“I SHOULD GIVE you gas money,” she said to Strat in the driving seat. “You’re quiet this morning.”
“Didn’t think I’d ever hear you like that,” he said, his lips curling. “The boss makes you happy, huh?”
“We both need the distraction right now.”
“I guess you came into each other’s lives at the right time…” She was still trying to decipher the undercurrent when her friend spoke again. “Don’t let yourself be manipulated, Scamp.”
“Who’s manipulating me?”
“I don’t know. Your father maybe. Your boyfriend… you’ve known your daddy and his rules your whole life. Don’t give up on him ‘cause the guy of the minute doubts him.”
“I asked Conn not to write him off. You’ve got to admit it would be a helluva coincidence, my father wants the same information I’m beaten for a day later.”
“You think your father would let that happen? Your dad’s an asshole. I get that. But no father would stand by and do nothing while that happened to his daughter.”
The lens of experience tainted perspectives. Despite their differences, Strat was a father, just like hers, with a son and a daughter. Unlike hers, Strat valued his children, loved them the way they were. No matter what, Strat would go to war for his little girl. Nothing would get in the way of him protecting her. Whether her own father was the same on that score remained to be seen.
Still, her dad deserved the benefit of the doubt. “I don’t know that he knew.” About the attack, as Connel called it. Why couldn’t she see it that clearly? “There are a lot of unknowns.”
“Think they have something on him?”
“Maybe.”
“You going to talk to the cop about it?”
“Lachlan?” In any other circumstance, he’d be who she went to for clarity and logic. Not this time. “What good would it do? I would love to get his take. But if I put it on him, he’ll see it as his responsibility to find out the truth.”
“It is his responsibility. He’s a cop. Cops investigate shit.”
“Their own fathers? The man they’ve worshipped their whole lives? It’ll break him if it’s true. Just demolish him.”
“And you don’t think it will come out eventually? I don’t know about this deal they’ve got going on—”
“It’s under control,” she said. “Someone will win, Conn will win.”
“And then what? Your father walks away clean?” His snicker was dubious. “Sorry to tell you, Scamp, shit don’t work like that. If your father’s on the hook, he’s on the hook until he goes to jail or dies. Guys like Connel McDade don’t give up an asset for free.”
“Connel doesn’t have my dad on the hook.”
“So Manzani? You think that’s any better? This Harvest deal, whatever it is, not even the guys on the ground know the details. It’s been kept close at the highest levels. They could be planning anything. It could be an attack, a robbery, whatever it is, you don’t want to get involved. You want to steer clear, just in case.”
“I know what it is,” she said, noting Strat’s double take from the corner of her eye.
“You know—he told you about Harvest?”
“I don’t know every detail, but, yeah, I know what it is. Why it’s causing so much acrimony.”
“Okay, you’ve gotta help me out.”
“Help you how?”
“Ire McDade doesn’t do relationships, commitment. His encounters with women are business or pleasure. He fucks a woman ‘cause he needs something from her or she’s so hot, he wants to know he can.”
“All he has to do is pick and point.”
“Right,” he said. “In the hospital you tell me you’re through with him, then you’re in his loft, and having sex with him ten feet from twenty of his guys.”
“It was more than ten feet… and there weren’t twenty guys.”
“There were guys in the club, or didn’t you know that?” he asked. “Quit changing the subject. Are you together? ‘Cause Ire McDade doesn’t do exclusive. He just doesn’t.”
“He’s been clear about that.”
“And you’re okay with it? You know you have to be exclusive, though, right? Ire McDade would own any guy who thought about touching what he considers his property… Are you his property?”
“You don’t have to worry about me. It’s not like I have stacks of time to go around picking up men.”
“You have more clothes at Ire’s places than you do in your own apartment. Whatever’s going on between you, it’s screwing with his guys’ heads. They’ve never witnessed anything like it.”
“And you think his attentiveness is a ploy? That he’s manipulating me?”
“Maybe,” Strat said and paused a score of seconds. “Are you in love with him?”
Was she? That was a question she quashed any time it threatened to creep in.
“Can we stop at that bakery place you like? I want to get cupcakes for Steeple.”
“Don’t do it, Scamp,” he said with severe gravity in the warning. “You fall for him and it’s over. Damn whatever your father’s mixed up in, you’ll get sucked into a world that won’t let you go.”
“You don’t think I’m already in it? Conn told me I had to be sure, that his world wasn’t an easy one to leave. He’s looking out for me.”
“Guys like him look out for family. He’s turning up the heat and you don’t even realize it.”
“So I should be suspicious of Conn? The day after I learn to be suspicious of my dad? Who am I supposed to trust?”
“You,” he said. “You’re learning that lesson late if you’re just learning it now.”
“You can’t believe that. That you can only trust yourself? You don’t want your kids to trust you? You didn’t raise them to trust you?”
“My son trusts two people in this world, himself and Jagger Dunn.”
“Not his sister?”
“Ford looks after his kid sister. He’s smarter than her. Street smarter, not book smarter. Immie’s got us all beat on that.”
“Who does Imogen trust?”
“The cop, probably,” he said. “She never forgave me for letting her go with her mother. I lost my baby girl’s trust a long time ago.”
“You stick to trusting you? You don’t trust anyone else? No one?”
He showed her a smile. “If you weren’t so corruptible, I’d trust you.”
“Corruptible? You think I’m corruptible?”
“Hey, if it turns out your daddy’s dirty, least you can say it’s in the genes.”
“I can’t believe that. Just one look at Lachlan tells you our genes are good.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Strat said. “My Immie’s pure, she’s all her mom. Sometimes one parent gives their all to one kid.”
“My dad says I’m all my mom… Not so sure that’s a good thing though.”
“You remember her?”
“Sometimes I think I do… I don’t know if it’s memories or Lach’s talk putting pictures in my head.”
“You worship your brother.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You put him on a pedestal, he’s bound to fall off.”
“Lachlan’s got good balance. I believe in him.”
“Except you’re in trouble, and you’re not going to him.”
Not because she didn’t trust him to listen or support her. No doubt, if she started talking, he’d try to justify or come up with other plausible scenarios. But she knew him. Once the notion was in there, that it was even just remotely possible, he’d ask questions, and not just of her. Either he’d ruin his relationship with his father, that he valued so much, or, like Strat said, he’d have to see the man he worshipped slip from his pedestal.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Trying to make me doubt everyone?”
“I want you to be safe. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You think Conn is going to hurt me? Or my dad?”
“Honestly, Scamp? I think they all will.”
“All?” she asked.
They stopped.
The bakery. Cupcakes. Right where she’d asked him to take her.
With everything else going on, maybe it wasn’t a cupcake day. But she needed a peace offering for Steeple, something to distract him from asking all the right questions.
Cupcakes were as good a chance as any.
***
CUPCAKES did their job improving Steeple’s mood. On distracting him? Not so much. He’d got where he was by following the story. No amount of baked goods could change the fiber of the man. Unfortunately.
“No, Dorsey’s a dead end,” she said, sitting in Steeple’s office like it was any other day.
“Really?” her boss asked, pulling himself in further at the desk. “How’d you figure?”
“The cops couldn’t find anything. The McDades either. The girl’s probably dead.”
“You don’t think it’s worth checking it out?”
“There’s nothing to find.”
“Get into the investigation. Put pressure on the blues.”
“Like that’s easy.”
“You’ve never shied from it before. What’s your plan of action?” he asked. “What’s your next lead? Are you giving up on the McDades? Where’s your guard today?”
Last thing she wanted to be was the story. The line she walked was precarious. Yes, she wanted her boss to believe she was capable and committed, but her job and reputation weren’t more important than an innocent woman’s life.
“My guard is around,” she said, having left Strat by the elevator. “I’m not giving up on the McDades, but they’re on the back burner.” She took a breath. “My piece on the Manzanis was abstract. From the outside looking in. Conjecture, you know? Facts were researched, questions asked and answered. I want to go deeper.”
“Deeper?”
“Ask the questions people are afraid to ask. Did you know I started writing to Helios Manzani in the course of my last article?”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“I was thinking maybe I could go see him. Talk to him.”
Concern weighed his expression. “About?”
“His family. How he ended up in prison.”
“Murder. That’s why he’s in prison. For killing someone. Mystery solved.”
Not by a long shot. “A lot of people in his line of work could be accused of the same. How did they get him?”
“Did you read his police file?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I’ll talk to Lachlan. What do you think? An exposé on the Manzanis from the one who’s been off the street for years.”
“An exposé on the Manzani locked up as a teenager?”
“Could he be purer than the other Manzanis?”
“Safe to say he got himself in trouble in the joint.”
“Yeah, worse than his brothers?”
“Vex’s got his own rep. Hell is in prison. Fury’s long gone.”
Dead probably. Fury, also known as Atlas Manzani, was unaccounted for. Not missing, just location unknown.
“We start with the eldest,” she said. “The forgotten Manzani. I bet he wants his story told.”
“If his ego is anything like Evander’s…” Steeple said. “You’ll get Silvio’s attention.” Again. “If the Manzanis are already gunning for you…?”
“Duck and cover won’t change that. I’m already on Silvio’s radar. You don’t win against families like that by running and hiding.”
“You’re going on the offensive. Taking the Manzanis on alone?”
“It’s a balancing act,” she said. “Maybe they won’t realize I’m turning up the heat.” Leaving the chair, she started for the door, glancing back at her boss. “Besides, no one said I was alone.”