by Janey Mack
Snap. As in ginger snap. I’d adored my nickname, once. Now, at twenty-four, with my auburn hair painstakingly camouflaged with loads of blond highlights and even more brown lowlights, not so much.
Flynn and Rory nodded at each other with the same infuriating frowny-smile the woman who’d escorted me on the walk of shame gave me.
They were glad I was out.
And the sting of their relief was unbearable.
I downed the whiskey in one gulp, the scorching burn in my throat oddly settling to my stomach. Cash reached over and twisted the cap off my beer. “For God’s sake,” I said. “I’m not incapacitated with grief. I can open my own beer.”
“Sure you can.” He raised his elbow toward me, the beer cap pinched between his thumb and middle finger, and zinged the cap into my thigh.
“Ow!”
“Knock it off,” Flynn said.
Cash nattered on like a deranged squirrel, the twins started arguing, and Mom kept chopping. I felt like my head was going to explode and Da just sat there, not looking at me, saying nothing.
Declan winked at me and by way of an apology, waved his beer bottle across the bar at Flynn and Rory, who were in a glowering low-voiced tête-à-tête. “So, boyos. What’s eating your guts out tonight?”
“Homicide.” Flynn flexed his fingers and leaned back on his stool. “Milwaukee and Hamlin. A real beaut. Middle of the morning, some beat cop finds a body in the alley. Knifed. No wallet, no ID, but this isn’t some slash-and-dash robbery. This was up close and personal. Six short, sharp punctures to the upper ab and chest. Quick and quiet. Twenty seconds tops.” He leaned forward, eyes bright. “A hitter or an ex-con, either way Rory and I are finally looking at something better than another goddamn drive-by.”
“And?” Declan pressed.
“And nothing,” Rory said. “Bastard defense attorney jammed my workweek. I’ve been riding the bench every day waiting to testify.”
Defense attorney Declan smirked. “No offense taken.”
“It’s intended,” Rory said. “You lot are all the same.”
“Anyway,” Flynn said. “The stiff’s wearing this big ring. Guess who he’s sweet on?”
“Amalgamated Transit Union,” Rory answered.
“I text Rory a pic of the vic,” Flynn said. “Fifteen seconds on the ATU website and he’s got an ID.”
Nawisko.
“Keith Nawisko.” Flynn smiled. “An officer for the Local 56.”
“Naturally, the death of any Union official must be a professional hit,” mocked Declan.
“Yeh?” Rory’s sharp-edged face darkened. “Then why’d the feckin’ BOC swoop in and rip the file out of my hands?”
“The Bureau of Organized Crime?” Mom got her former prosecutor’s look on her face. “I thought you might be stretching for the hit angle, but the BOC’s interest rather seems to confirm it.”
“Exactly.” Flynn raked a hand through his short black hair. Chicago’s labor unions were a Medusa’s tangle of hierarchies, loyalties, and infighting. This was the kind of case my brothers prayed for every night before they went to bed. “Maybe the hit’s a warning. Or it could be political.”
“Political how?” I asked. “Infighting among Amalgamated or a bigger beef with Chicago Transit?”
“Uh . . . possibly, Snap,” Flynn said, kindly.
His sweetness was an ice pick to the temple.
I am never going to make the table club.
“Or maybe the vic’s just another belly-crawler who couldn’t pay the vig,” Da said.
“Either way, the case belongs to us,” Rory said, chin set.
My father’s smile was ice. “If it’s drowning you’re after, why torment yourself with shallow water, eh? Is that it?”
“Da,” Flynn protested. “The BOC’s in bed with every lowlife skell and politician in Chicago. They’ll bury it. A case like this is a career maker.”
“Or a one-way ticket back to Patrol.” Da rapped his knuckles on the table. “Let it rest. Work the bloody cases on your desk. This is one less jacket to clear.” Da set down his beer with finality and turned to me. “So, Maisie. What do you plan to do now?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t ever considered I wouldn’t . . .” My eyelid began to twitch. “That I couldn’t . . .” The words be a cop refused to come out.
Mom came to my rescue. Sort of. “Law school, of course.”
“Attagirl!” Declan said. “Even up the family teams—cops and lawyers.”
“Uh, I don’t think—”
Dad folded his arms across his chest. “You go on contract tomorrow.”
“Conn!” Mom threw her napkin down on the table. “For God’s sake. It only happened today.”
“No plan—on contract.”
“On contract” was our family’s relatively easy take on the harsh reality of life. No life plan meant you paid room and board.
Flynn, Rory, and Cash still lived at home. Exempt from direct payment as they were all on the force, they paid “rent” into money market funds for their future.
“I got it, Snap!” Cash came alive from the other end of the table. He clapped his hands together and gave me a thumbs-up. “I had Jennifer on the ‘cut list’ but I’ll keep seeing her till she hires you.”
“Talk about an auspicious beginning.” Daicen gave a sardonic smile.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’ll be great, Cash. I’m sure to be her favorite employee once you dump her.”
He shrugged. “It pays well and the hours are good.”
“Where does Jennifer work?” I said cautiously.
“Traffic Enforcement.”
My mind whirred with potential. State trooper? Sheriff’s department?
My dad and brothers burst into table-pounding laughter. Mom glared at them, shaking her head.
“What?” My chest got that familiar tight feeling it did when I was the butt of the joke. Which was most of the time. “What’s so funny?”
Rory caught his breath first. Wiping the tears from his eyes he said, “Maisie McGrane . . . meter maid.”
“Sensitivity training has worked wonders for you guys,” I said. Which made them laugh all the harder.
“Sounds enticing, Cash.” I stood up. “I’ll think it over.”
“Where are you going?” Mom said.
“Out.” And because I couldn’t stand them laughing at me one more second, I said the one thing I knew would shut them up. “I have a date.”
It worked.
“I don’t think you should be driving in your condition,” Da said.
And what condition would that be? Booze on an empty stomach or a decimated life dream?
“I’ll drop you off,” offered Daicen. “We ought to talk a bit more about what happened.”
“I got her.” Flynn got up. “I have to hit the station, anyway.”
I snagged my purse on the way to Flynn’s spit-shined red Ford F-150. He started the truck and waited until we got to the end of the driveway. “Where to?”
“Joe’s.”
“I don’t see your gym gear.”
“I’m meeting him there.” I needed to see Hank.
“Who?”
“My date,” I lied.
“Have Mom and Da met him?”
“If they had, you’d have heard about it.” Hank was not my boyfriend. Nor had he ever shown any inclination to be. And he definitely wasn’t expecting me.
“What kind of guy do you meet in a hard-core ratty-ass gym like Joe’s anyway?”
Hank was a hand-to-hand combat specialist who trained guys pushing to be Army Rangers. I’d been training with his “mutts” for over a year.
Flynn turned on the radio. Classical. We didn’t talk anymore on the way to Joe’s. He pulled the truck to a stop outside the front door. “I think I ought to meet this guy.”
Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you realize you can indeed, go lower.
“Please don’t,” I begged and my voice cracked, alarming us
both.
I got out of the truck. Flynn hopped out and met me as I came around the hood. He hugged me. “Don’t let it eat you up. It wasn’t the job for you, Snap.” He let go and got in the truck.
I heard the window go down and looked back.
“Don’t do anything stupid tonight,” he warned, and waited to pull away until I was inside Joe’s.
Chapter 4
Joe of Joe’s Gym was a mountain of Twinkie-eating flesh behind a battered black laminate reception desk with a “friggin’ classy” zebra-patterned top. Joe gave me the nod and sucked a chocolate Donette out of its cellophane sleeve. “Hank around?” I said.
“Nnnnnhhh.” Joe’s mouth was made for eating, not for talking.
I sat on the splintery bench in the reception area and considered how long my imaginary date ought to last. The forty bucks in my wallet would get me a cab ride home but that was about it.
I could always work out. There was plenty of gear in my locker. I sighed. Lovely. Just another overly made-up gym tramp who’d lost her way to LA Fitness. I slung my purse over my shoulder and started toward the women’s locker room.
And got stopped in a headlock. A tanned ropy bicep bulged against my throat, a heavy handheld the top of my head in optimum neck-snapping position.
Hank.
I collapsed into him, chin tucking automatically.
“Nice release, Sport Shake,” he murmured in my ear.
He smelled of Paco Rabanne and leather and Hank. I turned, wrapped my arms around his waist, and squeezed. It was like hugging a building.
“They kicked me out,” I said, unable to look up.
He pulled me into his chest and hugged me for real, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“Well now, Snap,” Flynn said, in his old-school patrolman voice. “What do we have here?”
I spun away from Hank. “Did I forget something?”
“Yeah. Dad wanted to make sure you had some money.” Flynn held up a hundred-dollar bill.
“Thanks.” I snatched it out of his hand. You’ll never see that again. “You’re sooo sweet.”
“Want to introduce me to your date?”
My entire body flamed red. “He’s no—”
“Hank Bannon.” Hank extended his hand.
“Flynn McGrane.” My brother shook Hank’s hand, assessing him. “Mind if I ask how old you are?”
“No.”
At the lack of information forthcoming, Flynn smirked—“One of those, eh?” looks written across his face. “Where are you two going tonight?”
Hank waited a beat. “Dinner.”
“She’s already eaten.”
I hate my brother.
“Drinks, then.” Hank gave me a flash of white teeth. “Right?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“Have her home by eleven thirty, will you?” Flynn said evenly, giving me the look. “She’s got an important meeting in the morning.”
We watched him leave Joe’s.
He’ll have run Hank’s entire background before I even get changed.
“Thanks for that,” I said. “Appreciate it.” I started toward the locker room.
Aside from the excruciating embarrassment and my ruined life dream, things were looking up. Hank hugged me, I was up a hundred bucks, and I’d gotten under Flynn’s skin like I hadn’t in years. “It wasn’t the job for you, Snap.” My ass!
“Where you going?” Hank said.
I turned around. “Huh?”
“Our date.” Hank jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Where’s the G-Wagen?” Normally Hank drove a black Mercedes SUV.
“Seemed like a Super Bee sort of day.” We crossed the parking lot to a black restored 1969 Dodge Coronet muscle car. He opened the passenger door, closing it after me. I tried not to hyperventilate as he went around and got in. “Talk or music?” he said.
I was way too nervous to talk. “Music.”
Not a stickler of restoration for restoration’s sake, Hank pushed a button beneath the video screen in the dash and said, “Brazil mix.” A Jobim samba filled the car.
I couldn’t stop smiling. A tear slid down my right cheek.
Great. I’m the human embodiment of A Tale of Two Cities.
I wiped it away without his noticing and snuck a glance at Hank. Clean-shaven. Unusual for him at this time of night. I spent the ride pondering that. It was a lot kinder than living through the Police Academy expulsion loop.
Hank drove like he did everything else—with speed and precision. He drove us into the city and stopped in front of an unremarkable limestone building with a simple black awning. A valet collected Hank’s keys, while the doorman opened my car door as well as the door to the building with flourish. “Good evening, Mr. Bannon, miss. Welcome to Blackie’s.”
I was used to Hank’s hands on me from training. Even so, it was hard to hide the happy shiver as his hand went to the small of my back. We took an elevator to an upper floor of the private club and he led me into a dimly lit bar trimmed in mahogany and leather. Pure swank.
A tuxedoed waiter appeared at his elbow. “The usual, Mr. Bannon?”
Hank held up two fingers. The waiter disappeared.
“You all right?” he said.
“No.” I stared into his sleet-gray eyes. “I’m not.” But being with you under any circumstance is pretty terrific.
“Why’d you get the boot?”
“Commandant Reskor called me in and told me I failed the psych review.” I winced. “Apparently I’m too thin-skinned to deal with an antagonistic public.”
“And?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my eyes. “He gave me the bum’s rush and I . . . I folded like a lawn chair.”
He reached over and gently tapped his finger against my temple. “Lizard brain.”
Hank’s Law Number Three. Don’t let your lizard brain go rogue. Lizard brain is the leftover primitive fight-or-flight bit of your brain that takes over in times of extreme duress and makes you believe you’re acting rationally when you’re not. It usually gets you killed. “Yeah.”
“Mad yet?” he said.
“Noo-oo.”
“You will be.” He tapped his temple. “Keep the lizard under the rock.”
The waiter returned with a pair of vodka martinis on the rocks with olives. I took a sip and gazed out the window at the twinkling city lights. Just another reminder of the flashing lights I wasn’t a part of. Like the crime scene today. “Hank?” I trailed a finger across the rim of my glass. “What do you know about the Unions?”
“Enough.”
“Does the Mob really own them?”
“The Veteratti family has been known to exert some influence.”
Influence. The way he said the word fired a synapse in my brain. “You knew I got expelled before I told you, didn’t you?” I said slowly. Maybe before I did.
“I keep tabs on all my mutts.”
“But I’m not one of your mutts, am I? Not really.”
“No.” His mouth quirked up at the corner.
That hurt. “Thanks a lot. You look real broken up for me.”
“I’m not.” He lifted his glass to me in salute then took a drink.
My throat tightened. “Oh? Why?”
“I don’t date cops.”
What?
I blinked, taking my time to sort that pertinent piece of information. But even now, at my lowest of lows, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t lie to Hank. “Hell or high water, I’m going to get reinstated.”
A shadow crossed his face. “It’s not the only game in town.”
“To me it is.”
“Well . . .” He rested his forearms on the table. “You’re not a cop yet.”
My eyes dropped to his mouth. He had a thin, cruel upper lip, with a full lower one. The same shaped mouth as every Batman and Captain America comic book I’d ever read. A superhero mouth. It would be so easy to just lean in and . . . Flynn’s voice ec
hoed in my head. “Don’t do anything stupid, Snap.”
I sat back in my chair. “I think maybe I should go home now.”
“Okay.”
We finished our drinks and left. Too soon, Hank pulled onto my street and stopped a block away from my house.
“Um, my house is—”
“I know where you live.” He got out, opened my door, and held out his hand.
I let him help me out of the car. When I went to take my hand from his, he laced his fingers through mine. “Why are we walking?”
“I like it.”
The automatic outdoor lights turned on as I opened the gate and we went up the driveway. At the sidewalk I stutter-stepped and stopped. “There’s something I ought to tell you. . . .”
Hank smiled at me in equal parts irritation and indulgence. “The story of ‘Hang ’em High’ July Pruitt and Conn McGrane?”
He knew.
Of course he did.
Our birth mother died the night I was born. Killed by a multiple-offender fat cat in a DUI collision. When the Chicago machine let him off with a warning, the assistant state’s attorney, the young black high-flier July Pruitt, quit and joined the powerhouse firm of Douglas and Corrigan on the condition she work McGrane v. Westbrook pro bono. July won a twelve-million-dollar civil suit, Da’s heart, and adopted the six of us to boot.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. It wasn’t . . . I just couldn’t bear the thought of Hank looking surprised when he saw Mom. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” We walked up the front steps and stopped at the front door.
“Law Number One, isn’t it?” My vision blurred. “I am defined by my disasters.”
“Baby, your disaster is only beginning.” And then he kissed me. Hard, possessive, and . . . fleeting. “Mutts are running the bleachers tomorrow. St. Mary’s. Oh-six-hundred.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “Okay.”
He reached around and opened the door. I went in. “Good night,” he said, closing it behind me.
The house was unusually dark and quiet. I walked to the back hall to drop my purse and heard the faint whine of the lathe. Da was still up. I went into the garage. The farthest of the six stalls had been converted into my father’s workshop. I opened the door to the warm smell of sawdust. He stood at the machine, laboring over his latest project, a pair of George Nakashima–inspired walnut chairs for Daicen.