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Terror rips through Michael again.
“Think I’m kidding? My partner, he’s an odd bird. He won’t do it because my brother ordered it, he’ll do it ’cause he likes it. I’d tell you to ask your friend, that small-town sheriff, if I’m exaggerating, but he’s no longer in a position to say.”
Michael’s heart is thumping. His core fills with dread, sadness, that they must’ve taken out Ken Walton. But he needs to push through. His daughter is alone with a sadistic killer. Why isn’t the partner answering his phone?
It’s then he decides. He has to execute the plan. He gets out of the car, heads toward the front of the bank.
Brian rolls down the passenger window. “Don’t fuck around. Get this done. The clock’s ticking.” He taps his watch with two fingers.
Michael holds up the sheet of paper with the new account numbers written on it, then looks around the street to confirm no pedestrians are nearby.
He’s on the sidewalk in front of the bank, past the concrete barriers lining the front. He turns around, surveys the area to confirm no one is in range. Then he makes eye contact with O’Leary, who doesn’t know that Cordes-sur-Ciel financial institutions don’t open until the afternoon.
O’Leary looks puzzled when Michael ducks low behind the barrier.
Protected, Michael pulls the remote detonator from his pocket, flips the protective cap, and presses the button.
66
LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS
Poppy and Chantelle sit under the fluorescent lighting of a conference room in KBI’s offices in Kansas City. Other than a custodian, whom Chantelle greeted by name when he came in to clean the trash cans, they’re the only people still at the office this late.
They’ve spent the better part of the evening running down the lead from the tailor shop, researching the suit’s owner, a man named Patrick Donnelly, known in some quarters as “Dapper Donnelly.” They’ve only been able to discern this much so far from Google and the KBI’s databases: Patrick Donnelly was a soldier in the O’Leary crime family out of Philly. He’d been under investigation for RICO violations, but so was everyone else in the organization. He was never reported missing, but he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth five years ago. They reached out to the cell phone and credit card companies. If the guy hasn’t used a cell or card in the past five years, there’s no question he’s one of the bodies from the car. He’s not in the CODIS DNA database, surprisingly. But his father, Chaz Donnelly, the longtime consigliere to the O’Leary family, did time and his DNA is on file. It won’t be hard to connect the dots if the body in the car is related to the father. Chantelle has reached out to a contact at the FBI to try to gain access to the bureau’s more extensive files and databases.
Chantelle stands, stretches her back. “What do you do for fun?” she asks Poppy.
“Fun? What’s that?”
Chantelle smiles, returns to her chair.
“How about you?” Poppy asks.
Chantelle thinks about this. “I like to go to the Blue Room.”
“What’s that?”
“I thought you grew up here?” Chantelle says, seeming surprised Poppy has never heard of the place.
“I grew up in Leavenworth,” Poppy says, “but we didn’t get up to KC much. Mostly trips to Worlds of Fun.”
This time it’s Chantelle who says, “What’s that?”
“Think Six Flags without the sophistication.”
“Well, that settles it, I’ll have to take you to the Blue Room, and you’ll have to take me to Worlds of Fun.”
Chantelle’s phone chimes and she studies the device.
“Your FBI contact?” Poppy asks.
“Yeah, he says he’ll look into it and get back to me. He has friends in the organized-crime division and they’ll likely have a file on Donnelly.”
Poppy nods.
“What about WITSEC? Do you think they’ll tell us anything?” Poppy asks.
Their working theory is straightforward: Alison and her father were in hiding from the O’Learys. They don’t know why, but for the government to intervene it probably means that Alison’s father was going to testify against the O’Leary organization for something, and that doesn’t often lead to a long life span.