He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I figured that.”
I got out of my chair. Our names were on a fucking O’Sullivan hit list. Fuck. I needed a drink. Crossing the room to the stocked bar, I poured us both a triple serving of single malt and passed him a glass.
“What kind of dirt is bad enough to get him to back down?” I asked.
“Honestly? That fucking body in the freezer, for starters. If I’d known the situation could turn this fast, I would’ve taken a fucking picture, figured out who O’Sullivan killed, and hang that shit around his fucking neck.”
“I don’t know about that,” I disagreed.
He sat up, leaned forward so his elbows rested on his thighs. “Trust me, it’s the only language those fuckers speak. We’d need to put a few copies of that photo on lockdown for safekeeping, not trade it. The only way he’ll back down is if he believes that killing us will bring more trouble to his door.”
“We don’t have a pic, though.”
“That’s why we need to find more dirt. Questionable financials, unusual real estate deals, anything that’ll put him in the hot seat if the wrong people find out.”
I stared at my best friend as he took a sip of his drink.
Going on a hunch, I flipped open my laptop, slid back into my chair. O’Sullivan wasn’t my client, but considering all the familiar faces at the party, I figured one degree of separation was more than enough to go on. One by one, I put in the names of every guest I’d spoken to last night, cross referencing it with Shamus O’Sullivan. Nothing came up, so I dropped his first name and did the search again.
One name popped up in my search results.
I studied the name intently for a while, and turned the idea over in my mind. Rotating my chair, I gazed blankly out the window. Why didn’t I think about him before? Liam O’Sullivan. Everything I’d heard about this relative—a nephew—of Shamus’s pointed to him being nothing like the rest of his extended family.
Liam and I had referred business to each other, and there were never any problems or unhappy customers reporting back on a poor experience. No word of shady deals or any impropriety at all. He was clean. But was blood thicker than water for this guy? How deep did their family loyalty go? If I reached out to Liam, would his next call be to rat me out to his uncle?
“Bingo.”
I sat with one arm outstretched to my desk phone and my palm inches from the handset, weighing the risks.
“Bingo? What do you have?”
My lips parted as I began to speak but my phone chirped just then. Then it went off again.
“Hang on a sec,” I told Leo, eyes glued to my phone screen, which blew up with message after message from one client after the other out of the blue.
He eyed me, taking a long swig of alcohol as he waited. “You’re the man of the hour. Is that all one person stalking your ass, or several?”
“Several. A lot, but not stalkers. Clients.” Opening the text app, I read the first few before replying. They were from many of my top clients, each asking the same basic question in one way or another. They’d all heard about the Upper West Side shooting, somehow, and each of them wanted to know if I was okay, which by extension, was the true purpose of their call—the question of whether or not their information was still secure. “Something strange is going on. Word’s gotten out to them about the shooting.”
“What?” Leo asked, setting down his glass. “Already?”
“They’re scrambling to find out if their fucking secrets are still locked up tight.”
“Are they?”
I gave him a dark look. “Of course.” I logged onto my company’s secure server and did a quick scan diagnostic. Everything was in order. “Yep. All good.”
“Hang on a second,” he said, holding up a hand. “First of all, how would they know where you were, let alone at a shooting? And second, how in the fuck would they know to reach out to you at the same time?”
I dropped my phone onto the desk, leaned back in my chair. “I have no idea about your first question, but I’m guessing the shooting made the news somehow, and my name could’ve been mentioned.” I swiveled toward my laptop and pulled up an internet browser, did a quick search of my company name. There was nothing new on the alerts, but on my name, my personal name, a few local news articles included me in their coverage of the shooting.
“Leo, get over here and take a look at this.” I pointed to the small screen.
He was at my side in an instant, reading over my shoulder as we took in the media coverage about me. The details were vague, most of them noting something to the effect that I was seen in the general area of the Upper West Side shooting, that I was possibly the target of a hit, and as far as reports received, I was fine.
“At least they didn’t report that your ass is dead,” Leo said, his face stern as he sank back into his chair again. “What the fuck do you think that’s about?”
“No fucking clue, man.” I leaned back, folding my arms as I tried to piece it together.