“Give us another few minutes,” I hollered back.
“Jesus Christ, we’ve got a damn…” muttered Decker, his voice trailing off.
I shifted out from under Smoke, stood, and picked up the medical supplies the hospital gave us when he was discharged.
“You sure you’re up for this?” he asked.
“I can assure you, I’ve seen far worse.”
“That’s what I thought when the nurse in England warned me about how you’d look after your surgery.”
“And?”
“It nearly broke my heart to see you lying in that bed with bandages on your head and monitors hooked up everywhere. The worst part was that they had you restrained. As soon as she left the room, I untied you.”
“See, Smoke, you loved me then.”
He nodded and then grimaced when I removed the bandages from his back.
31
Smoke
The obvious answer to what was in the safe was it contained evidence that would prove Byrne, and perhaps the other two men who worked for Interpol, was connected to the murder of agents around the globe. Either that or evidence of some other crime he’d committed. Why else would he or someone who worked for him kill Jimmy Mallory?
Siren still hadn’t told me what she learned about her father or of the strange coincidence that he was friends with Jimmy’s dad.
As hard as I tried not to move, when the cold analgesic on the replacement bandages hit my back, I flinched.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Siren, what about your father?”
She sat down on the bed, beside me. “Turns out I followed in his footsteps.”
I couldn’t hide the fact her news stunned me. “He’s with IMI?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“He lost his life while on an op searching for Veronica Guerin’s killer.”
“You were a baby.”
“Not yet born is my understanding.”
“That’s why your mother didn’t list him on your birth certificate.”
“She feared some kind of retaliation.”
“Do you remember her ever talking about him?”
“Never. They weren’t married, although Uncle Gene said they intended to be.” Siren startled when there was another knock on the door. I stood and opened it.
“I think I know where the safe is,” said Deck. “We’re moving out.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Decker looked from Siren to me.
“If you think I’m going to try to talk her out of it, you’re wrong.”
“We don’t have time to move Gene to a safe house,” he said.
I watched the struggle play out on Siren’s face. “I’m not decrepit yet,” I said, nudging her. “Go if that’s what you want to do.”
“I do.”
Her trust in me mirrored my trust in her. I don’t know if she saw it that way, but I did.
I followed them downstairs and walked Siren to the door. “See you on the other side.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me.
“The two of you remind me of her parents,” said Gene once the door was closed.
“Yeah? Siobhan told me that you were able to tell her about her father.”
“Aye. They burned hot as coal, those two.”
I laughed. “Good way to put it.”
“Their love was clear as could be to everyone else, just like yours and Siobhan’s.”
I don’t know what compelled me to confide in Gene, but I did. “I do love her.”
“Does she know that?”
“She does. I know she loves me. The question is, can it be enough? In our line of work, well, you know what happened to her father.”
“Some said at the time that he was killed by the wrong side.”
I raised my head. “Friendly fire?”
“Is that what they call it, then?” Gene shook his head. “Friendly, even though it killed the man.”
I’d heard about too much of it as of late between Beau Rey and the agents killed around the world, murdered by the very men who’d put them in harm’s way in the first place. My assumption was there’d been accidental deaths caused by those fighting on the same side since the beginning of time.
However, my gut told me that Beau’s death was no accident, friendly fire or otherwise. The same was true for every agent who may have died by an order given by Daniel Byrne, Boris Antonov, or Kim Ha-joon.
Siren, Casper, Decker, and Hughes hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when Gene dozed off in his chair. I went to look around Siren’s house. Yeah, I was snooping, but she loved me, so maybe she’d consider it as me just trying to learn more about her.
I wasn’t necessarily a messy guy; I wasn’t home enough to make a big mess. But, Siren? She was a goddamn neat freak. Every drawer I opened in her kitchen was perfectly organized. She didn’t even have a junk drawer that I could find. Who didn’t have a fucking junk drawer?
I went upstairs to the master bedroom and found the same thing. Nothing out of place in her closet or bathroom drawers and cabinets. Even the clothes in her dresser were perfectly folded. It was beginning to freak me out. The woman had to have a room in her house that wasn’t straight out of a Better Homes and Gardens’ photoshoot.
I traipsed from room to room on a mission to find even one thing out of place. When I got to the back of the house, I found another staircase. I climbed the steps and came to a single door at the top. I opened it, thinking maybe Siren kept boxes of crap up here. Instead, the attic room was empty.
“Maybe she has OCD,” I muttered to myself, walking back down. I checked the time as I walked past the master bedroom. I had two hours before I was supposed to take another pain pill, not that I was feeling much pain. The only thing I felt was bored.
How many more years would it be before I was like Gene? Falling asleep in an easy chair in the middle of the afternoon?
I remembered seeing a workout room on the second level and thought briefly about trying to get some exercise. I decided against it, knowing that if I didn’t let my back heal, it would only add to the number of days
