Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Maggie called me on her cell phone and told me they had the boys. She told me what Nikolai had said, and that she and Caroline were on the way to the park. I hung up, told Angel that they were bringing the boys to the park, and then my phone rang again — this time it was Franz. Someone had called Pete’s house and told him if we wanted Torstein back, we’d find him in the park this morning. The downtown police station was only a few blocks from Patriots Park, maybe a mile. We told Franz we’d meet him, Tawny and Bruiser there, and we piled into my car and into the car of our lawyer, Vic Mondino, then raced the empty streets to Patriots Park. We left the cars on the street and ran into the park. It was strangely deserted. Usually a few drunks or homeless were lounging on the benches first thing in the morning, having slept there all night. I guess the big bust yesterday had discouraged them from coming back here.

But we didn’t see Torstein, either.

We ran past the little playground, followed the concrete trail that wound into the park itself, felt stupid about calling out his name, but did it anyway — and there was no answer.

We were all looking for any sight of that electric green coat; I know that’s what I was looking for as my eyes scanned the park in the early morning: the iridescent shimmer of the dragonfly. In desperation I was looking back across the park, toward the street, in case the kidnappers were just now dropping him off. But again, I didn’t see the green coat.

I saw a red one. A burgundy jacket.

When I dared to let my brain interpret what I’d seen, I was afraid to go to it ... but afraid not to. I didn’t want anyone else to get there first, to see it before I did, to prove me right.

They had dumped him from the street, just flung him into the park, probably from a moving vehicle. Even as I stood there, staring at the red jacket heaped on the ground, I saw Pete’s car pull up, Franz and Tawny, Pete and Phyllis, and Bruiser piling out. They were on the other side of that wretched red jacket and what it contained.

I couldn’t take a step toward them. I couldn’t call out. I just watched as Phyllis sort of collapsed beside the jacket, and Tawny flung herself into Franz’s arms, and Pete knelt down beside his wife, and Bruiser knelt down beside them. It was like watching people in a movie, like watching something that had nothing to do with me. That red jacket couldn’t mean anything to me, or to Torstein. He wore green. That wasn’t his jacket.

Then Jack and Jazz were running past me, Angel and Len were running past me.

I stood there, it seemed, a long time. I could see the reactions of horror taking place as one after another our friends drew close and saw what we were afraid to go see. The jacket was so stained with blood, it was entirely red. There wasn’t a speck of green visible on his whole electric coat.

I saw Caroline and Maggie arrive, saw the boys bouncing out of the car and toward their friends ... only to stare in curiosity at the red coat ... they had no frame of reference for what they were seeing. Angel ran to her son, embraced him — so glad that he was alive, but so horrified by that awful red jacket. Len put his arms around both of them and moved himself between them and the coat. Caroline had gotten hold of Van’s hand, and pulled him away as well.

Finally I began to pull myself toward them, leaden step by leaden step. Maggie came to me and took my hand. She was trembling. “Andy,” she said softly. “Remember what he said ... he said he would come back, he would find us ...”

“How can he come back, Maggie? If that’s him, how can he come back?”

Sully had broken free from Angel and Len. He was standing beside Van who had got way from his mother somehow. They were standing together, their arms around each others’ shoulders, looking down at Torstein’s newly red jacket and the awful truth it contained.

Ivan Nikolayevich and our Sully. Son of Nikolai and Son of Nobody. Torstein was dead. But maybe what he’d started was not.



Read the next chapter