“Don’t mention it.”
I open the door and get out. Walking toward the elevators, I call Kieran. He picks up on the second ring.
“Howya, boss.”
“Did the delivery come yet?”
“Aye.”
“You brought it up?”
“Aye. She answered the door in one of them skimpy workout thingies. Like a full-body leotard, except with the middle missing. Nearly gave me a bloody heart attack.”
I clench my teeth, aggravated at the thought of Kieran seeing Sloane in yoga wear. Though knowing her, she was probably doing all her ridiculous bending and stretching right in front of the bedroom windows for all of Boston to see.
“How did she seem?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean did she seem happy? Sad? What was her mood?”
I hear the shrug in his voice. “The usual. Wonder Woman meets Lucy Ricardo.”
“Lucy Ricardo?”
“The wacky wife from that old black-and-white sitcom on the telly, I Love Lucy.”
I won’t tell Sloane he said that. She’d take it as a huge compliment and adopt Kieran as her loyal sidekick.
I forgot. She already has.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Got a few loose ends to clean up before the move.”
“Copy that. Everything’s ready at the new digs. Is it okay if I eat this muffin the wee lass baked me? I thought I’d better check with ye first.”
“She baked you muffins?”
“Aye. For me and Spider. Haven’t a baldy notion what’s in ’em, but they’re awful green and lumpy. Looks like she grabbed a fistful of dirt and rolled it in some grass.”
Had I known she’d go straight into the kitchen and start cooking the shite she eats when I left the bedroom door unlocked this morning, I might have double bolted it instead. “Sounds manky.”
“Looks it, too. But she said it had lots of roughage and would be good for me, so I feel like I should give it a go.”
Roughage. Christ. Smiling, I say, “Aye, you can eat it. Don’t come crying to me when you have to purge your guts into the porcelain throne.”
I hang up, take the elevator down two floors, and get into the Escalade I parked next to the back exit of the garage. I drive across town to the Old North Church, the site where the lanterns hung in the belfry alerted Boston patriots that the British were coming by sea at the start of the American Revolution. I park in the lot and go inside through a small door in the side chapel, then make my way through the nave, passing row after row of empty pews, until I get to the confessional booth.
I open the door and sit down on the narrow bench, closing the door behind me. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been eleventy-seven years since my last confession.”
An exasperated sigh comes through the carved wooden privacy screen to my left. “For feck’s sake, lad. You don’t have to make a mockery of the blessed sacrament.”
Like me, Father O’Toole still has his Irish accent from when he first landed on Boston soil, decades ago. Some things die hard.
“How are you, padre?”
“Don’t give me that padre shite,” he says crossly. “It’s still Father O’Toole to you, boyo, no matter how high and mighty you fancy yourself. And I’m the same as I was the last time you asked. A sinner livin’ on borrowed time.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Some of us more than others. Then there’s you.”
I smile at the dour tone of his voice. “Aye. Then there’s me. Still saying a prayer for my salvation every night?”
He snorts. “That ship sailed years ago, sonny, which we both know. The only O’Donnells I pray for nowadays are your mum and da, God bless their souls.”
He pauses. His voice drops an octave. “The old girl’d be awful proud of you, you know. Even though you’re damned for eternity for all the blood you’ve shed.”
“Just had to add that last bit in, didn’t you?”
“I’m a priest. Guilting sinners goes with the territory.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask. Why should I be damned if the only people I kill are evil? You’d think it could be looked upon as a public service.”
“Ach. Pure ego, that is. God doesn’t need a helping hand dispensing His justice, lad.”
“I disagree.”
“Of course you do. What have you got for me today?”
“A name. I need you to pass it along.”
“To whom?”
“Whomever your contact is in the Russian Orthodox church.”
“Ach. The Russians again. Bloody communists.”
“They’re more capitalists than communists nowadays.”
“What’s the name?”
“Mikhail Antonov.”
His pause is thoughtful. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“He’s the head of the local Bratva.”
Silence. After he wraps his head around what I’m up to, he warns, “That’s a big bite to chew, lad.”
“Aye.”
“It’ll attract a lot of attention.”
“Exactly.”
“And it’ll be expensive.”
“It always is.” I open the door to the confessional. “Thank you, Father.”
“Leave your donation in the usual place, son.”
“I will.”
Buttoning my jacket, I exit the church the same way I entered it: damned. Then I head to the home address of the second name on Grayson’s list. This one’s much more personal than the one I gave Father O’Toole, and I want to take care of it myself.
“An eye for an eye” is a crude concept, but so effective in my line of work.
28
Sloane
I’m putting dishes into the dishwasher when a low voice from behind me says, “Making yourself at home, I see.”
I turn to find Declan standing at the corner of the kitchen. He’s been gone all day without leaving a note or texting me where he was going or when he’d be back, and I’m annoyed with myself for wishing that he would have.
Or is that normal? I don’t know. I’ve never visited Emotionville before. So far, it’s quite confusing.
I wish I had a map.
“You left the bedroom door unlocked, so I figured I was allowed to venture out. Was I wrong?”
Working at the knot in his tie, he lets his gaze drift over my body. I’m wearing yoga pants and a sleeveless stretchy crop top, and my feet are bare. By the hungry look in his eyes, you’d think I was stark naked.
“It wasn’t wrong,” he says, voice husky. “But don’t get too comfortable here. We’re moving.”
That surprises me. “Moving? Why? Where?”
He steps closer, pulling the tie off. When he drops it on the counter and opens the top two buttons on the collar of his white dress shirt, I get distracted from the moving bomb he just dropped.
Alarmed, I say, “Is that blood on your collar?”
“Aye.”
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
His expression is closed off. Or it could be simply calm, I can’t tell.