Chapter 7
GRAYSON
Aoife slumps over in the passenger seat, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
Her face turns at the right angle for me to fixate on her parted lips, twitching lashes, and every once in a while a random jerk that makes me smile.
Her hair is messy, clinging to her green leather jacket, and as the sun stretches awake, her bright blonde hair bursts with it.
After the diner, we drove around, and she pointed out all the spots her father used to take her looking at lights.
Some places still had a big display, and others seemed to have lost the Christmas spirit, but she reminisced nonetheless.
She fell asleep an hour ago, and I don’t have it in me to wake her up. Nor can I look away.
It’s coming, though. I know it is. Three guards boxed in my sedan, their black SUV hulking beside my beat-up car.
That’s when it clicked—they’d been on us since the diner.
Tracked her phone. She tried to send them away—why I’m not sure—but they refused.
So here they sit, Ronan watching me watch her.
The phone in Aoife’s lap buzzes, shifting as it does.
My Dad: The Boss shows up over a photo of Kieran and her on a boat.
She’s older, late teens, but she’s got a pair of boxing gloves on while her father has her in a gentle headlock.
Her grin is wide, his eyes adoring. She talked about her father a lot earlier.
How he never wanted her to feel trapped, but he also wanted her to know that this legacy was hers for the taking if she wanted it.
It was never said aloud, but her tone—I wonder if she’s afraid of letting him down.
Aoife stirs, wiping at her mouth, then reaching for the buzzing phone. “Shit,” she mumbles, ignoring the phone call. “I must’ve fallen asleep. God, you must want to go home.”
I keep one hand on the wheel even though we aren’t moving. The other I keep fisted over my thigh. A piece of hair is stuck to her cheek, and I have the strangest urge to brush it away from her face. “You’re fine. Sun’s just coming up.”
She holds my gaze, and when I think she can’t look any more beautiful, a ray of sunlight bounces off her bright eyes, and they sparkle.
Shit. Sparkling eyes? That’s not something I notice.
Thoughts of her tangled in my sheets, rolling over and smiling into a pillow instead of the car seat, plow into me. Damn it.
There’s a knock on the window, and Aoife jumps, spinning around where Ronan holds up his answered phone. She rolls down the window. “What?”
“Mr. O’Donnell is on the phone.”
“I haven’t had my coffee yet,” she says.
Ronan rolls his eyes, and she sighs, taking the phone.
Two things enter my mind: First, she doesn’t get out of the car.
She sits there, legs crossed in my seat like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Second, I want to rectify the no-coffee situation immediately.
Would taking her to breakfast be too much?
Ronan narrows his eyes at me, and I avoid him by snatching my phone and scrolling through some emails.
“Hi, Dad. What can I do for you, oh Master of the Ring?”
The corner of my mouth twitches and my eyebrows dart up at her cheeky tone as I scroll past an email ad for holiday fruit baskets.
“Yes. I have … I know, Dad. Let me talk to Summer.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re doing the thing you always do.”
A text from Reed interrupts my reading.
REED
Warrant came through. Meet you at the Morris house in an hour.
I sit up, typing out a quick reply. This is the lead we need.
The first victim didn’t seem to have ties to organized crime.
At first, it seemed like a practice round for the killer before he, or she, started rounding up made men.
However, the closer we look, the odder it gets.
Especially when his spouse won’t let the police into her home to search.
Any evidence that could help us establish motive is buried there, leaving us only with the dump site and his workplace.
Then, the wife started dragging garbage bags out of her house and feeding us different timelines every time we interviewed her.
That was enough. We applied for a warrant on the grounds of potential evidence tampering, and her stories from the night of his murder don’t match up.
I stare at the phone, then shift my gaze over to where Aoife is pretending to snore on the phone with her father. Instinctively, I squeeze her thigh. Her head whips around to mine, eyes widening at my hand resting on her leg. I snatch it away and opt to hold up the message from Reed instead.
She squints at it, and her expression lights up. “Oh, hey, Dad, something just came up. I gotta go. Because I do. I love you guys. Okay—I have—Oh you’re breaking—sorry—” She clicks off the phone.
I stare at her. Did she just pretend to cut out on Kieran O’Donnell?
“What?” she asks with a shrug.
I reach for my cigarette pack. Why is she so …
hell. “Nothing,” I say, removing one and bringing it to my mouth.
I fumble in my front pocket for my new lighter and light it, inhaling a long drag before blowing the smoke out the cracked window.
Shit, I swear this girl is making me smoke more.
I need to quit again, but the thought of making it through the holiday season without my emotional support smokes makes me murderous.
“Hey, can we grab a coffee and pee before we go to the Morris home?”
I give her a long, flat look. “Who says you’re coming?”
“I do.” She adjusts her jacket. She looks like she’s been through hell, and I’m sure I’m no better.
I shake my head.
“Call your chief. I’m coming,” she insists.
I dip my head toward her hulking bodyguard outside her window.
She turns and rolls down her window, then tosses Ronan’s phone at him.
“I’ll be with the detective for the day.
Only forward emergencies my way. I want Mark to follow up with our contacts at the terminal.
Figure out what the hell happened and report back. ”
“Miss O’Donnell—”
Aoife rolls up the window, and I grin at Ronan’s exasperated look behind the glass once again.
We stop at a Dunkin’ Donuts, and Aoife picks at me for actually getting a donut.
She’s still laughing about how I fall into the stereotypical cop mold with a donut.
Really, I just need the sugar to help me get through this morning.
I’m exhausted. There was no way in hell I could sleep with Aoife sitting in my passenger seat.
As I pull up to the first victim’s home in South End, my phone dings with a response from my chief.
I’d texted him while Aoife was using the bathroom, while I was waiting for my donut and her coffee.
The idea that I wanted this to be routine struck me as I sat there staring at the women’s restroom like she might disappear, and for some reason that completely made me derail in thought.
I look down at my screen, cricked on my lap.
Let her tag along.
I frown. Why?
I don’t have much time to think about it because Aoife exits the car and starts toward the house.
Several police officers and the forensic technicians roll in and out of the house with bags.
An officer stops Aoife as she approaches the multi-story Victorian row house, one hand extended, the other moving to hover over his sidearm.
I scramble out of the car, forgoing the need for another cigarette, and follow the path between evidence tables and techs toward where Aoife waits with Deputy James.
Her hip juts out to the side, the leather hugging her generous curves and ample ass.
I drag a hand down my face, feeling the rough stubble poking across my chin, and sigh.
“She’s with me, Deputy,” I say, grabbing Aoife by the elbow and dragging her along toward the front steps.
“So handsy, Detective,” she croons. “Awfully bold to manhandle the Irish Mob, don’t you think?”
“You’d know if I was manhandling you.”
We ascend the steps, ducking under the tape. Mrs. Morris waits off to the side with two officers, and when we enter, Aoife smiles.
Confused, I ask, “Something funny?”
She shakes her head. “Reminds me of the brownstone in Beacon Hill I grew up in. So many memories.”
“Your father doesn’t live there anymore?”
“He owns it, but it sits uninhabited most of the time since they travel a lot. They’ve been abroad for a while now.”
“You didn’t want to stay there?” I ask, grabbing a pair of gloves from the technician holding them out to me. I take another set for Aoife.
She wrinkles her nose but takes them anyway. “I wanted my own place and thoroughly enjoy my condo.” She waggles her eyebrows.
Something burns deep in my chest, and I clench my jaw at her cavalier words. What does she mean? And why does it feel like a faceless male is gloating in my face, along with her torturing words? I turn away from her, seeking out Reed.
Aoife follows me through the hallway. “I mean, me and all my ice cream dates with reality TV in my pajamas,” she mutters.
My shoulders slump, and I exhale. Damn it, I need to focus.
Unfortunately, Aoife keeps talking. “This house isn’t necessarily inexpensive. What did he do for work again?”
“Accountant for …” I pull out my phone and open my notes. “A law firm downtown.”
She purses her lips, eyeing the paintings in the hallway. “Does an accountant make enough to buy multiple million-dollar paintings to hang in his hallway?”
I pause, eyeing a canvas with abstract crimson petals blooming within golden leaves. This looks like something you’d get from a flea market. Million-dollar painting? “How do you know that?”
She fingers the bottom of another painting, a clock on a workbench, and lifts it away from the wall, peeking behind it. When she lets it go, it smacks the wall with a thud. “I have connections in New York who deal in specialty imports. Paintings are one of them.”
I think of last night’s havoc at the terminal, and the watercolor paintings she was getting like they were an afterthought to her order of weapons.
“Uh-huh,” I deadpan.
She frowns. “If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.
Just know each of these—” Her finger rapidly points to several paintings.
“Over millions each. I like this one.” Aoife stalls in front of a maritime portrait of a woman waist-deep in dark, murky water.
Her mouth is barely parted, her eyes boring into the person staring at the painting.
The water is still, but beyond her in-focus face is a scaly tail.
I hunt the plaque below it. The Siren’s Silence.
Aoife and her mermaids are something I’m not sure I’ll ever understand, but if there’s one thing all Boston recognizes, it’s those damn tails.
Reed wanders out of the kitchen. “Grayson, about time you got here. What’s she doing here?”
I bristle at his tone, but Aoife just winks at him before picking up a gold cat figurine and turning it over in her hands. “Chief said she should be here. Guess he thinks she’s useful for something.”
The cat smacks back onto the bookshelf as Aoife continues to poke around.
“Find anything?” I ask him.
“No. Lots of paperwork, but so far nothing.” His eyes roam over the hall and dining area and then trail after Aoife as she disappears around the corner. He swallows.
I sigh, moving past Reed and following Aoife as she peruses what looks like a study or office. Reed wasn’t joking about the paperwork. It’s piled high on every surface of the desk, spilling over onto the several wooden chairs in the room.
“Tiffany lamp.” Aoife pulls the chain, and the light switches on. The stained-glass shade illuminates a mosaic of emerald, sapphire, and amber; the bronze heavy and ornate. She pulls the gold chain, and it flicks off. I turn to inspect something, but the light clicks on again. Then off again.
“Do you have to touch everything?” I blurt.
She ignores me, moving behind the desk to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves stuffed with books, more papers, and photos.
As she scans the shelves, her back to me, I take a moment to explore the way her hair skims midway down her back.
Her hips sway as she shifts back and forth between the shelves, and my throat bobs.
When she reaches behind her to massage where her shoulder meets her neck, I avert my gaze, only to dredge it back, watching as she tilts her neck over to one side to work out a kink.
I clench my fist, willing myself still, and fight the urge to keep from caressing the muscle for her.
I’ve been alone too long. If the damn Irish Mob leader can tempt me, something’s wrong.
“Gotcha,” she whispers, and I jerk away. But she turns, holding up a photo. “Guess who this is?”
I stride toward her and lean in, taking the photo. “I don’t recognize anyone. Well, wait. Is that the wife?”
She nods.
“And?”
“The family in this photo is Cosa Nostra. Rob Morris isn’t mafia, she is. He must’ve married into it.”
I stare at the photo, eyes flicking up to meet hers. “I didn’t think the Cosa Nostra resided in Boston.”
“They don’t. Haven’t in many, many years. There was a faction of them who left New York when the old alliance between the Bratva and Cosa Nostra was established, but it was dissolved years ago. Because of Summer, actually.”
Aoife floats closer, plucking the photo out of my hands.
She slides past me in the narrow space between the desk and bookshelves.
Her hips brush mine, then the curve of her ass grazes across my groin.
Heat shoots through me so fast, but I force my eyes on the brown wallpaper ahead.
I swear I forget my own name, then clear my throat.
“How would someone outside the mob or mafia world know who her family was then? It seems like she didn’t participate in their business if she lives here, married to someone outside of it. ”
Aoife licks her top lip and looks to the ceiling. “Yes, but he’s an accountant, you say? I bet he was the one dealing with them. Moving money, embezzling, the list could be a mile long. And to answer your question—outsiders wouldn’t know.”
“So, the murderer has to be in a crime family,” I say, chasing the high we’re getting somewhere.
“Or law enforcement.” Aoife studies me, and I, once again, avert my eyes from her prying gaze and try not to erupt when she gnaws on her lower lip.
Something’s definitely wrong with me.