Page 78 of Irish Vice
SAMANTHA
Ican’t do anything to clear the bloodsucking paparazzi and their Mousetrap minions from the freeport gates. I can’t speed up the ethics board process about my keeping my law license. I can’t force Detective Tarrant to decide if he has enough facts to complete his investigation or if he needs to dig deeper into my personal life. I can’t change what happened on a mountaintop eleven years ago, and I can’t take back the angry words I threw at Braiden two nights back.
Wait. I don’t want to take back those words. Maybe I fought dirty, hitting him with the one thing I knew would shatter him. But he hit back even harder.
There is no force on Earth that would make me run to Antonio Russo. The fact that Braiden could even frame the thought—much less say it out loud—confirms that we’ll never reconcile.
Even if he killed a man for me.
He killed Terrence King. That’s why we still don’t know who hired the waiter. Was it Russo, breaking his truce with Braiden? Was killing me supposed to be the first shot in a new war?
Or do I have yet another enemy? Someone I can’t name, can’t see, can’t predict?
I need answers. Now.
I pull up a list of contacts, official contractors the freeport is approved to hire. There’s a private investigator there, someone Trap has relied on in the past—Harry Asher.
I call from the landline on my desk. The phone rings three times, and I’m preparing to leave a bland voicemail when a gravelly voice answers.
“Asher.”
I introduce myself, but neither my name nor my title seems to make an impression. “I have an important matter for you to investigate, Mr. Asher. I’d like to discuss it in person.”
“When?”
“Can you come to the freeport now?”
“Tonight?”
His surprise makes me glance at the clock in the upper right corner of my computer screen. It’s almost eight o’clock. I’ve worked through dinner again.
“Yes, please,” I say. “I’d like this matter resolved as soon as possible.”
He sighs and he grumbles, and he clarifies that he charges for travel time, but he agrees to be here within the hour.
He makes it in forty-five minutes. I use the time to review the internal file the freeport keeps on him.
Harry Asher put in twenty years at the Dover Police Department before he hung out his shingle as a private investigator. He still has contacts on the force, along with connections to a wide range of forensic laboratories. He’s a one-man shop, but he’ll work plenty of overtime if the pay is right.
One thing the file doesn’t say: Asher reeks of stale cigarsmoke. The instant I meet him at the security desk, I change my initial plan. I don’t want his rumpled brown trousers or his stained short-sleeve dress shirt anywhere near my office. A few minutes of his sitting on my upholstered chairs, and I’ll never get out the stench.
I escort him into one of the conference rooms and close the door for privacy. He’s not much on small talk; I can tell that by the way he takes a small notepad out of his breast pocket. He punches a ball-point pen and waits for me to talk.
Perfect. I need a man who’s all business.
“I’m trying to confirm who sent a man to kill me.”
Asher keeps a perfect poker face. “When did the attack occur?”
I give him all the details. An envelope arrived at the freeport gate with an FBI return address, an “Eyes Only” stamp, and Trap Prince’s name. I interrupted a Diamond Ring meeting to bring the thing to Trap. A waiter went after me with a gun. Braiden stopped him. Braiden fought him. Braiden killed him with his own weapon.
“I don’t remember reading about that in the paper,” Asher says. His tone is even. He’s watching me closely, though, and I’m pretty sure he was a damn good cop.
“Diamond Freeport values clients’ privacy.” I wait to see if he’ll challenge me, because dead men should be a bit more important than corporate-speak on a business brochure. When Asher keeps his mouth shut, I say, “The waiter’s name was Terrence King.”
Something shifts on Asher’s face.
“You know him?” I ask.