Chapter Two
“Let me get this straight,” Liam O’Donnell began, sitting in
the big conference room at his place of business. “I want to make sure I’ve got
everything down.”
Daisy O’Donnell had spent her whole life coming up to this
building where her da worked. She’d played with her brother in the daycare, and
later she’d done her homework in her da’s office while she waited for him to
drive her home. She knew this building like the back of her hand. It was
practically her second home.
So why did it feel so weird to be sitting in the conference
room? It was probably the fact that she wasn’t alone with her da. Her mother
was up here, too, looking worried and patting her da’s hand from time to time.
The big boss, Ian Taggart, and his wife, Charlotte, were at the head of the
table, along with Mitch Bradford. She wasn’t sure why John’s dad was here, but
he was a lawyer.
She didn’t need a lawyer. Did she?
“I was helping out a client,” she began.
“Uhm, Mr. Taggart, I would like to make it clear we didn’t
hire Daisy as a private investigator.” Her bosses were here, too. Harlow and
Ruby sat at the opposite end of the table, and Harlow seemed to be the one who
wanted to set the record straight.
“She was supposed to answer the phones.” Ruby frowned her
way.
She was going to have to soothe her bosses. Things had done
what they so often did in Daisy’s life. They had gone awry.
To top things off, her brother was somewhere in the
building. Aidan had been the one to drive her up, and he’d told her he needed
to go talk to his newest roommate.
Nathan Carter. Big, gorgeous Nathan Carter, who’d barely
known she’d existed past being his friend’s obnoxious sister.
She hadn’t seen Nate in years. Was he still stunning? He
probably had a girlfriend.
“Daisy?” Her mother’s voice brought her out of her reverie.
“Uncle Ian asked you a question.”
Of all the grave faces around the table, it was her aunt and
uncle who broke the mold and looked highly amused.
“I asked how you went from answering the phones to taking
down a drug cartel,” Uncle Ian said, his lips curling up. He leaned in like he
was ready for this story.
Her da made a sound and held his heart like it was breaking.
“My poor girl.”
Her mother got up and moved to the big table where there
were drinks and snacks laid out. “I’m going to make you some tea.”
“He’s going to need something stronger,” Aunt Charlotte
said. “I brought out the good whiskey.”
“Oh, you know what…” Daisy began, but then the look from her
sweet mother could have frozen lava in its tracks. Well, she’d had a rough
twenty-four hours, too. Still, when her mom looked like that it was best to
follow her lead. And she could hit the bar at The Hideout later on. “Tea sounds
great. Now, before I tell the story you should know I took every precaution.”
“Which ones?” Ruby asked, her eyes narrowing. “Like the one
where you pushed in the security code and then didn’t ask it to set?”
“There was a green light.” It had been an honest mistake.
“And I did lock the doors.”
“Yeah, well, someone broke in and we didn’t get a
notification because the light should have been red,” Harlow pointed out. “Now
Dad Two thinks we should move the whole office. Well, he thinks we should shut
it down. Also, I’m still trying to figure out how he found me at the café. I
was almost late for my meeting because I was dealing with my dad. Mr. Taggart,
do you have like a wand or something? I think my dad LoJacked me.”
“I do, actually.” Uncle Ian had the biggest smile on his
face.
Maybe telling Chase Dawson they were getting sandwiches at a
café wasn’t the smartest thing. She hadn’t told him the name of the café.
Weren’t there like a hundred in Dallas? “I’m sorry. I thought green meant it
was set.”
“You totally got the answering machine right,” Harlow said.
Daisy sat up straighter. “I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to miss
a single message.”
“Yes,” Ruby agreed. “It was how we knew you were being held
by the police as a material witness to federal crimes.”
“Just drink.” Her mom put the whiskey in her da’s hand very
quickly.
And he drained it.
Yep, she was driving her sweet da to drink.
“I still don’t quite understand what happened,” Aunt
Charlotte said.
She’d gone over this again and again in the last twenty-four
hours. “So the woman came in and she’s getting married to this guy but she
thinks her fiancé is cheating on her because once a month he goes to this
building downtown. She’s followed him before but she’s never gone in, and she
said when he would come out hours later he looked super satisfied. Like when
they had sex.”
“I’m so glad she can expertly read facial expressions.”
Uncle Ian looked like he was ready to giggle.
They always underestimated the younger generation. They had
good instincts, too, though not in this case. “Anyway, so I thought he probably
wasn’t cheating because she seemed sweet, you know. Like if some guy’s cheating
on her then we’re all in trouble.”
“Yes, we are all in trouble,” Harlow agreed.
“So I thought we would go down and maybe he was planning a
surprise for their wedding,” Daisy explained.
Her da shook his head as her mom passed him another glass.
“My poor, sweet, na?ve girl.”
She wasn’t na?ve. “Well, he wasn’t cheating. Turns out he
was checking on a shipment from his employer.”
“A shipment of what, Daisy?” Ruby asked.
As a boss, she was going to be the unrelenting one. “At
first I thought it was maybe, like, powder.”
She could have sworn her da had tears in his eyes. “She
wouldn’t know what cocaine is, much less what it looks like. My god, girl, you
could have been killed.”
“I mostly kept my distance, but then my client was angry and
she rushed out of the spot where we were hiding,” Daisy continued.
“You went into the building?” her da asked, horror evident
in his tone.
“Of course. How else would I have gotten the pictures of her
fiancé meeting with the head of the cartel? They were good pictures, too. Who
says cell phones can’t take excellent pictures? When I realized this was like
my first case, I even thought to get a selfie with the drug lord in the
background.” It had been an excellent picture. “But the police made me take it
down. I was getting good reach and everything.”
Now her uncle simply laughed his ass off. “She put it on
Instagram.”
“You looked good, sweetie,” Aunt Charlotte said. “You got a
great angle.”
“Do not encourage her.” Her mother was not amused.
“Like I said, I kind of thought it was all okay until Bri
texted me. She told me she thought it was probably cocaine and I should get out
of there before the cartel people killed me.” Her friends always looked out for
her. She’d gotten several you’re about to die texts, and Cooper McKay
had shown up with her brother in tow just in time to watch her get carted off
by the police.
Law and Order made interrogations look glamourous.
They had kept her there for hours, and the snacks had been terrible.
“It’s me fault,” her da was saying. “I should never have let
her out in the world alone.”
He didn’t understand. “Like I said, Da, I wasn’t alone. The
client was with me. And she got upset and yelled, and that was how the people
figured out we were hiding. I got into the building through a window they left
open. I didn’t think I could wriggle through, but I totally did. I think I’m
truly cut out for this line of work.”
“I do, too, kiddo,” Uncle Ian said.
It was good to know at least one person believed in her.
Mitch Bradford had been quiet the whole time, but he leaned
forward now. “Ian, this is serious. I don’t want to think about what would have
happened if she hadn’t posted a dumbass pic to social media. Her friends
figured out where she was and called the police immediately.”
“Oh, I had a locator on. It can help with engagement,” she
explained.
Which Ian thought was hysterical, but her da simply went
even paler. Not even Irishmen should be able to go so white.
“We’re all thankful for the quick thinking of her friends.”
Her mother sat beside her father, and she’d poured her own whiskey. “The
question is what happens now? Was everyone arrested? Is my daughter in
trouble?”
Mitch sat back. “Daisy is not in any trouble with the
police. She is a material witness, however. Everyone was arrested, and they’re
being held for questioning right now. The problem is if they make bail, Daisy
is technically the only witness they can count on.”
“But the client was with me,” Daisy argued. She’d been the
one to cause all the trouble when she’d revealed their hiding spot because she
was pissed at her boyfriend.
She’d gone from crying because he might be cheating to
yelling because he was obviously withholding funds from his secret job.
“Heidi Groverson is now claiming she believes her boyfriend
when he says he got sent to the address to deliver a lunch order and had
nothing to do with the operation ongoing there,” Mitch explained.
“So she’s lying,” her da accused.
“I think she’s trying to protect her boyfriend,” Ruby added.
“I’m already working on it. Ronnie Wilson is registered with a company called
Meals To You. They’re a group of gig workers who run food. I think I might be
able to prove it’s also a front for moving drugs. According to Daisy’s account,
Ronnie went once a month. I think he’s likely the go-between for the cartel and
their lower-level dealers.”
So she’d busted up a dangerous drug ring on her very first
case. “We can take them all down.”
“Very likely,” Mitch agreed. “But first you have to go to
trial. With Heidi changing her story, you’re the star witness.”
“A cartel is going to want to kill me darling girl.” Her da
always sounded more Irish when he was emotional. He’d been born in Dublin but
had lived most of his adult life right here in Dallas. Not that his accent
showed the time he’d spent here. He was a handsome man with green eyes and dark