He Laughed While I Was Hit novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Bridge

Brennan's POV

The black car was gone before the troopers came.

Rocco had driven it out of the lot, laughing, with the boy in his lap, ten minutes after he said his piece.

I had stood there with my hands open at my sides and watched it go, because Britta's fingers were digging into my arm.

If I had moved, he would have driven faster.

The troopers took Fiorella's statement and said they would put out a bulletin.

It meant nothing, and every one of us knew it.

At dusk I stood on the bridge over the river road, a mile from the plant, with a flashlight I did not turn on.

Britta had stayed in the truck with Fiorella.

I heard boots on the gravel behind me.

The flat-nosed man came up the bank with his hat low and his hands where I could see them.

"He's back at Plant Four," he said. "He took the boy up to the executive suite on the third floor. Two men on the lot, one at the stairs. Rocco sleeps in the room next to the boy."

"How do you know?"

"I drove him there at six. Then I walked out of that house, and I told the chairman where I went."

I looked at him in the half dark.

He was a big man, with a broken nose and tired eyes, and he had held Britta's arm hard enough to leave a mark and no harder.

"Why are you doing this?" I said.

"I held a woman's arms while she was hit, Mr. Doyle. I'd like to hold something else."

I did not ask him anything more.

"I'll go in tonight," I said. "Through the rail spur."

"You'll get yourself shot and him hurt." His voice was flat. "You're a grocer. I know every door in that building and which ones stick. Six of the chairman's men are waiting at the river dock now. We go in at three."

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