Hey Guys,
Once again, a huge thank you to everyone that has read and reviewed so far. Thank you all so much!
Here's Chapter Eight, hope you like it!
Chapter Eight
"James McCann?"
"Yes?"
"Detective Angell, NYPD."
"I got nothing to say to you people."
"Really? I got plenty to say to you about James Quinn."
"What about him?"
"I heard he owed you money."
"I'm a business man, Detective Angell." He bit back a short sharp bark of laughter, coloured by his accent. "Some people owe me money, I owe some people money. It's what helps the world go round."
"Did hitting an old man around the head with a baseball bat help the world go round as well, Mr McCann?"
"I wouldn't know, Detective." His smile was cold, dismissive, arrogant. "I had nothing to do with that."
"So you were going to let an old man get away with owing you money? Somehow that doesn't sound like the James McCann I heard about."
"Times change, Detective. Maybe I'm just mellowing in my old age."
"This isn't a joking matter, Mr. McCann. A man has been murdered. He owed you money. In my line of work, we call that motive."
"Motive??" Another short, biting laugh. Angell flinched, the sound cold and cruel against her ears. "He owed me money, yeah, but I had no reason to want the man dead. I knew he was good for it."
"How?"
"He's run that bar for more years than you've been alive, young lady." He shrugged again. "He was good for the money."
"If he was good for the money, then why was he borrowing money from you in the first place?"
"He needed the money for his daughter. I have known her since she was a toddler. I was happy to help." He smiled, briefly, warmly, then it slipped quickly, easily, off his face. "Is that everything, Detective?"
"Just one more thing, Mr McCann. Where were you when James McCann was murdered?"
"I was at home. With my wife and family. It would have been my son's birthday."
xxxXXXxxx
He lay back on the hard, narrow, uncomfortable bed, stretching out his arm until it brushed against the cold wall. He sighed, listening to that sigh echoing around him, echoed in the frustration of men waiting to know their fate.
How long was he going to be here?
He sighed again, the thin sheets providing meagre comfort against the cold, stalking through the corridors of Rikers like a hunting beast..
How long was he going to be here?
The walls were thick, closing in around him. How much longer would he be here, how much closer would they get around him, claustrophobic, grey, imposing, suffocating, his breath coming shorter and shorter.
He needed to get out of here.
Needed to….
"Lights out! Lights out!"
One by one the lights died away, plunging Declan Cassidy into the cold darkness, burying him in the shadows and the chill. Burying him in the cold darkness like a grave.
He could still see his face, just before he pulled the trigger, the surprise warring with pain on his face as the bullets buried themselves in tender flesh.
He was only doing what his daddy had told him to do. Keeping those bastard McCanns from getting their hands on their money.
He missed his family. He missed them every day, but especially when the lights went out, when he was left alone in the darkness with nothing but the cold and his memories.
He lay back on the bed and waited for sleep to come.
It would be a long night.
xxxXXXxxx
She was waiting, nervously, anxiously for him when he arrived, pacing back and forth across the ER floor like an expectant parent, glancing worriedly over her shoulder at the door leading to Samuel McCann's room. "Don!"
He walked over to her, tugging at his tie. "What's going on, Kathy?" He smelled of the cold, of cigarette smoke, clinging to his clothes like the faintest perfume.
How long had it been since he called her Kathy?
"Samuel McCann has a couple of visitors."
"So?"
"So…" She trailed off, her dark eyes meeting his cold blue gaze defiantly. "I know what it sounds like Don. But these guys, they just felt…wrong. You know? Just wrong, like they didn't belong here, like they…"
She always did have good instincts.
"Okay." Flack pushed back his overcoat, putting his hand on the butt of his gun. Following her through the hospital corridors, the noise and artificial heat rushing past him in waves after the chill outdoors.
She stopped outside his room, reaching out a pale hand for the door handle.
He put his hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. Her eyes flashed angrily, and just for a second, he thought she might argue with him. Her gaze fell on the weapon holstered at his hip, and she bit her lip, stepping behind him.
"I swear to God, Sammy, we're going to find that bastard Caffee and fuck him up…"
He pushed open the door of the room, the men huddled together over McCann's bed springing apart like conspirators caught.
xxxXXXxxx
Closer.
Closer.
The footsteps drawing closer, closer behind her, scrapping against the cold pavement. She was almost running now, feeling the shadows, feeling him drawing closer and closer. She could almost feel his hands on her, his fingers slipping, caressing her back.
Closer.
Closer.
Running now, the heels of her boots beating a frantic, desperate rhythm against the steps to the subway station, pushing her way through the crowds of people clustered there, milling around, waiting.
She could feel him, getting closer, his breath against her cold flesh.
She needed a train. Any train.
There
Sudden heat warmed her skin, the doors of the train slamming shut behind her. Jessica Rossi sank into the seat, resting her head against the window behind her. Watching the stairs, peering through the crowd. If she could just get a good look at him…
The train pulled away just as he came down the stairs.
xxxXXXxxx
The apartment was cold and empty when he walked into it, lurking like a physical presence in the corners, clinging to the fabric of the building, wrapped in solitude, in too many nights spent alone.
Danny sighed, throwing his keys onto the side board, clattering against the coins and loose change with a dull metallic clink.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialling her number.
"Hey, you've reached…."
He sighed again, cutting the connection off, putting the phone back in his pocket, looking around the desolate, lonely apartment.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. This was supposed to be their place, their home. Theirs.
How many nights had she spent here alone?
How many nights had he spent here alone?
"Dammit"
His words caught in the stillness, echoing back to him, mocking the desolation of the apartment.
He sighed again and went to cook another meal for one.
xxxXXXxxx
Angell was waiting for him outside the interrogation room, leaning against the wall, watching through the glass as the suspect shifted nervously in his seat, chewing at his fingernails. He kept looking up at the glass, then away, almost as if he could see her, watching him. "Who's that?"
Flack pulled on his tie, loosening the knot a little further. "Aidie McCann. Useless little piece of shit, more talk than action."
"He anything to James McCann?"
"Nephew. Why?"
"His name came up in this case we're working. We closed it out, but…" She shook her head. "Something don't smell right and it smells like James McCann."
"He's a piece of work, alright. Got his fingers in all sorts of pies. Extortion, protection, bars, gambling, the usual shit."
"He got any reason to have a man killed?"
"Everyone's got a reason to have a man killed, Angell. You know that." Flack sighed, running a hand through his hair. "James McCann would kill a man just to piss of Tommy Cassidy."
xxxXXXxxx
"Another day, another dollar."
"Looks like it." Lindsay smiled, pulling on a pair of protective gloves. "What have we got, Hawkes?"
Hawkes glanced up at her as he crouched over the body, the street lights casting his shadow across the slumped corpse. "White male, GSW to the chest. Wallet and watch are missing."
"Robbery gone wrong?"
"Robbery gone wrong."
xxxXXXxxxx
"How much longer are we going to stand out here?" He danced from foot to foot, his hands buried in the pockets of his coat. "It's fucking freezing out here."
Michael Caffee stared up at the building, taking one last drag of his cigarette, stubbing it out against the wall behind him. "Time to go."
xxxXXXxxx
Blows rained down on him, falling against his twisting body like stinging heavy rain.
He twisted, trying to shield his face, only for a heavy boot to slam into his stomach, driving the air from his body in an explosive gasp, bowing his body in pain.
A fist drove hard against his face, knocking him back against the cold, uncaring pavement, blood flecked spittle falling onto the dark ground.
Jimmy Cassidy writhed on the ground as they beat him, harsh and uncaring in the cold night.
xxxXXXxxx
He was used to stillness, the silence, the chill in his apartment. Used to it as a familiar, comforting, old friend.
Flack poured himself a shot of whiskey, savouring the bitter warmth as it slipped down his throat, warming some of the chill from his body.
His door knocked, hesitant, unsure, tentative. Then again, harder, more decisive, knuckles rapping against the thin wood.
He poured himself another drink, taking the glass with him as he opened the door.
She was standing outside, still wearing her scrubs, wrapped in a dark overcoat. Her skin pale as snow, her eyes as dark and shadowed as his apartment. A few strands of her hair had slipped loose from their binding, falling across her pale cheek like blood in the snow.
"Katherine? What are you doing here? What's wrong?"
"Can I come in, Don? Please?"
End of Chapter Eight
