Hello all!
So here is the second chapter to this story, it took me a while to finish and get it read by my beta but it is done now.
Thank you to my reviewers:
SaintlyMeCan't wait for more! This is really great so far!
Thank you and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well.
Vivian AlexandraMORE MORE MORE! Lol it's great love it. More!
Your wish is my command, so here is the more you wanted.
Rea JosetteThis was great so far! I can't wait for more, I'm so excited to read a romantic story in this category! I look forward to reading your next chapter and hopefully that will be soon. Heather
Glad you liked is, and I do tend to create some romance I just haven't figured out all the details just yet.
anonymous I like this story, I hope you continue it. I wanna know what happens.
Well keep on reading and you will most definitely find out.
Chapter Two: The next day.
"The wound is for you, but the worry is for me."
At exactly five minutes past 7 a taxi stopped in front off the building where Tara lived. Murphy helped Connor out and the both of them looked up.
"You ready for this?" Connor asked looking at Murphy again.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Murphy said hoisting his brother up against his own body a bit more.
Opening up the door to the building they each saw the stairs that were there and the obvious lack of an elevator. Connor let out a groan and Murphy swore in a way that would have made one of the nuns at St. Lucy's draw a cross.
Tara stood looking at the folding bed in the corner and the stack off sheets on top of it. What was she doing? She had always had a weakness for the reverent mother, but this was crazy! She was going to have two men in her house she knew nothing about. She walked over to her bedroom and checked the drawer containing her extra gun. Her other was safely strapped to her belt on her back, concealed by her shirt. Tigger was skulking round, like he knew that there was something coming.
Murphy practically dragged Connor to the door as he tried to wipe the sweat of his face with his free hand. "She just had to live on the 5th floor!" He sighed as he leant against the wall.
Connor just sighed in response, the way up the stairs had tired him out in a way he had never imagined.
Murphy took a deep breath and then knocked on the door.
Tara looked at the bed once more and then went to open the door, as she did Murphy and Connor practically fell in.
"He needs to lie down." Murphy said pointing at his brother.
Tara gestured to the couch and Murphy lay Connor on it before looking up at her again.
"What is wrong with him?" Tara asked giving Murphy a pillow to place under Connor's head.
"He…… His…… He hurt his leg." Murphy eventually said. He did not want to tell her the truth. Connor and he had decided to keep her in the dark as much as they could. Even though the reverent mother had spoken highly about her, there were only very few people they would trust and fewer of them were police officers.
"Ok." Tara said looking at him with her eyebrows raised, if he thought she would be less suspicious now he was way off base.
Before she could say another word her cell-phone rang, she walked to the kitchen to grab it off the table.
Murphy sat down in one of the arm chairs and looked round the room, just as his eyes glided over the couch a big ginger cat jumped on the edge of it. Glaring at him it sat down like it was its throne.
Murphy looked at it, it had a fat body and it's hairs stood in each direction but the same. The cat's face looked like it had a run in with a door, the door having come out the victor as the cats face seemed to be as flat as could be. "Man you're ugly, what is your name then huh?" He asked not taking his eyes of it.
"His name is Tigger, I have to go out for a while." Tara said walking back in from the kitchen. "So much for my night off." She said grabbing her jacket of the back of another chair. "There is food and drinks in the refrigerator I might be late. If there is anything you need me for my cell umber is next to the phone."
Tara closed the door behind her with mixed feelings, those guys were now in her house on their own. She had removed anything she thought was wrong for this situation and for the first time in years she didn't even have so much as a beer in the house.
She looked at the door once more and then made her way down the stairs, her car was still at the station so she was going to have to walk over there first.
Murphy watched her as she walked out of the door with those last words. Tigger jumped of the couch and made his way to Murphy's feet, just as Murphy leant down to pet him Connor opened his eyes.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, remember what happened the last time we got to close to a cat?"
Murphy looked up with a grin. "Technically that was Rocco's fault, if he hadn't hit the table…" He paused at the memory and shook his head.
"Yeah well I don't think Tara would take loosing her cat as simply as Donna did." Connor said looking at him.
"Aye." Murphy said smiling some more.
"But then again she doesn't look like the type that uses drug either. I wonder what exactly she does at the police." Connor said, his face mimicked his thoughts.
Tara looked round the office she was standing in, chalk outlines marked the floor where the body's had been lying. "So what happened?" She asked looking at the investigator picking bullet casings of the floor.
"What does it look like? They had a tea party and the tea cosy blew up!" The man sarcastically said.
"No need to get all touchy here." Tara said crossing her arms.
"Sorry it's been a long ass day and it looks to become an even longer night, this place is a mess. I've got casings from at least 9 guns, only four off which are of the same make. I have been at it since they cleared the bodies out, but I reckon I have a good few hours left before I have catalogued the whole scene." The investigator returned to his work and Tara walked over to a uniformed officer standing in the corner.
"You found them?"
The young man looked at her, he was a white as a sheet. "I…I did." He said in a weak voice.
"Ah a first timer, please tell me you have a partner." Tara said recognising a rookie who had just seen his first dead. The guy nodded and pointed towards the door, where an officer she knew at Tommy Shannon walked in. "Shannon, what happened?"
"A derelict office building with four cars parked outside it for two days is bound to get you a call. We got here and found five of them on the floor shot to bits. Junior here didn't take to well to that." Shannon showed a smile as he nudged his head toward the rookie she had talked too. "So we called in the coroner, the investigation guys and you lot." He gestured round the room.
Tara looked at him again while a fellow detective handed her five pictures, she skimmed through them and smirked a bit. "The shit is going to hit the fan now, these guys are all Tony Scoresy's men. I'm not talking pion's either, these are some of his heaviest hitters." She handed the pictures back. "The captain is just going to love this!"
"Actually detective I am not having that much fun!" Her captain boomed behind her. "We need to find out what happened and we need to do so now! If Scoresy even suspects another collective or syndicate had anything to do with this, people are going to start dropping like flies." The captain leant against the desk as he looked at her.
"Why are you staring at me? There are more of us you know." Tara said knowing what was going to come.
"Yeah but you are the mob expert." He answered back, air quoting the word mob.
"Look I just got here, all I can tell you now is that these guys." She grabbed the pictures out off the other detective's hand and threw them on the desk. "Are not your basic number runners, they came here with a purpose. Now I can go out and squeeze every informant I have but still I might just have a hard time getting any information. If these guys came together they did so for a special reason, they all run a different part of Scoresy's operation. They don't work together at all!" Tara was frustrated, as she would get when not in the know of what could have happened.
The investigator got of his feet and put his tools down for a moment. "All I can tell you is that who ever did this was good. As far as I can tell it was an open-the-door-shoot-everything-you-can-hit job. But they did take the time to close the eyes of the dead and place pennies on them." He put his hand in his case and pulled out an evidence bag which held coins. "I have been on the job long enough to tell you that your basic mob hit man doesn't do that. Some off the more classy ones might, but they would never go for the approach used here."
Tara took the bag and looked at the coins, this sounded familiar but she couldn't place it. "Chances of prints?" She asked.
"Slim too none, I can tell you where each off the other guys has been without a problem but the shooter or shooters is a different story." The investigator shook his head.
"Oh isn't that just great! Call me when you get something definite." Tara said handing him back the coins as she started to walk out.
"Where are you going Callahan?" The captain demanded to know.
"I'm going to squeeze some dirt." Tara said looking back for a split second.
Murphy put the remote control down and looked at Connor as he lay there with his eyes closed. His face was flushed and every now and then he flinched of pain. He had moved his brother onto the folding bed, hoping he would be a bit more comfortable.
Although he would not admit it if asked he felt helpless, Connor was in pain and there wasn't much he could do about it. He sighed as he leant back again, Tigger was spread out on the couch beside him and purred a bit. Raising his hand to take a drink from the can in his hand he looked at the red colour of it. He needed a stiff drink and all he had been able to find was a soda.
There was a thud a mans body hit the wall. "Mario, now you know I really don't like it when you lie." Tara grunted at the guy she was holding onto. It was a good thing this snitch was a feeble little shit or she would have never been able to do this.
"I swear on my mother I have no idea what you are talking about!" Mario said looking at her, little pearls of sweat on his face.
"Come on Mario! The top shelf of Scoresy's men get bumped off and you are telling me no one knows why!" Tara tightened her grip, trying as best she could not to breathe in too much of his nauseating cologne.
"They don't! Word on the street is that Scoresy is pissed as hell and he is pulling out all the stops to find who ever did it, but no one knows!" Mario sounded closer to whimpering than to speaking.
Tara lowered him to the ground, this was her third informant and none off them had more news then that Scoresy was pissed and no one knew who was responsible.
"Can I go now?" Mario asked hesitant looking at her as he pulled his shirt back in place.
"Yeah, but remember…" Tara started but Mario cut her off.
"As soon as I hear anything you will be the first to know." He said hastily making his way towards the end of the ally.
Tara sighed, this was getting her nowhere, she would just go back tot he station and check if the reports for the coroner had been done yet. Then she would go home.
Murphy looked at the phone again as for the 5th time that night it rang. He wondered if he should pick it up. He shook his head and decided not to, who ever it was they would call back. As soon as the phone stopped ringing he walked over and pulled the cord out off the wall, not wanting it to ring again and wake up Connor, who had finally fallen a sleep.
Murphy had taken off his shirt and was spread out over the couch, he had been trying to fall asleep but had yet to succeed. He sighed and closed his eyes again when he heard the click of the lock. Thinking it was Tara returning he got up.
Tania walked through the door of Tara's apartment, the lights were off so she might not be there. She had decided to come over after she had finished her shift, to see why the phone had gone dead. She hit the light switch and walked in only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight of the half naked guy in front off her.
"Who the fuck are you!" She grabbed her backpack and pulled out a small canister.
"I could ask you the same thing." Murphy said looking back at her, he moved his foot slightly to see if his bag was still there, the bag that contained his guns.
"Where the hell is Tara?" Tania asked walking in slightly.
"She went out for a while." Murphy answered following her every move.
Tania surveyed the room and then saw a second person on the foldout bed. "And who the hell it he!"
"Look why don't you just calm down………" Murphy said raising his hands slightly and looking at her.
"Screw you! I wont calm down until you tell me where Tara is and who the hell you two are! Don't even think about moving this is pepper-spray!" Tania said while moving to the chest of drawers close to her, is she wasn't mistaken Tara kept a spare handgun in there.
"What are you doing?" Murphy asked still looking at her.
"Just stay where you are." Tania said looking at him and then at the drawer.
Tara walked up the stairs and heard voices, she first thought that her neighbours were having a fight again but then she recognised Tania's voice. Quickly she started to run up the stairs. Walking in on Tania still holding the can and Murphy looking at her.
"What is going on?" She asked looking at the scene in front of her.
"You tell me!" Tania asked looking at her. "Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to call you all night! And who the hell are they?"
"Put that down." Tara said pointing at the can in Tania's hand. "They are staying with me for a few days. Murphy meet Tania." Tara said looking from Murphy to Tania.
"They are staying for a few days?" Tania asked looking at her best friend. "Can I talk to you for a second?" She nudged her head toward the kitchen.
Tara followed Tania into the kitchen and sat down in a chair.
"What is going on here?" Tania crossed her arms and looked down on her.
"Nothing, I had tea with the rev. And she asked me If I could take them in for a few days." Tara said hating to have to lie about the reality.
"The rev. Asked you to put these two up? So why didn't you call me?" Tania was stunned.
"Yeah she did, and I had to go away for work so I left before I could have called."
"So who are they?" Tania asked now sitting down playing with the canister in her hands.
"They are Murphy and Connor McDonald, the rev knows them and they needed some help." Tara said looking at her.
"What kind of help? Are they in trouble?" Tania's head had shot up when she had heard the word help.
"I don't know, the rev. Said they needed help. How can I refuse her anything? How could you for that matter?" Tara said getting up again.
"Neither of us could, but you don't know jack about them. You should try and find out what they are about." Tania said leaning back in her chair.
Just before Tara could speak again Murphy walked into the room. "Sorry to interrupt but have you got painkillers or something Connor isn't doing to good." He pointed back to the living room.
"What is wrong with him?" Tania asked sitting up again.
"Something with his leg." Tara said opening a drawer and searching for a box of painkillers.
"I could have a look." Tania said getting up and walking past Murphy before he could react.
"I really don't think that is a good idea!" Murphy said going after her.
Connor reached for her hands to stop her but Tania brushed them away.
"Trust me I'm a doctor, well almost." Tania said leaning down and pulling the blanket of Connor. She saw the bandage wrapped round his right leg and also saw the dark red spot on it. "That is seeping through, it needs to be redone."
Murphy was trying to find an excuse for her not to take off the bandage but as he did she had already removed it.
"Ok this is new." Tania said looking at the gun shot wound in the leg.
Connor opened his mouth to speak but he was trying to think off a way to explain the wound with out revealing the truth.
"I……We……That……Oh fuck!" Murphy said rubbing the back off his head.
"Tara, bring out the first aid kit would you." Tania said throwing a look at Murphy. "Where did he get this?"
Tara came out off the kitchen holding onto the it Tania had asked for. "There are no painkillers in here so why did you ask for it?"
"Well Buddy boy over here has a GSW to his leg." Tania said pointing at Connor's leg.
"He's got what!" Murphy asked coming closer. "I thought he got shot!"
"A GSW is a gun shot wound! And what do you mean he has one?" Tara said getting closer.
"See for yourself, not too shabby either." Tania said pointing at it. "I think the bullet is still in there."
Tara leant forward and looked at the wound. "What the hell." She started and then looked at Connor.
"Look I can explain." Connor said sitting up.
"You'd better!" Tara said putting the first aid kit down and automatically checking her back to see if her gun was still within reach.
"We ran into some guys, they started trouble and before we knew it they had pulled a gun on us. We tried to get away but they shot Connor." Murphy said getting a bit closer.
"Why didn't you go to the police?" Tara said as she watched Tania dab the wound with some cotton balls.
"Cause we might have been a bit too drunk and we weren't exactly on the best off behaviour." Connor said trying to get Tara's focus away from his brother.
"Ok not focusing on who is to blame for a second, you need to get to a hospital with this. Who ever wrapped it up did an ok job but the bullet needs to come out." Tania said looking over her shoulder.
"Fine I will call for an ambulance." Tara said grabbing her phone.
"NO!" Both Murphy and Connor said at the same time.
"What?" Tara asked looking at them in turn.
"No hospital's." Connor said flinching as he tried to move.
"Oh sure we will just leave this as it is." Tania said pointing at his leg.
"Can't you fix it?" Murphy asked looking over her shoulder.
"No I can't brainiac, taking out the bullet is one thing that needs to be done. And then secondly the wound needs to be disinfected and packed right if it is to close and heal properly." Tania said looking over her shoulder again.
"We can take out the bullet and burn it shut." Connor said once again trying to move.
"This is just too weird! You need to get to a hospital." Tania said pushing him down.
"We've done it before." Connor protested.
Tania looked at Tara who raised her shoulders as a sign she didn't know what to do.
"Look we won't go to a hospital, so you can either help us or walk away now." Murphy said looking at the both off them.
Tara looked at him in amazement, this guy was not ordering her round in her own house!
"Look if that is the case I guess I'd better take the bullet out." Tania said looking at them.
"You what!" Tara started.
"Look if they really don't want to go to a hospital it is better that I take the bullet out then someone who had no clue about what they are doing." Tania said looking at her.
"This is my house we are talking about! This isn't the ER you know! How on earth do you think you are going to pull this off?" Tara said rubbing her face.
"I will look round and see what you have, then I will just have to make due." Tania plainly responded.
Just as Tara wanted to start again her phone rang, she pulled it out off her pocket and answered it.
"Callahan……No I am at home……Can't this wait?" She pulled her phone away from her ear and waited until the heavy mail voice stopped yelling on the other end off the line. "Ok…Ok…captain calm down I will be there in 15 minutes." Tara said hanging up the phone. "I have to go, work and all that."
"It can't wait?" Tania asked looking up from a drawer she had been rummaging through.
"Did you not hear my captain lovingly yell at me? This can't wait sorry, if this case blows up I will be doing massive amounts off over time." Tara said grabbing her jacket. "Look do what you have to but this discussion isn't over by a long way." Was the last thing she said before closing the door.
Tania looked at Murphy who was still standing besides the couch. "Go and get some towels from the bathroom."
She then walked over to the coffee table and put some things down on it.
Connor looked at the Nail file, tweezers and small scissors that lay there. "What are you planning with those?"
"Well I thought I'd give you a manicure……I'm using that stuff to get the bullet out genius." Tania said looking at him with her hands in her sides.
"No need to get sarcastic." Conner rebutted as he looked at her.
"Look I'm just about to take a bullet out off a human being with a nail file, tweezers and home first aid! Excuse me for not being miss congeniality!" Tania said feeling nervous, thinking about all the things that could go wrong.
"Calm down this isn't the first time this has been done to me, it will be fine." Connor said not sounding the least bit anxious.
"Yeah well you might be used to this but I sure as hell am not." Tania said walking to the kitchen to get the first aid kit.
Tara walked down the stairs and thought about what was about to happen in her apartment. She knew she should have stopped them, but what was she to do? This was a favour to the reverent mother and she knew that besides Tania she was the only one who would never deceive her. But the two men who were now up there were definitely hiding something. That excuse they had used for the bullet wound had been one off the lamest things she had ever heard.
She decided to ask someone in the precinct to look into it, if they found nothing then it would be ok, if they did find something she would at least know who and what she was dealing with.
Quickly she walked over to the precinct and walked up to her department.
As soon as he came through the double doors she heard her captain shout for her.
Casually walking into his office with no other means then to annoy him she leant against the door post. "You bellowed?"
"Callahan! I want to know what you got out off your informants. The buzz on the streets is killing us and I want some active response." He said getting up from his chair and walking over to her.
"Well the good news is I talked to all off them, the bad news is they all came up with squat." Tara said looking at him.
"What do you mean?" He captain said sounding agitated.
"Squat means I got nothing." Tara said not looking away.
"Stop being a smart ass! I know what it means! Why can't any off them tell you anything?" Her captain said slamming his hand down on his desk.
"Wait I'll just pop over to my crystal ball for that one! I have no idea, I talked to all my guys with connections to all the major families but no one has called the hit. All off my guys on Scoresy's side say that he is pissed as hell. If they find these guys before we do they're as good as dead." Tara said walking further into the office now.
"So basically we are in the dark on this one." Her captain groaned.
"Well these have to be out-off-towners, as no one knows a thing. I gave some orders to run the MO through the database to see if we can't dig anything up but I wouldn't keep my hopes up." Tara said looking at her captain.
Tania walked to the coffee table and placed a pan of scolding hot water on it, so she could at least attempt to sterilise some off the things she would be working with.
"I need to find something to shut the wound with." She thought aloud.
"You could use a clothes iron." Murphy said looking at her.
"Yeah sure sparky." Tania said looking at him.
"Hey we did it before, actually does quite a good job." Murphy said looking serious.
Tania sighed, she couldn't think off anything else. "Fine there is one in the bottom cabinet."
Once Murphy had got the iron and had plugged it in he helped her put Connor on the coffee table , Tania had cleared, and then she leant over looking at the wound.
"Ok I would be seriously lying if I said this wasn't going to hurt." She said picking up the tweezers and dabbing the wound with some disinfectant.
Connor just nodded as he bit down on the towel Murphy was holding in his mouth.
Tania looked at him once more before she put her own knee on his good leg and leant closer even more.
Murphy tried as hard he could to Keep Connor from moving as the tweezers made their way into his leg. He himself looked away a bit, this seemed more gorse then when doing it himself.
Tania tried to work as fast as she could as not to cause more pain then was needed, she had been trained to do this kind off work. But this was different from other gun shot wounds she had treated, now she did not have all the usual equipment to her disposal and she felt nervous about it.
Murphy heard a soft clang as the bullet hit the bottom off the pan with water in it. Tania looked up at him and then reached for the clothes iron which by now had reached the highest temperature. She whipped the skin round the wound once more with the antiseptic cloth and looked at both Connor and Murphy once more before pressing it down on Connor's leg.
Tara sat at her desk as she looked at her email, the clerk she had asked to dig up any information on her two house guest had just email her that he would get right on it.
She leant back and tried to focus on the case she should be working on, her captain had a right to be nervous. If this wasn't solved fast it would mean war.
Murphy looked at his brother lying on the bed, almost as pale as the sheet that was covering him. "Will he be ok? He looks worse then the last time."
"To be honest I don't have a clue, we'll have to wait and see, at the moment that is all we can do." Tania said looking away from him and starting to clean up around her.