“What are the odds of this field agent telling Love I’m the one selling him out?” Pamela asked.
Agent Gus shook his head, “I don’t think he knows yet, I think my boss figures if he shuts the file down now we’ll be able to cut you loose without Hagerty ever having to know.”
“But there are no guarantees, are there? I mean they could use the information to get Love to tell them more.”
Agent Gus was positively gray at this point.
“They could, if they find out.”
She put her head in her hands, thinking she might actually throw up.
“So everything I’ve done—prostituting myself, risking my marriage and my life, was all for nothing?”
“No,” Agent Gus said, and she was startled by the ferocity of his tone. “I won’t let it be for nothing.”
“How are you going to manage that?”
“I’m not completely without friends and resources myself. I’m not going to let them can my whole investigation because someone can’t get over his boyhood worship of Hagerty.”
“So it’s not just any old agent,” she said faintly, “it’s Ryan, isn’t it?”
Agent Gus nodded, face set like stone.
She felt as though all the air had been sucked from her lungs. It might be too late already, Ryan had seen her with Love a few times. She knew the agent had never trusted her, but that he was blinded by the old Southie loyalty, and the glamor that the mere mention of Love’s name conjured up for people. If he found out the informer against Love was her, he’d tell Love right off to protect his asset and to preserve a friendship that had been forged in blood and the position of insiders to a closed neighborhood.
“I got a glimpse at the file they’re building and the Riordan name cropped up fairly often, and it wasn’t your name preceding it.”
She felt a wave of rage sweep from the top of her head to bottom of her feet.
“He’s still trying to get Casey out of the way.”
“Yes, and I think you know he doesn’t much care how he does it.”
Yes, she knew that all too well, but thought Love had understood how the deal worked. If anything, even a minor accident happened to Casey, she was off limits. Though she’d underestimated his treachery, she knew she was the biggest weakness the man had. She could make his whole house of cards come burning down around his ears. Given time, which she no longer had.
“What do I do now?” she asked, the question rhetorical as she was in a disastrous quagmire with no rope in sight.
“You’re not entirely without options,” Agent Gus said, “but you are running out of time.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer as it half-formed itself in the pit of her stomach.
The agent looked at her, eyes cool and assessing as if once again taking her mettle.
“Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but I’m of the opinion that Guilio Bassarelli would be very interested to hear what Love Hagerty’s been up to.”
“The Bassarellis would kill him,” she said bluntly. Agent Gus looked down into the pond, where a bit of waterweed swayed gently beneath the paper-thin ice. “I’d be making murder happen.”
Agent Gus shrugged, “I can make your husband’s name disappear from the files. It’s only a matter of time before they get the Bassarelli clan anyway. Love Hagerty is a bonus, but he’s not essential to making a case.”
“Are you certain about that?”
Agent Gus looked up, and she saw there the steel in the spine that had put him in the ranks of the Bureau in the first place.
“They know what they’ve done to you, and they don’t care. They are jeopardizing your life and that of your husband. I made you a promise when we made this deal. I believe in keeping my word. Screw them, if they don’t.”
“You could lose your job, or worse,” she said.
“Do you think I care at this point? I didn’t sign on to work for a bunch of corrupt bastards. Besides,” he smiled, “they’ve severely underestimated me, and I really don’t like that.”
“Neither,” she said, “do I. How much time do you think I have before it blows wide open?”
“You’re the one blind spot Hagerty has and that buys you a little time. He’s going to want to believe it’s anyone but you when he finds out. Still when he does find out he’ll turn like a snake. Whatever you decide...” he trailed off, not wanting to say the words. “It has to be soon.”
“There’s a party at his house tomorrow night, but I’m not due to be alone with him until Tuesday.”
Agent Gus nodded.
“That’ll have to do then—you’ve got two days to decide.”
Chapter Sixteen
All the Way Home
IN THE DARK, IT SEEMED, he could feel every sensation magnified to its limits. Each flake of snow burning into his skin, the very shape of it discernible to his fevered surface. The light from the windows fell in hard distorted rectangles across the swiftly whitening grass. Though the glass separated him from the party of elegantly dressed people, he could smell the food, and was slightly nauseated by the spices and heavy sauces. And the people themselves, milling about, flutes of pale liquid gold in their soft hands, smelling of ambergris and oranges, cinnabar and sandalwood. He had never belonged to such a world. He didn’t speak the language, had never been able to train his tongue around the elongated vowels and clipped consonants.
It was cold out here, in the night, but he stood fast as if paralyzed by the sights before him, a child looking through the eternally locked doors of a sweetshop. Though, if he were honest, he’d never tried. It wasn’t his world and he did not desire it.
All the rooms were lit for the party, soft, flickering, flattering light to gild away the wrinkles or the telltale tucks and nips of the surgeon’s knife. The dining room, table massed with hothouse flowers, orchids and amaranth. The ballroom, marble floor polished to an icy glitter, fragranced with topiary trees of roses, pinked in the golden light. And through it moved the women, hair bound up or spilling down over powdered white shoulders, lips painted in a dazzling array of reds as though they’d all just risen from a feast of blood. Blondes, brunettes, redheads but none with a wild spill of blue-black falling across ivory skin. And yet he knew she was there, could sense her movement amongst the sparkle and spun sugar of the crowd, as if the same blood pumped beneath their respective skins.
He shivered, stomach rumbling as it scented food and drew his coat tighter, its wool scratching his neck, the stink of fish rising up into his nostrils. It hardly bothered him now.
He stretched his neck back, adjusting several cricks and caught sight of Orion climbing up from the horizon. His own star, pulsating steadily, hot red and dying with every throb of its overgrown heart. Betelgeuse. He whispered the name to himself like a prayer, the odd Arabic syllables comforting him, seeming less foreign than the gilt-edged world inside the glass.
When he looked back he started, feeling that odd slippage of skin against flesh that fear caused. Love Hagerty, unrelentingly glamorous in evening wear, hair polished to a bluey sheen, was looking directly out the windows at him, a balloon glass of brandy in one hand, a cigar in the other. Shielded though he was by the light within and the dark without, Casey knew instinctively that the man saw him plain as a bug on a white sheet. Love had a criminal’s backbone, he knew what was coming and which direction it was coming from before it knew. He’d developed this particular talent from long years of dishonesty, of having to have eyes in the back of his head, and a general distrust of all who surrounded him.
Casey stepped back further into the shadows, feeling the finger-like shape of pine branches sliding across his right-hand side. He never once took his eyes off the man in the window, while his mind tried to decipher the distance to the nearest exit off the estate.
In the window, Love raised his glass, tilted his head and gave an ominous smile in Casey’s direction.
“Shit,” he muttered, feeling chilled to his marrow. He
’d only wanted to catch a glimpse of Pamela, just for a minute even.
And then he did see her, a dim ghostly shape at the library window. The light in there had been so weak in comparison to the other rooms that he’d not paid attention. Her silhouette, silver-white, was fractured against the diamond panes.
He took an involuntary step forward, instinct guiding him and then just as firmly stopping him. As much as he wanted to, he could not go to her now.
He moved behind the screen of trees carefully, stepping from shadow to shadow until he’d gained a good thirty feet and could see the long library windows much more clearly.
It was definitely her, hair a smudged nimbus of curls against bare shoulders. The dress was new, he didn’t recognize it. It was white, its lines as pure as her own. Designed to make a beautiful woman stand out like a white rose in the midst of a nosegay of gaudy posies. He’d understood from the first that she was different somehow, that she held herself with dignity and pride as though she faced the world as an adventure, with a wonder that disappeared from most during adolescence. Her clothing always became an innate part of her. Rather than a shield between nakedness and the world, hers seemed an organic outgrowth of her personality, her mood, her very being.
And suddenly he was weary of the fear, weary of looking over his shoulder for the next shadow to slip out from the cluster. He moved out of the trees with long strides, ignoring the slippery feeling in his knees. When he reached the front door, he grabbed the bell pull and yanked it hard before he could reconsider the insanity of what he was doing.
The man who answered the door had one of those faces that seemed like a bit of dust carefully arranged over bones. He managed to separate the ‘yes’ that he gave Casey into four separate syllables.
“Tell Mrs. Riordan that her husband has come to fetch her home.” He stepped past the stick-man into the marbled foyer. “On second thought, I’ll just tell her myself,” he added, spotting the muscle that was headed his way. The ballroom lay directly to his left, down a short corridor sheathed in slick black marble. He heard the butler’s prim ‘excuse me’ as well as the less polite expletives of the thugs that had been sent to eject him from the premises. He quickened his pace, the ebony walls seeming to briefly close in on him. His exhaustion was catching up to him swiftly.
When the ballroom doors flew open, Love was in the midst of a toast, his raised glass refracting the light in a dozen different directions. Even his well-schooled demeanor slipped a notch, a blaze of pure hatred lighting his features before he could manage to suppress it and resume his smooth façade. Before he could open his mouth, Casey spoke.
“I’ve come for my wife,” he said, voice hoarse with the adrenaline that pumped through him madly, making his muscles tremble and his bones turn the consistency of rubber.
Love raised his eyebrows. “I’ll see if someone can locate her, I’m not even certain she’s here.” Casey didn’t miss the sharp movement Love made with his hand behind his back. Calling off the thugs, Casey almost smiled, the bastard was afraid. And well he should be.
“Ye damn well know she is,” Casey said, the grip on his temper slipping swiftly. “Pamela!” he shouted. The gathering crowd bunched a little, the murmurs beginning in stifled whispers.
He’d a sudden notion of how he must appear to the assembled, a wild man in stinking clothes, claiming his woman like he was fresh from the cave. The surge of adrenaline was ebbing, exhaustion taking the upper hand. His fingers opened and the money, stiff and brown with Olie’s blood, drifted across the gleaming floor. A woman near him in purple chiffon fainted dead away, head clipping an antique spittoon on the way down. He didn’t so much as blink though, he didn’t dare. If he’d recognized his exhaustion then surely Love had seen it too.
“Where,” Love asked, voice still civilized, “did you get that?”
“Out of the pocket of the man ye paid to kill me,” Casey returned, and heard the low murmurs turn to gasps of disbelief. Where the hell was Pamela anyway?
“Perhaps,” Love said, syllables clipped off murderously, “you’d like to join me in the library?”
“I just want my wife,” he said, before collapsing to the floor in a faint.
HE AWOKE TO FIND HIMSELF on an ornate sofa, a pillow under his head and a fire crackling at his feet. All things considered, it was a much pleasanter atmosphere than he’d expected to awaken to.
“Pamela?” he croaked, aware suddenly of a sharp pain in the side of his face.
“Right here,” she hovered into view above him, face drawn tight with worry, eyes the heavy bottle green they always turned when she was upset.
Love stood over her shoulder, features arranged into a mask of concern. But Casey would never again be fooled by the veneer. He saw clearly through to the murderous rage that smoldered right beneath the skin. He was beyond fear himself now, though, and matched Love’s look. The man actually had the grace to blink.
Casey turned his gaze back to the matter at hand.
“Don’t fuss darlin’. I’m fine, just got a bit light-headed, I daresay a bite or two will set me right soon enough.”
“Light-headed,” she said, sounding slightly hysterical. “Light-headed, you bastard! I thought you might be dead this last week. Until I got the call three days ago, I thought you were dead.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he took her face in his hands and drew her down into his arms, ignoring the presence of Love Hagerty for the moment. She deserved that much comfort before he tore into the bastard. She was cold and shaking in his arms, and he felt a surge of protectiveness. He would never let this filthy, murdering whoreson near her again.
For a moment, the fear and fury of the last weeks fell away, and he was grateful to just be able to hold her, as he had feared he might never again. He breathed deeply of her scent and then drew away, looking her deep in the eyes. Then kissed her forehead gently.
“Will ye go an’ get yer wrap, darlin’? For I’m goin’ to take ye home now.” This was uttered not in the tone of a suggestion, but rather a command. Pamela took one look at the set of his jaw, and went in search of her wrap.
“You simply don’t know when to call it a day, do you?” Love had barely waited until Pamela had cleared the doorway, and Casey realized the man had allowed his hatred to push him into reckless behavior.
Casey laughed, a harsh sound without any humor in it.
“I’m not afraid of ye.”
“That’s very unwise,” Love said, the smooth tones and charming smile completely gone. Here was the face of the cobra that everyone spoke of in hesitant whispers.
“Unwise it may be,” Casey spoke calmly, and only one who knew him well would understand the deadly undertone to his words, “but I find myself not caring a great deal for wisdom these days.”
“That’s too bad, could be injurious to your health. I’m rather surprised you didn’t mention your suspicions in front of your wife.”
“I saw no need for it, this matter is between yerself and I.”
“You goddamn Irish punk, you still don’t understand who I am. My word is law in this town. My rule is absolute. You are only alive because that damn fisherman was so inadequate to the task of killing you.”
“Outside this town you are nothing. An’ yer rule is not absolute. Ye don’t rule me, ye never did, only ye were too big of a fool to understand that not all men are for sale.”
Love smiled, a smug expression that set off an alarm bell deep in Casey’s psyche.
“Oh yes they are, one way or another all men are for sale—women too for that matter.”
“No they are not.” Casey’s voice was quiet, but carried with the force of a blade.
Love shrugged. “Believe what you like, it makes no difference to me. Just know that next time I’ll hire someone who’s much better at their job.”
“Not if I kill you first.”
Focused on each other with such deadly intent, neither man noticed Pamela standing in the shadow of the doorway.
/> Chapter Seventeen
Into the Mystic
THE CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION was empty of worshippers, the spring air exerting a more forceful pull than the dark, quiet interior of the church. She had expected to find Father Kevin in his quarters, putting the finishing touches on Sunday’s sermon or on the basketball court, even priests being not immune to the lure of soft spring winds.
However, the basketball court was occupied only by two raggedy looking youths who wolf-whistled at her and then flushed when she asked if they knew where Father Kevin was. Her knocks at the private entrance went unanswered as well, so she entered the main body of the church and found him there, bowed over in the front pew, as if he were in great pain.
“Father Kevin, are you alright?” she asked, her quiet question sounding like a shout in the vast silence of the church.
He gave a barely perceptible nod. She touched his shoulder lightly, worried by his stance and his silence. He started as if she’d laid a brand to his shoulder, head snapping up. She stepped back in shock, his face was heavily flushed, pale lashes wet with tears.
“She’s gone,” he said, wiping at his eyes with one hand, the other hand fisted against his side.
“Gone?” Pamela echoed, frightened by his tone. “Who’s gone?”
“Emma—she’s dead,” he replied bluntly.
“What—when?” she stuttered, feeling the starch go abruptly out of her knees as she dropped to the pew beside the priest.
“Some old drunk found her by the Mystic, enough heroin in her to kill an elephant. Overdose, the police say, but she hadn’t touched the stuff in years, not since she got pregnant with Jake.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, the sound swallowed up in the great dark cavern of the church.
“Don’t you?” Father Kevin turned his head toward her, eyes glittering with unshed tears.
“Love,” she said, feeling as though she had something very sharp caught in her throat.
“He thought she was talking to the FBI, thought she ratted him out. So she got the treatment snitches get in this neighborhood.”
Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series Book 2) Page 18