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“Yesterday,” I said, with growing irritation. “Listen, I know you’re probably breaking the friendship code or whatever, but I need to know—”
“Danny.” The air was suddenly quieter around Sara, as though she’d ducked inside somewhere or had gotten home. “I need you to fill in the blanks here. What about Lia yesterday? Did something happen?” Her voice was pitching up in anxiety and my own followed. “I haven’t seen Lia since the beginning of the week.”
I had to grab the wall to keep from falling over. Fear pummeled through me, and I shook my head. “She did lie to me.”
“She’s a fucking terrible liar,” Sara chided. “How could you fall for that?”
“Because she saw Mickey Weiss yesterday and I thought she was upset—something with her mother. She said she was going to see you.”
“What the hell, Lia,” Sara muttered. “She lied. She didn’t see me. She hasn’t even called me. We’ve texted a few times, but it all seemed normal.”
We were both quiet for a few seconds.
“So, you figured out the connection with Mickey and her mother, huh?” Sara asked in a dull tone.
“Something like that.”
“Is Lia okay otherwise?”
“Yes,” I said, even though it felt like a lie. “Listen, is there anything you can think of—why she would lie?”
“Maybe she just needed some space to clear her head.”
“Sara. Come on. If you know something…”
“I just… Okay, Lia filled me in on everything. And I just mentioned how I found it concerning that the cop—Mickey—mistook Lia for her mother. I think I said something to Lia about being worried about how Marina was connected to the mess you all have her in.”
“Lia got herself into this, Sara,” I said in a brittle tone. “Believe me, I didn’t want a civilian anywhere near this.”
“How noble,” Sara replied. “I see that worked out well.” She heaved a sigh. “I also told Lia that Marina’s death made no sense.”
My heart began to pound. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… Marina ‘Fierce’ Fioreno committing suicide out of nowhere? Does that make sense? Or does it make more sense that one of the crime families she was going after decided to take care of her?”
A hollow, ringing sensation filled my gut.
Hendrix.
“And Daniel, I shouldn’t even tell you this, but you’re smart enough to start putting it together—I’m pretty sure that one of the criminals that Lia’s mother was after was Ty. I mean, she was working with Weiss and your enemy wanted their intel to take down your cousin.”
“We don’t hurt women,” I said in a quiet voice. “Even if Ty had somehow gotten wind of Marina, he wouldn’t have hurt her. We would’ve opted for stealing the intel or something. And he didn’t know. We didn’t know about any of this until a month and a half ago.”
“But didn’t you also go to pretty extreme lengths to protect your cousin—your family? You’ve told me you have no idea how far you’d go.”
“We don’t hurt women.”
“Sure, Danny.”
“Our enemy does, though,” I said in a quiet voice, almost speaking at random as the pieces clicked into place. Hendrix wasted the lady cop, he went after Volksov, and then Lou Goldin got taken in by theSons of Celt. Hendrix had probably leaned on them or persuaded them to give him a chance. He’d been tying up loose ends. But I doubted he knew about the daughter or even worried about it.
“And Ricky is in theSons, too. Shit. It all makes sense. He must have somehow missed Lia. Or just didn’t give a shit, because he’s such a prick.” I dragged a hand over my face. “This is bad. If we have no proof that Hendrix killed Ivan, how are we going to prove he staged the suicide of a cop over a year ago?”
“Let me help,” Sara said and something in my chest ached. “And Daniel, you should talk to the cop. Especially, if you brought Lia there yesterday and she’s acting weird.”
“I’m at the hospital, down the hall from his room,” I admitted.
“Good boy,” she said and for a second, there was a sense of unity, of teamwork that was so intoxicating, I almost asked her to come down here and join me. “And good luck.”
