Evan O’Malley was standing there, slim, well-dressed, impassive.
“That’s enough, Mickey,” Evan said. His voice was quiet, but it carried. “You’re making Miss O’Reilly uncomfortable.”
Mickey took a step back and folded his hands in front of his belt. His posture relaxed slightly, but Erin wasn’t about to take her attention off him.
“I apologize if my men alarmed you, Miss O’Reilly,” Evan said, walking toward her. “I fear they’ve given you the wrong impression. I only hoped for a few minutes’ conversation with you, to clear up some potential misunderstandings. I simply thought my car would be a warm and comfortable place to have our discussion. However, if you’d be more at ease at another location, I’m at your disposal. We could step inside your home, perhaps?”
“Here’s fine,” Erin said. She liked the idea of Mickey and Evan in her apartment even less than having them in her garage.
Evan paused. “It’s rather a public venue for discussion, don’t you think? But if you’re certain…”
“I’m okay with this,” she said.
“Very well,” he said. He raised his left hand and snapped his fingers. The front passenger door of the Suburban opened and Carlyle got out. He didn’t look any the worse for wear, but Erin could see the strain on him. Another O’Malley guy climbed out of the back of the SUV behind Carlyle, an unspoken threat.
“Would you join us, Mr. Carlyle?” Evan said quietly. “We’ve just a few things to discuss, and then we can all be on our way.”
Erin’s pistol was still in her hand, resting against her leg. She knew exactly what was at stake here. This conversation would determine whether she, Carlyle, and Evan would all walk away from each other still breathing. Her life quite literally depended on what she said and did in the next few minutes.
And the gun wouldn’t help her. She could shoot Evan, or Mickey, or even try to gun down all the O’Malley goons, but the odds weren’t good, and even if she succeeded, it would only get her in more trouble. She slowly holstered her Glock and leaned against the door of her Charger, trying to appear relaxed.
“Okay, Mr. O’Malley,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
Carlyle stood just to one side of Erin, on Evan’s right. Mickey and his guy approached from the other side, but kept about five yards away. If they were trying to be unobtrusive and nonthreatening, they were failing.
“Several of my friends and associates have suffered recent misfortunes,” Evan said. “A number of lads of my acquaintance are deceased. I’d be grateful if you would share your information on this matter, Miss O’Reilly.”
Erin took a deep breath. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t reveal case information to an organized-crime boss. But these circumstances weren’t normal. She started talking, choosing her words carefully.
“My unit was called to a restaurant in Little Italy which had been the target of a hit. We discovered someone had shot up the place, then firebombed it, killing ten people: three restaurant workers, three representatives of a Colombian drug cartel, and four members of the Lucarelli family. At the time, we had no idea who’d done it. I now know the person behind the attack was Liam McIntyre. He wasn’t there in person; we all knew Liam, and he wasn’t a muscle guy.”
“You got that right,” Mickey grunted. His henchman snickered.
Evan turned his icy blue eyes on the two enforcers, who immediately shut up. Without a word, Evan returned his attention to Erin.
“Liam had learned Marco Conti, AKA Marco the Mouth, was making a heroin deal with Diego Rojas, a representative of a Colombian cartel,” she went on. “Liam used three of his guys: Pat Maginty, Lonnie Burke, and Timothy Newton. He also employed an out-of-town shooter, Siobhan Finneran. It was a competent hit, not counting the collateral damage, but he made a serious mistake. Rojas’s three guys were inside, but Rojas himself wasn’t.
“It’s funny,” she added. “Most bosses don’t like to drive themselves. But it saved Rojas’s life. He hadn’t gone in yet when the place got shot up. By the time he realized what was happening, his guys were dead, Irish gunmen were shooting up the place, it was on fire, and the NYPD was on scene. So he did the only sensible thing; he ran.
“Liam had screwed the deal, but that didn’t get him anything. He wanted to do more than eliminate the competition. He wanted Rojas’s drugs. So he contacted Rojas and let him know he’d be willing to take the drugs off his hands. It was a sloppy deal to offer; Rojas wasn’t an idiot, and he figured Liam had been behind the attack. Rojas also knew his bosses back in Colombia weren’t going to be happy.
“Rojas and Liam screwed each other. Rojas got a bead on Liam and started hunting him, but in the process, he got his drug shipment ripped off. Now he had no product. The only way he’d survive his own organization’s revenge was if he took Liam down.
“I didn’t know any of this at the time. Liam helped me with a tipoff earlier this year.” Erin nodded to Mickey, who’d been present at that meeting. “So I figured he might know something about this situation. Carlyle set up a meeting for me. Unfortunately, Liam spooked, thinking I was after him, and ran out of the meet. Even more unfortunately, Rojas was waiting for him outside. We know how that came out.”
Evan nodded, keeping his eyes on Erin. “So you went to Liam’s flat,” he prompted.
“That’s where we found Rojas,” Erin agreed. “He shot it out and ran, but we grabbed him. He’s in custody.” She hoped that was still true. “From him, I learned about the other members of Liam’s squad. We started watching them, in case there was
