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Here's Chapter Six for you.

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Chapter Six

Don Flack stepped into the silenced, darkened bar, ducking underneath the police tape stretched across the doorway, his footsteps growing, echoing around the room like gunshots.

The flash of a camera ripped through the comforting shadows, illuminating the shattered windows, the wreckage of the bar, ripped apart, torn apart. He could smell the spilled booze, soaking into the furniture, into the fabric.

He could taste the metallic taint, almost hear the shots.

Something glinted in the intermittent light of Danny's camera, metallic and cold, gleaming like temptation.

He stepped carefully over the shell, picking his way through the carnage and shattered glass.

"Hey Flack."

"Danny." He jerked his head back the way he had come. "There's another shell back over there."

"Another one?" Danny took another photograph, the flash tearing through the shadows, harsh and impersonal. "They must have emptied three full clips into this place."

"Yeah." Flack clenched his jaw, his hands in the pocket of his overcoat. The smell of spilled booze was almost overpowering, sweet and nauseating. "You know who owns this place, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"The Auld Man did this."

"Maybe." Danny knelt on the bar room floor, carefully lifting up a spent shell, glancing around the room, the bullets lying scattered like forgotten and discarded toys. "Shit, how many were there?"

"Witnesses make two shooters. Automatic weapons." Flack smiled tightly, grimly. "Said the fuckers wore balaclavas and gloves."

"Shit. Looks like they just stood inside the doorway and sprayed the place." Danny stood, grimacing, his hands on his hips, looking around the bar. "This whole place is a mess of prints and shit. Its going to take time to sort through everything we get. Even then…"

"Most of them are going to be patrons. And God knows how long it is since McCann last actually cleaned this dump." Flack sighed, running his hand through his hair. "I'm going to go down to Bellevue, talk to the witnesses."

"I'll finish up here, get back to the lab and start working through what we've got."

He started to walk out of the bar, stopping at the sound of Danny's voice.

"How many, Flack?"

"Ten wounded." Flack sighed heavily, glancing back at his friend over his shoulder. "Three dead."

xxxXXXxxx

"All rise, People vs. Declan Sean Cassidy, the Honourable Judge Eli Michaels presiding."

"be seated." The judge lifted the charge sheet, holding it at arms length as he squinted at the page, reading it carefully as he waited for silence to fall. "Who have we got here?"

"Jim Steele and Billy Desmond for The People, Your Honour."

"Sean O'Neill for the defendant, Your Honour?"

"Do I hear a petition for bail, Mr O'Neill?"

"Yes, Your Honour." Sean O'Neill swallowed nervously, glancing quickly at the table next to him.

"Do the People have any objections, Mr Steele?"

"We do, Your Honour."

"Mr O'Neill?" The Judge leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, peering at the lawyers in front of him. "Convince me."

"My client is a valued member of the local community, a family man with no criminal record…"

"He has no criminal record, Your Honour, because him and his father intimidate any one in the local community who will speak out against him."

"Nothing has ever been proven against my client, Your Honour. All the People have is these baseless accusations."

"Mr Steele?"

"Declan Cassidy is a dangerous man, Your Honour. Granting him bail is tantamount to giving him permission to undermine the People's case through intimidation and violence."

"I agree, Mr Steele." The Judge lifted his gravel, smacking it sharply against the bench. "Motion for bail, denied. Trial date is set for…ten days from today." He tapped the gravel against the bench again. "Next case."

"Go to Nick." Jim stood, opening his brief case, lifting his papers from the table, throwing them into it carelessly, not really looking at them. "Make sure he knows we're going to need that witness."

"Got it, boss."

"Jim?"

"What do you want, Sean?"

Sean O'Neill swallowed nervously, sweat beading on his forehead, rubbing his hand against the leg of his trousers. "I need your witness list."

xxxXXXxxx

"Ten wounded. Four of them serious, multiple GSWs to the chest and stomach. Two of them are in the OR at the minute." She took a mouthful of coffee, grateful for its warmth, her scrubs still stained with blood. "I don't know when you'll be able to talk to them." She smiled, bitterly, coldly. "Hell, I don't know if you'll be able to talk to them."

He hated it when she smiled like that, tearing at his heart. "What about the others?"

"I don't know what you'll get from them." She brushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear, her fingers long and slender, delicate, fragile. "Most of them are suffering from shock. We had to sedate a couple of them."

"You let me worry about that."

"Detective…Don…what's going on?"

"You know I can't tell you, Katherine."

"Samuel McCann, this…come on, Don. I live in the area. These people…I know them. I need to know, Don."

He sighed, glancing around, stepping closer to her, the smell clinical soap clinging to her skin, harsh and overpowering, clean and brittle. "It's the Auld Man."

"The Auld Man?" She shook her head, strands of her hair slipping loose from its bindings. "But…it cant be. He made peace…"

"He's restarted the feud, Katherine. He's gunning for James McCann."

xxxXXXxxx

"I'm scared, Mr Potter."

"You don't need to be."

"Its not me I'm frightened for." He nodded at the closed door, to the room where his girlfriend and child had disappeared to when Nick had come in for another day of witness preparation. "It's them."

"We can protect them. We can protect you."

"From Declan Cassidy? I work down there. I know what he can do, what he will do if he comes after my family."

"He cant touch you if he's doing life for murder."

"Will you stake your life on that? Will you stake your child's life on that?"

"Look." Nick leaned forward, lowering his voice, making the witness lean closer to him, two close friends having a quiet chat on a cold winters day. "We have a good case against Declan. With your testimony, we have an excellent case. We have a case that can put this sonofabitch away for the rest of his life. And Jim Steele is very good."

"I just…I don't want my child growing up without a father."

"I understand that. But you can tell your child how his father stood tall and helped put a murderer behind bars."

He almost hated himself when he saw the light enter the witness's eyes, imaging that conversation with his child, painting himself as the hero, the pride, the adoration in his child's eyes.

He gave a moment to bask in that light.

"So. You were working on the evening in question.

"I was."

"What time did you arrive for work."

"I arrived for work at 9pm. I remember it was 9, because I looked at…."

"No, no. Not like that." Nick smiled, trying to ease the sting out of the words. "It sounds like you're rehearsed, that you've learned the story off. Juries don't like witnesses like that. Just tell me what time you got there at."

"About 9." He looked at Nick, nervous, desperate for his praise, his reassurance. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah. Much better."

xxxXXXxxx

"Why'd you do it, Pat?"

"I didn't have anything to do with what happened to that old bastard."

Lindsay smiled as she sat down opposite him. "Why are you lying to us, Pat? We got your prints from the scene. We got you and your buddy on surveillance tape following Mr Quinn out into the alleyway."

"More than that, Pat." Angell leaned forward, her smile predatory, hungry. He pulled back, away from her, glancing nervously, worriedly down at the table, his body shaking as he wrapped his hands around himself. "We got your buddy in the other room with another Detective. He's giving you up, Pat. He's giving you up on a murder charge."

"It wasn't like that. It wasn't…."

"So tell us what it was like."

"He owed money. That old bastard, he owed money. If he'd just paid up, he'd still be alive. I wouldn't have had to hit him, he'd still be alive."

"Who'd he owe money to?"

"James McCann."

XxxXXXxxx

"Has ADA Steele spoken to you yet?"

"No." Flack shook his head, leaning against the wall of the crime lab, rubbing at tired, dry eyes. "I've been out on the street a lot recently."

"You get anything from your bar shootings?"

"Danny's still working through what we lifted from the bar, but there's so much he has to eliminate. I don't think we're going to get too much from it." He shook his head again, pulling at his tie. "This is the Auld Man, Mac, I can feel it. He wants McCann."

"And McCann wont go quietly. He'll be looking for revenge."

xxxXXXxxx

Michael walked towards his car, keys in hand.

He stopped, eyes darting across it, innocent and tempting. He put the keys back in his pocket, turning his back on temptation, walking in the opposite direction,

"Where are we going? The car's this way."

"Yeah." He glanced at it, his eyes cold and dark, hard, dismissing it. "We're taking the subway."

End of Chapter Six