Forced Out by Stephen Frey Read Free Book Online Page A

been hoping for. Casey's sliver of a brain hemorrhage. "If McLean's dead, how can you still be close to him? How can you still be like an older brother to him?"
    Casey went silent. The only sound in the room was water dripping. He wasn't even shivering anymore.
    "Answer the question, Mr. Casey."
    "I don't understand. What do you mean?"
    Johnny had always fantasized about being a trial lawyer as a kid. He loved watching Perry Mason black-and-white reruns after school on the old Zenith in his grandmother's cramped living room. But there hadn't been enough money for college, let alone law school. He still loved manipulating people into corners, though. "You just told me you're still like his older brother. How could you still be like his older brother if he's dead?
    How can you still be his uncle?"
    "I...I don't know. I was just talking. It was a figure of speech, just something you say. Kyle's been dead for a couple of years. I was his uncle. That's what I meant to say. I was his uncle. Okay?"
    "We dug up his grave." A bald-faced lie, but it sounded chillingly convincing in here. He knew McLean was supposed to have been buried, not cremated. And he knew what cemetery he was supposed to be buried in. "At St. George's in Queens. Way in the back." Johnny hesitated. "Guess what? No bones. Just an empty coffin." Casey's teeth were suddenly chattering out of control again. "I'm so damn cold."
    "You gonna tell me the truth?" Johnny asked with a snarl.
    "He's dead. Dead, I swear it. "
    Johnny opened the Saran Wrap box, pulled out a few feet of the razor-thin, transparent wrap, pressed the end of it to Casey's forehead and began shrouding his face. Over his face and under the plywood, over his face and under the plywood. Again and again as Casey struggled futilely against the chain and ropes. Johnny was careful not to cover Casey's nostrils as he wrapped. "One more chance, Mr. Casey," Johnny warned when he was done, ripping the wrap off against the box's jagged metal teeth, then tossing the box back toward the stool. "You gonna tell me the truth?"
    No answer.
    Johnny leaned down, picked up a bucket of ice water, and poured it slowly over Casey's face, making certain some of it went down his nose. Instantly Casey started screaming, his cries muffled by the Saran Wrap. It was probably already over, but just for good measure Johnny picked up a second bucket and poured it over Casey's face. Now the guy was really having a heart attack.
    The technique was called waterboarding. Used by the feds to extract information from terrorist suspects in secret prisons around the world, it replicated the sensation of drowning perfectly. A friend of Johnny's had told him about it. Also told him that when the agents had tried practicing against it--in case it was ever used on them--the average agent gave up in fourteen seconds. Johnny had used the technique six times before, and each victim had broken right away. He ripped the Saran Wrap from Casey's mouth.
    "I faked it okay I faked it!" Casey yelled. "I faked everything for Kyle, everything. I forged the accident report. Confirmed his death. I did it all. He was scared out of his mind they were gonna kill us all after they whacked his girlfriend. And they probably would have."
    "Where is he now?" Johnny demanded.
    "I don't know. I swear to God I don't know. I think he left the city after the whole thing. I don't know where he went. Nobody did. For all I know he's really dead now." Casey's chest was heaving. "I don't know what happened to him. As far as I know he hasn't talked to any of us since that night. Not even Helen."
    It made sense that Casey wouldn't know where McLean was. That was the whole reason McLean had done what he'd done. To cut all ties so nothing could lead Marconi to him. The obvious risk here was that if McLean and Casey were somehow still communicating, Casey could warn McLean that people were looking for him. And he could make his getaway.
    "Don't kill me," Casey begged. "Please don't