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“He was asking questions,” Sneddon said. “Something going on with the council.”
“How do you know?”
“They were arguing about it.”
“They? They who?”
“Him and Lupe.”
The housekeeper.
“Thought she wasn’t there that night.”
“She wasn’t, not later when… They were arguing at shift change, Horton said they’d been at it a while before I got there. Then Lupe stormed out, said she wanted no part of it. Said…”
His hesitation came with a dip of his chin. Familiar Side Guy grabbed Sneddon’s hair to wrench up his head while Stranger hit him again.
And it was then she got the overkill of operatives. Conn wanted her guys to protect her. Her trio were there to protect and support her. She was their mission. The two new guys were for Sneddon’s benefit; they were her supplemental thugs tasked with intimidation.
“Said what?” she demanded. “What?”
“That he was going to get himself killed.” His breathing was ragged. “She said it wasn’t his business that he was too used to being in control. That he wasn’t invincible.”
“How did you hear this?”
“Horton and me were on the first floor. They were up the stairs. Arguing in the hall.”
So their words carried down the staircase.
“Did she name any names?”
“No, that was it, then she left.”
“She isn’t in the access log.”
“She never is, hardly ever. She hates all the technology stuff, always complained about it.”
“I don’t understand. Security on the door, the camera, it takes a picture every time—”
“She goes in the back.”
“The back?”
“You want to know anything about the alderman, Lupe’s the only one who’d know. She knows everything.”
“I didn’t know there’s a back way. He has a yard, then there’s a service alley—”
“There’s a tunnel, from back in Prohibition days. Needs a key, nobody has it, just her, not even your grandaddy. One place we were told never to monitor, her pantry entrance. Old man gave her whatever she wanted.”
“Why would he—” The woman in his life, the constant. His anchor. “Shit.”
Daly’s voice came lower. “Same reason the boss gives you whatever you want.”
Her grandfather’s great love? The household staff. Lachlan was accepting while her dad would go nuts. No shock there, on either score.
“Why didn’t you tell this to the cops? I read your witness statement, and you didn’t mention the argument, or her leaving…” or the secret entrance. What other secrets were being kept? “Why lie?”
“You want to get a job in this town, you’ve gotta prove you’re no snitch.”
