“This isn’t over,” Gerry said.
“Stay away from my family, Gerry,” I said.
I followed my mother. Joe flew backwards in front of me, watching the Murdocks. “Did you call her?”
“Your father wasn’t there,” he said.
My mother waited by the elevator. She pressed the UP button. “Honestly, Connor, you need to be more careful. You know I worry.”
The elevator arrived, and I punched the button for my parents’ floor. “That was foolish, Mother. You could have been hurt.”
She waved her hand. “Oh, I would have flattened him in another moment if he hadn’t dropped his weapon. You know how impatient I can be when I haven’t had my morning tea. Who was he?”
“Gerry Murdock. Leo’s brother,” I said.
“That nice man who delivered our bags?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s a complicated family,” I said.
“Well, at least you can join us for breakfast. Your father should be back from his exercise shortly,” she said.
We got off on our floor. “Have I really had diplomatic immunity all this time?”
She opened the door to the suite. “Oh, no, of course not, dear. You were stripped of it a year ago or so. Although, I’m not sure your father and I qualify anymore either since Maeve sent us away.”
I allowed myself a tired smile. “You lied?”
“Well, not really. It didn’t seem the time to speculate on the matter. Shall we order tea?”
I dropped onto the couch. “Yes. Tea would be nice, but first I need to make a phone call.”
She waved at the handset on the table as she went into bedroom. “I’m going to finish dressing. I won’t be long.”
I called Eagan’s house, but no one picked up. I wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or not. I dialed Briallen.
She picked up on the first ring. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Did you hear what happened?” I asked.
“Manus and Tibbet are fine. The attackers were human with a few Dananns who are being billed as rogue agents. A few were captured, but they have no identification, and they’re not talking, of course.”
Tibbet was fine. That’s all I heard that I cared about. She hadn’t gotten killed because of me. “Thanks, Briallen. I’m with my parents, but I’m not staying long. I don’t want them in the middle of this.”
“That’s probably wise,” she said.
“Still don’t want to tell me what I need to know?” I asked.
“Connor, it’s not like that,” she said.
“Sure it is,” I said.
“Someday you will understand,” she said.
“Maybe. Until then, I don’t.” I hung up. Her refusal to explain the sword infuriated me.
Joe danced a sun ritual in the window. I watched his aerial display, the loops and turns that coaxed the sunlight into energizing his body essence. I was too tired to join him. Besides, standing naked in front of an unprotected window was not the best course of action for me right then.
“I’m going to leave before my mother comes back, Joe. Tell her I’ll call her later,” I said.
He finished the ritual and dropped to his feet. “But what about the tea?”
“I’ll have to take a rain check. Tell Ma I’ll call her later. And tell her thank you,” I said.
25
After retrieving the car again, I drove to Albany Street in the South End. This early in the morning, the traffic consisted of ambulances and staff from Boston City Hospital. I reached the Office of the City Medical Examiner and parked across the street. A police car drove toward me, siren lights off, and I waited a tense minute until it passed. I got out and hustled across the street.
The back door to the OCME was guarded by a retired police officer. He sat reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. I wore my sunglasses even though it wasn’t light out yet, but I didn’t want him to see my eyes. Janey Likesmith had told me enough stories about the animosity for the fey in her office. Since druids didn’t look fey, the officer was more likely to think I was a drug addict.
“Is Janey Likesmith here?” I asked him.
He took a slow sip off his coffee and reached for the phone without looking at me and jabbed an extension line. “Name?”
I hesitated. “Connor.”
I held my breath, worried that my common Irish name would set off alarms. Instead, the guard repeated it into the phone, pressed a buzzer that released the door lock, and I was in. I made way to the stairs and went down to the basement. Coming out of the stairwell, I was surprised to see Murdock waiting with Janey in the pool of light from her office.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, then wanted to kick myself for asking.
Murdock didn’t show any annoyance, though. “Keeping Janey company. What’s wrong?”
Granted I was showing up at a daybreak, but it rankled that people assumed something was wrong when they saw me. “Eagan’s house was attacked. I got out, but Shay was shot and killed.”
“Damn,” he said.
Janey put a hand on his sleeve. “Who was it?”
“Street kid. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. His voice was flat, which meant he was upset. Murdock had introduced me to Shay. He had encouraged him to get off the street. Shay did, but that didn’t stop him from getting messed up with me.
“I needed someplace to lie low while I figure out where to go,” I said.
“And you picked the morgue,” Murdock said.
“I was actually going to call you for a ride back to the Tangle. I thought whoever attacked me wouldn’t expect me hiding out in a law-enforcement building,” I said.
“You were the focus of the attack?” he asked.
I started to answer, then closed my mouth. After what happened on the lawn, I had assumed the attack was against me. “I don’t know. There were bullets flying everywhere. It might have been Eagan. His guards were killed, and his Guild security agents were missing. That had to be macGoren’s doing.”
Murdock pursed his lips and looked at Janey. “Maybe you need to see something.”
I didn’t move. “There’s something else, Leo. Gerry was involved. He threatened me in front of my parents’ hotel less than thirty minutes ago. He admitted to killing Shay.”
Janey let out a small gasp. In the uncomfortable silence, Leo stared at the floor. A muscle along his jaw jumped.
“Let’s look at the evidence, Janey,” he said.
“Leo….” I said.
He gave me a cold hard stare. “I will deal with it, Connor.”
He walked into the office. Janey and I exchanged concerned glances before following him in. Her office had always been cramped, but now it looked like a storage room. Files and boxes were piled everywhere with little room for more than the three of us. While bodies were being recovered from the Guildhouse site, everything went through the OCME until the victims were identified. There were a lot of victims.
Janey handed Murdock a folder. He turned it toward me, flipping it open to the report on the elf with the arrow in his chest. He pointed to Keeva’s signature as the Guild liaison. Closing that report, he opened another, the dead Danann. The body hadn’t even gone to the OCME since he had been a Guild agent. Though it wasn’t any surprise since she had been on the scene, Keeva had authorized the transfer of the body.
Janey gave me a single sheet of paper, a request from the Guild for the body of the merrow, signed by Keeva. “This came in last night. The body hasn’t been processed out yet.”
I handed the sheet back. “I see what you’re getting at, but Keeva’s the Community Liaison Director. Sign-offs like that are routine.”
“She’s signed off on only those cases since she returned,” said Janey.
“And unmarked vans have picked up the bodies. They won’t say where they’re taking them, and any follow-up has to go directly through Keeva,” Murdock said.
“Do you think she killed these people?” I asked.
&n
bsp; Murdock made a curious face. “Either that, or she’s part of a cover-up. What do you think?”
Keeva and I had been partners for almost a decade. In that time, I had come to understand she could be efficient, ruthless, and single-minded in getting what she wanted. “I never saw her kill someone in cold blood. I’d be surprised.”
“She also spent several months at Tara,” Janey said.
I leaned back against the boxes. “I talked to Bastian. He says the victims were all agents working for him who were leaking information from the Guild. He basically said the Consortium didn’t kill them.”
“For undercover agents, things leak in both directions. Maybe they leaked too much in one direction,” Murdock said.
“Then it’s something about the waterfront. That’s where the bodies were. Since this mist wall went up, maybe that’s not a coincidence,” I said.
Murdock tapped the folder, straightening the papers inside. “Well, it’s out of my jurisdiction now. If what happened at Eagan’s was about you, you need bigger firepower than I can give you.”
“Bastian said the elf victim told him Eorla had a spy. Maybe because I’m close to her, they think I might know who it is,” I said.
“Sounds like Eorla’s your best bet then,” Murdock said.
Janey held out a small plastic envelope. “Any idea what this is?”
I held the envelope toward the light. Inside was what looked like a broken guitar chip, pale gray and translucent. “Is this from the merrow?”
Janey nodded. “I found it under one of her fingernails. It’s not a merrow scale that I’ve ever seen.”
“Eorla has a lot of tree fairies working for her. Can it be a skin cell?” I asked.
“That’s possible, but the color is so strange. My database isn’t that extensive for this type of thing, though. I was hoping you might have seen someone with skin like that,” she said.
I handed it back. “Doesn’t ring any bells. What about the Danann? Any trace evidence on him?”
She shook her head. “No, but he didn’t die in a fall. The organ damage isn’t consistent with a fall. He was crushed under something.”
“That would explain the alcohol. Dananns are strong. It wouldn’t be the first time someone thought to get a Danann drunk before killing one.”
Murdock gave me a significant look. The first major case we worked on together had had Danann fairy victims. The first few had been drunk when they died. Gethin macLoren, the murderer, had been captured and executed. “He’s dead, Leo.”
“He wouldn’t be the first Dead person I’ve met,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, this is something else. Ceridwen would know if macLoren came back. She has the Dead under control.”
“Which brings us back to someone who does know: Keeva,” he said.
A cool fluttering touched my mind, then a sending from my mother hit me like a ton of bricks. “I need to get to AvMem.”
“What happened?” Murdock asked.
“My brother Cal’s in the hospital.”
26
The previous twenty-four hours didn’t feel tethered to reality anymore. The nonstop bombardment of events left me with nothing but the need to react, with no time to think or feel or consider. I was running on adrenaline. My body slipped into automatic, running down the hall, going out the door, rushing to the hospital.
I strode into the emergency room at AvMem without any recollection of the trip. Arriving had been my only focus. I left the car in the drop-off lane with the keys in it. At that point, I didn’t care what happened to it.
In the waiting room, news cycled on a crooked flat screen TV, the volume turned to a whisper. An aerial shot of Eagan’s house appeared. Smoke trickled from the side of the house, but it didn’t look serious. The greenhouse windows were shattered. Dark uniformed figures were scattered about the lawn in an obvious police search grid.
As I approached the desk, Keeva came out the door that led to the treatment bays. She hesitated, surprised to see me. Don’t talk, she sent.
She spoke to the desk nurse and flashed her badge. The woman looked from the badge to Keeva, then nodded. She glanced at me, curious, yet with an attitude of not wanting to draw attention. Keeva waved me around the desk to the door
The emergency room at Avalon Memorial was much like one in any other hospital—professional staff moving quickly, people moaning, bad odors, and blood. An injured fey person brought an extra layer of free-flowing essence that needed to be contained. I peered into the bays as we passed, hoping and dreading to see Callin.
“What was that about?” I asked, as she led me in back.
“Your name is flagged for security. I told the desk you were with me, so you didn’t have to identify yourself,” she said.
“Wow. Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” she said.
“Now tell me why you did it,” I said.
She frowned. “You always have to push, don’t you? Callin’s your brother. While it would please me to see you in handcuffs, you shouldn’t get arrested for visiting your brother in the hospital.”
We walked through the unit to a door at the back. Away from the doctors and patients, I caught the faint scent of ozone coming off Keeva, the telltale trace of essence-fire. “You’re in the field?”
She glanced at me with impatience. “In case you haven’t heard, Connor, the Guild lost hundreds of agents. Everyone’s in the field.”
I took her gently by the arm, and, as usual, she pulled away in anger. “I was going to ask you about the baby,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change. “He’s fine. Thank you for asking.”
“And you?”
She sighed and opened the door. “Take the back elevator to the seventh floor. Callin’s in ICU. Go. Now. Before I change my mind.”
She walked away. Keeva and I had always had a prickly relationship. Since she returned from Tara, she had avoided me like the plague. I wanted to talk to her about what had happened between us, about the night in the leanansidhe’s cave. I wasn’t sure if she had been aware of everything that had happened that night. I had almost killed her. I had drained her life essence. The guilt weighed on me enough that I needed to confess it to her. I needed her to know how sorry I was.
I wondered if hanging around with Murdock and his Catholicism was starting to rub off. I didn’t know if confession was good for the soul so much, but it definitely would have put my mind at ease. Keeva would probably hate me. Hell, she barely spoke to me as it was. She might already know, which would explain her attitude. At the same time, I was bothered by Murdock’s suspicions about her role in the deaths of the double agents. Now my brother turned up in the hospital, and she was there to meet me. Her presence could mean more than compassion about a bad day for the Grey family.
The elevator doors opened onto the seventh floor. Keeva would have to wait. I walked down the hall, peering into rooms. Hospital staff eyed me. Intensive Care Units were not welcoming to visitors. I passed a waiting room and heard my mother call my name.
We met in a hug at the door. She pulled back, touching my cheek, her face pale with worry. “Clure is in with him. He’s allowed one visitor at a time.”
Behind her, Gillen stood watching a nurse lean over my father, who sat in a chair. Blood drained through a tube in his arm to a bag next to the chair. I hurried to his side. “Da, what’s wrong?” I asked.
He gazed at the blood flowing out his arm, wiggling his fingers. “It’s a blood donation. Nothing to worry about.”
My mother came up behind me and slipped her arm around my waist. “Callin lost a lot of blood.”
I unrolled my sleeve. “Hook me up. I’m the same type, too.”
Gillen glanced at my father, then away. “Callin was fighting when he was injured. His blood is saturated with essence. It’s not a normal transfusion. We need a close essence match, too.”
I frowned. “Then all the more reason I should do it. Sibling essence factors are more
similar than a parent’s.”
“In this case, Thomas is a better match,” said Gillen.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
My father flexed his fingers. “Connor, let’s get through this crisis without argument. If Gillen says I am a better match, then let’s defer to his judgment.”
I frowned, confused. “You were a field agent, Da. You know this stuff. We stockpiled our own blood, and Callin was my backup.”
“Did you ever need his blood?” Gillen asked.
In my career, I had had two serious injuries that required emergency surgery, one of them serious enough to use the blood on hand. “No. We had enough of my own.”
My mother twined her arm in mine. “Connor, sweetheart, you’re upsetting me. Let Gillen do his job.”
I pulled away from her. “What? No! He isn’t making sense. I don’t understand why I’m not a better match.”
“The dark mass….” Gillen said.
I cut him off. “In three years, Gillen, you haven’t said a word about the dark mass affecting my blood.”
Angry light glinted in Gillen’s eye. I was pushing his patience, but I didn’t care. “Look, Grey. I will do what I think is best for my own damned patients. Is that clear?”
“No, I want….” I said.
“Connor,” my father said, low and sharp. It was that tone, that particular parental tone, that reminded me that I was once ten years old and my father knew how to stop me dead in my tracks with the mere mention of my name. I didn’t shudder, but the memory of shuddering crossed my mind. I composed myself. “Da….” I said.
“Let Gillen do his job. We have complete faith in him,” he said.
My father stared at me with his implacable gaze, while my mother hovered between us. She had spent a lifetime—my lifetime, anyway—breaking up arguments. With my father and Gillen in agreement, it was futile to argue. “What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was in a fight, of course,” my father said.
“Where?”
“We don’t have the details yet,” he said.
“What was Keeva macNeve doing here?” I asked.
My father tilted his head toward Gillen. “I didn’t know she was here.”
Undone Deeds Page 16
