by Janey Mack
Saint July Pruitt McGrane aka Best Mom Ever.
I left the room, answering the phone, “Hang on.” I took the stairs two at a time to my room. “Hello?”
“I’m on a job,” Ragnar said. “What do you need?”
“I need to know where Hank is.”
I could hear the muted sound of a helicopter in the background.
“Ragnar?”
He blew out a short breath. “So do I, kid.”
“Now what?”
“I’ll put some feelers out. Sit tight. He’ll turn up when you need him most. Always does.” He hung up.
I went downstairs. Everyone had moved into the dining room. I took the only open seat, next to Lee.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“Same ol’. Just a pal with a problem.”
“Sure.”
Dinner was cedar-planked salmon and wild mushrooms with creamed kale and smashed goat-cheese potatoes paired with a supple and silky pinot noir.
When the plates had been cleared and the cognac came out, Lee said, “Thank you so much for having me, July and Conn. This has been fantastic.”
“You’re very welcome, Lee.” Mom smiled demurely and gave me the look. The one that said, Have you considered dating this man?
The healthy slug of cognac I threw back did not go unnoticed by Da or Flynn.
“Do you want to tell them, darling? Or should I?” Lee said, with that smug smirk.
I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I knew I wasn’t gonna like it. I forced my shoulders down from my ears, my smile razor-wire tight. “Oh, you go right ahead, sport.”
“You’re all aware that things with Bannon haven’t been exactly”—he searched for the right word—“smooth sailing.”
My family of trained seals all nodded their heads.
Cripes.
“Maisie and I’ve been spending a lot of time together, and well, frankly, after Cash left, neither one of us felt comfortable with her staying at Bannon’s empty house.” Lee put arm over the back of my chair.
Not all men are this annoying. Some are dead.
His hand dropped to my shoulder as he tipped his head to mine. “Maisie’s helped me to realize I’ve had a damn good run with the Marines and SWAT. So when the Bureau of Organized Crime offered me a desk job, I took it.”
All five pairs of my brothers’ eyes flicked so quickly between me and Lee, we’d be having seizures for dessert.
“Congratulations, Lee,” Mom said. “I’m so happy for you.”
Da smiled a little too wide, his eyes a little too bright. “And what does that have to do with my daughter?”
“The last guy on the job had an ironclad lease on a three-bedroom apartment in the West Loop,” Lee said. “Maisie’s moving in with me.”
“Platonically,” I said, before they all collapsed in shock.
Ugh. Not how I’d have presented our new situation. At all.
Unable to free my shoulder from his hand, I discreetly elbowed him in the ribs. “Lee’s such a kidder.”
“Is he, now?” Da said.
I glanced around the table. From the looks of it, Team Lee had strong support. “It’s a great place, Da. Cheap rent, and I was certain you’d approve of a Chicago police officer as my personal security guard.”
He didn’t.
But Cash stepped in and then the rest of them, teasing me to the nubs. Letting up to dish out the occasional heaping helping on Lee.
I laughed like I hadn’t in months. We all did. It felt good to be home. And not at odds.
Well, not long ones, at least.
Chapter 41
Douglas, Corrigan, and Pruitt was an all-star law firm, the kind where the players have played for both sides successfully and now played for themselves. For the money as much as the sheer love of the win. Which was why I was in head-to-toe Prada with Mom’s ridiculously heavy (and hence, cast-off) enormous Prada convertible tote.
The receptionist, whom I’d never met, came out from behind the desk and greeted me by name. “Miss McGrane, it is such a pleasure to meet you. May I get you a coffee, tea, or soft drink?”
She was so practiced, I almost felt bad saying, “No, thank you.” I pointed down the hallway. “Are my brothers in?”
“Yes, miss.” She crossed the lobby and led me to a posh conference room, knocking and waiting before opening the door.
I walked in.
Tie askew, Declan lounged haphazardly in a chair, one foot braced against the spit-polished cherrywood conference table.
Daicen sat at the opposite end, four neat stacks of files in front of him.
There was only one chair, waiting at the center of the table. Funny that. The table held eight comfortably.
“Hi, guys.” I took the seat. “You wanted to see me?”
Declan rocked in his chair, moving the table ever so slightly with every push off.
Daicen ignored it. After a moment he looked up from his paperwork. “Yes.”
Nothing else was forthcoming.
This was the game. Who would crack first. And as I didn’t have much to say after my weekend with a Mexican drug lord, they were spit outta luck.
Declan cracked first. “What are you up to, Snap?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“Like hell, you don’t.” Declan dropped his foot and leaned his elbows on the table. “You wanna dance, that it?”
I puckered up my lips and gave him a showy air-kiss. “I love it when you try to play rough.”
“Maisie,” Daicen said softly. “We’re in an untenable position.”
“How so?”
“Ha,” Declan said. “That sly feck ASA Avirette dropped the case against Keck.”
“Oh?” I might not have cracked a smile, but it was written all over my face.
Daicen raised a piece of paper and read, “Pursuant to new evidence presented to The People and in the interest of Justice, The People no longer wish to pursue any further action against Christo Keck and respectfully request the charges and allegations be dismissed at this time.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “Always fun to defend an innocent man.”
“No such thing, Snap, as well you know.” Declan’s chin popped up. “Keck’s on his way in now to settle our exorbitant fee.”
“Oooh.” I moued. “That’s why I’m here.”
Daicen said quietly, “I beg your pardon?”
“To settle his account.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Christo Keck is my employee. I am in control of Stannislav Renko’s holdings until he returns.”
“Holy Christ, Maisie,” Declan marveled. “How the hell do you go from wanting to be a cop to running an underworld chop shop?”
“Every Irish family needs a black sheep. And seeing as you guys are a bunch of straight-arrow choirboys, I had to man up and fill the gap.”
Daicen surveyed me over steepled fingers. He knew there was more to this. Far more. His dark eyes flickered between our brother and me, and I knew he was deciding whether or not to keep Declan in the loop.
A soft rap on the door was followed by the receptionist showing Keck in. To Declan’s consternation, he came straight up to me and took my hand in both of his. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you,” I said as the receptionist rolled over a chair from the wall.
“Get us some glasses, please,” I ordered the receptionist in a blasé tone that had my brothers looking like they’d traded in their eyes for silver dollar pancakes.
“Yes . . . certainly, Ms. McGrane.”
“Mrs. Renko,” Keck corrected. “She is Mrs. Renko now.” The receptionist left.
Declan’s head exploded. “Snap? Are you outta your goddamn mind?” He smacked his fist on the table. “You’re fucking married? To Stannislav Renko?”
I lifted a stilling finger to my lips. “That’s just between us, boyos.”
Declan threw himself back against his chair, wanting to let me have it but heed
ing Daicen’s still and silent lead.
The receptionist returned with four lowball glasses in chunky leaded crystal. I pulled a bottle of Žuta Osa, Serbian rakija, from the Prada tote, and cracked the label.
I poured four hefty glasses.
Keck and I toasted first. “To Stannis.” We turned and toasted my brothers. “To a long and prosperous legal relationship.”
Keck set his glass on the table and removed his wallet from his jacket pocket. “I will settle our account.”
I put my hand on his checkbook. “What’s the going rate, boys?”
“Twenty grand,” Declan said, throwing down the gauntlet.
Keck choked.
I took two bank-wrapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills out of my bag and set them in the center of the table. “Services rendered.”
I put down two more stacks of hundreds. “Our retainer.”
They’d been ready for a lot of things, but cash on the barrel wasn’t one of them.
“I’m sure you guys wouldn’t mind giving Christo and me a few minutes ?”
Declan swiped the money off the table. Daicen remained expressionless, but from the set of his shoulders as he exited the room, he would have preferred Declan left the money.
Keck put his hand on mine and squeezed. “Stannis chose his successor very well.”
Time to roll the dice.
“Keeping you out of prison is one thing. Moving Stannislav’s organization forward is something else entirely.” I stared into his eyes and spoke very quietly. “You need to decide. Work for me as you would for him or walk away. No strings.”
“I’m in, Mrs. Renko. One hundred percent.” He gave me an appraising glance. “May I bring some of the men to meet you? To see you sitting behind Stannis’s desk would be . . . beneficial.”
“Yes, thanks. I’ll expect you on Friday at seven o’clock.”
* * *
Daicen waited for me in the lobby. “Maisie? My office, please.”
“I’m kind of in a rush—”
Keck lingered at the door. I waved him off.
Daicen leaned in. “As your attorney, I highly advise against disregarding my advice.”
Super-duper.
I followed him back to his office. He opted for the desk instead of the seating area. “That drink was atrocious.” He pinched his temples.
“Yellow Wasp,” I said helpfully. “It’s been known to sting.”
“Yes.” He opened a folder and slid it across the desk. “Sign at the Post-it flags.”
I signed the client retainer forms and handed them back. “Thank you.”
“As your attorney, I may neither be compelled to nor voluntarily disclose matters conveyed in confidence.” He checked the forms, closed the folder, and set his pen on top. “Prudent, to formalize the attorney-client privilege, but I did rather think our relationship transcended this sort of thing.”
“It does. But I won’t drag you down with me.”
He weighed that over. “Thank you. Stannislav Renko?”
“My perversely close friend.” I took a long breath. If anyone needed to know, it might as well be Daicen. “He gave me the ring. I was engaged—as his beard. Now, if Stannis’s associates assumed we married before he left the country, who am I to correct them?”
“So you intend to take over his business interests, which consist primarily of criminal pursuits.”
“Temporarily. I want him to have something to come home to.”
“As a Serbian national, it is doubtful Mr. Renko’s permanent home will ever be Chicago,” Daicen said evenly. “Although, I see the penthouse apartment you listed as your home address belongs to him.”
“Home is where your family is.”
He flinched as if I’d struck him. “Fair enough. I assume Lee Sharpe is aware Renko owns the penthouse.”
“Sort of.” As badly as I wanted to confide in Daicen, it wasn’t right to have him shoulder my load. “He’s under the impression that Stannis rented the apartment under my name.”
“And Mr. Bannon?”
I twisted Stannis’s ring on my finger. My voice went husky. “I haven’t heard from Hank.”
“That is the nature of his business, is it not?” he asked gently.
I nodded. I hope to God it is.
“Sharpe presents as the type of man who will not be content to maintain a platonic relationship. Would you like me to draw up a sublease?”
A hiccup of a laugh popped from my mouth. “No, thank you.”
“Would you care to discuss your relationship with Walt Sawyer or your employment at the Sentinel?”
Yikes. “Not right now. I’m still sorting things out.”
His dark eyes clouded and morose, Daicen reached into his jacket pocket and removed a business card. He pushed it across the desk. It was blank except for a phone number.
“What’s this?”
“The number of a therapist.”
Whoa.
“The freedom of the confessional without the judgment.” My brother smiled wistfully. “You’re carrying far more than your fair share, Maisie. I’m deeply concerned.”
Chapter 42
Walt’s text came in over my phone only moments after I’d returned to the apartment.
Sending material for your immediate perusal.
The concierge buzzed me from down below. I ran down and picked up the envelope addressed to Maisie Renko.
Perched on a bar stool, I pulled the zip tab and took out the contents. Several packets had been clipped together. The first was a detailed report and an eight-by-ten high-res picture of the blown munitions barn. Along with it were several pictures of the striker sticking out from the Navigator’s armor plating. They’d been cropped in, microscope tight.
The other packet had a photo of the striker I’d recovered from the post of El Cid’s Juárez stash house. As well as others, cropped in close.
I paged through memos and forensic reports until I hit the yellow-highlighted portions.
Identical chemical-residue markers. Strikers from the same lots.
“Whatcha looking at?” Lee loomed over my shoulder, scaring the tar out of me.
“I’m not quite sure. Walt sent this over.” I shrugged as he scanned the report. “Confirmation, I guess, that El Eje was responsible for both bombs.”
Lee’s face went white. “That’s not possible.” He shouldered me out of the way, flipping to the photos. “That goddamn motherfucking sonofa . . .” He walked away, raking his fingers through his hair, cursing low and fast under his breath.
“Lee?”
“It’s not El Eje, Maisie,” he said. “It’s the fucking ATF.”
“What?”
“The strikers. They’re not easy to come by.” He rubbed his forehead. “The numbers on the strikers are NSN numbers.”
“What are those?”
“If the American government does one thing well, it’s label the shit out of everything. Those are American tracking numbers on American strikers.”
“So? Lee, you and I both know stuff like this gets stolen all the time. And nobody wants the gen pop to know it’s missing.”
His voice was low and bitter. “They weren’t stolen.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
He jabbed a finger at the second NSN striker number on the report. “Because I used that one when I blew the barn.”
What? “How?” I stared at him like he was an alien. “Why?”
Lee slumped onto the stool next to mine. “Ditch Broady requested I partner with you. It was a natural fit, for a lot of reasons.”
Including thinking I was too stupid to figure it out, which was apparently correct.
Hank’s Law Number Ten: Keep your mouth shut.
I clamped my teeth down on the insides of my cheeks and waited.
Lee started, slowly at first. “The night before we left . . . The ‘prescription’ I picked up was two canisters of chemical explosives and the striker. I swapped out the halon in the stora
ge hold on Grieco’s jet.”
I gaped at him. “You replaced fire extinguishers with chemical explosives?”
“Only the two tanks for the cabin. Without a detonator, it’s not as risky as it sounds. I left the halon for the electronics alone.”
Awesome. OSHA winner of the year.
“So . . . the night of the party?” I said, retracing his steps. “You weren’t drunk, were you?”
“No. I retrieved the tanks.” He gave a boyish smile. “I really didn’t know there was a girl in the tent.”
“Cute,” I said, ignoring the sunny little butterfly in my chest. “And when I took off with El Cid—”
“I blew the barn at the night guard shift change.”
Well, that explains the diesel smell. “You sonuvabitch. All that bullshit about ‘being a partner’ was just that. Bullshit.”
He jabbed a finger at my face. “You never should have left the fucking estate.”
“And you should’ve told me what the hell you were doing.”
The cords stood out on his neck. “I didn’t see you’d snapped the locator until I got back and saw my phone,” he said, throat working. “Christ, Maisie. A minute later and you’d have been . . .”
The fury flaring inside me was snuffed as effectively as a canister of halon at the thought of The Weeping Beast.
“Okay. Okay.” I sighed. “We both messed up. Now what?”
“Forward-focused. We’re gonna lock this shit down.” Lee got up and grabbed a couple bottles of water out of the fridge. On the way back, he picked up the television remote and turned it to the news.
“Mind if I check the weather, Bae?”
Even if I did, I wouldn’t have said a thing.
He clicked the channel to the news and turned it up. “Christ, I hate that prick.”
Talbott Cottle Coles and his weird, overly white, horse-sized caps leered at us from the screen.
How do these dinks continually get elected? They’re not someone you’d want to eat lunch next to, much less trust with your lunch money.
Coles fairly pranced across the stage.
“Look at that asshole. Still not wearing a goddamn vest.” Lee shook his head. “We’re at square one. Broady’s the lynchpin. What set all this in motion?”
“I got involved when Cash was shot. . . .” My voice trailed off as I stared at the TV. “No. That’s not it. The assassination attempt on Coles. That’s when Sawyer and I got called in to meet with Coles’s ATF-DEA-BOC joint task force. Broady didn’t want me.”