Kieran winced at that. She wasn’t fond of police intervention herself, even though her new position would soon have her working with them often enough. While her oldest brother, Declan, had become a completely respectable citizen, her other brothers—her twin, Kevin, and their baby brother, Daniel, who was a whole year younger—still had “friends” involved with various street gangs. They were trying to go straight, but it was easy to fall back into their old ways. She’d had some bad times herself during her teenage years. Like Declan, however, she’d known that things could spiral downward, so she’d gone to college, majoring in criminology and specializing in criminal psychology. In a sense she was paying for her past—and making her past pay.
They’d never done anything too terrible. Declan had made some “deliveries” for the McNamara clan, an Irish family that had challenged the Garcia gang. But after their father’s death, he’d decided he was going to be the head of a family that would live and thrive and succeed in NYC. Kevin had hung out with the O’Malley family, really just a loose connection of thugs. High-school stuff. Danny had actually joined the Wolves, another loose-knit group proudly based on the TV show Dexter, but without the murders. They stole from those who stole from others, sweeping up their cell phones and hacking their computers in turn. He’d come the closest to being in real trouble when a rival group had caught him and some hackers at the school library and started a massive brawl.
Kieran remembered a time when life had seemed good and normal, even though they’d lost their mother when they were young. Then their father had died almost ten years ago. Declan had been in college at the time, and he’d felt the weight of responsibility for his siblings and to family tradition. He’d gone straighter than an arrow. Kieran, who’d only gotten occasionally involved with computer hacking and a few minor thefts, quickly followed suit, graduating from high school with stellar grades. Declan had made clear to his younger brothers that he had zero tolerance for bad behavior, so they’d realized they had no one to bail them out of serious trouble and struggled to keep their noses clean. They’d been doing that, as far as she knew. The problem with Kevin and Danny was that they both believed in justice—their version of it—even when the law didn’t.
“Kieran, are you there?”
“Yes, yes, and I want to hear the end of the story.”
Julie laughed softly. “It’s good. I promise you, it’s good.”
A sense of unease began to stir in Kieran. “Julie, just tell me, what did you do?”
“Did I mention that whoever he’s fooling around with left her thong in the bed? My bed?”
“Yes, I know, and that’s deplorable. But what did you do?”
“I got over the crying. I don’t want you to think I did anything crazy because I was crying hysterically or out of my mind with grief or anything.”
At that, Kieran’s reaction went from unease to real concern. She looked up, forced herself to flash a smile to Bobby, refilled his glass and asked Julie to hang on for a minute.
She stopped trying to do anything useful; she had to concentrate on this conversation. She headed to the end of the bar, out of earshot of everyone else, and leaned against it. “Julie, what did you do?” she asked again.
“I was very nice, actually. His boss called the house, asking if I knew where he was. I said I didn’t. Then I went and bought doughnuts and take-out coffee, and brought them down to the store.”
That sounded nice so far. In Gary’s business, client and coworker relationships were important, because the amounts of money clients spent and the employees’ commissions were so high that cooperation literally paid. After all, better that the proceeds were shared than never earned at all. Julie was well liked by Gary’s friends and coworkers. She was quick to assist when asked and enjoyed role-playing—pretending keen interest in a piece of jewelry when a possible buyer was studying it. In the process, she’d learned a fair bit about how to judge the quality of diamonds.
But Julie hadn’t gone down to the store to be nice; Kieran was certain of that. “Julie, what exactly did you do after that?” she asked.
“I handed out doughnuts. I apologized to his friends and coworkers for the fact that he hadn’t been showing up when he was supposed to, and I explained that they’d have to find whatever woman he was sleeping with to know where he was. I saw his boss last. I asked him to save one glazed doughnut with a hole in it so Gary would have a place to put his dick in case one of his new girlfriends got wise to him.”
“That was it?” Kieran asked.
Julie giggled. “Oh, no. I want him to really hurt.”
“So then?”
“Well, then they acted all awkward and said how sorry they were. I just said, well, it was over, and how much I liked all of them, but I wouldn’t be able to come in and pose as a potential customer anymore.”
“And that was it? Right?”
“Well...almost,” Julie said. “You have to understand, Kieran. I wasn’t stupid about this. I was calm and charming. I’m so ready for all of this to be over.”
“And that’s good. Close the door. Start fresh.”
“You remember, don’t you, how I didn’t even want to get married right away?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I wanted to go to California and earn my master’s. Take some time. He talked me into getting married.”
“We all make mistakes, Julie. But back to what you did...” Kieran hesitated. “So you left the shop and that was it,” she said hopefully.