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As I reach her office, I pause to greet Evangeline with a quick kiss before she leaves me alone with my aunt. Fortified by the brief physical contact, I step into Bridget’s office.
“How are you, Rye?” Aunt Bridget asks as she looks over fabric samples.
“I’m good,” I say, sitting down and crossing my leg over my knee. “I wanted to meet with you to discuss something important.”
“I’ve got a few minutes before my meeting,” she says, setting her sample book down.
“Someone close to us came forward with some intel they had on Uncle Declan,” I tell her carefully. “We weren’t sure how to react, but the evidence presents a pretty compelling case. We think that Uncle Declan had something to do with our father’s death.”
Bridget’s eyes widen, and she lets out a long sigh, shaking her head. She doesn’t seem surprised, though.
“You don’t seem surprised?” I ask.
She spreads her fingers out on the glass surface of her desk. “Declan and your father became friends in high school,” she begins. “Marcus saw Declan getting bullied, and he stood up for him, so Declan latched himself onto your father from that point on. The two were thick as thieves, and when Seamus Callahan approached him about joining the ranks, he insisted that Declan be allowed to join too.”
“So they grew up together and started in the business together?” I ask, trying to clarify.
“Yes, but while your father rose through the ranks quite quickly, Declan was content to leech off your father’s efforts. Marcus saw him as his right-hand man, though, and no matter what I said to the contrary, he would insist that Declan was loyal to the bitter end.”
“Sounds like you saw something Dad didn’t,” I point out.
“Your father had one blind spot, and that was Declan O’Malley,” Aunt Bridget declared. “He saw him as a little brother he needed to protect. But I saw a weak man who aligned himself with whoever had the most power.”
I frown. “Declan never once made it seem like he had ambitions outside of being Dad’s right hand, though,” I point out. “He never spoke out against Dad or tried to take things in new directions.”
“No,” Bridget agrees. “He aligned himself with Marcus’s goals, but I fully believe he only did that until Marcus’s goals diverged from his own. At some point, Declan got greedy for more power, and I believe that’s when he decided to do whatever it was that he did to have Marcus killed.”
Her eyes are full of sorrow as she talks about my father, her brother. “Marcus and I were alike in a lot of ways. We were both pretty single-minded about our goals, and neither of us like to hear others’ opinions. If Declan thought that what Marcus was doing didn’t serve the interest of the family business, they might have argued about it, and Declan is hot-tempered enough to hold a grudge.”
I remember a time when I was a child when some waiter accidentally got water in Uncle Declan’s lap at a restaurant and he vowed to never eat there again. To this day, he’s never been back. If Declan was mad that Dad wouldn’t listen, I could see him getting angry enough to take him out.
Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. Bridget reaches out and squeezes my hand in hers. “You kids are so much like Marcus in many ways. If you think Declan is involved, I know you’ll want to do something about it. But please, be careful. Declan is smart, and he’s sneaky. He’s a snake in the grass, and he’ll strike immediately if he thinks he’s being threatened.”
“Yeah, we need a plan,” I admit. “I think I might go talk to the friend who gave us the information, see if there’s anything else they’ve got that could help us.”
Bridget stands up, coming over to hug me. We’re not a very demonstratively affectionate family, but I think losing Dad has brought out a desire for more closeness. I let her hug me for a moment before patting her back and stepping away.
“I need to go. Tell Evangeline that we’ll see her at home?”
Bridget nods. “Will do. Take care of yourself, Rye.”
I give her a wave and head out, hands in my pockets.
Outside, the day shines warm and bright, streets flooded with pedestrians. I make my way through the city toward the police precinct to see Daniel.
When I arrive, he’s at his desk poring over some documents with a harried look in his eyes and a coffee stain on his tie.
“Ryder,” he acknowledges in greeting. I sit down in the hard plastic chair in front of his desk and lean in.
“I need to talk to you,” I tell him. “It’s about the info you gave Eva.”
“Been waiting for you guys to approach me about that,” Daniel admits quietly. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk freely.”
I follow him as he stands up and heads to an interrogation room down the hall. Once inside, he shuts the door and we sit across from each other.
“So, what did you want to know?” Daniel asks.
“To start, I want to know who got that info?” I ask. “Was it you?”
