Internal Affair

by Samantha Cayto

  Daire clutched the edge of his seat cushion. “I don’t understand what you’re driving at, sir.”

  Finnegan popped out of his seat and paced away. “You’re looking into the murders again, aren’t you?”

  “Always. You know that.” Well, maybe the guy didn’t. It’s not as if Daire or his brothers had ever included Finnegan in their efforts. As their father’s old friend had worked his way up the ranks and into the mostly political position he now held, it didn’t seem fair to embroil him in it.

  Finnegan frowned down at him. “I’ve suspected. I let it alone as I understood the need to find answers. But this time, I can’t ignore what you’re doing. Li has left no open investigations. She finishes each and every one. Most of the time, a cop goes down because of her tenaciousness.”

  “Good to hear. Finding dirty cops is her job. I still don’t understand what your point is.” When the commissioner merely stood staring at him, Daire’s guts twisted some more in understanding. “You think she’s going to learn my father was dirty after all? Why?” He jumped to his feet. “Why the hell would you think that?”

  Finnegan’s expression softened to one of pity. “I’ve tried to shield you, don’t you see? I put my own neck on the line quashing the investigation.”

  Daire’s mind reeled. “Wait. What?”

  “That’s why the murders have never been solved. If anyone had followed the trail to the trigger man, they’d have uncovered the whole truth.” Finnegan took a step toward him, hands outstretched. “Do you understand? It was better to leave the murders unsolved than to dig up all the dirt. I owed it to your father, to the friend he was and the cop he used to be. I didn’t want the taint covering you and your brothers, either, for your mother’s sake if not for Rory’s.”

  Daire’s heart skipped a beat, and it felt as if his lungs couldn’t get in enough air. “No.” Shaking his head, he walked away from the man. “No, that can’t be true.”

  “Why would I lie about it now, Daire?” Finnegan’s soft voice was laced with regret. “I’ve carried this knowledge in my heart for years now. And the guilt.”

  Daire turned back. “Guilt?”

  “I should have tried to stop him before it was too late. Even going to jail would have been better than being gunned down and your mother with him.” He shook his head. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  “No,” Daire replied through gritted teeth. Nausea ate at his stomach. Bile tinged the back of his throat. He swallowed it down. “I don’t believe it.”

  Finnegan shook his head on a sigh. Daire had an almost overwhelming urge to smack the pitying look on the man’s face. But that would be blaming the messenger and that wouldn’t be fair.

  “I know this is hard to hear and even harder to accept. I’m telling you now because I don’t see what benefit there is in digging it all out now. Mahurin’s dead, as is O’Malley. I think Mahurin took over your father’s place in whatever all of this was and that O’Malley was the trigger man. With them gone, what’s the point, Daire, of pressing on with this?”

  The commissioner spoke as if, with the death of those two men, the matter was closed. Daire knew better. The betrayal of Finn’s undercover work, the mountain of evidence of a large network from the stash Diego had found, all pointed to a still-active ring of dirty cops. Maybe Finnegan was blind to it because he couldn’t stand the idea of something so large and bad happening on his watch. “What would you have me do, sir?”

  Finnegan walked up to him and clasped him firmly by the shoulders. “Let it go, son. Leave your parents to rest in whatever peace they’ve found and convince Li to drop the investigation.” His gaze flicked up to the ceiling. “I expect you have some sway over her.”

  Okay, now he really did want to punch the older man. He held not quite a smirk on his face but enough of one to push everything else to the back of Daire’s mind. He didn’t want anyone thinking badly of Parker. It wasn’t the idea that Finnegan might hold Parker in contempt for sleeping with Daire. What really irked him was the insinuation that Parker could be swayed by a lover to fuck up her duty. Time for his guest to leave, so he said what he thought would work best to boot him out. “I’ll think about it.”

  Finnegan patted him on the shoulder. “I know you’ll do the right thing. You’ve always been a smart boy. I’ll leave you to your Sunday.”

  They walked to the door in silence. With a quick salute and a tired smile, Finnegan left. Daire reset the alarm and rested his forehead against the door for a few seconds. The floorboards of the stairs squeaked. He looked over his shoulder at the beautiful woman descending. He had wanted so badly to give her a nice breakfast before reality came crashing down on them again. His heart ached at the look on her face.

  She didn’t hesitate, just walked up and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Are you all right?”

  He pulled her in even closer. “Yeah. No.” What was the point in lying to her? If he hadn’t known before that he loved her, he knew it now. His parents had given him the perfect model of how a good couple worked, and lying, even for the best of reasons, wasn’t something he intended to do.

  Tears pricked at Parker’s eyes at Daire’s quiet admission. She would not fall apart. She just wouldn’t. He needed her to be strong. He deserved that much and more. Pulling away from his tight embrace, she led him over to the sofa and tugged him down to sit. She laced her fingers with his and gave him time to process what had just happened.

  “How much did you hear,” he finally asked.

  “Pretty much everything. When I realized someone was in the house, I figured you wouldn’t want me to come down, but I also wanted to know what was going on. I eavesdropped.” She shrugged, not sure how he’d take the news, yet not sorry she’d done it.

  “It’s true I didn’t want you to come down. Not because I wanted to hide you. I just didn’t want you to feel awkward meeting the commissioner under the circumstances.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, that would have been awkward.” They sat quietly together for a minute or two before she couldn’t help blurting out how she felt. “Maybe he was right. Maybe we should shelve the investigation.”

  Daire stared back at her with his mouth hanging open. “What?” he practically shouted. “No fucking way.” His vehemence took her aback. “Sorry,” he quickly added in a calmer voice, then pecked her on the lips. “I didn’t mean to come on so strong. You just took me by surprise.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.” She gave him a rueful smile. “You didn’t think the Chinese bulldog would say something like that, huh?” When Daire winced, she laughed. “What, do you think that’s the first time I’ve heard myself referred to as that? I don’t let things like that bother me. People are always going to say shitty things.”

  Daire pulled her in close and kissed her on the temple. “I’ll pound the crap out of anybody who so much as looks at you funny.”

  “You’d have to spend the day following me around.”

  “I can think of worse ways to spend my time.” The heated look he gave her made her juices start to flow. She swatted his arm. “Stop that. I’m being serious here.”

  Daire sobered up. “Sorry. I know. But I’m not about to ask you to stop an investigation for me. Why would you even consider such a thing?”

  “Seriously?” Okay, now was the time to fess up what she’d been feeling since finding him wandering his home, obsessively checking that it was safe for her. She shoved her fingers through her hair and looked away. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Try me.” He tucked the tip of his finger under her chin and made her look at him again.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you.” She made her confession in a rush of words, then held her breath for his response.

  He surprised her by kissing her stupid for a few seconds before hugging her. “Good, because I’ve already fallen in love with you.”

  Her breath caught, and her heart skipped a beat. “This is madness,” she said into his shoulder. “People
don’t fall in love this quickly.” Even as she said the words, she melted into his arms.

  “Perhaps not. I just know how I feel, and I’ve never felt this way before.”

  “Neither have I.” She let him hold her as she let herself hold him for a while longer before pulling away reluctantly. “Can you really continue with this investigation knowing where it might lead?”

  Daire closed his eyes. “I have to.” He opened them again. “Wherever it leads, that’s where I have to go. But I’m going to try to keep my brothers out of this until I know for sure what the truth is.”

  “We’ll find it together.”

  “Yes, we will. First, though, we need some breakfast.

  ****

  Daire finished plating the food seconds before the doorbell rang. Friday had rolled around once more, thank God. He’d spent a horrible week not only forcing his attention on his current duties but agonizing over Parker’s well-being. He hadn’t been able to convince her to stay over Sunday night or any of the week days. She’d insisted, quite rightly, that she had to live her life without fear and, as much as she enjoyed being in his company and in his bed, she needed some space. Their relationship had gone from zero to sixty within a matter of days. Not his style and not hers, either. If they stood any chance of something lasting, they couldn’t force physical closeness out of fear.

  She hadn’t objected to one of Ronan’s friends installing an alarm system in her apartment on Monday. And they’d spoken every night, not about the case, though. Instead they’d done what people normally did when starting a new relationship. They’d talked about the things they liked to do, music and movies. Simple yet vital stuff for the newly dating. When they finally hung up, she’d always promise she was fine and not to worry. He’d assured he wouldn’t.

  If he’d gotten two straight hours of sleep at night, he’d be surprised.

  Whatever danger they faced hadn’t gone away. How could it? She continued to work on the murders because that was her current work assignment. The people they chased knew it, too. How could they not? She’d promised she’d let him know as soon as she had something important to tell him. When they’d made plans earlier in the day to meet for dinner, she said she had been working on an angle worth exploring. He’d barely been able to focus on anything else after that. The passage of time wore on him. Thanksgiving was less than a week away, then Christmas would roar into the picture. He worried the investigation would stall in the midst of year end insanity.

  He opened the door to the now-familiar figure of Parker bundled up in warm clothes and ladened with briefcase and a box of files. He tugged the items out of her hands and planted a quick kiss on her mouth in the process. She blinked back at him a couple of times, something he’d come to view as an adorable facial tick when she was holding back emotions, before her lips curved up into a sexy smile.

  “Well, hello to you, too.” As she pulled her coat off, she said, “I’m starving. What’s for dinner?”

  Daire didn’t answer right away. Instead, after closing the door, he watched her steady herself by gripping the newel post of the staircase to unzip and remove her dress boots. Such a simple, perfunctory act, and yet he loved seeing her do it in his house. Loved that she felt comfortable enough there to do it. And he really loved that her socks weren’t simply black, but had white kitten faces on them, too. He stood waiting for her to finish before following her to the dining table.

  “I went with Legals. I hope you like seafood, specifically clam chowder, glazed grilled salmon, basmati rice, and seasonal roasted vegetables. Which means zucchini and yellow squash,” he added, passing by her to put her stuff on the empty end of the table.

  Parker stood next to the food and, leaning over, sniffed. “Hmm, smells wonderful. But you shouldn’t have. Take-out from Legals is pricey.”

  Yeah, it was, but also really good food, and even though this had to be a working dinner, he wanted to treat it like a date. Parker deserved no less, and it had been so long since he’d taken a woman out, the dinner’s cost didn’t matter. He didn’t say any of this, however. He merely shrugged and came over to join her, sitting at the end of the table because she’d taken a seat on the side nearest the living room.

  He snapped his fingers. “Almost forgot, I have white wine if you want some.”

  Parker smiled at him from around her first mouthful of chowder and swallowed. “That sounds wonderful, thanks.”

  Daire popped up and went to the kitchen. Thank God, even nice wines came with screw tops these days. He had a glass of wine in front of her in less than a minute. He took a healthy slug of his own glass before tackling his chowder. By unspoken agreement, they went through the first course and their first glass of wine with little talking and no shop talk at all.

  By the time they tackled the main course, his curiosity got the better of him. “So, what angle have you been working on?”

  Parker’s face lit up with excitement. “It came to me on Tuesday when I was continuing my search on cops from in and around your father’s academy class and trying to match them with the pictures from your, um, stash.” Daire winced inwardly with guilt, but said nothing. “Anyway, it occurred to me that we should come at this from another angle, a potentially smaller pool of people to track down.”

  Shoving her chair back, she got up and headed for the end of the table where her stuff still sat. She rifled through a few files before pulling one out, bringing it back with her, and laying it down between them. She took her seat, picked up her fork, and shoveled some salmon in her mouth. It made Daire smile to see her eat with such enthusiasm. She had obviously arrived hungry, and it gave him pleasure to know he fed her.

  She opened the file and tapped a picture from Mahurin’s stuff with her forefinger. Daire angled his head to get a better view. A young, handsome guy with straggly hair stood at the entrance to a park area, taking a package from another guy. Parker shifted the picture to reveal a police report with a mug shot. The arrestee looked like the same guy in the picture, albeit somewhat older.

  Parker washed her mouthful of food down with a slug of wine. “Meet Johnny Morgan, one of Mahurin’s snitches. I figured those people in all of the pictures you had were either cops or criminals and that some of those might be informants.” She took another sip of wine and looked at him from over the rim. Daire tried not to squirm from the scrutiny. “On the theory that some, if not all, of those were involved with Mahurin, I started looking at his old case files to see if he named any of them. Then I searched the names I found against arrest records in the last eight years.”

  Picking up the arrest report, Daire could only grin and shake his head. “Good angle.”

  “Yes, and one angle you and your brothers could never have followed.” She placed her hand on his arm and looked at him earnestly. “That was always going to be the sticking point for your looking into this. You didn’t have access to the files you’d need to pull the pieces together.”

  Damn, she was right. They’d been spinning their wheels for weeks trying to figure out who Mahurin had photographed. Being in internal affairs gave Parker the necessary access. He looked down at Morgan’s mug shot again. “So, what’s his story?”

  “Low level crook, minor arrests, and never served significant time until about five years ago. Then he gets nailed for drug dealing and gets seven to fifteen years in Walpole.”

  “That makes him easy to find.” Daire shot her a look. “That’s assuming they didn’t arrange for him to have an accident in prison.”

  Parker shook her head. “That’s what I was afraid I’d find out. These guys don’t leave a lot of loose ends. But, as luck would have it, he’s still alive, just not at Walpole anymore.”

  “I don’t get it. Surely they didn’t manage to get him out?”

  “Not exactly. His mother lived in an institution that caters to dementia patients, an upscale nursing home. He paid for her care, but even when he got sent down, she stayed on there for a few more years until she died.”
>
  Daire abandoned the rest of his food in favor of studying the file more closely. “They took care of her,” he said almost to himself. “That’s how they ensured his silence.”

  “Right.” Parker went back to eating.

  “So, why isn’t he still in prison?” He flipped through the file, but Parker gave him the answer before he found anything.

  “Around the time of his mother’s death, Morgan started showing signs of early-onset dementia, just like his mother. About a year ago, he was paroled under a medical need basis and placed in the same facility as his mother. Apparently, a cousin has the means to pay for it and acts as his guardian.”

  “Is it really his cousin?”

  “Yes, another petty crook with a minor arrest record. I’m thinking it’s not the cousin’s money that pays for it, but who knows? Maybe Morgan was smart enough to hide a sufficient amount of his ill-gotten gains to pay for his care.”

  Daire tossed the file down on the table and leaned back in his chair. He grabbed his wine glass and drained it. “Regardless, it still means he’s a dead-end. Like Lahey, he won’t be able to tell us a damn thing.”

  “Not necessarily. Dementia’s tricky. For some people, it’s like falling off a cliff. For others, it ebbs and flows. We might get something out of him.”

  Daire eyed her. “Do you really think so?”

  “I think it’s worth the chance.”

  He smiled at her tenaciousness. He had a personal stake in solving the murders, so no lead was too small or too outlandish for him to follow. That Parker would feel the same way humbled him. The Callaghan clan had lucked out with her being assigned to investigate Forrester and Mahurin.

  Reaching out, he snagged her left hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed her palm, keeping his gaze on hers. Heat flared in her eyes and in his whole body. He wanted her with an aching need that transcended anything else. When she gently tugged her hand free, he worked to hide his disappointment.