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Prologue
Twice,mylifewasirrevocably altered by a Lincoln Town Car.
The first was a black 2008 model. A rear-wheel-drive, 4.6-liter V-8 with 239 horsepower, 287 ft/lbs of torque, and burl walnut appliqué on the instrument panel and doors. Heated seats. Power moonroof. The split front bench seat sported a cigarette burn on its right corner and another in between where the driver’s legs might sit. Years of cigarette smoke had leeched a Rorschach of tobacco stains into the roof liner. A rack of CD’s—mostly rock hits from the late 70’s and early 80’s—was strapped to the driver’s seat visor. Scuff marks on the front seats. Dried chocolate milk under the floor-mats in the back seat. Little daisies that I had drawn on the rear passenger armrest when I was five.
There was also a locked glove compartment that we were never,everallowed to open, but which my brother Tommy and both I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, held a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver and a 1911 Colt Classic. There were more guns in the hollowed-out space in the trunk where the spare tire should go.
There were old stains on the upholstery that looked like rust.
But they weren’t.
That Lincoln Town Car belonged to my father, and he loved it with a passion bordering on obsession. I never understood why. For a second-generation Irish immigrant, he had done pretty well for himself—we owned no less than four vehicles, all stored away in the converted carriage house at the edge of our property in South Boston, each one more luxurious than the last. The Town Car was by far the shittiest, most visceral piece of rolling iron we owned. Yet my father loved that car more than anything else, and that alone should’ve told me everything I needed to know about him.
It was a mean car. An ugly car.
A car meant for night work.
And it’s the only one that I can still remember with stunningly painful clarity.
Because on the day that particular Town Car changed my life, it was with the help of the twenty-five pounds of plastic explosive that had been strapped beneath the driver’s-side floor pan. A car bomb meant for my father, Michael Quinn, lifetime member of the Irish mob and the Clan Chief of the South End’s infamous McTiernan Clan.
Instead, it killed my mother, Rosaleen Quinn, pediatric nurse and mother of two.
It also blew me right through the living room picture window.
Michael Quinn’s 2008 Lincoln Town Car was still afire when City Point EMS responded twenty minutes later. By then, the only way to identify Rosaleen was through dental records. If there is one thing that can be said about the Irish—they know their way around explosives. The botched hit that took my mother’s life shattered all the north facing windows on our house, set fire to the front porch, and left a permanent scorch mark in the driveway. It also put Michael Quinn’s sixteen-year-old daughter in a coma for two weeks. It wasn’t until I was released from the hospital, nearly four months later, that the first painful memories started to seep back, and I understood that the violence my father reaped had finally come to collect its payment.
The Irish forgive their great men when they are safely buried.My mother dispensed old Irish proverbs right alongside the cookies and the kisses, and although I never had much use for them, that is one proverb that I’ll never forget. For as powerful as he was, Michael Quinn couldn’t even protect his own family—instead, he dragged his sins home with him and allowed them to incinerate my entire world.
And for that, I would never forgive him. Tommy did. He practically idolized our father, and in the end, he chose to follow in his footsteps. Not me, though. I wasn’t going to become another victim. Instead, I barricaded off my heart, finished high school, and left Boston—and my family—without a backward glance.
I thought I had left my past safely behind me, but I was wrong.
The second time a Lincoln Town Car changed my life forever was nearly fifteen years later.
1
Cassidy
“You’restillhere.”
I took a long sip of my extra-large americano from Dunkin Donuts—no froo froo Starbucks here, thank you very much—and smiled tiredly. “Your powers of observation never cease to amaze, Dr. Carter.”
Jerome, my boss and the Chief of Trauma Surgery at Boston Medical Center, scrubbed a hand through greying hair and closed his eyes as if steeling himself for a long but familiar fight. “Why.Whyare you still here, Cass?”
“Because some asshole brought me Dunks.” I lifted the cup.
“Yes, I know. I’m that asshole. You’re supposed to just thank me andgo home.”
“I said thank you.”
“I concede, you’ve got one out of two points down. Take the hint.”
“But it’s such a nice day.”
Jerome squinted out through the drizzle curtaining the ED’s loading dock. The temperature hovered just above freezing, and sooty, grey, half-formed snow piles lingered along the sidewalk in apathetic lumps. It was, in a word, bleak. Of course, I had only been joking, but in a way, the weather felt like holding up a mirror to my insides and it felt comfortable, somehow. Made me feel complete. Seen.
“Ahh, springtime in New England.” Jerome muttered. “You’re the only person I know who actually likes it.”
