Chapter 2
Two
E ileen O’Reilly heard a murmur move through the office, pulling her attention from the report she was working on. Her brother Zach strode through the office. It took him a while to make it to her because he kept getting stopped by her co-workers. The O’Reillys were well known in this precinct since it had been her father’s when he was a cop. They were related to a lot of the people in this office either by blood or marriage. The fact that Zach was former FBI and had a lot of contacts only added to the number of people stopping him.
He was dressed in a suit, which wasn’t odd for him, even on a Saturday. Since he and his twin Zane had left the FBI, they ran their security firm and charged a pretty penny for their services. Their suits probably cost more than her monthly salary.
“What are you doing here?” she asked after he finally reached her desk.
“Hi, Eileen. How are you?” Zach asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.
She rolled her eyes. Both of her brothers gave her crap for being too abrupt. She didn’t understand why people had to do small talk—not with family.
“Sorry, I forgot how sensitive you are. How are you today?”
He sighed and sat down in the chair next to her desk. “Irritated.”
Inwardly, she groaned. Out of the three siblings, Zach was the most emotional. Or, as Zane called him: ALOW—a lot of work. If he was in the mood to vent, there was no getting around it. She had a pile of work to get done before running home to prepare for an anniversary party for the Fitzpatricks.
Then it hit her. She narrowed her eyes as she studied him. “No, you promised to go with me.”
He couldn’t back out on her this late in the game. She needed him there. He and Zane were her buffer against…Eileen didn’t want to even think his name. And she knew that Zane was in DC on a case. Before he could respond to her comment, they were interrupted.
“Hey, Zach,” a voice said behind her, and she managed not to roll her eyes, but it was close. She knew that voice, unfortunately. Working in the same precinct as your ex was difficult, but she didn’t have a choice. “What are you doing here?”
Zach kept eye contact with her for a long moment before looking up at Bryan Comstock. “Talking with my sister, Bryan. ”
Zach had never liked her ex. Actually, neither of her brothers liked him. They tended to leave her alone about who she dated, but Bryan…they both had a distaste for him from the moment they’d met him. Mainly because they deemed him lazy and arrogant, which Eileen refused to admit at the time. Now, she had to deal with him almost daily.
It might be that he was a legacy like her. Bryan and Eileen came from a long line of cops, but Bryan always seemed to think he deserved more. Hell, half the station house were legacies. Most of them had something to prove, and they worked twice as hard. Bryan was the one who expected something because of his last name, and he rarely had a good reputation, no matter what department he worked. The only solace she had was that she’d beat him out at the academy on every level, which was why they didn’t last. She also made detective a whole year ahead of him and was now working in homicide. He had just made detective and was working in Vice.
Knowing she had no choice, she turned and looked at him. He was dressed down for the day in jeans and a Ravens sweatshirt. His hair was short, cut meticulously, and probably by someone who charged more than she would pay. He had chocolate brown eyes that had once been her downfall. She now understood he could fake empathy.
When she said nothing, her brother decided to poke Bryan. “I guess we could ask the same thing, Bryan. You’re not dressed for work.”
“I forgot my gym bag here yesterday. Didn’t want it to be ripe by Monday. Plus, I had to get out to pick up some flowers for my date tonight.”
Neither Zach nor Eileen said anything to that. With Bryan, it was better to just cut him off. If not, you were going to be stuck talking to him forever.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you later.”
When he finally left, she released a breath. Eileen hadn’t realized how the muscles in her back had tensed during the very short interaction.
“I still have no idea why you dated him.”
She looked at him. “I was young and stupidly thought he accepted my career choice.”
“He didn’t?”
“He did, but he got mad every time I did better than him. He wanted to be the big, bad detective, and he told me he would make it before I would.”
Zach’s mouth twitched. “Oh, that’s fantastic.”
“Now, back to the point, you were being a rat bastard.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have to head out of town. It can’t be helped. But I have a replacement.”
Maybe she could just say something came up at work, and she couldn’t make the party. There would be so many people there that she wouldn’t be missed. The Fitzpatricks definitely understood that work could get in the way of your personal life. Their family had served in the fire department about as long as hers had for Baltimore PD.
Well, except Declan, who owned a restaurant.
Dammit. She just thought his name, and now she would lose time thinking about him. Because that always happened when a stray thought about the sexy chef danced through her head. There was so much to like about him, and she had been trying to resist his magnetic pull for months. Not that he seemed all that interested, but she couldn’t get her hormones to understand. She was having dreams about him, like some lovelorn teen. She couldn’t remember ever being this infatuated with a man.
“Don’t. You know you want to be there. But lucky for you, Rowan is in town.”
Before she could respond to that, she heard their cousin’s voice. “Eileen!”
She shot her brother a dirty look before turning towards their cousin. He was making his way through the bullpen, but he didn’t stop to talk to anyone. He was related to them, just like she and Zach, but he was different, like in a unicorn kind of way different.
He was in the Navy, and while he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, he was a SEAL. She wasn’t sure which team he was on, but he was stationed in California. That military training made him ignore everything but his target, and that was apparently her.
Before she could say anything, he plucked her out of her chair and hugged her. As always, he smelled like the beach. All saltwater and freshness. From age five, he always wanted to be in the water. And while she wasn’t happy about what her brother was trying to pull, she had missed Rowan.
“Put me down, you idiot.”
He laughed and did as she ordered. “You know we can tell you love us because you call us names.”
That was true. She was exceedingly polite to people she didn’t like.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were returning for a visit?”
“Wanted to surprise my Ma and Da. I hear we get to go to Fitzpatrick’s tonight.”
She sighed. “I guess you are my plus one now?” His smile widened into a grin. Eileen looked at her brother. “I can go on my own.”
“Noooo, Eileen! I know the Santinis. Marco and I went through training together.”
Kaitlin Fitzpatrick-Santini’s in-laws were legendary in the Marines and Navy. Everyone knew the family, but she understood the reference. He couldn’t say out loud that they went to SEAL training together, not in the open. But she did know that the bonds formed during SEAL training lasted decades for some of them. Marco lived in Hawaii, so she assumed he must still be on teams.
“Fine, but no messing around with the women in that family. I do not need to have that Joey Santini after me, and she will come after me if you break hearts.”
“I will be a true gentleman.”
“That will be a first.”
“So it’s fixed. He can be your date, and I can go do my thing. Win. Win.” Zach smiled like he had solved some great mystery.
“You needed a date? You could have asked me.”
Ugh, there was Bryan again. She turned to look at her ex, who was indeed holding a gym bag.
“She doesn’t need you,” Zach said. It was out of character for him to be so blunt, but he was always like that with Bryan. “Besides, didn’t you just say you had a date?”
Her golden retriever of a cousin looked between the two of them, assessing the situation, and his smile faded. A steely look entered his eyes, and she knew that was his SEAL face, as he called it. She did not need a pissing contest right by her desk. It was hard enough being one of the few women in homicide.
“It’s more of a family thing, Bryan,” Eileen said.
“Oh, okay. See ya later.”
Once he was out of earshot, Rowan said, “What an asshole.”
“You don’t know him.”
Although, she didn’t know why she was getting defensive. She didn’t like Bryan. Worse, she didn’t trust him. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he definitely had a chip on his shoulder and wanted more than anything to be in homicide. He would take anyone out if he thought it would get him a spot.
“Your brother thinks he’s an asshole, so I do too. Also, who says that to an ex? Asshole. And weird. Really weird.”
“I thought you didn’t have much to do with him,” her brother said.
She sighed. “Hard to avoid all the time since we’re in the same precinct.” She felt like a broken record. Both her brothers asked the question a lot. “Besides, don’t you have to be somewhere?”
“Yeah. Have fun tonight, half-pint.”
“Shut it.”
He laughed, and her heart danced. As much as her brothers irritated her, she loved them twice as much. Even when they called her by her dreaded nickname.
“I’ll pick you up at your place. What’s the dress code?”
“Suit, and I’ll drive.”
He made a face. “Suit? Really?”
“Hey, you want to be seen with me, you will wear dress pants and not jeans.”
“Fine. C’ya, cuz.”
Once they finally left her alone, she got back into her paperwork. She was still adjusting to life without her first partner as a detective. He deserved his retirement.
It didn’t take long for her to finish the paperwork and start digging into the cold case of Norma Wilson.
Norma Wilson had been her mother’s teacher, not too many years older than her, and had been murdered. Her body had been left in an alley, and it had taken Baltimore PD a few days to figure out who she was. In 1987, the authorities didn’t have the type of technology they now have.
So young, blond, pretty…but the scene had left little to the imagination. Stripped of every possession, even her clothes, she had been left off Fleet Street. Eileen had promised her mother she would look into the case, but there had been little to look into. There was some DNA, but once they could enter it in the system, nothing popped.
Still, she wanted to be honest with her mother. Looking into the case and maybe talking it over with a few cops. And truthfully, Eileen knew the case already. When she had joined the academy, she had talked about it all the time. But it had been years since she had really looked into it again. So, hopefully, all of her training and experience would help.
The one thing that always stood out to her was the knife in the woman’s chest. It was custom-made. Expensive. Hard to believe that they couldn’t seem to figure out where it had come from. With her remaining time, she decided to search for any references to a knife like the one used, and maybe she could find out where it was sold.
Her doorbell rang right on time. Of course, Rowan had driven her crazy with multiple texts about what he should wear. Then came the pictures. She didn’t care what tie he wore, but apparently, he did. He was military, which meant if you weren’t early, you were late. At least, that’s what he’d said to her earlier.
She opened the door and smiled at her cousin.
“You do clean up nice, Rowan.”
And he did. Unlike her side of the family, Rowan had light hair and dark eyes. He looked like his mother, while his sister looked like her father, like the other O’Reillys.
“I could say the same thing about you. Showing a lot of leg. And those heels…who are you trying to impress?”
“First,” she said, turning away to grab her wrap and purse. “I dress for myself. Second, you sound like a sexist jerk who thinks the only thing women think about are men.”
“I don’t think that,” he said, frowning at her as she set her alarm and locked her door.
“You don’t?”
“No. I think lesbians think about women.”
She sighed. “Rowan. That’s inappropriate.” She knew he wasn’t a sexist; it was just that sometimes he said things before he could think them through.
“I mean, I think about women a lot. Like, look at this.” He waved his hands down his outfit. “I did this because I want to impress women.”
“You dressed like that because I threatened you.”
“Well, that too, but I would have done it anyway. Also, Mrs. Santini will be there. She kind of scares me.”
She laughed. Joey Santini was kind of scary, but in a good way. The woman loved her family, and if she thought you should be part of it, she would do everything she could to get you there. “Join the club. Come on, cuz, we’re running late.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it. She did love Rowan. He was a total golden retriever kind of guy, but since he’d entered the military and then got on teams, he had been different. There was a bit of an edge to him. He’d also put on about twenty pounds of pure muscle. Still, the two of them had grown up together. Only three months separated them in age. They went to school together and often hung out all through high school. And she missed him a lot.
Once they were on their way, Rowan decided to play interrogator.
“Is there a reason you didn’t want to go alone? Because, while I’m thrilled to be going, you’re not the kind of person who has to have a plus one.”
She took a right turn off her street. She actually didn’t live that far from where Declan’s establishment was. “I just didn’t want to go alone.”
“Nope, not buying it. I think you needed one of two things.”
She slanted him a look. “What would those be?”
“One, you want a wingman, and let me tell you, I am an excellent wingman.”
He would be. She was pretty sure his dimples and personality put a lot of women at ease.
“And the second one?”
“You need a buffer. There’s someone there you’re trying to resist. It’s not someone bothering you because you would kick them in the nuts.” He chuckled. “Ritchie Manso learned that the hard way.”
“That creep deserved it.”
“He did. But you didn’t go to your brothers or any of your multitude of male cousins. Instead, you kneed him so hard, I don’t think that bastard will ever have kids.”
She smiled at the memory. “Ritchie has been married twice and has six kids.”
“What? Why? How?”
“Use your words, Rowan.”
“Why would anyone marry him?”
She shrugged. “Not sure.”
“Oh, wait, there is a third option.”
“What would that be?”
“You’re trying to make him jealous.”
She blinked, then started laughing.
“What?”
“Dude, I was taking my brother first, and you’re my cousin. If I wanted to make a guy jealous, which is so not me, I could get someone from work to go with me. I definitely don’t want to go all inbreeder on a guy. The guys interested in that would not be my cup of tea.”
There was a beat of silence, then he cracked up. “Okay, I didn’t think that last one out. I’m betting on the second option.”
She looked away and noticed the light had turned green.
“Oh, yeah, that’s it.”
“What?”
“You always avoid eye contact when you lie or are avoiding the truth. It is one of your big tells.”
It was? And yes, people forgot to be on guard around Rowan because of those dimples and his sparkly eyes. Even his cousin.
“Listen, it’s not so much of avoiding temptation as avoiding making a fool of myself. I’m not the guy’s type because I’ve seen them.”
“Well, he sounds like an asshole. Let me beat him up.”
She smiled. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too. You need to come to see me in Cali. You would love it there.”
“No. It sounds too sunny and optimistic. I need cold weather and dreariness a few months out of the year.”
He laughed as she pulled into the parking garage down the street from Fitzpatrick’s. Once she parked, Eileen checked her phone one last time.
“What?”
“I’m on call this weekend. Just want to make sure I didn’t miss anything.”
They both slipped out of the car. She locked it, then joined him at the back. He offered his arm once again.
“Shall we?”
Again, she smiled because she was happy that he was home and in one piece for now.
“We shall.”