Flawless

She patted his red hair gently, reassuringly.

“Kieran, you went there to talk to Gary Benton, didn’t you?” Declan demanded.

She went very still, looking at Danny. “Yes,” she said.

“Kieran, we all love Julie. She’s been our friend since we were children. I don’t like Gary one bit myself, and the way he’s treating her is awful. He’s a total jerk, and we should all be looking forward to the day when Julie is finally rid of him. I should have expected... Well, he was in here this afternoon, right? You don’t need to answer. Bobby O’Leary told me he was. And then you got upset and went to tell him... Well, I don’t care what you thought you were going to tell him. It’s only by the grace of God that you’re alive and well. Kieran—let this be a lesson. Stand by Julie. Be there to listen to her, to hold her hand. Help her make the split final. But stay away from Gary Benton.”

“You’re right,” she said, still staring warningly into Danny’s eyes. He opened his mouth as if he was going to admit the truth. She shook her head and looked up at Declan. “You’re right. It’s just that... He had the nerve to come here!”

“And if he comes again, we have to let him in. And we won’t throw him out unless he starts causing trouble or gets in a fight or something—and there’s no spitting in his food or his drinks, either. All three of you—you and Danny and Kevin, too—are off pursuing careers, which is wonderful. But the bar is my livelihood—and it’s all our heritage and what you have to depend on, too, if life doesn’t work out for some reason. We will not discriminate against anyone, do you understand me?”

“It’s not illegal to discriminate against assholes,” Danny said.

Declan shook his head in aggravation. “Danny!”

“Sorry. All right, if the jerk comes in, we won’t show him the door,” Danny said.

“Kieran?” Declan said.

“Hey, I served him coffee without throwing it on him—or even accidentally spilling a single drop,” she said.

“Good. But in future, stay away from him, let someone else take his order. Please,” Declan told her.

She nodded grudgingly.

“Now go home, kid—you don’t need to be here. Mary Kathleen is on the floor with Danny, and I have the bar. We’re fine. Kevin’s been behind the bar with me, but as soon as things slow down I’ll send him home, since he has an audition tomorrow. So go home. And not to be rude, but I suggest you take a bath.”

The door opened again. It was Kevin this time.

“It’s slowed down. Maybe the crowd was just waiting to applaud Kieran and now they’ve all gone home to talk about her. I’ve got my car, so I can drive Kieran home on my way.”

“I can get home—” Kieran began.

“With me,” Kevin said.

“Declan said you have an audition in the morning. You need to go straight home and get your beauty rest,” she said, smiling. “Although you’re beautiful no matter what.”

Kevin winced. “Men aren’t beautiful!” he said.

“Ouch,” Danny said, laughing. “He’s a manly man, you know.”

“What about you? You have work tomorrow, too,” she reminded him. Danny was outgoing, and despite the problems he’d had in the past, he was a keen historian and the tour company he worked for loved him.

“I’m off tomorrow,” he said. “Sundays and Tuesdays, remember? I’ll help Declan until closing,” he assured her.

She looked away, still uncomfortable that they weren’t telling Declan and Kevin the truth but absolutely certain that she didn’t want to tell them more than what they already knew.

“Well, in my mind, Kevin, you are beautiful!” she said, returning to a safer topic. “And you’ll be great tomorrow. Break a leg.”

“Thanks. And I’m going to my car now, and you’re going with me,” Kevin said.

It would be worse to argue than to go along. She said, “Okay, thanks. I could walk it if I wanted to, and I know the subway like the back of my hand, but a ride from my twin will be nice.”

Kieran stood, hugged Danny and Declan, and then followed Kevin out of the office through the side door. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they walked down the street.

“That must have been scary as hell,” he told her. “How the hell you didn’t lose it, I don’t know. I don’t think I would have coped as well.”

“Thanks—but I think you would have done everything exactly the way I did. We were brought up to do the right thing. Maybe kids remember even more when they’ve lost both parents,” she said.

“We’re not kids,” he said quietly.

He didn’t say anything more until the attendant had brought his car down from the garage nestled in the next block, and then it was only to thank the man and give him a tip. They were parked in front of her apartment before he finally said something else to her.

She moved to get out of the car, but he stopped her.

“Kieran, I don’t know what you told Declan, and I don’t intend to say another word. But I think there’s more to the story of why you were in that store. Something to do with Danny. I don’t even want you to tell me—unless there comes a point when you need to for some reason. Danny is my baby brother, too, and Julie’s also my friend. But don’t go getting yourself into trouble because the two of them have concocted some wild scheme. You’re a therapist now—talk them out of it.”

She leaned over and hugged him tightly. “Best twin in the world,” she told him. “But I swear with my whole heart, I will not get into any trouble with those two, and I’ll make sure they don’t get into trouble, either. I’d like to believe that...”

She hesitated.

“That they learned something from what happened to you today?” Kevin asked her drily. “Never mind—I meant it when I said I won’t make you say anything. You always keep my confidences, so I don’t expect you to break anyone else’s trust. But if you run into a problem again, keep me in the loop.”

“I swear,” she promised.

He nodded and smiled, then watched until she was safely inside her building.

Upstairs, she threw off her jacket and tossed down her bag, then headed into the bathroom to give her face a good scrubbing. When she saw herself in the mirror, she realized stronger action was called for, so she stripped and jumped into the shower.

It wasn’t that late when she dried off, feeling like a new woman, but she didn’t want to see more of herself on the news, and she was exhausted. She lay down to sleep, but her heart kept pounding. She couldn’t deny it. She was worried.

Hiding what she, Danny and Julie had been up to from Declan and Kevin had proved easier than she had thought it would.

But she was dreading the next day and her time with the FBI agent with the dark hair and deep smoky voice and those light eyes that seemed to look into her with the power of an X-ray machine.

* * *

Craig Frasier sat in the office in the near dark, alone except for the skeleton night staff. He’d made Mike go home, knowing that he was being obsessive and not wanting to drag his partner into the pit after him.

He simply didn’t believe that they had caught the thieves they most needed to catch: the ones who killed.

The thieves themselves denied it, and their guns had been fake.

But he understood the desire in law enforcement to believe a case was closed, and a lot of people simply didn’t want to accept the idea that there could be copycats out there—copycats whose MO was so perfect in every detail...except that the guns they carried were real. The prevailing belief was that there was only one set of thieves who, having established that they were willing to kill to get what they wanted, no longer felt the need to carry real guns and had switched to fakes in order to create confusion and make a case for a lighter sentence if they were caught.

The NYPD had made the arrest. The charges would be up to the district attorney’s office. Somewhere the powers that be, whose influence went far beyond his own, were arguing about that right now.

They wouldn’t ask his opinion.