SEVEN
THEY DROVE THROUGH the night and stopped for gas at first light. Strat got out and she wasn’t far behind.
“Stay here, Dad,” Lachlan said as her door closed, then followed her out. “Sersh, we have to talk about this.”
“Not where he can hear us.” She went to stand a couple of yards from the hood, her brother on her heels. “What do you want?”
“What do I—don’t start giving me the attitude.”
She exhaled and took his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to… I’ve had a pretty shitty week.”
“Sounds like it. You really think Ire is dead?”
“I think I’m going crazy not knowing. I know you don’t like him, Lach. You think he’s wrong for me, that he’s caused problems, and—”
“What the fuck do I know? I trusted our father. Clearly, you’re a better judge of character than I am.”
“Don’t think that way, everyone trusts their parents.”
“You didn’t,” he said and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “We could take him in.”
“And then what? He said it, we have no proof.”
“We could get him on tape.”
Ironic that the suggestion put a bad taste in her mouth. “I want him to rot in hell for killing Henry and shooting Conn…”
“But…?”
“A trial? What else will be dragged up?”
“You mean about us?”
“I mean about him,” she said, lowering her volume. “Do we want the world to know he’s in league with Silvio Manzani? The don, Lach, how long has it been going on? What else might they have done?”
“Every prosecution he’s ever been a part of will be scrutinized. Every exoneration too. They’ll reopen cases—”
“Maybe let worse people out in the world?”
“Would everyone believe we didn’t know or will they assume…? My investigations could be open to inspection too.”
“You do good work. And though our father is the lowest of the low, I’d like to think that at some point in his life, he put away people who deserved it.”
“I’ll support whatever you want me to support.”
That was… “You will?”
“He deserves to go to prison for what he’s done, but bringing a cloud over our family, over all the work we’ve done… and Henry’s memory too… I don’t know, is that right? And we’d have to testify.” Did either of them want to do that against their own father? And Conn, if he was alive… “They wouldn’t miss a chance to put Ire on the stand either.”
She held her breath for a second. Man, her brother really was good at his job.
“He’ll plead the fifth,” she said. “We’ll all plead the fifth.”
“Then we might as well join Ron in custody. You know what’s inferred from a Fifth defense.”
Shit, thanks, Dad, they were painted into a corner. It was inevitable they’d be dragged down with him if they tossed him to the authorities.
“I can’t believe this…”
That their father’s misdeeds brought them to that point. That untenable point.
“All the evidence we gathered.” Lachlan seemed bewildered. “The statements we took and footage, how did we not know he was at Henry’s that night? Why didn’t anyone mention him?”
“Lupe wasn’t there. Sneddon was the only one in the building.”
“And he’s the type of guy who wants the superintendent to owe him.”
“That and there’s the tunnel.”
“Tunnel?”
“See!” she exclaimed and socked his shoulder. “I didn’t know about it either!”
“What tunnel?”
“From prohibition days apparently. It’s how Dad brought me out of the house without Conn’s guys seeing. Must’ve been how he got in to visit Henry the night he killed him too. Lupe was the only one with a key. We thought Lupe was the only one with a key. I don’t know how or why dad got one.”
“We have to decide,” Lach said. “Are we taking him in?”
Without proof? “We could talk to Lupe again, Sneddon, see if they’ll be more honest now we know what happened.”
“If they truly didn’t know anything, we can’t ask them to embellish their statements just because we’ve identified the guilty party. We have the murder weapon.”
Which was just disgusting. “With your prints on it too. They can’t test him and his clothes for gunshot residue, it’s been too long.”
“Ballistics will match,” he said. “The gun to the crime, not the crime to the man. Though if he did kill Conn with it.”
She flattened a hand on her stomach. “I can’t even think about it.”
Lach pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. “This is difficult for me.”
“Dad was your hero. I understand that—”
“No,” he interjected. “Seeing how you love him, how much you love him.”
Conn.
Her eyes closed. “Sometimes it hits me and I feel sick. I don’t want to go on, I want to lay down and…” Pushing out of his arms, she wiped the moisture from the corner of her eyes. “I told myself I wouldn’t believe it until I saw him. Until I actually lay eyes on…”
“Ire’s a tough sonofabitch.”
“You better believe it.” Because she did. “You know you have a lot in common. He lost his mother young, around the same age you did.”
“Conversation tips?”
“Very funny.” Like tragedy would be something the men could talk about and bond over. “They may not be the same as yours, but he’s a man with morals and integrity. You look at things from different angles, but there’s a lot of you in him.”
“I don’t wish him dead, if that’s what you think of me.”
“You wouldn’t wish anyone dead, Lach. No part of you could—maybe that’s the worst thing.”
“Worst thing?”
“About what Dad’s done. Killing Henry was—it’s abominable, unimaginable, but I hate him more for letting you down.”
He touched her cheek. “I’m not as perfect as you think.”
“I don’t think you’re perfect, no one’s perfect.”
“I’ll get over it. You think I’ve never been let down before? The two of you always butted heads, which put me in the middle. Dad expected a lot, expected me to be a certain way. Now it’s almost as if…”
“The chains have come off,” she said, her smile tight. “It’s how I felt after admitting I was Conn’s alibi. I never wanted to hurt you; I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. But being without him, existing every day apart from him… After telling the truth, I could be me, the truest version of me.”
“And Ronald’s struggled to accept that.”
Their father’s morals had never been hers. Obviously they hadn’t been her father’s either. Maybe it all came down to Henry. They each tried to make him proud with their grandfather’s impetus.
“There’s something to be said for freeing yourself from other people’s constraints.”
“Don’t you have new ones? Identifying as a McDade puts a different pressure on you.”
“No.” She shook her head; her smile loosened a little. “Maybe it’s because I’m at the top or because he loves me, but the McDades accept everything, Conn accepts everything. Everything about me, Lach. The worst of me, the mistakes, the lies and the truths, I tell him everything and he never judges, he never punishes, he supports me. More than that, he helps me, encourages me.”
“Maybe all this has taught us not to be so quick to judge by what’s on the surface.”
“He’s no saint.”
“Are any of us?” he asked and put an arm around her. “Dad has to give up his post.”
“For family. Yes. And we don’t take reporting him off the table. It’s selfish, but all I can think about now is—”
“Finding Ire.” And with a head bob, he guided her back to the car. “We’ll get Dad working on that resignation email.”
“Okay, just don’t do anything final… yet.” Lach kissed her cheek and got back into the car. The male McLeods could probably use a minute alone. Her focus landed on Strat. “You found me.”
“Yeah,” he said, gas still pumping into the car. “Don’t make me regret that. Might lose you again just as quick.”
“Will you help me find him?”
“You know I will.”
“And if he’s….”
“Whatever we need to do, we’ll do, Scamp. What were you and the cop talking about? Daddy?”
“I can’t think straight about anything. Lach’s right that Dad has to give up his job. You can’t be a corrupt murderer and run the city’s police department, that’s just crazy.”
“You’re hesitating because you want to talk to him,” Strat said and their eyes met. “Ire, you want his take before settling on a plan.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“No. Providing your brother knows this is a three-way decision, it’s not just you and him.”
“It’s a decision for all the people who know, Lach, me, Conn—when I tell him, and you.”
“I don’t want the decision.” He took the nozzle from the car and hung it up again. “After this week, I’m taking a vacation.”
“A vacation? Where?”
“My apartment.”
She laughed. “Haven’t you missed my craziness this week?”
“That’s one way to put it.” He went around the back of the car. “Want anything from inside?”
“They’ll be coming for me, you know.” Strat stopped. “The Manzanis. They might want my dad for failing to deliver, but they’ll be coming for me too.”
“And they’re already gunning for the McDades.” If only she could talk to Whisper, find out what happened at the prison with Biz. “This is good.”
Startled, she blinked at her friend. “Good?”
“They’re spreading themselves thin. Silvio’s got an idea what he’s doing, but he can’t rely on Vex to back him up.”
Evander “Vex” Manzani, another potential corpse on her conscience. “You heard anything from Evander this week?”
“Vex doesn’t usually check in with me.” His chin rose as his focus narrowed. “Why?”
“You don’t want me to answer that question. You’ll thank me for the ignorance one day.”
“With you, Scamp, these things always come out in the end.”
Maybe. “We’ll find Conn, get drunk, and then decide if you want another crime on your rap sheet.”
“There’s one up side.”
“What’s that?”
“Life in prison’s a shorter stretch for me than it will be for you.”
She laughed. Trust Strat to be the one brightening her day.
“I’m coming in with you,” she said, coiling an arm around Strat’s to walk across the forecourt with him. “I haven’t eaten properly in days.”
“You buying?”
“IOU,” she said, peeking up at him. “My purse is still in the back of Conn’s car somewhere.”
Though her wallet itself was at the loft. They’d left their bed, their room, their home, believing they’d be back in an hour, maybe two. Would everything be as they left it?
“What you thinking about?”
“The loft,” she said, ducking under his arm when he held the door open for her. “Did you go there?”
“No answer.”
Didn’t mean there wasn’t anybody there. Strat wouldn’t get inside on his own. As far as she knew, he’d only been there with other McDade men, people who’d likely have the code, or had the door opened for them.
Though what reason would Conn, or any McDade, have for barring her friend? Strat was one of them and could be key to tracking her down. As evidenced by the fact that he did.
“He’s out there, isn’t he?”
“We’ll find him, Scamp.”
Maybe, but what state would he be in when they did?