Beverly Bird - Risking It All

“That’s unusual.”

It wasn’t a question, he thought, but then, she practiced criminal law. It didn’t take a month to get a handle on the detectives’ routines. “A cop doesn’t want to be wandering around some of this city’s streets alone without backup.”

That got a quick nod out of her. When she didn’t look up from the computer screen, Aidan cleared his throat and went on. Suddenly he felt parched, hoarse. “There was that, all her mysterious disappearances and her lame excuses for them. Then, out of the blue, she started having money to burn. She was always offering to buy lunch, dinner, whatever. And no more soggy, premade, convenience-store sandwiches, either. All of a sudden we were going top of the line. I knew what she earned and it sure as hell didn’t equate to some of the things she was buying. Finally, when she tried to blow me off one day and head out without me again, I was curious enough to tail her.”

Aidan fell silent. The next part, he thought, was harder to tell. “She went to a restaurant on Filbert. She met with a man named Charlie Eagan.”

Grace stopped typing. She stared at him. “He’s the new Mafia don. Lou O’Bannon died a few years back and Eagan took over when another successor was killed.” She picked her glass up quickly, then put it down again without drinking.

Was she starting to believe him? Hard to tell, Aidan decided. “I dug a little deeper then. I got Kat’s bank records and found some regular, sizable deposits. I followed her again and took pictures of her consorting with the element, with guys named Liam Bradstoe and Bonnie Joe. I confronted her with them. I gave her every chance to get out. I told her I’d burn them if she’d only just stop.”

“Ah.”

Aidan felt his eyes narrow hard enough and suddenly enough that pain creased his forehead. “You just did it again.”

“What?” She looked startled.

“That ah business.”

“I was considering a response!”

“If it takes you that much effort, maybe I do need another lawyer.”

This time, when she grabbed her glass, she actually drank. He watched her swallow with a gulp and give another little cough. “You’re trying to tell me that this…this Kat, Katherine, your partner, was guilty of the same thing you are now coincidentally charged with?”

“No. I’m not trying. I am telling you. Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”

“Of course. Go on.”

“When I knew I couldn’t save her—that she didn’t want to be saved—I turned her in to Internal Affairs.”

“Ah.” She started typing again. This time, Aidan thought the ah was deliberate, so he ignored it.

“They investigated her themselves and ultimately the D.A. charged her. I testified at her trial.”

“So you think this framing business is her doing? Revenge?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. No.”

Grace looked up at him. He saw the frown in her eyes though her face remained smooth and flawless. And he knew what she was thinking. Temper flared in him and it was real this time, as blistering as when the cops had come to the basketball court. “Say it.” He watched her face pale a little as he threw out the words. “You’re thinking that my explanation for my innocence should be smoother than that.”

“I didn’t say—”

“No, honey, you don’t say anything. You just ‘ah’ and frown.”

“I’m not frowning.”

“Try this on for size,” he persisted. “If I was making this up, if I was just covering that body part that my mother is going to kick, then I’d sure as hell have ironed out my story a little more and be able to point to who’s framing me. Damn it!” He punched the table and stood. His fingers were tunneling through his own hair before he realized he was doing it.

“Okay, you’re innocent because you didn’t think this through,” she said.

“Don’t push me.” The warning was quiet, dangerous.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice didn’t crack. It was cool and inflectionless. And damn it, that was tough to do with a man like him when he was angry. Aidan looked back at her.

She was sitting very straight, seemingly calm. But her hands were nowhere near the keyboard now. They were both clamped around her glass. She raised the drink to her mouth and sipped like she didn’t want it but knew she needed it.

“Kat could be getting even with me for turning her in,” he said finally, more calmly. “But I think it’s more likely that Eagan and his henchmen are behind all this.” Did he? Or did he just not want to believe—was he just incapable of believing—that Kat would do this to him?

“So you think it’s the mob instead.”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he heard himself explaining to Ms. Lawyer why he had done it, why he had dug into Kat’s activities.

“I had to know why it had happened. I had to know for my own sanity. So I did my job. I investigated, bouncing from what little I had been able to glean on Kat’s activities, and I came up with a theory. And what I think is that Rafe Montiel—” He broke off when he heard her begin typing furiously again.

“What? What did I just say to make you start hitting the keys again just then?”

“You gave me another name.”

“Rafe Montiel is a P.P.D. detective.”

“Oh.” She stopped typing.

“Rafe Montiel is the department’s mob expert. He investigated Phil McGaffney’s death—O’Bannon’s heir-apparent before Eagan.”

“He wouldn’t be doing this to you?”

Then he understood. “You think I’m throwing in every name I can latch on to in order to save my skin?” In that moment, he couldn’t remember why he’d thought he’d liked her. Give the woman credit, Aidan thought, for raising more emotion in him than anyone since…well, Katharine.

Aidan went back to the table. He laid his palms carefully on the wood and leaned closer to her. Intimidating her…or trying to. But this time she didn’t recoil. She just held her breath again.

He was damned if he was going to admire her backbone. And double damned if he’d wonder about that no-breathing thing again.

“All I was going to say is that while Rafe has done a hell of a job dismantling a portion of the Irish mob, he hasn’t taken it down all the way. It’s alive. It’s thriving. And now I have reason to believe that it’s involving the Philadelphia Police Department.”

He watched her eyes flare. There’d been rumors of that sort of thing for a while now, he thought, so she’d be wondering if he was using those rumors toward his own ends or if he was substantiating them. Aidan grabbed the last of the pint of Jameson’s from the table. He decided it was better at the moment to put some space between them so he paced back into the center of the room to swig from the bottle.

“Start typing…lady.”

“Fine,” she said finally. “Since you didn’t call me honey or dear.”

“I’m saving those for when I want to get the most rise out of you.”

Did she snort? Women with hair like that and legs like that didn’t snort, he thought, looking back quickly. He watched her pause in her typing to run a delicate finger over her upper lip.

She’d snorted. Damned if he didn’t almost grin.

“You were saying?” she murmured.

“Through my investigation of Kat, I’m pretty convinced that the rumors of corruption are true. I think Eagan and his guys are laundering money through various Philadelphia pubs. They use them as locations for after-hours meetings and as a cover for other illegal enterprises.”

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “Prostitution. Drugs. Probably more highbrow crimes, too.”

“Like a hotel charging a woman for liquor she hasn’t consumed yet?”

She caught him off guard with that one. His bark of laughter startled even him. “That really has you bugged, doesn’t it?”