Page 48 of Monsters in the Dark

“No other family looked for her?”

“Cristo sulla croce,” Nero muttered. “Will you shut the fuck up and let the man speak?”

“She does have other family, but with no leads and no more police resources, they stopped looking for her shortly after the police had,” Morocco answered. “I’ve got everything on her relatives in case she’s curious.” That surprised me. “At any rate, Cian O’Connell was a tech genius that lived off the grid, his lifestyle funded by a very complicated and sophisticated surveillance program that the United States DOD purchased from him, making him a multi-millionaire with the swipe of a pen and a couple of legitimate signatures.”

“Well…okay…”

“Now, while I don’t know how Keavy ended up in the hands of Cian O’Connell, I don’t have to tell you that he had more than enough money to fabricate a fake birth certificate, which he’d had,” Morocco went on. “Keavy didn’t attend any public schools, but there is a record of her having graduated from high school, though that could have been another purchase like the birth certificate. My guess is that she was home-schooled, and probably by Cian himself. The man was brilliant enough to be considered crazy, but no one cared because he was Einstein smart.”

“What else?”

“The employment history that you have on her is correct, but I’m guessing that’s because she had to finally interact with the real world after Cian O’Connell’s death.”

“He’s dead?”

“Though he had no real activity to speak of, he did have two cellphones in his name, but that changed five years ago,” Morocco replied. “That was the same time that all his money and properties were transferred to accounts under The Bronntanas Dé Corporation.”

The Bronntanas Dé translated to God’s Gift in Irish.

“As I’m sure you know, Bronntanas Dé means God’s Gift in your native tongue, so it could have something to do with Keavy or not, I don’t know,” Morocco said. “However, I’ve compiled a list of all of its financial holdings and properties, and not only is your girl a multi-millionaire in her own right because O’Connell left everything to her, but you might be interested in a property two hours from town, located near the Sherman Curve where her parents died.”

“She’s got a house there?”

“From what I was able to find from my vast resources, it’s a derelict-looking cabin that appears like it’s going to fall down at any moment,” he answered. “At least, to the naked eye. However, if you pay attention, the cabin is capable of withstanding an east coast winter. There’s also an active security system there, though I couldn’t get in. I have no idea how brilliant Cian O’Connell was, but he was intelligent enough to have a complex security system installed at that cabin with limited internet access. He either paid a king’s ransom for that setup, or else he was a lot smarter than the government realized.”

“Why do you say that?”

“If the government had gotten a peek at what he had installed at the cabin, then they would have held him prisoner in the name of national security,” Morocco snorted.

“Is that all?”

“Cian has two guns registered in his name that were never turned over or re-registered,” Morocco said. “Now, while I can’t know this for sure, I have a feeling that he had more that your girl probably inherited, because no one has a security setup like the one at that cabin with no fucking guns.”

As I thought about how Keavy had taken out my men, it made sense that Cian would have taught her to shoot. Plus, her suspected upbringing would explain how and why she’d felt no remorse over protecting herself. Cian O’Connell had probably taught her to be a survivalist if he really had raised her alone in that cabin.

“Anything else?” I asked, ready to call Noah, so that we could get to that fucking cabin.

“Yeah, take more than just Noah Murphy with you to retrieve her,” he advised. “You’ll be in her territory, and it’s surrounded by a thicket of woodland forest. The path to get to the cabin is a hiking trail at best, so she’ll know you’re coming long before she even sees you. You’ll need to take a sharp left at mile marker 148, then approximately one mile inward, you’ll need to take a right curve, not turn. You got that? Not a turn.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I assured him.

“After about another five miles of backwoods bullshit, you’ll take a left turn, then two miles up, you’ll come upon what will look like a narrow hiking trail, but it’s not. Three miles after that, you’ll take a right turn this time, then after four more miles, you’ll reach a clearing, the cabin sits right in the middle of about an acre of inhabited land.”

“Thanks.”

“This makes us even for everything, O’Brien,” Nero said, and maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but as long as Klive Simpson was still around, this wasn’t going to be the end of our little romance.

“Until it doesn’t,” I replied evenly.

“Until it doesn’t,” he echoed, knowing exactly how this game was played.

Nothing more was said as Nero hung up, but nothing else needed to be said. While I still needed to process everything that I’d just learned, getting to that cabin took precedence over dissecting Keavy’s childhood and figuring out just how unconventional she was.

I dialed Noah, and as soon as he answered, I said, “She’s at a cabin about two hours out of town, mile marker 148.”

“Near the Sherman Curve?’

“Yeah,” I answered. “We’ll also need two other men.”

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