Chapter 29
Logan
Aknock at the door forces me to move away from Nuala. I open it a crack to see Connor.
“Scanner’s here. He will scan each page, and it will automatically be sent out to every head of family in Ireland.”
I raise an eyebrow. Ireland. Not just Dublin. Connor means business. “I’m coming with it,” I say, stepping back so I can take it from Nuala. I look back at her. She stands by the bed, arms crossed over her chest. She looks pale but steady.
“Lock the door,” I command. “Don’t open it for anyone but me.”
She nods once. “Go.”
I step into the hallway. The lock clicks behind me.
I test the handle. It holds. I follow Connor down the corridor to the library.
A man is setting up the operation. He has thick glasses and shifts his weight from foot to foot.
A flatbed scanner sits on the antique mahogany desk, wires trailing to a laptop.
“This is Dave,” Connor says. “Dave scans. Dave doesn’t read.”
Dave ignores us. I hand him the notebook. He opens it to the first page. He places it on the glass. The machine whirs. The light sweeps across the paper.
I watch every pass of the light. Each scan creates a digital copy. Once the file compiles, Connor hits send. It goes to every inbox that matters in this country.
“How long?” I ask.
“Ten minutes,” Dave mutters, flipping a page. “Maybe fifteen.”
Sitting down, I watch the pages turn. Names. Dates. Crimes. Blackmail. With every flash of light, Lisa Brennan loses ground. She becomes a liability instead of a threat.
Connor pours two drinks. He offers one to me.
“A bit early, isn’t it?”
He shrugs. “To chaos.”
I take the glass. “To ending it.”
I keep my eyes on the scanner. I don’t relax.
The rhythmic whir of the scanner acts like a metronome for my patience.
It grates on my nerves. Flip. Flash. Wait.
Flip. Flash. Wait. Connor watches the screen like he’s watching a horse race he already fixed.
I occasionally flick my gaze to the door.
Every second I spend down here is a second Nuala spends upstairs, alone with her fear.
“Last one,” Dave says. His voice is flat, bored. The light passes under the glass one final time.
“Do it,” Connor commands.
Dave taps the enter key. A loading bar appears on the laptop screen. It fills rapidly and vanishes.
“Sent.” Connor smiles. It’s a cold expression, devoid of humor. “Lisa Brennan is now the most hated woman in Ireland.”
“She’s a dead woman. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Now we move onto the drive.”
I down the whiskey in one swallow. The alcohol hits my gut hard, and I grab the notebook off the desk. It feels lighter now, emptied of its exclusive power.
“Dave will also go through the USB,” Connor says, handing it over.
Dave jams the drive into the port. His fingers strike the keys as I brace my hands on the edge of the mahogany desk, staring at the screen. A file directory pops up.
“Standard employee records,” Dave mutters. “Payroll. Schedules.”
“Dig deeper,” I say. “Lisa killed a man and tried to kill us to get this back. It’s not for a fucking shift roster.”
Dave types a command. Lines of code scroll past faster than I can track.
“Partition,” Dave says without looking up. “Hidden. Encrypted, but sloppy.”
“Crack it,” Connor orders.
Dave hits enter. A progress bar appears. It fills in seconds. A new folder opens.
“Video files,” Dave says. He clicks the first one.
Grainy footage fills the screen. It’s the interior of the Sailing Club. The angle is high, likely a security camera Stacey hid off the network. The time stamp is from several weeks ago.
“This could take forever,” I mutter with a huff.
“Leave it with Dave,” Connor says. “He knows what’s dodgy and what’s not.”
I nod, but I don’t go anywhere. Nuala is on the screen, going about her work, oblivious to the fact that in a few weeks’ time, she would become the center of an operation that is about to blow Dublin wide open.
Dave clicks on the next video. Same day, later on.
I hold back my noise of frustration. This is going to take fucking hours. I’m torn between getting back to Nuala and glaring at the screen in case I see something Dave misses.
“Sit if you’re staying,” Connor says. “You’re making Dave nervous, hovering over him.”
Dave shoots Connor a sour stare, but he’s right. I pull up a chair and go back to staring at the interior of the Sailing Club, going about normal business. Hour after hour.
Dave scrubs through another hour. Staff moving. Stacey bitching at a bartender. Nothing. My patience is on a thread. I force myself to sit still as we stare at empty tables. Staff moving. Stacey talking to the staff. Nothing.
“Don’t lose patience,” Connor says, from behind his desk. He is reading through a thick file, pen poised. “Not all of this business is non-stop action.”
“Yeah, some of it is boring as fuck.”
“Want something to do?”
“What?”
“Faolán is racing at Fairyhouse on Saturday. I want a win.”
“What are his odds?”
“Twenty to one. The favorite is two to one. I want that jockey to pull back.”
“Who is the owner?”
“Peter Keogh. Jockey’s Liam Duffy.”
“You want him light in the hands, or you want his saddle in the dirt?”
“Light. No accidents. Keogh needs to blame the animal, not us.” Connor slides a piece of paper over the desk.
I pick it up and start reading. It will take ten minutes, at best. The USB will take hours. “On it. Threats or payoff?”
Connor snorts. “Always payoff first. If that fails, then we go to threats.”
I nod and pull out my phone. I stand up and move to the French doors that lead to the side of the property. I dial the number on the page in front of me. It rings a few times, and then a man answers.
“Yeah?”
“Liam Duffy?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m calling about Saturday. Fairyhouse. You’re on Keogh’s runner.”
A pause. He’s wary.
“Who’s this?”
“Someone making your life easy. You ease your hands. Let Faolán by. You still get paid. Better than paid.”
Another pause. I hear traffic, then a door. He’s moving for privacy. Good. “I don’t throw races.”
“You don’t throw it. You ride clever. You get boxed in. You come wide too late. Animal’s fault on the replay. Twenty grand lands into an account of your choosing on Friday. Ten after. All clean.”
“And if I say no?”
“You like your kneecaps where they are, don’t you?”
He goes quiet. I let the threat hang, then pull it back before pride makes him stupid.
“Or you say yes, bank thirty, and ride next week with both legs working. No one will ever know. You’ll blame the gap on the bend. Keogh will blame the horse. You’ll live to cash your retainer.”
He breathes down the line, tight and pissed. “Twenty before. Twenty after. I want it guaranteed.”
“It’s guaranteed. Text the details to this number.”
A beat. “Fine.”
“Good lad.” I hang up and slide the phone back into my pocket and slip back inside Connor’s study.
“Sorted?” he asks.
“Sorted.”
He nods and goes back to his papers. I sit back down and stare at the screen.