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SIOBHAN
T he wine sluices into my glass, swirling around with its cranberry color, sending wafts of pungent, tart, fruity flavors into the air. I watch the vortex of the liquid spin around while I pour the glass and listen to the sound of my bath filling with water. After the long day I've had, I need this respite, a hot soak, a glass of wine, some soft music to relieve my mind from stress and fear.
Finn O'Rourke surprised me this afternoon. Never in a million years could I have imagined that one of the O'Rourke men would approach me for the reason he did. I know his game—to draw me out, perhaps seduce me into his confidence so he can manipulate me and get me to cough up information or drop the charges. Or maybe he wants nothing more than to lure me into his web and end me.
Regardless, the fire he started in my belly still aches hours later. Any other man, any other circumstance, and I'd have been puddling my panties with lust. He's gorgeous, thick, dark hair, well-kept beard, and those strangely yellow eyes—the eyes of a wolf—have the power to dismantle my conscious thought and control me.
I carry my glass of wine toward the bedroom, bottle in my other hand, leaving my shoes by the door and my stress behind me. It's flattering a bit to think a man that devilishly attractive is drawn to me, so for a moment I let just that much settle over my mind. I think I'm not a horribly ugly woman. I have a nice figure, and I try to follow fashion, but I intimidate men, I’ve been told. Even the guys I went to school with or currently work with seem off-put by how determined I am.
A powerful man like the sort Finn is may very well be the type I need. A guy who's confident and self-assured, not easily intimidated by someone else. That's the type of man I imagine Finn O'Rourke is, or all the O'Rourke men, for that matter. They, like so many other criminals who savagely commit crime and get off Scot-free, are all the same. All pillars. All dangerous.
I set my cup and bottle next to the bath and shut off the tap. Then I strip down to nothing and take a few towels from the rack, draping one over the side of the bath and setting one on the back of the toilet. I leave my phone on the stand next to the tub where my wine rests, drawing a layer of condensation, and then I sink into the steam and bubbles.
The water scorches my skin, but I adore it. The sting is a painful reminder that I'm alive and that because I'm alive, I have a sworn duty to uphold. I didn't move to Dublin, so far from my family home, to waste my life on flings and men. My aim is to sink the entire underworld, even if I have to do that one man at a time, one court case after another.
Taking the towel from the side of the bath, I roll it up and place it behind my neck, then lie back and use it as a pillow. The bubbles float up over my body, covering my chest, allowing me to sink into the warm depths to drown my tension. I reach for the glass of wine and hold it in hand as I shut my eyes to close out the light.
My thoughts go again to the clandestine meeting in the alleyway beside the courthouse earlier. Finn is so smooth, thinks he's going to manhandle me into going to dinner with him, and for what purpose? I've been chasing these bastards for months now. There is no way I can compromise all the hard work I've put into nailing them with the severe conflict of interest it would be to be seen out in public with one. Besides the obvious fact that he's not that into me. I know he has his ulterior motive.
The wine floods my senses as I sip it and let it roll down my throat. It's tempting. I enjoy it too much, one of my weaknesses. So I down the glass and set it aside to refill when I begin to feel the swirl in my head. Then I let myself completely unfurl in the bath, stretching my toes all the way out to reach the far end.
The only reason I even got into law to begin with was because of Trevor. Poor bloke was such a kind heart, so gullible, so likeable too. He wanted so much out of life but got dealt a shitty hand by his own father who dragged him into the criminal lifestyle, a grifter with no conscience. And Trevor was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had a tangle with one of the crime syndicates. He never could extricate himself from it either, which led to his being murdered in cold blood, much like Aiden Hughes, whose murder I intend to solve.
Trevor was the catalyst. Judge Callahan became my guiding light. And now that I've achieved the job of deputy public prosecutor, I am aligned with my purpose, which I won't let escape me. Not for anything.
My phone buzzes, and I groan and roll my eyes. I brought it in here as more of a means to check the time, assuming this late hour would offer me the luxury of silence and solitude. People don't usually ring you this late, though there are reasons they do if it does happen.
I reach my dripping hand up and run it over the towel behind my head, the bottom of which is soggy from the water. The top is slowly drawing damp as moisture sucks up into it, so my fingers aren't entirely dry when I swipe the screen of my phone and turn on speaker mode.
"Gallagher here, what can I do for you?" It's a roll of the dice who it may be, but I'm not surprised to hear the warm, buttery tenor of Detective Liam Kearney vibrate out of the speaker.
"Sib, it's Liam. Do you have a minute?" When Liam calls me, it's usually serious. We've worked on a few cases together before, nothing so serious as murder, though, so if he's calling at this hour, it has to be important.
"Yeah, of course. What do you have for me?" Liam is the lead investigating detective Garda on the case, in charge of presenting all new evidence to me for submission to the court.
So far, he's brought me a witness who claims to have seen Mick O'Connor shoot the victim, a bloody fingerprint on the victim's face—only a partial match—and a recording of the suspect allegedly threatening the victim to "cut off his head and feed it to the sharks in the Irish Sea." If he offers me more, I'll take it. The case is weak, but not impossible to argue.
"We have the gun." Liam's words send ice through my veins. The murder weapon has eluded us for months as we dug into this thing, attempting to search out every single detail or clue we could find.
"Where? How?" Garda went over that house more than twenty times, tore out carpet, heating registers, floorboards. They even searched the O'Connor property and all seven outbuildings, uncovering a cache of stolen arms and linked it all to a trade we had no idea was even happening. There's no way a gun just magics its own way to the surface. "Did someone call in a tip?"
I sit up straighter in the bath, and the towel sags down into the water behind me, but this news is shocking to me. I'm on edge instantly, not sure how to take the discovery, and just in time for the trial to start. I know how these syndicates work. If one of them had intel that we need to put O'Connor down, they wouldn’t hesitate to anonymously turn him over and let him sink.
"It was wrapped in a bloody T-shirt with the victim's blood, tossed into a garbage bag, and we think it was left in a dumpster but fell out by accident. This is the break we've needed. It was found less than a block from the house on the ground in an alleyway. Sib, don't you see? This is our smoking gun. Ballistics report matches the striations in the rounds recovered from the vic's body. We got our man."
My mind reels as Liam speaks. I'm overcome by wonder and concern all at once. I don't know how to feel about this. Why did no one turn this in sooner? It's been months.
"Do we have prints?" I ask as my eyes turn to the glass of wine. Perhaps I need another to take this new edge off. I should be elated, but my gut tells me to be guarded. I've never felt like this before.
"No prints, unfortunately. The weather degraded DNA. We barely had a match to the blood. But the ballistics don't lie. It's our murder weapon." Liam clears his throat and starts rambling about "socking it to the murderous assholes" while I fill a glass and down it.
Then I sink back into the heat and shove the soggy towel back behind my head. This is all too much, even though it's good for my case. It may not be the "smoking gun" Liam thinks it will be since there is no DNA evidence, or even fingerprints, tying Mick O'Connor to the weapon itself, but it will help. Judges and juries can be quite persuaded by simple things. I may be able to knock them for six, or maybe not.
When I hear the name "O'Rourke", my ears perk up. I listen to what he says more carefully now, as I know the O'Rourkes are allies with the O'Connors and it's Ronan O'Rourke, their chief, who's footing the bill for Mick's defense.
"Stay away from them, Sib. They're vipers. You'll put the whole case at risk." Liam's cautioning tone sounds more demanding and bossy than fatherly. He's not at all like the judge.
"I had one approach me, ask me to dinner…" I've been toying with the idea of going anyway, even after rejecting the offer. If I can work an angle to get undercover with the O'Rourke clan and weasel my way in, I could bust this case and maybe several others wide open.
"No, Sib. Are you insane? They’re killers…" Now he sounds concerned. I picture his lips turning downward into a frown. Liam's handsome, caring too, but he's committed. Another dimension and I'd have probably thrown myself at the hulking god of a man, but I won't be a wrecking ball in someone else's life.
"Not insane at all. Think about the dirt we could gather if someone gets on the inside." I smile as a fuller idea begins to materialize in my mind. Going undercover with Liam's help to get Finn O'Rourke to give up information may just work.
"I forbid it. You aren't trained for that sort of thing. They'll eat you alive." Liam is chastising me now, talking down to me. But he isn't my boss, my king, or my god. And he sure as hell isn't going to tell me what to do.
"I have to run, Liam. I'm in the bath having a soak." And the wine is swirling nicely in my head now, helping me dream up all sorts of imaginations about nailing Mick O'Connor to the wall, along with hundreds of others, once I get the intel. "Bye, then."
I press the End Call button with a dripping finger and close my eyes again, ignoring the sudden buzz of my phone as Liam tries to call me back. I may never have gotten this idea if that man hadn't approached me in the alleyway. Now that I have it, I'm like a dog with a bone, and even Detective Garda Liam Kearney can't stop me.