No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson

wonder. “Sharp edges …”
    Eyes never leaving her son, his mother kissed Michael on the side of his face.
    “That’ll need tending, Michael.” Still trembling, Kerry watched his mother take his father by the hand. “We should go to the hospital.”
    Slowly, his father let Mary Kilcannon lead him from the room.
    Kerry could hardly breathe. Turning, Mary Kilcannon looked back at him. “Don’t worry about your father …”
    Somehow Kerry understood that she meant he was safe tonight. But he did not get up until he heard the front door close.
    His eighteen-year-old brother, Jamie—tall and handsome, the family’s jewel—was standing in the door of his bedroom. “Well,” Jamie said softly, to no one, “they cut quite a figure, don’t they?”
    Kerry hated him for it.
    It started then—the thing between Kerry and his father.
    Two days later, the stitches still in his arm, Michael Kil-cannon, with two tickets a fellow patrolman could not use, took Kerry to a Mets game. Michael knew little of baseball—he had emigrated from County Roscommon in his teens. But he was a strapping, handsome man in his red-haired, florid way and, when sober, a dad Kerry was desperately proud of: a policeman, a kind of hero, possessed of a ready laugh and a reputation for reckless courage. Michael bought Kerry popcorn and a hot dog and enjoyed the game with self-conscious exuberance; Kerry knew that this was his apology for what no one would ever mention. When the Mets won in the ninth inning, Michael hugged him.
    His father felt large and warm. “I love you, Da,” Kerry murmured.
    That night, Michael Kilcannon went to Lynch’s Ark Bar, aneighborhood mainstay. But Kerry felt safe, the glow of his day with him still.
    His bedroom door’s opening awakened him.
    Rubbing his eyes, Kerry looked at his father across the room, half glad, half afraid.
    Michael staggered toward him and sat at the edge of the bed. Kerry kept quiet; his father was breathing hard. “Bastards.” Michael’s voice was hostile, threatening.
    Kerry’s heart pounded. Maybe if he said something, showed his father sympathy …
    “What is it, Da?”
    His father shook his head, as if to himself. “Mulroy …”
    Kerry did not understand. All he could do was wait.
    “I’m as good a man—better,” Michael said abruptly. “But
he
makes sergeant, not me. They give it only to the kiss-ass boys …”
    As she had two nights before, Mary Kilcannon appeared. “Michael,” she said in the same soft voice.
    Kerry’s father did not turn. “Shut up,” he said harshly. “We’re talking …”
    Fearful again, Kerry looked at his mother. Her words had an edge her son had never heard before. “Leave the boy alone.”
    Michael Kilcannon shrugged his heavy shoulders and rose. With a slap so lazy yet so powerful it reminded Kerry of a big cat, he struck Mary Kilcannon across the mouth.
    She reeled backward, blood trickling from her lip. Tears stung Kerry’s eyes; watching Mary Kilcannon cover her face, he was sickened by his own fear and helplessness.
    “We were
talking
.” Michael’s voice suggested the patience of a reasonable man stretched to the breaking point. “Go to bed.”
    Gazing at Kerry, she backed into the hallway.
    Michael turned from her and sat at the edge of his bed. He did not seem to notice that Kerry was crying.
    “Mulroy,” he repeated.
    Kerry did not know how long his father stayed, mumbling resentful fragments. Kerry dared not fall asleep.
    After this, Kerry never knew when it would happen. On some nights his father would come home and beat his mother. On others he would open Kerry’s door and pour out his woundsand angers. Kerry learned to make some sound or comment so that Michael thought he was listening, to fight sleep or any sign of inattention that might set his father off. Michael never touched him.
    As long as Kerry listened, he knew that his father would not beat Mary Kilcannon.
    As deeply as Michael Kilcannon terrified him, so Kerry