Page 87 of Justice for Francesca

“Fionn?” she asked.

“Aye, Frankie, it’s me. Rest, girl. You’re gonna feel like shit for a while. Sorry.”

Pressure was placed on her wrist tied to the arm of the chair, the zip tie briefly cutting into her skin, and then the pressure was relieved. “Here, little sister, drink this.” A bottle of water was shoved into her hand. Someone freed her other hand. She struggled to open the water bottle.

A hand covered hers over the bottle, a second cracked open the seal, and then the person helped her take a few sips of water. There was pressure against the zip ties on each ankle and then blessed relief. Her extremities tingled sharply with pins and needles. She didn’t even have the strength to hold the water bottle, let alone raise it to her lips to drink.

She squinted in the light. Things were slowly getting easier to make out, although the light was making her head march drunkenly to a heavy beat. Three shadows, roughly the same shape and size, stood in an arc between her and the doorway of the office they were in. She looked around and saw a calendar with a Kitty Hawk on it. A statue of a Cessna, some sort of award sat on top of a file cabinet next to the calendar. There was also a series of framed certificates, including a photo of a handsome man shaking hands with the president. She didn’t know who the man was, but he looked friendly.

They were in a private hangar at the airport. That meant they were taking her back to New York City. Or an airborne grave between here and there. “Why?” she croaked.

“Rest,” her brother Rory ordered her. “You’re going to need it.” He turned in profile. “I’ll be back in five minutes, Mannix.Fionn will stall the best he can when Oisin returns, and you may need to run interference.” Rory looked back at Francesca. “Keep drinking. Your stomach won’t want you to, but it will help you push off the effects.”

The two brothers left. Mannix grabbed a roll of duct tape off the desk and tore a piece off. When Mannix walked behind Francesca’s chair, she wanted to dash from the chair to the door, but her limbs were still in too much pain to move, and she knew she’d crash to the floor immediately if she tried. Not only that, but her head was swimming, and any form of movement—even breathing—left her nauseous. Running and having to stop to vomit would just get her caught. She’d have to wait for her strength to return and watch for an opening.

She waited for the tape to come over her mouth, but it didn’t. Instead, he taped something to the back of her chair. Afterward, he went to stand guard at the door, his back to the wall. If the door opened, it would cover his person, almost as if he wanted to be able to hide his presence from someone coming in.

A few minutes later, there was a quick three-tap knock at the door, and Rory reentered. Mannix left the room, leaving her alone with Rory, who checked the water bottle. “Drink some more. It seriously will help. I have zero time for debate, so I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen, or even I won’t be able to help you. I’m going to leave your hands unbound, but when that door opens, you need to put them behind the chair and pretend they’re tied up. I won’t rebind your feet, either, but in a minute or two, you’re going to have to put them back in place, and I’ll have to curl the zip ties back around them so that it looks like you’re still tied up.

“If something happens to the three of us, there’s a knife taped to the back of your chair. Use it. He won’t hesitate to kill you because right now, we are the only reason he’s keeping you alive.”

“What the hell is going on, Rory?”

“You’re in a lot of shit, Frankie.”

“Really, dumbass? What the fuck? I wasn’t bothering any of you.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true, is it? All of our hard work, making sure you and Michael got away, and you go and undo it all by spotting our father in a restaurant. Million to one odds, Frankie, what the hell?”

He gave her a few more sips from the water bottle as he talked. “You might have skated by, but no. Miss Inquisitive had to go and start trying to gather up all kinds of information on the family. You’ve been lucky until recently. We’ve got digital booby traps set on all kinds of computer searches, and had we seen it first, we would have let them go through. Unfortunately, Father saw them first, and he lost his shit.”

The disgust in Rory’s voice was evident. “Fucker’s lost all sense of reality. He’s always been a bit unhinged, but in the last three years, he has become a complete fucking psychopath. His sources told him about you cozying up to Sequeira. Somehow, he thought that meant you were coming our direction, even though you really weren’t. Fortunately, Father underestimated your skill, and your operation finished successfully, but decided as long as you were here, he’d finish the job anyway.”

“Well, clearly, the plan to take me back to New York and welcome me back into the family changed when he took a knife to my side.”

“Yeah. He decided you were too much of a liability since you’d taken down his connection. He’d finally accepted you wouldn’t come back willingly, even if under duress. Removing you would eliminate any possible threat, and maybe it would scare Michael back into the fold. On top of that, he’s got someone inside the FBI helping him out with you. Someone he’sgot dirt on. He put together his plan, murdered the Sequeira girl, got you assigned to this case, and put his plans in motion.”

She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it said aloud. “He’s responsible for all three women who were killed?”

“Yes. He was using them as cover for your murder. Another sign he went around the bend. A fucking bullet or a mugging gone wrong wasn’t enough. He had to get complicated.”

Her heart was breaking. It had been bad enough that the women had senselessly lost their lives, but to be the victim of her father’s twisted obsession over her and Michael made it worse.

“And the three of you? You’re not part of the Dirty McCabe legacy?”

She watched Rory grind his teeth together. “Make no mistake, Francesca. We are not good men. We are everything people think we are and more, but we’ve spent our lives protecting you and Michael so that you could escape it.”

“You ruined our careers with the PD,” she pointed out. “That’s hardly protecting us.”

“Yes, but it got you out of Father’s clutches, didn’t it? At least for a while. And anyone who knew either of you would know that those rumors were bullshit, no matter what the brass was spinning in the gossip mill.” Rory’s attention was diverted by something. He paused as if listening to someone talk. Tapping his ear, he replied, “Copy that. I’ll get her situated.” He tapped his ear again. “Dear old Dad is on his way. Time to get you back into position.”

He took the water bottle from her and tossed it in a desk drawer. Kneeling at her feet, he wrapped the zip ties back around her ankles so that her feet looked bound, the open cuts in the back. Then he positioned her arms behind her, making sure to allow her to feel where the knife was strapped.

“Don’t believe anything we say to him. We’ll sound like we’re with him, but know we will do everything to get you out of here.If shit goes bad, run. Don’t look back. If you have to, use the knife. Seriously, little sister, don’t wait for us, don’t try to help us. Just go. Evans will protect you.”

“Ethan?”

He ignored her question. He whispered his final words to her. “We’re so very proud of what you’ve become. We love you, girl. Be happy.” He kissed the top of her head, then moved behind her to lean his butt on the desk and take on the persona of a guard.

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