Chapter 8
Aidan
The shot blows through a shelf instead of flesh.
Paper erupts. Old files burst open in a blizzard of forms, transcripts, stamped envelopes, names and numbers spinning through fluorescent light. I go through the doorway on instinct, gun up, shoulder tight, eyes cutting left.
Siobhán is already moving. The pistol in her hand is small and suppressed. Her expression is colder than Whitmore’s ever managed.
She fires at me.
I drop behind a steel cabinet, and the bullet smacks metal hard enough to ring through my teeth.
“Alive, if possible,” Gallagher says behind me, which tells me he wants answers more than a corpse.
“Depends on how cooperative she is,” I say, and fire twice where I last saw motion.
Siobhán doesn’t answer. She moves again, quick and low, using the rows of filing shelves like she’s planned this room before. Of course she has. She works here. She probably knows every blind corner in the building.
Roisin comes in on my right. Declan takes the left lane. Cormac stays near Dervla, which is the only correct choice in a room with a live target and too many angles.
Siobhán fires again. The shot takes a chunk out of the shelf above Roisin’s head. Roisin drops, rolls, comes up on one knee and returns fire with brutal calm. More paper explodes into the air. Student records flutter down around us like institutional confetti.
I move left, keeping low, using the cabinets for cover. The room is long and narrow, packed with metal shelving and old archive boxes. Bad sightlines. Worse acoustics. Every step scrapes too loud. Every breath feels broadcast.
“She’s heading for the back door,” Gallagher says.
“Cut her off,” I bark.
Cormac swears, and I know, without confirmation, that Dervla has slipped his leash.
I was expecting it. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Holding her back is worse. She isn’t about to step into the line of fire, but she might just be able to get closer to Siobhán than any of us currently shooting at her. We are the distraction.
Almost as if I feel the weight of her stare, I turn my head and see her slipping through the shelves to my right.
She nods and points with Henrietta towards where Siobhán is.
I nod back, face grim. If this goes sideways, I will never forgive myself, but sidelining her out of some sense of protectiveness isn’t an option either.
I fire once over the top of the cabinet, not to hit, to make her duck.
It works.
Siobhán drops lower behind the far end of the shelving, and that gives Dervla the half-second she wants.
She moves in.
“Right, side,” I murmur to Declan, because if we’re doing this, we do it properly.
Declan shifts at once, driving right to keep pressure on Siobhán’s lane. Gallagher advances down the centre, relentless and ugly in his focus. Roisin ghosts after him.
Cormac’s face is murder when he realises exactly where Dervla has gone, but he adapts faster than most men think. He cuts across behind her, staying close enough to intervene without blocking her shot.
Another suppressed round spits from ahead. It tears through a cardboard archive box and showers us with yellowing papers. I catch a flash of navy through a gap between shelves.
I fire twice.
Siobhán hisses something I don’t catch and bolts for the back of the records room.
Dervla beats her there.
Not fully. Not cleanly. But enough.
She comes around the end of the shelving with Henrietta raised, pinning Siobhán before she can shoot her.
Thank fuck.
But Siobhán shows she’s a professional and lifts her arm to ram Dervla’s away, smacking her hand into the nearby wall. She nearly drops Henrietta, but keeps hold of it as she goes for Siobhán’s ankles.
Siobhán is too quick. She is out of the fire exit in under two seconds.
“Dammit,” Dervla hisses and goes after her.
I hit the door behind her and burst out into the rain.
The service yard behind Admin has a car parked at the end. Siobhán is already in, slamming the door closed and firing up the engine. She squeals out of the gate with the tyres spitting dirty water.
“Fuck off,” I snap, and fire at the rear wheel.
The shot goes low off wet concrete. Sparks jump. The car fishtails anyway as she overcorrects, clips a stack of bins and scrapes a long metallic scream along the wall before straightening.
Gallagher fires once after it, then lowers the gun with a look on his face that promises a very ugly death later.
“How?” Dervla snaps, spinning around, her hand shoving her hair away from her face. “How did she get away from us? There are six of us for fuck’s sake! I had her pinned!”
“And she is a pro that got away. It happens,” I state. “But this cleared up one mystery. Siobhán is clearly the bad guy.”
Dervla’s eyes meet mine. “Are you saying you think she killed my dad?”
“That is what I’m saying. This Maeve character is a diversion.” I hold my hand up as Roisin and Gallagher come for me. “I know what you think you know, but none of this is how we thought. There are enough twists and turns to make a man feel like he went on the teacup ride at the funfair.”
“Oh, groan,” Declan says and holds his stomach.
“Exactly,” I say with a snort, remembering him throwing up when we were ten after that ride.
Gallagher does not look amused. “Don’t reduce her to a fucking ghost story because it suits your theory,” he clips out.
“I’m not,” I reply. Rain runs down my face and into my collar. “I’m saying Siobhán just murdered Whitmore, tried to murder us, and ran like a woman who knew exactly how much time she had.”
“Also, Maeve did call me to say she didn’t do it,” Dervla says.
Roisin wipes rain out of one eye with the back of her wrist. “What now?”
“Yeah, in all the ruckus with Siobhán, it got pushed to the side. But she called me and said she was framed before the call got cut off.”
“And you believe her?” she asks incredulously.
“Believe? No. I believe timing. I believe behaviour. I believe Siobhán just put a bullet into a man who knew too much and then tried to bury the rest of us in a records room.” Dervla wipes rain from her cheek with the heel of her hand.
“That doesn’t make Maeve innocent, it just makes Siobhán guilty. ”
Gallagher’s jaw is set like concrete. “Maeve is dangerous. We can’t discount her just because she says so, or we might’ve found another suspect.”
Before anyone can say another word, Séamus’ men stride over to us, looking less than amused. “Miss Callaghan, back inside before the boss decides you’re a liability and locks you down.”
“Gee, that almost sounds like you’re on my side,” she grumbles.
“Don’t push it,” he states. “We called it in. Boss is on it.”
“Great,” I mutter. “You saw her go? Which way?”
“North gate,” the guard says. “Grey saloon. Partial plate sent through already.”
“Useful,” I say. “Any chance one of you thought to stop her?”
His expression doesn’t change. “We were on perimeter for Miss Callaghan. Not chasing one shooter off campus without clearing her first.”
Annoying. Also, technically correct.
Gallagher turns away before I can say anything else, which starts a second fight. “Whitmore.”
That lands hard enough to cut through the rain and the adrenaline.
Dervla swears under her breath and heads back for the door, Henrietta still in her hand.
We go back inside at speed.
Gallagher pulls out his phone. “We have to call the Gardaí about Whitmore. You five need to disappear, fast.”
“Won’t they see the evidence of a gunfight in the storeroom?” I ask briskly.
“I doubt they will check every inch of the university, Mr O’Connell. They will check his office and the surrounding area. Go. Now. I’ll take care of this.”
I nod and take Dervla’s hand, leading her out of the storeroom and into the foyer. We head out the door with Roisin and Séamus’ men in tow.
“What now?” Dervla asks.
“Now, we go back home,” I say.
“How is that going to help? We can’t just sit around waiting for Siobhán or Maeve—”
I turn to the guard. “What’s your name, mate?”
“Darragh.”
“Darragh. Do me a favour and try to pull everything you can on Siobhán… what’s her surname?” I glance around.
“Fitzpatrick,” Roisin says.
“Fitzpatrick. Try to find a connection to the Doyles. Any Doyle will do.”
He nods as Dervla gives me a narrow-eyed stare.
“That’s a bit of a reach, isn’t it?”
“At this point? No. Neither of them is working alone. Why not together? It’s something we can’t overlook.”
She nods. “True.” She chews her lip.
“What is it?”
“I think Siobhán killed my dad. Gut feeling.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask as Roisin moves in closer.
“I found his body,” she says as we start walking again.
“He was sitting at the dining room table. He wasn’t reaching for a weapon or trying to get up to move.
Whoever shot him didn’t catch him by surprise.
Surely, if it were Maeve, he would’ve reacted in some way, especially considering I was in the house at the time.
If a dangerous woman broke in, he’d have done everything he could to protect me, not just sit there and get shot. ”
“Fuck,” I mutter. “Yeah, it makes sense, pixie. I think you’re onto something.”
“I always thought it was weird but must’ve been someone he knew. My thoughts automatically went to the men he associated with, and of course, here. I didn’t think it would be some woman he was secretly screwing.”
“No one wants to think that about their parent,” Roisin says with a sage nod. “Okay, I’m convinced. The only trouble is we have the evidence that Maeve did it.”
We have reached the front door by now, so I shove it open and let everyone inside. We assemble in the sitting room. “What evidence exactly do you have?”
“Her car was seen near Cillian’s house the night he was killed. CCTV from a petrol station two miles away. Timestamp puts her within range.”
“That’s circumstantial,” Declan says, dropping onto the sofa. “Being near someone’s house doesn’t mean you pulled the trigger.”
“Even in the middle of nowhere? It was enough for Gallagher and me to build a case,” Roisin says, standing by the fireplace with her arms at her sides. “Combined with her history, her motive, and the fact that she vanished immediately after.”
“But Siobhán could’ve been there too,” Dervla says, pacing the length of the room. “If they know each other, if they’re connected, Siobhán could’ve done it, and Maeve could’ve been there for a completely different reason. Or as a lookout. Or getaway driver.”
“Or,” I say slowly, “Maeve was there because she knew it was going to happen. Maybe she tried to stop it. Maybe she didn’t get there in time.”
The room goes quiet.
“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Cormac mutters.
“I’ve done nothing except try to figure this shitshow out.
Everyone suspects Maeve, but no one saw her pull the trigger.
No one suspects Siobhán because she was Cillian’s dirty little secret, that not even his daughter knew about.
” I turn to Dervla. “What else do you remember? I know it’s difficult to think about it, and you’ve probably been over it a million times, both officially and in your mind’s eye.
But with this new information, does anything stand out? Anything at all?”
Her gaze meets mine, and she swallows before sitting on the edge of an armchair, staring at the floor with her elbows on her knees.