.” Hughes pulled away from the curb and they headed north. “That was a calculated risk on my part. Low risk, high reward. No laws broken. And it was my decision. You understand that, Jasper? It was my decision. I made it. You forced this one on me.”

“I’m sorry.” It was an automatic reaction. Programmed. When people were upset with you, you apologized. It usually worked.

“I know you are.” Hughes shrugged. “I guess you are. In any event, this is between us for now. You don’t tell your girlfriend or your grandmother, even. You sure as hell don’t tell anyone on the task force. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I’ll take you to the hotel. You’re not coming in tomorrow. I’ll sling a line of bull at Montgomery and Morales. In the meantime, I’ll figure out a way to get some unis to sit on Belsamo without raising suspicions.”

“So you believe me?”

“What choice do I have? Unfortunately, now I have to do this the hard way. E-mail that picture to me. Now. I’ll see what I can find out about the storage place.”

Jazz remained silent as Hughes turned east and then south, piloting them back to the hotel. “Thanks,” he said when the detective pulled up to the hotel.

“Don’t thank me for this,” Hughes said, and drove away.

CHAPTER 41

Early the next morning, Connie packed a duffel bag and went to her parents; she didn’t even give them time to speak before saying, “This is how it’s going to be….” She had spent the night trying to think of ways to trick or cajole them into letting her return to New York, but in the end decided that a blitz attack was best, so she just walked into the family room and announced that she was headed back to New York.

“Oh?” Her father’s voice and expression both teetered on a precipice between amusement and anger. “You’re going to tell us how it’s going to be?” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. If he could have snorted a burst of fire, he would have. “This should be interesting.”