Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
Jack drove back to the Tap & Tankard and parked the Mercedes at the side of the building.
“You don’t have to come in,” Emily said. “I’m sure you have things to do.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to ensure you get inside okay. Then, you’re right, I need to touch base with my people. Hopefully, they have some information that could help us locate the people pushing the internet hate messages.”
He exited the car and hurried to the other side to open Emily’s door.
She was already out and pulling her keys out of her pocket. They walked around to the back of the building.
Emily stopped short of the door, her gaze sweeping the area where she and her Uncle Paddy had been attacked the night before. “I need to install brighter lighting and security cameras back here.”
Jack didn’t bother reminding her cameras did nothing to stop criminals. They might think twice about committing crimes if a camera was pointing at them, recording everything they did. In the case of the attack the night before, cameras would have done little to protect Paddy O’Brien and his niece. It wasn’t like they had a twenty-four-seven employee monitoring the video feed. And the attackers had retained their anonymity by wearing ski masks.
Jack stood beside Emily as she unlocked and opened the back door. She reached in and switched on the interior lights before stepping across the threshold.
Emily strode down the back hallway, bathed in the dim yellow glow of inadequate overhead illumination, and flipped on the lights for the bar and barroom.
Chairs had been neatly flipped upside down and stacked on the tabletops. The floors, tables and bar appeared clean and ready for customers.
“Do you mind if I hang around and make a few phone calls?” Jack asked.
Emily smiled up at him. “Make yourself at home. Can I get you a drink?”
“Do you have coffee?” he asked. “I could use an infusion of caffeine.”
“Did you sleep at all last night on that hard floor?” Emily asked, going to the coffee maker at the end of the bar.
“Enough,” Jack answered. “What time do you open the pub?”
“Around two,” she said. “It will fill early this evening as there’s a big football game between a couple of Irish favorites tonight. We’ll have the game playing on the monitors throughout the pub.” Her brow furrowed as she stepped behind the counter and opened a box full of whiskey bottles. “I hope Bridget doesn’t call in sick tonight. We barely kept up on a non-game night. Uncle Paddy won’t be able to help out as usual.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Jack asked. “I could help serve drinks, take orders and bus tables.”
She looked up, her eyes narrowing. “You’d do that?”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”
“Don’t you have to look for the people spreading the hate?” she asked.
“I have to have more data. Dublin’s a big city. I can’t search every pub, internet café or library without a clue as to where to start. I started here because my computer guru said some of the posts came from this IP address.”
“Right.” Emily nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on the offer. Game nights are chaotic at the least. And it gets loud.”
“Can’t be worse than in the heat of battle,” he said.
“I guess not,” Emily said. “Okay, then. You’re hired.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“You can start by emptying that box of beer into the refrigerator under the bar.”
For the next few hours, they restocked the bar, set the chairs down around the tables and staged food in the kitchen. Emily’s cook, Moira, showed up in time to get fish and chips frying, mix and bake shepherd’s pie and prepare bangers and mash.
When Emily introduced Jack to the middle-aged woman with a jolly face and thick girth, she said, “Moira is the best cook in the city. You have to try everything, but my favorite is her seafood chowder.”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Moira,” Jack said.
“Same to ya, Jack,” Moira said. She raised her hand to block her face as she leaned toward Emily and said, “He’s a looker. Is he sweet on ya?”
Emily’s face turned a bright shade of pink. “Moira, don’t go getting any ideas. He’s here to help with game night.”
“He’s a handsome lad,” Moira said with a sweep of her gaze over his length. “You could do worse.”
“Seriously,” Emily said, her cheeks even redder. “We only met last night.”
“When it comes to love, when you know you know.” Moira winked at Jack. “Am I right?”
Jack chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Emily ducked out of the kitchen, shaking her head and muttering something about too many cooks in the kitchen.
Once Moira had a steaming pot of chowder ready on the stove, Emily had her serve up two heaping bowls, along with freshly baked bread for them to eat a late lunch.
The soup base was creamy and flavorful, and the chunks of different kinds of seafood melted in Jack’s mouth. He moaned his appreciation.
Emily grinned. “Right? Moira’s chowder is pure magic.”
The cook emerged from the kitchen, flushed with the heat of cooking. “Do you like it?”
Jack rose from his chair and engulfed the woman in a bear hug. “Will you marry me?”
She laughed and swatted his arm. “Don’t be daft. I already have a husband. One’s enough for me to take care of.” The woman laughed her way back to the kitchen, happy and smiling.
Emily grinned. “Is that all it takes for you to propose? A premium bowl of seafood chowder?”
“You know what they say?—”
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”
He shook his head. “There is no sincerer love than the love of food.”
Emily’s eyebrows rose. “Quoting George Bernard Shaw now?” She shook her head. “You are an enigma.”
He winked. “I do like to keep you guessing.”
As they finished their chowder, Emily’s two waitresses arrived.
Daphne’s gaze swept him from head to toe. “So, our girl Emily didn’t scare you off by getting into fights in the alley?”
Jack shook his head. “Not at all. I like a woman who isn’t afraid of a fight.”
Daphne bunched her fists and held them in a fighting position. “I like a good fight,” she said. “As long as we get to the part of kissin’ and makin’ up.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Ignore Daphne, she’s an incurable flirt.” She turned to the other woman. “Feeling better, Briget?”
The petite brunette nodded. “Much. I’m sorry I put you in a spot by callin’ in sick last night.”
“No worries,” Emily said with a gentle smile. “I’d rather you called in sick last night than game night. Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I’m right as rain.” Briget’s brow creased. “I heard what happened last night. Is your uncle all right?”
Emily nodded. “He’ll be fine with a little rest and back behind the bar before you know it.”
Briget sighed. “I hope so. What is the city comin’ to with masked attackers pickin’ on old men? Why can’t people be kind and civil?”
Jack had given up asking that question after witnessing the ravages of war. Someone would always hate someone else who was a little different than themselves.
By the time the game started, the entire pub was packed, with no empty seats in the place. Some customers stood. Jack scrounged folding chairs from a store room next to the office and set them out in any available space with a view of the video monitors.
As the game progressed, the high score alternated between the teams, cheered on by different groups throughout the pub. For the first half of the game, moods were jovial. Supporters of the different teams threw good-natured insults across the room. The tension built, the atmosphere in the pub became edgier, the laughter died down and shouts erupted when one team fouled the other.
The waitresses delivered drinks, Jack cleared the empties and Emily worked the bar. Whenever she needed something from the kitchen or storeroom, Jack would get it. He told her to let him do the fetching to keep her at the bar, mixing drinks and filling glasses of beer. His real reason for retrieving items from the back was to keep her from going there alone. He worried that she would take out a bag of trash only to be jumped by the attackers who’d been there the night before.
For all Jack knew, the same attackers could be among the customers watching the game, waiting for their opportunity to catch Emily alone. The ski masks of the night before had done the job of hiding their identities.
Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket as he carried a large tray of empty glasses to the bar. He set the tray down before he pulled his cell phone out and checked the name on the screen.
Lucie.
He answered immediately, holding the phone to one ear while clamping his hand over the other.
“Jack, I’m glad I caught you,” Lucie said.
The barroom erupted into angry shouts.
Jack couldn’t hear what Lucie was saying. “I can’t hear you. Let me move into another room.”
He left the bar, pushed through several men waving their fists at the monitor, then shouting at others across the room.
Knowing Lucie, she preferred to text. If she called, it had to be important and immediate.
Jack ducked into the office and closed the door behind him, muffling some of the noise from the barroom, but not all.
“I think I can hear you now,” he said. “Shoot.”
“Jack,” Lucie said, her voice tight, tense. “Someone just posted a call to arms for the Travellers to meet violence with violence against the Radical Nationalists.”
“Isn’t that what they were doing anyway?” Jack asked.
“This time, they’re encouraging their people to collect weapons and be ready to take back their liberty and homeland.”
“That’s a little more specific than just spreading hatred,” Jack said.
“That’s not all,” Lucie said. “You’re at the Tap & Tankard Pub as we speak, am I right?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, not too concerned that she was following his phone’s coordinates. If he should run into trouble, the Brotherhood Protectors could find his last coordinates and send help. “Yes, I am.”
“The message was sent five minutes ago through the IP address belonging to the Tap & Tankard,” Lucie said, something Jack had already deduced. “He could still be there.”
“On it.” Jack ended the call, shoved his phone into his pocket and flew out of the room.
By that time, the noise in the barroom was an eardrum-rattling roar.
Jack emerged from the hallway, and a man wearing a gold and green jersey staggered into him, knocking him into the wall.
As he pushed the man off him and moved into the barroom, pandemonium stood in his way.
Men traded punches. A hulk of a man lifted a smaller one into the air and threw him onto a table. The wooden legs cracked and broke, sending the table and man crashing to the floor.
Jack scanned what he could see of the people seated at the bar, in booths or at tables. With so many joining the melee, no one stayed in any one position for long. None of the people he could see had a computer or were texting.
Emily shoved glasses and liquor bottles out of the way of flying elbows, men being thrown over the top of the bar and empty beer bottles being slung. As she neared Jack, she called out, “What’s wrong?”
Jack didn’t take his eyes off the room. “He was here. He could still be here.”
“Who?” she yelled over the noise.
“The flamethrower,” Jack shouted back.
Emily’s eyes widened. Her gaze shot to the melee unfolding around them. Then she climbed onto the bar and stood. “Hey!” She yelled, her voice swallowed by the roar of shouts. Emily tried again. “Hey!” she yelled even louder.
The people continued fighting.
Jack touched the tip of his thumb to the tip of his middle finger, placed those digits between his lips and blew a long, ear-splitting whistle.
When the shouts died down enough, Emily called out, “Garda is on the way here.”
For a long moment, the opposing sides stared at each other, weighing their options.
The wail of a siren sent them scrambling for the door.
Jack couldn’t get through the rush to monitor everyone exiting the pub to see if someone carried a laptop or looked like a person who could be sending hate messages via cellphones onto social media. Everyone carried a cell phone these days. How would he distinguish a normal customer from one who had sat in the shadows, filling social media with words and images designed to incite hatred?
Within a few short minutes, the pub had emptied, leaving behind broken chairs and tables, spilled beer on the floors and walls and a couple of men lying in that beer, unable to get themselves out the door.
Jack reached up, grabbed Emily around the waist and swung her to the ground. They hurried to the two men lying on the floor, unconscious.
Emily checked for a pulse on one while Jack checked the other.
“Still alive,” Emily called out.
Jack felt the thump of a pulse at the base of his guy’s throat. “Same.”
A uniformed member of the Garda stormed through the door, followed by three more.
“Had a report about a fight,” the lead man said, his gaze sweeping the pub.
Emily pushed to her feet. “The report was right. You’re just a little late to the party.” She glanced down at the men lying on the floor. One moved, groaning. “But maybe you could help clean up these two.”
The lead guy called for ambulances to carry the two men. He took out a notebook and a pen. “Are you the owner?” he asked Jack.
Jack shook his head. “Not me,” he said and turned toward Emily. “Ms. O’Brien is the owner.”
Twenty minutes later, the two men left behind on the floor were transferred into ambulances and carried away. The members of the Garda followed.
Emily stared around the pub, her lips twisting. “Must have been a good game.”
Jack stared at her. “Are all game nights this violent?”
She smiled. “This one was nothing. I’m just sad we couldn’t find our... What did you call him?”
“Flamethrower,” Jack said.
Emily nodded. “But he was here and has been here before. As long as he doesn’t know we’re looking for him, he might come back. How did you know he was here?”
“Our expert hacker, Lucie, shot me a text right about the time the game ended and the fight broke out.”
Emily shivered. “It’s kind of creepy knowing he was here all this time and we didn’t know it.” She picked up a chair that had been knocked over, flipped it over and set it upside down on a table.
“Who are your customers here at the pub?” Jack asked. “And what I mean is, are they mostly Travellers or a mix?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “I know some are Travellers, but some are just old-timers, who’ve lived in the area for a long time. My grandmother’s family was Irish Catholic Dubliners who took pride in their city and country. But they were also business people who didn’t discriminate against whoever was paying them good money for their beer and whiskey. My grandmother married a Traveller. Granted, she left him to carry on her family’s pub when she was all who was left of her family.”
Jack lifted a table that had been knocked over and set it back on its legs.
“You don’t have to stay and help clean up. My staff and I will take care of it tomorrow before we open,” Emily said. “It’s late, I’m tired and I plan on calling it a night.”
“I don’t mind helping,” he said and lifted a chair from the floor, turned it over and set it on the table like he’d seen Emily do. “Besides, I get the feeling that if I left now, you’d stay up cleaning until you have everything back where it belongs.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Her lips twitched. “Maybe. But you have to be exhausted after sleeping on a hardwood floor last night. I don’t mind staying up to clean, but you shouldn’t feel that you have to.”
“I’m not tired. In fact, I’m still on a bit of an adrenaline rush from all the excitement. Helping you clean up will burn off that energy and let me get to sleep easier.”
Emily’s brow wrinkled for a moment. Finally, she shrugged. “I won’t turn away help, if you really mean that.”
“I do,” he said with a grin.
“Then...thank you.”
They worked together, setting all the tables upright and laying the chairs on top. The broken ones were placed in the store room until Emily could determine whether they could be salvaged or just thrown away. Once they had the floor cleared of furniture, they swept broken glass, napkins and debris to the center and collected it in a trash receptacle.
Armed with mops, they started at opposite ends of the room and cleaned the sticky spills, working their way to the center, bumping into each other at the pail.
Emily laughed, pushed her stray blond hairs behind her ears and sighed. “That went a lot faster than I expected. Thank you for helping.”
“You’re welcome.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Would you care for a nightcap? I think Moira put some of the seafood chowder in the refrigerator before she left. I could warm some up.”
Though he would like nothing more than what she offered, Jack couldn’t ignore the shadows beneath her eyes. “That won’t be necessary,” Jack said. “You should get some sleep. It’s late, and you were up much of last night with your uncle.”
She sighed. “Will I see you again?”
Jack smiled. “Since Flamethrower hangs out here, and I want to find this person, I’d say that’s a distinct possibility.” His brow furrowed. “Are you going to be safe on your own? I mean, can I walk you home?”
She grinned. “I live in the flat over the pub. I don’t have far to go.”
He glanced around. “How do you get there? Are the stairs hidden inside the pub somewhere, or do you have to go outside to go up?”
Her brow wrinkled. “Outside the back door and around the side. But I’ve done it a thousand times. I’ll be fine. You don’t need?—”
Jack shook his head. “I’m walking you to your flat. And, if you’ll let me, I’ll clear it before you go inside to make certain you’re safe.”
She held up her hands. “Really, that’s not necessary.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Does your uncle normally live with you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve been on my own since my father’s accident and Finn moved out.”
Damn. Jack didn’t like that at all. “Sweetheart, your uncle was nearly killed last night, and those same people almost kidnapped you. And that all happened outside the back entrance of this pub. Don’t think I’m going to walk away and let you walk alone to your flat, even if it’s only a few steps away.” His frown deepened. “Do you trust me?”
“You saved my life,” she said softly.
“That doesn’t mean anything.
“It does to me.” She nodded. “I trust you.”
He held out his arm. “Then let me do the honors of ensuring your safe arrival at your flat.”
Emily hooked her hand through his bent elbow and let him escort her out the back door of the pub.
Jack liked the feel of her hand on his arm so much that he had to recite to himself, Just see her safely into her flat and leave.
Emphasis on the leave part.
As he walked out the back and around to the side of the building, he felt his resolve slipping.
Emily gasped and stopped, bringing Jack to an abrupt halt.
His gaze went to her Mercedes, where he’d parked it earlier that day.
Red spray-painted words covered the car in bold, ugly letters.
DIE LIKE YOUR DA!