Page 181 of Callan

Yeah, she had heard that right.They wanted to kill her.I can almost see the headline on TV.

‘Young woman fished out of the water under the Brooklyn Bridge on New Year’s Eve,’ or wherever. ‘Foul play suspected. The police are opening an investigation.’

Right.

This is them.

The people who killed my parents.

But that is an old story. And we’ve taken care of it. I thought we had.What the hell is going on?

I need to call Beverly.

No. This is above her pay grade.

I tip my gaze up, check Mackenzie’s windows, and notice some movement in her dimly lit apartment.

Carmen’s windows are dark.

Without the slightest hesitation, I shift my eyes to my phone and dial a phone number I put in from memory.

The other end of the phone line rings quite a few times before someone answers the call.

A gruff voice. An old voice.

“It’s me,” I say.

“Callan?” the man replies. “Long time, no talk.”

He talks slowly with a hint of humor in his voice, and I begin to wonder if age and physical ailments have caught up with him.

“How are you?” I ask.

Hudson takes his time.

“I’ve been better, but I don’t expect my health to be on your mind tonight,” he says with warmth in his voice.

“Indeed, it’s not,” I confess. “I wouldn’t have called––”

“Get to the point, son,” he cuts me off.

I take in a long breath, not deterred by his abrupt style.

Hudson Mayer was my father's closest friend and advisor up until he miraculously survived the bloodshed.

It took us some time to clear him of any suspicion of betrayal.

He had been a treasure chest of secrets, and of course, we suspected he’d been part of the plot to kill my family.

Time and some hard, cold facts we discovered later cleared his name and also compelled him to give up on a life of crime.

He didn’t want to have anything to do with it anymore, and I couldn’t blame him.

We wanted the same thing, but unlike him, we didn’t have that choice, so we were stuck. To him, it was a no-brainer.

He retired in Costa Rica, and for the most part, we’ve respected our agreement to never get in touch.

“The past has paid us a visit tonight…” I say, looking up at Mackenzie’s apartment. “They almost killed one of my own.”

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