Murphy's Wrath (Murphy's Law Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  “I’d be surprised if the Whitmore members we’ve already tagged represent all of Manifest’s membership.” Julia was glad that Ronan continued, that he didn’t wait for her to say anything more. She didn’t trust herself to speak without screaming. “Clay’s working on getting into ENAV’s database so we can run numbers on repeat visitors to Florence on or around the last Saturday of the month. That might clue us in to other members of Manifest, but it might take a while.”

  “ENAV?” Julia repeated.

  “It’s like the TSA in Italy,” Declan explained. “They have customs records on anyone entering the country via its airspace.”

  “Helicopters too?” Julia asked.

  “Good point,” Ronan said. “The members who live closer to Florence might come in via chopper. We’ll pull flight records from private heliports in the area too.”

  Julia nodded. “How long is a while?”

  “Weeks, maybe months,” he admitted.

  It didn’t surprise her that he knew she was talking about Clay. Their communication had been like this from the beginning: easy, seamless, synchronized.

  “We can’t wait that long,” Julia said.

  He nodded slowly. And now his eyes were shaded with something deeper than regret. Something that looked a lot like fear. “I know.”

  The vise that had been gripping her chest since Ronan mentioned the parties in Florence began to ease. Now at least they could do something. “When do we leave?”

  7

  Even before he and Julia hit the porch of the house, Ronan heard his father’s voice. The words were indistinct, but Ronan would know the deep timbre, low and commanding, of his father’s voice anywhere.

  Julia cast him a questioning look as they approached the house through the courtyard.

  “My father,” Ronan said.

  She lifted her eyebrows. In the three months she’d been living at the house, she’d never had occasion to meet Thomas Murphy. It hadn’t been intentional but Ronan wasn’t willing to swear it hadn’t been the work of his subconscious.

  Despite his truce with his father, there was undoubtedly baggage in their relationship, and Ronan wasn’t eager to explain it to Julia when they were already standing on the shifting sand of Elise’s disappearance.

  Nick was in almost daily contact with their father, but Ronan had somehow managed to be busy anytime Nick or Declan went over to the house in South Boston, an area that had been rough when Thomas Murphy bought the row house with Ronan’s mother back in 1982 but which had become gentrified in the last decade.

  “Is it okay that I’m here?” Julia asked as they approached the door.

  Ronan reached for her hand. “It’s more than okay."

  They’d stayed at the office after Nick and Declan left, Ronan immersing himself in a conversation with Clay about what it would take to gain him access to the next Manifest event in Florence, and Julia combing through the background on the members of the Whitmore Club that they could now be almost certain were part of Manifest.

  Ronan had no desire to address the white elephant of the trip to Florence — whether Julia would go, if she did go what her role would be — and he’d been relieved that she was willing to leave it for another time.

  It was only a reprieve but he would take it.

  Their father’s voice grew louder as they opened the door that opened onto the kitchen.

  “… that back window that’s been sticking for the past six months…” His voice trailed off as Ronan and Julia stepped into the kitchen.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” his father said, looking him up and down. His gaze shifted to Julia as he got off the stool at the island and walked toward them. “You must be Julia.”

  She smiled and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Ronan tried not to think about how their father knew Julia’s name, about what had been said between Nick and their father — Declan was nowhere to be found — before Ronan and Julia showed up.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Ronan’s dad said. His voice was genial, but Ronan could feel his cop’s brain turning, could feel him compiling impressions about Julia to review later. “I might have met you earlier if my son didn’t like to pretend he was an orphan.”

  Julia shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not that. He’s been so busy…”

  “Dad, stop,” Ronan said.

  His dad shrugged and returned to the island where a beer was sweating on the granite countertop. Chief was sitting next to his stool, her tail wagging like a windshield wiper on the floor. She’d always been fond of Ronan’s dad.

  Nick handed Ronan a beer without comment, for which Ronan was grateful.

  “You want?” Nick asked Julia, tipping his head at the beer.

  “I think I’ll go change,” she said.

  Ronan looked at her. “Stay.”

  “You sure?”

  She obviously didn’t know what to make of the visit from Thomas Murphy, and Ronan had no way of telling her that the tension in the air had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the stories that had been written in the Murphy history book long before she arrived on the scene. That it had to do with the death of Erin and even their mother, that it had to do with the fact that their sister, Nora, hardly ever came home anymore, that Thomas Murphy’s sons had declined to follow in his footsteps as servants of the law and had instead formed a company whose sole purpose was to subvert it.

  “I’m sure,” Ronan said.

  “You want to rethink that beer?” Nick’s shit-eating grin spoke loud and clear: welcome to our nightmare.

  “Um, sure. Okay.” She slid onto a stool across from Ronan’s dad.

  Nick pulled another beer from the fridge, uncapped it, and handed it to her.

  “How have you been, Pops?” Ronan studied his father’s face, relieved to see that he looked healthy, his broad face tan from the time he spent on his boat in the bay, his silver hair still thick and full.

  “Right as rain,” his dad said. His shoulders were still broad under a navy windbreaker, although a slight paunch had grown in his midsection.

  “What have you been up to?” Ronan asked, trying to keep the conversation in trouble-free territory.

  “Oh, you know, this and that.” His dad took a swig of the beer. “That old house always needs something. Between that and the boat and the guys, I keep busy enough.”

  The guys were his dad’s friends from BPD, most of them retired like him.

  “Glad to hear it,” Ronan said. “You look good.”

  His dad scowled. “Why wouldn’t I look good. I’m only sixty-eight, for god’s sake.”

  Ronan shrugged. “I’m just saying. It’s a compliment.”

  He stifled a sigh. It had been like this with his dad for as long as he could remember, the two of them tiptoeing around each other until something stupid set one of them off.

  Had it started after Ronan’s mother died? He’d been close to his mother before her death, preferring her easy company to the bristle and expectations of his dad. It was true that Ronan had met those expectations in spades before starting MIS. Quarterback of the football team, captain of Debate Club, Honors Student, Soldier.

  He’d molded himself to his dad’s image of the ideal firstborn son, and while Ronan didn’t remember resenting it until after Erin’s death, he did remember being aware of the expectations.

  There had been none of that with his mother. She’d been easy with her love, her big laugh and warm green eyes the sandpaper that smoothed out his dad’s rough edges.

  “Dad’s thinking of replacing the windows in the house,” Nick volunteered.

  Ronan both resented Nick’s relationship with their dad and was relieved that it took the heat off of him. He had no idea how their relationship had survived Nick’s defection from the BPD. He’d been the good son by then, the one who’d been willing to follow their dad onto the police force, wear the uniform, move up the ranks.

 
Like so many things, that had ended with Erin’s death, but somehow Nick’s relationship with their dad had survived.

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Ronan said.

  What the fuck was going on? Why was his dad here making small talk about home repair? This wasn’t the first time months had gone by between Ronan’s visits to the house in Southie.

  “Nick tells me you’re going to Italy.”

  Ronan had to force himself not to glare at Nick. “That’s right.”

  His dad turned his beer bottle in his hand. There were a million questions in his silence. A million things already said. A million more they would never dare speak.

  He looked up and met Ronan’s eyes. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Hard to say.”

  In the pause that followed Ronan thought about all the arguments they’d had in the past about MIS, each one carefully clothed in generic language that made it impossible to know how much his dad knew about their business, that made it impossible not to realize he knew enough.

  Ronan had tried explaining to his dad why they’d founded MIS, how they’d had to do something tangible in the wake of Erin’s death and the court’s decision to set free the dealer who had introduced her to heroin.

  It had been pointless. Their dad’s view of honor was specific and unmovable, reliant on laws and codes that Ronan no longer believed in, that he hadn’t believed in in a long time.

  “You’ll be careful,” his dad finally said.

  Ronan nodded.

  His dad slid off the stool and bent to scratch Chief’s head. “Maybe when you get back we’ll take the boat out. You and Nick and Dec, and Finn, if he ever shows his face again. Maybe we can even get Nora to come home.” His dad looked at Julia. “You’ll come too, Julia. We’ll pack beers and fishing poles.”

  Julia smiled. “Sounds perfect.”

  Ronan’s throat tightened with something like guilt. Something like love.

  His dad would never admit to being lonely, but Ronan saw that he was.

  “I’d like that,” Ronan said.

  Maybe this time it would happen. Maybe they wouldn’t make excuses about how busy they were or how they were going to be out of town. Maybe they would set aside the past and all their differences.

  That they’d once been father and son and there had been love.

  Ronan was surprised to realize he hoped it was still true.

  8

  Julia was still thinking about Ronan’s dad when they walked Chief on the beach that night. The sun was just beginning to sink behind the city, the air still balmy, a gentle breeze blowing in off the water. They walked slowly at the water line, carrying their shoes while Chief trotted ahead, nose to the ground.

  Julia had had no preconceived notions about Thomas Murphy. Ronan rarely spoke about him, and when he did she’d sensed a minefield she was hesitant to test. She had her own secrets, her own baggage, and she was happy to honor the unspoken agreement that seemed to exist between her and Ronan even if it meant some question marks.

  But it was obvious Thomas Murphy loved his sons — all of them. She’d seen that much in the way he’d looked at Ronan and Nick, in his eagerness to spend time with them and the concern in his eyes when he’d mentioned Italy.

  “Something you want to ask me?” Ronan said beside her.

  She looked up at him. “Does he know? Your dad?”

  “About the business?” Ronan asked.

  She nodded.

  His face was grim, his jaw set as he kept his eyes on the sand in front of them. “More or less.”

  “More or less?”

  “It’s not something we talk openly about,” he said. “But he knows.”

  “I take it he doesn’t approve?” she asked.

  He laughed a little but there was no humor in it. “You could say that.”

  “Because he was a cop?”

  “Probably,” Ronan said. “Or maybe he was a cop because he doesn’t approve.”

  “He’s a law and order kind of guy?” she asked.

  “He believes in rules.”

  She hesitated, not wanting to overstep. “Even after what happened to Erin?” It felt wrong to speak her name. Julia had the feeling it was sacred. She didn’t know if she had the right.

  “Even then,” Ronan said. He bent to pick up a stick in the sand and threw it into the shallow surf for Chief, who bounded after it. “It was hard for me to understand, the way he could just let it go.”

  Julia opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.

  “What?” Ronan prodded.

  “I was just going to say that I’m sure it wasn’t easy,” Julia said. “People are so different, the way they deal with things.”

  “Like you and Elise?” Ronan asked.

  She turned her eyes to the sea, shimmering darkly in the distance as the sun sank below Boston’s skyscrapers. She hadn’t expected her questions about Ronan’s father to be turned back on her but fair was fair.

  “Our mom was kind of MIA growing up.” Julia laughed, trying to make light of it, but it rang false even to her own ears. “Married and divorced four times. I learned to take care of things, to take care of Elise.”

  “And Elise?” he asked.

  Chief brought the stick back and nosed Julia’s hand. She took it from the dog’s mouth and tossed it back into the water.

  “Elise learned to let me take care of her. But then, I’m guessing you already knew all that,” she said.

  “Reading about someone in a dossier isn’t the same as knowing them. I never forget that.” Chief had found something in the seaweed lining the shore. She bent her to investigate, burrowing into the kelp. Ronan gestured to a place just beyond the reach of the waves rolling ashore. “Want to sit?”

  Julia lowered herself to the sand and hugged her knees to her chest. Chief was still nosing her way through the seaweed, the stick forgotten.

  It had been strangely intimate, meeting Ronan’s father, being privy to all the unspoken things that existed in families like his.

  Like hers.

  What would Ronan think if he were around Julia in her mother’s company? Would he see what she saw — her mother negligent and self-absorbed? Or would he see what Julia had seen in Thomas Murphy: a human being who had made mistakes, but one who cared?

  It was impossible to imagine. Julia hadn’t seen her mother in over a year. Even she didn’t know what it would be like.

  “Were things… normal with your dad before Erin’s death? Before your mom died?” Ronan had told her about his mother’s death, his face a mask that made it clear it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss or even remember. She imagined long illnesses like cancer did that to people.

  Ronan’s eyes were trained on the horizon. “It’s hard to know if I’m remembering it right, but I think so. My mom was…” He exhaled. “She was great. Warm. Loving. Fun. I always wanted to please my dad, but I think that’s to be expected. I don’t remember behind unhappy though.”

  “I’m glad you have that,” Julia said. “Those memories.”

  She wondered if it was harder to have something good and have it taken from you or if it was worse to never have it at all.

  She felt his gaze on her face. “There must be good things from your childhood.”

  A series of images played across Julia’s mind: she and Elise jumping on the bed and laughing until they fell in a heap on the covers, chasing each other around the kitchen with a whipped cream can, both of them shrieking, hiding under a blanket fort in the living room when they were in high school, giggling about Julia’s first kiss.

  “There are,” she admitted. “I know I was lucky in a lot of ways. I had my gramps, and I had Elise.”

  But a voice had begun to whisper in her ear, a voice that said she wasn’t being fair.

  That she wasn’t being honest.

  Her mom had been there in the background, yelling at Julia and Elise to get off the bed, plucking the whipped cream can from Julia’s hand and t
urning it on Elise with a laugh, trying to push her way into their blanket fort.

  It wasn’t everything but it wasn’t nothing either.

  Chief returned from her investigation of the seaweed and lay down next to Julia smelling like salt and wet fur.

  “You know I’m going to Italy,” she said.

  She didn’t want to talk about her mom anymore.

  He didn’t look at her. “What if I told you it was dangerous, not just for you but for me too?”

  “How so?” she asked, taking in the line of his mouth, the set of his jaw in profile.

  “I won’t be able to think straight with you there,” he said.

  “I don’t believe that. You’re a professional. I’m sure you’ve worked under worse circumstances.”

  He turned to look at her, his blue eyes on fire. “Not like this, Julia.”

  Her chest tightened and she drew in a breath as she looked away. Saying I love you was easy compared to the current of emotion that ran through her when he looked at her like that.

  She worked to keep her voice steady as she drew in the sand with her finger. “I’m not saying I have to go with you to the party.” They hadn’t even figured out yet how to get in, but it was a given that at least one of them would have to gain access to find out if Elise was there. “But I can’t stay in Boston while you go to Italy to look for my sister. It will kill me.”

  For a long moment, he didn’t speak, and she thought maybe she’d made her point.

  “What if I said no?”

  She looked up at him, anger flaring in her chest. “I’d like to go with you, to help however I can, even if it’s just as backup for Clay’s work. If you don’t want me to go, I’ll go alone, and I’m betting I’ll have an easier time getting into that party than you will.”

  He glared at her. “That would be a suicide mission.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. But I’m not leaving my sister again, and I’m not sitting on my ass in Boston while you go to Italy looking for her.”

  He turned his eyes back to the water and cursed under his breath. “You’re going to get yourself killed, but maybe that’s the point.”