Flawless (23 page)

They thanked her, and as soon as they left her office, Craig put through a call to Wally, their top civilian tech, and gave him all the information. “Can you get anything from that?” he asked.

“Probably not much. I can tell you when it was last used and maybe get some call records. I'll do my best,” Wally promised, then was quiet for a moment. “You know this is Sunday, don't you?”

“Yeah, I know,” Craig said. “I owe you one, Wally.” When he hung up, he looked at Mike. “We really need to find Joe.”

Mike nodded. “We need to find out everywhere she went with Joe and anything her friends know about where he's been, then check out every damned Joe in the place.”

Craig nodded. “Maybe those phone records will help. I'll tell you one thing, though.”

Mike looked at him questioningly.

“We go back to Finnegan's ourselves,” Craig said.

“We need to ask Declan for all his receipts.”

“No, we'll get Mayo to do that,” Craig said.

“Why?”

“Because we're going back as Ian Stone and his drummer buddy, Nate Ellsworth,” Craig said.

Mike looked at him suspiciously. “You think something at Finnegan's isn't what it appears, don't you?”

“Yes, you know that.”

“Do you suspect one of the family?”

“No, I don't.”

“Of course you don't. Not when you're sleeping with Kieran Finnegan,” Mike said. “You've got to get past that, buddy. You don't know what's going on there, and you need an open mind.”

“I
am
past it. I never let my personal feelings interfere with the job, and you know that, Mike.” Craig was surprised that Mike hadn't yet mentioned what they'd heard from Julie Benton.

Mike shook his head. “You need to be careful, buddy, really careful. Now, me? I believe in her. I think you found a frickin' pot o' gold. She's smart
and
beautiful, but you still need to watch out.”

“Mike...”

“Yeah, yeah, you're a pro. I know. Listen, do we really have to wear beards again? And those flipping contacts?”

“Yes, Mike, we do.”

“She's going to see through you,” Mike said.

“Bull. I worked undercover for years. Eagan didn't even recognize us, remember?”

Mike laughed. “Yeah, but you're not sleeping with Eagan.”

* * *

Kieran assuaged Tanya's attorney by making up something about Tanya telling her additional and very personal details of her marriage, things the woman wasn't comfortable talking about to anyone but her. She promised that she would put everything in a revised report.

She managed to get out of Rikers quickly, despite the fact that Miss Terry insisted on seeing her to the gates, apologizing all the way for having brought her in on a Sunday.

As soon as Kieran was back in the car, she asked William Buell to drive her to Finnegan's.

Yes, that was where someone had pointed her out to the man who had tried to kill her. But, she reasoned, no one was likely to try to kill her there—at least not during business hours.

She went back to wondering why someone wanted her dead.

If someone was trying to kill her, it had to be because he or she thought she knew something. The problem was, if she did know something, she had no idea what it was.

They'd tried to kill Bobby, too, and presumably for the same reason. And given that he was pretty much a full-time barfly, it was in fact reasonable to think he might have overheard something.

But what?

She had to talk to Craig. This was getting serious.

Of course, Craig already suspected something was going on at Finnegan's. She could tell that he was suspicious of the clientele—and her family.

Maybe even of her.

No, he couldn't be. He'd been with her when she'd been taken hostage. Then again, maybe he thought she'd been some kind of plant, and then the wrong set of thieves had shown up.

Maybe he was even sleeping with her to try to find out what was going on. Maybe he even expected to hear her whisper the truth when she was asleep.

She told herself she was being ridiculous. Even paranoid.

All she knew for sure was that at that moment she needed to be at Finnegan's, needed to be with her family, the people she could always count on.

And where she was afraid someone she loved might be inadvertently involved in everything that was going on.

Buell let her off directly in front of the door and Kieran hurried inside.

The place was relatively quiet.

The pub always did a traditional roast from 1:00 p.m. until closing, which was midnight on Sundays. People came in at random times all day, and when she arrived, half the tables were full. She saw Mary Kathleen right away.

Her brother's fiancée was in bright spirits; she knew that Bobby was doing well, so as far as she was concerned, all was right with the world.

“Kieran! I didn't think you were coming in today,” Mary Kathleen said. “You must be worn to a frazzle, working all day, then sleeping at the hospital. Why didn't you go home?”

“I needed company, I guess,” Kieran said. “And I had to talk to someone for work, and since they gave me a driver, I thought that I'd just get dropped off here.”

“Work on a Sunday?”

“No rest for the weary,” Kieran said lightly.

Mary Kathleen looked at her worriedly.

“No, no, I'm not really weary,” Kieran said quickly. “It was just something that needed to be done today.”

“Well, Declan's behind the bar, Kevin is doing books and Debbie and I are doing fine out here on the floor. Why don't you get something to eat? You're starting to look a wee bit pinched.”

“I'll say hi to Declan and maybe ask Rory for something, and then I'll head back and see if Kevin wants some company,” Kieran said, smiling.

Her brother frowned fiercely when she walked up to the bar.

“I told you to get some rest,” he said with a scowl.

“And I did. I just wanted company, that's all.”

“All right, you can help out if you want. I need you to pull all the credit card receipts from the past three weeks, and then I need you to see if any of them were paid by a man named Joe or Joseph.”

“What?” she asked, wondering if she'd heard him correctly.

“Detective Mayo is on his way—says they have a lead on a guy named Joe. I need you to go through our receipts and see if you can find him.”

“They think that someone named Joe is involved in all this and has been here?”

“That's what I gather.”

“If Joe were a crook, wouldn't he pay cash?”

“Possibly, but then again, maybe he's a stupid crook or just thinks we'll never get onto him.”

“Okay,” she said, turning away from the bar.

A married couple from the old country who had been coming in as long as Kieran could remember were seated in the first of the bar tables. The second was empty. Jimmy was sitting alone at the third. The two musicians from the day before were seated at the fourth, talking animatedly over their Sunday roast.

“Kieran!” Jimmy called to her.

She walked over to his table. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“Bobby is doing well, I hear?”

“He's going to be fine.”

“Ah, now, that's a relief,” Jimmy said. He looked at his watch. “It's so irritating when people don't show up.”

“Someone is a no-show, huh?”

“Yes, but enough of my bad mood. You look quite professional today,” he said.

“I ended up working today,” she said. “Your beer is empty. Want another? Or maybe a coffee?”

“Irish coffee,” he said, as if he'd come up with a great idea.

“I'll be right back with one,” she told him.

“That will be great. I'll drink that, and then I'm done waiting.” His eyes widened. “Damn!”

“Damn what?”

“I forgot. I'll bet that's why he's not here.”

“Why who's not here?”

“Gary Benton. I forgot—I'm sorry. You asked him to stay away. Although, don't you think that's kind of silly. Sometimes marriages don't work out. Doesn't mean people should be banned from the best pub in town.”

“We haven't told Gary he can't come in here. We've just asked him to have some decency and stay away when Julie—who, quite frankly, he's treating very badly—is here, which, I admit, is often.”

Jimmy shrugged. “He said she had a fit because he forgot to feed her dogs. That's not exactly a hanging offense.”

Kieran decided that it wasn't worth trying to explain how he'd left the animals in their own filth and without food or water, much less that he'd found it amusing to leave other women's panties in Julie's bed.

“I'll get you that Irish coffee,” she told him.

She was in the area, so she decided to check on the married couple and then the musicians after she brought Jimmy his coffee.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“No, we're good, thanks,” said the one with the full beard.

There was definitely something odd about the man.

Could he have something to do with the robberies? Or the murders?

Was he watching her, waiting to hire another contract killer to do her in?

She smiled. She hadn't really heard him speak much before, but now she had an opening. “You have an interesting accent,” she told him. “Where are you from?”

“Georgia,” he said. “The country, not the state.”

“Well, welcome to Finnegan's.”

She walked away, still disturbed.

Then she reminded herself that they ran a pub. She didn't have to like every customer. And it was unlikely the two men were involved in any way with the robberies or her own troubles. For one thing, she'd never seen them before yesterday.

Still...

She was telling herself to forget them when she saw that Jimmy had left his table to speak with them. Strange, but hardly proof of anything.

She headed back to the office, where Kevin was seated in front of the computer. He looked up at her and shook his head. “We need help.”

“That's what I'm here for,” she said.

Kevin eased back in his chair. “I'm trying to get the quarterly taxes ready for the accountant,” he said. “And I just got a call. A commercial for a dating service. I get to be a real person in this one. With a hot date,” he added. “I don't even have to audition. But I feel guilty saying yes when Declan asked me to handle this. And now we're all looking after Bobby, too—which is a pleasure, of course.”

Kieran smiled and sat down in the chair across from him. “It's the curse,” she said. “Feeling that you were born guilty. The Irish-American curse, and it affects all thirty-five million of us with Irish lineage. Did you know at one time in the 1860s a quarter of the population of the city was Irish?” She grimaced. “I listen to Danny too much, huh? All that trivia rubs off.” She squared her shoulders. “Okay, how can I help?”

“The pub does well. I know that at first, after Dad died, Declan was careful not to hire anyone because we desperately needed the income ourselves. But now...we have to hire more help. You and Danny and I all have other jobs, and I'm worn out, frankly. I don't know about your social life, but I'm glad about this commercial, because that's all the dating I'm going to be doing for a while.”

She smiled. Sure, Kevin was her twin. But he was tall and smart and considerate, not to mention good-looking. He could have a dozen dates a week if he wanted to.

“We'll talk to Declan,” she said. “I'm sure he'd be fine with hiring a few more people.”

Kevin laughed. “Trusting anyone outside the family is not in our big brother's nature,” he reminded her. “Hiring even one more server is going to be torture for him.” He took a deep breath, then met her eyes, his expression serious. “I'm not sure he should be trusting family, either.”

She stared at him. “What are you saying?”

“Everything that's going on,” Kevin said quietly. He lowered his head. “I pray Danny isn't involved.”

“Danny would never be involved in murder,” she said.

“Not intentionally. You're right on that.”

“I should call Julie and check on Bobby,” Kieran said.

“I just called. He's in a new room, out of critical care. Julie and he are doing fine, and there's still a cop outside his door.”

“Good,” she murmured. Yes, good. Things were going well on that front.

There were other problems, though, other situations that could possibly be solved. Situations that also seemed to revolve around the events occurring far too close to them and Finnegan's.

There was the problem of possible danger to Tanya, who had risked a great deal to speak with Kieran.

She didn't want Tanya to end up in a hospital like Bobby—or worse.

She considered suggesting they could all pool their resources and put up bail for Tanya Lee Hampton. But that didn't seem like a good idea anymore, not with so much already going on with her family and the pub and their financial concerns.

But she knew who else might be able to help Tanya.

“I'll be back. I need to make a phone call,” she told Kevin.

Outside in the hall, she looked through her phone contacts, hoping she had a number for Simon Krakowsky. To her relief, she did. She must have gotten it from Julie or Gary at some point. She was afraid it might be the store phone, but it went straight through to him.

Now she just hoped he felt grateful enough for her help catching the thieves that he would be willing to do her a personal favor.

She identified herself, and he immediately said how pleased he was to hear from her. She drew a deep breath and explained her call.

“She really needs help, and I know she'll appear at her trial and that you'll get your money back. I'd stake my reputation on it. In fact, I
am
staking my reputation on it,” she told him.