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“I know. But he’s an important client to me. To us.” Michael doesn’t add a scary client. “And the universe rewards kindness.”
She gives a half eye roll. Then her gaze returns to his.
He doesn’t break away.
She lets out an exaggerated sigh, then jabs her chopsticks into the bowl. “Fine. But I get the last shrimp roll.”
Later, Michael sits in his home office behind the stack of papers he lugged home with him. He’s tempted to get some work done but decides to take the night off. Nothing here can’t wait. He heads over to the bar cart. Pours himself two—what the hell, three—fingers of Scotch.
He takes the first drink, the booze hitting his sinuses. He takes another, picks up the phone, and makes the call.
“Mr. O’Leary, it’s Michael Harper.”
“Michael… Hold on a sec.” O’Leary tells someone he needs a minute, clearing the room so he can take the call in private.
“I’m back.”
“I spoke to my daughter. I’m sorry I don’t have much to report. She hasn’t met Anthony yet, and hasn’t heard anything.”
Silence.
“But she said she’s going to reach out. She’s been at the Academy for a long time and knows lots of kids. She’ll help him meet some people.”
“That’s kind of her. I owe you both.”
Michael doesn’t protest again about the debt. In O’Leary’s world, he knows, no one does anything for free.
“She’s happy to do it. When my wife died, Taylor had a rough go of it and I felt really powerless.” It’s odd sharing this with O’Leary for so many reasons. “But the good news is that kids are resilient and get through things.”
“I won’t forget this,” O’Leary says. Then the phone goes dead.
Michael takes another pull of the drink. The chore is done. He feels a pang of guilt bringing Taylor into even the periphery of Shane O’Leary’s world. But it’s not like Anthony O’Leary has anything to do with his father’s business. He catches a figure in the doorway.
“Dad…”
“Hey, sweetheart, what’s up?”
She walks slowly to him. Head down.
“Something wrong?”
She bites her lip. “It’s about Anthony O’Leary.”
Michael feels his guts roil. “What about him? I just spoke to his dad. Told him you didn’t—”
He’s interrupted when Taylor thrusts a phone into his hand. It displays a video.
He feels his pulse accelerating as he watches.
“Oh shit.”
17
LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
Fatheads is part pool hall, part dive bar. And obviously named before the world got enlightened, or too sensitive, depending on your worldview. When Poppy enters there’s a momentary silence like the patrons are taking note. It’s a cop and corrections officer bar, but she’s a new uniform in town. There’s the requisite pool table with burly men cracking eight. A dartboard. Those neon beer signs. Mumbled laughter, she suspects directed at her.
She scans the room. There are few women in the place. Her gaze stops on a heavyset man at the pool table with two other dudes. He looks much as he did in the Missouri River Killer interrogation video. He wears a flannel shirt even though it’s summer.