AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Took off. Haven’t seen him since.”
“Why do you think Cedar was involved?”
“Putting it together after the fact. Those two kids were thick as thieves. Would pull pranks, most of which were Cedar’s idea. Started a damn urban legend with that fucking turkey. They got older, and they were inseparable. You know the type, seeing one without the other was strange.”
Killian did know the type. His parents had that. Cedar had too, and she lost it. “You never brought him in.”
“No.”
“But you know where he is?”
“How do you know that?” Donnelly demanded.
“A hunch.”
Silence followed before he muttered, “Good hunch. Yeah, I know how to find him, but there are extenuating circumstances.”
“And they are?”
He exhaled in frustration. Killian understood that sharing information with a stranger on an ongoing investigation was unorthodox, but Cedar was here now, and the only way he could protect her was to know all of it. “You’ve verified who I am. I can’t help her if I’m in the dark.”
“I know.” Another exhale. “Kenneth Callahan was laundering money for the mob, using dummy corporations he’d setup. At the time of his death, he was laundering close to twenty million dollars, money that never found its way back to the mob.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“He was working with someone,” Killian deduced.
“Yeah, and when he died, this partner decided to take the cash.”
“Do you know who?”
“Yeah, but getting to them is proving very difficult because they have friends everywhere.”
Killian resisted the urge to drag a hand through his hair. “Dirty cops.”
“And DAs. I bring Brock in, he’s dead before he gets to lock up. We’ve kept Cedar out of it, as much as possible. I don’t think they’re looking for her because she was here. If they wanted her, they would have snatched her up here.”
Killian agreed, but someone had been watching her.
“There’s something I never told her. It didn’t seem like information she needed, but…” he paused, before he added, “Brock called her parents that night for help—”
“They were killed on their way to him,” Killian added and dragged a hand through his hair because what a fucking burden to carry. He didn’t even know Brock, but what a thing to have hanging over you. “Appreciate the transparency, Detective.”
“Cedar has been through enough. She’s finally ready to move on. I’d hate for anything to get in the way of that. The kid deserves some peace.”
She wasn’t a kid anymore, but, yeah, she did deserve some peace. He’d be damn fucking sure she got it. “Thank you, Detective.”
“You need anything, just call.”
“Will do.”
Killian disconnected the call and then called Johnny. It was probably nothing, but it couldn’t hurt to be thorough.
“Hey, Boss. I was just going to call you. Frank was at The Barrel the last few nights. Got a few people who saw him. And according to the bartender, who knows Frank pretty well, he quit smoking a couple years ago.”
If it wasn’t Frank watching her place then who the fuck was it? “I’m going to send you an email. Can you track where it originated?”
