That last year, though, I remembered Paddy well. He’d hauled that fucker McKenna out of the church on his shoulders like he was carrying nothing more than a bag of potatoes.
"He was a big guy. No discernible health issues, but they wouldn’t have told us boys if there’d been a problem."
She passed me another round of papers which made everything inside me cringe.
"What am I looking at? Specifically?"
"Firstly, just read the stats."
A squint at the sheets had me discerning that I was looking at yet another fucking autopsy report. "You’ve had a really cheerful day, haven’t you?"
"I’m quite a morbid person. It didn’t faze me."
No, I could tell it was quite the opposite. Savannah was clearly in her element.
Heaving a sigh, I struggled once more to focus on the words, but when I finally did, by piecing apart the numbers from the text, then shuffling around the individual letters to make up the word, I frowned at what I discovered.
"Uncle Paddy was over six foot."
"Exactly," she declared, her voice brimming with glee. "The body that went under the pathologist’s knife was below six feet." She wafted a paper at me. "There’s a picture of your father and uncle at a governor’s fundraiser event about three weeks before he died. Like you said, he was a big guy. About two-hundred and twenty pounds, wouldn’t you agree?"
As I glanced at a face I saw every day in the mirror, because all the O’Donnelly men looked alike, I sighed.
"You miss him?"
I shot her a look. "I do. He was my godfather."
"So?"
"You’re not Catholic, I assume?"
"Lutheran." She shrugged. "Not practicing."
"Well, sadly, I do." My jaw cracked when I reached up and shoved it to the side. "Godparents represent a lot within the Catholic faith. They’re literally a second parent. Padraig was more than just an uncle. He was the person I called on when I fucked up. When I didn’t dare go to Da. He was mine and my brother Conor’s godfather. We both depended on him."
Confusion filled me when I came across medical terms on the report that further didn’t fit my uncle’s state of health when he died.
Brow furrowing, I dared to phrase out loud what sounded way too insane to be real. "If the guy on the pathologist’s table was too short and too small to be Paddy, plus had a pacemaker and a fucking stent in his arteries, then it’s pretty damn obvious that it wasn’t Paddy being sliced and diced." Heart both sinking and soaring, I rasped, "Does that mean he’s alive then?"
"We have facts. One: he wasn’t shot by the person he was supposedly taken down by. Two: the guy on the coroner’s slab wasn’t your uncle. That doesn’t mean he’s alive. It just means that what happened that day wasn’t as cut and dry as we thought."
Mouth pursing, I rumbled, "Nothing ever is with my family." I cut her a look as I slipped my phone out of my jacket pocket. "This information never leaves this room, Savannah."
Her eyes flared wide. "What? Why the hell not?"
I wasn’t surprised when she scuttled to her feet, her arms wide, her shoulders straight, spine perfectly erect as she exploded with a type of energy that few could ever contain, never mind exude.
She bristled.
Every part of her was engaged in the outright rejection of my words.
I’d have smiled if I didn’t think she’d go for my jugular.
"This is good news! Your dad will be happy—"
"Happy to have been lied to? Happy that his younger brother pretended to get shot? Happy that that younger brother not only faked his death but triggered grievances between the Irish and the Albanians to get away?" I shook my head. "Nothing about that is going to go down well."
What fucking hurt the most as well was that Uncle Padraig was as much of a flight risk as I’d sensed. There was a reason I hadn’t wanted to call on him that day in the church with McKenna.
I loved him. I always had. He’d been a great uncle, and an even better godfather—willing to do shit that few would ever dream of for their godchildren—but that didn’t take away from what I’d instinctively known: he was unreliable.
Her shoulders slumped and I knew she’d not only listened to me, but she was well aware I was right. A sigh escaped her as she twisted around to stare at her Murder Board, and I knew she was thinking about all the hours she’d spent on this, not just today but in the run up to meeting me too.
Regret filled me once more, especially when she bent over and picked up something from the floor, giving me a perfect glimpse of an ass that’d make a Georgia peach look bad.
Sometimes, life had a way of handing you lemons that you just couldn’t make lemonade out of.
Goddammit.
Heaving a sigh, I watched as she trod over to the board and started pulling pictures down, tugging forms and documents and God knew what else aside.
That she didn’t argue with me told me she knew this was a lost cause. I found that I was disappointed. I’d quelled her rebellion, but I didn’t want to put out her fire.
"Come to dinner with me?" I rasped, watching as she tensed up and expecting her rejection.
Then she peered over her shoulder, stared me square in the eye, before letting her gaze drop down over me. At that moment, I knew I’d never been checked out as thoroughly in all my life.
Fuck, she did a better job than a goddamn CT scan.
She eyed me up and down, then the peevish displeasure at my taking this find away from her disappeared, and though I didn’t necessarily trust that, I trusted the gleam that appeared in her eye, the way her pulse skipped on her throat and knew before she verbalized it what her answer would be.
"Let me go and get changed."
Twelve
Conor
Present Day
"I can’t believe you did that. Again. Do you know what shit you cause every time you hack my fucking system, Star? Jesus Christ. You not only make me look bad, but I lose hundreds of thousands of dollars because Da fines the fuck out of me."
Silence fell at my opening greeting.
Some more came.
And some more.
Then, she groused, "You finished?"
"I think the silence indicated that, didn’t it?" I snapped.
"I won’t let you talk down to me, Conor," she warned, then she heaved a sigh. "I didn’t want to have to do that, but what the hell was I supposed to do?
"Savannah needed help and I knew you could give it to her, knew that you’d keep her safe. I’m not going to apologize for protecting a friend from a mutual enemy."
Growling under my breath, I snarled, "You could have phoned me. I’d have opened the fucking front door for her!"
There was a throb of quiet that seemed to have a heartbeat of its very own, then, in a small voice, she muttered, "Oh."
Oh.
Yeah.
I took that to be an admission that I was right. That she was fucking wrong.
I blew out an annoyed breath, but before I could say another word, Star stunned the hell out of me by saying, "I’m sorry, Conor. Sometimes... Sometimes it’s just hard to think normally."