The Order of Brigid's Cross - The Wild Hunt (Book 1): The Wild Hunt (9 page)

Adrian pressed the button on his cell phone and disconnected
the conversation. “Sean’s a great guy,” he said to the man sitting at the desk
in the private interrogation room.

“Do you believe him?” the man asked, leaning back in the
chair and propping his Italian leather shoe-clad feet on the corner of the
desk.

“Oh, yeah, I believe him,” Adrian said, straddling the chair
on the other side of the desk. “If there’s anything wrong with the O’Reillys
it’s that they’re too damn honest. Not a bad cop between them.”

“And how about smart?” he asked, looking into the
detective’s eyes. “How smart is he?”

“Well, you know, he graduated college at the top of his
class. He’s moved up the food chain here at the department pretty quickly,” he
replied. “So, yeah, I’d say he’s smart.”

The man shook his head impatiently. “Not that kind of
smart,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “The other kind…what do you call
it…the internal smart.”

“Oh, you mean like gut feelings?
Intuition?
Right?”
Adrian asked.

“Yes, exactly,” the man replied. “How are his guts?”

Adrian pondered the question for a moment. “You know, he’s
one of those guys
who’s
kind of spooky,” he admitted.
“It’s like he knows something’s going to happen before it does. I don’t know
how he does that.”

Slipping his feet off the table and standing up in one
nimble movement, the man placed his fists on the edge of the table and leaned towards
Adrian. “This does not bode well for us,” he said. “We don’t want someone like
Sean O’Reilly getting wind of our plan.”

“Right,” Adrian replied, nodding his head.
“Right.
But Sean would understand.
 
He’s been out there.
 
His own sister was shot by a gang member.
He’d get what we’re doing.”

The man lifted one delicate eyebrow and stared at Adrian. “I
hasten to remind you,” he said angrily. “This is something
you
are doing. I really have no part in it at all. You do remember
that, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, I just forgot,” he said. “This is me.
 
This is all me.”

“Good,” the man replied, the tension leaving his voice.
“Now, go ahead back to your desk. You have a few things to take care of before
tonight’s event. Did you destroy the notes from last night’s event?”

“Yeah, I burned them,” he said, “just as you instructed.”

“Excellent,” the man replied. “You may go.”

Adrian immediately stood, picked up his phone and walked to
the door. He grasped the door handle and was about to turn it when the man
stopped him. “Oh, Adrian,” the man said softly.

Adrian looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“You won’t remember any of this. You won’t remember speaking
with Sean. You won’t remember coming into this room. And you won’t remember
me.”

Adrian nodded slowly, opened the door and returned to his
desk.
 
He tossed his phone on the
paperwork piled up on the corner of his desk, sat down, and immediately began
typing on his keyboard. A few minutes later he looked up, grabbed his phone and
dialed Sean’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Where’s your report, O’Reilly?”

Turning right on a street corner near Jamal’s place, Sean
placed another call to the District Office. “Hey, this is O’Reilly,” he said
when the station house operator answered. “I need to talk to Sarah Powers.”

“Just a minute, Detective, I’ll patch you upstairs.”

Sean waited for a few moments listening to the public service
announcements. The CPD had hired a big-name marketing company to produce them. He
really hated the trite, candy-covered non-warnings that appeased both the
Tourism Bureau and the Mayor’s Office. If he were to produce radio warnings,
instead of softball catch-phrases like “Be Aware” or “Don’t Let Crime Ruin Your
Day,” he would use phrases that would catch the public’s attention. “People Are
Trying to Kill You. Don’t Be an Idiot.” or “They Don’t Give a Shit about You. Protect
Yourself.”
 
He nodded to himself, “Yeah,
those would work.”

Finally, he heard a click of a connection.
“Hey, O’Reilly?”

“Yeah, I need to find out who released Jamal Gage from Cook
County Hospital this morning,” he said. “But I need to keep this between you
and me.”

“Okay, give me a second,” she replied immediately, putting
him back on hold.

Sarah Powers
was
a new recruit who
was quickly working her way up to detective.
 
She was smart, brave and feisty. Sean smiled. He especially appreciated
the feisty.
 
But, because she was the new
recruit, she also got all the crap work—like checking back on phone records.

“I got nothing,” she said. “No one from our office called it
in.”

“Are you sure?”

Sarah began to respond but paused, and Sean nearly smiled,
knowing Sarah was counting to ten before she opened her mouth with a smart-ass
retort. “Yes, Detective,” she replied calmly. “I’ve checked the phone records
twice, and I even went through all the phones in the department and checked
their memories to see if someone called but didn’t log it in.”

“Thanks, Sarah,” he said. “I should have known you’d be
thorough.”

“Yeah, you should have,” she replied with a smile in her
voice. “Is the kid going to be okay?”

“I hope so, Sarah,” he said. “I really hope so.”

Fifteen minutes later Sean pulled his unmarked car up to the
front door of the projects.
 
He’d had
enough experience to know that parking in the lot or on the street and walking
to the door just made you a target for snipers.

He jogged to the front lobby and paused.
 
There was
a stillness
in the building that he had never experienced before when coming to one of the
projects in the middle of the day.
 
The
lobby was clear.
 
The staircase was
empty.
 
And, he noted when he glanced
through the bullet-proof glass to the parking lot, even the grounds were empty.
People were scared.

He made his way up to the fourth floor and knocked on the
apartment number the receptionist had given him.

“Don’t you answer that door,” a high-pitched and elderly
voice called from inside the apartment. “You
ain’t
gonna go with those no-good, trouble-making, worthless pieces of trash. So you
can just halt in your tracks, young man.”

Sean bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He
knocked again. “Chicago Police Department,” he said. “I’m Detective O’Reilly
looking for Jamal Gage.”

“What’s taking you so long, boy?” Sean heard the same voice
reply in an urgent tone. “You go answer that door.
Don’t
leave no
policeman waiting.”

A few minutes later, sitting on a small, lumpy couch whose
cushions sunk down several inches when he sat on them, Sean found himself in
the uncomfortable position of having to look up at Jamal and his grandmother
seated in tall wooden chairs.

“Are you here to arrest my grandson?” the older woman
snapped, ready to do battle against whoever threatened one of her own.

“No, ma’am,” Sean replied. “I’m actually here for two
reasons, to ask him some more questions and to protect him.”

He saw a moment of relief pass across the old woman’s face,
but then her features stiffened as she gazed down at him.

“Protect him?” she huffed. “
Ain’t
no one
thinking about protection when they sent him home on
the bus through these neighborhoods. Boys get stabbed on buses every day around
here.”

Sean nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I agree with you, and I
apologize on behalf of the department. There was some kind of
miscommunication.”

“That miscommunication could have cost my boy his life,” she
replied sternly.

“But it didn’t, Grandma,” Jamal inserted, feeling sorry for
the poor detective who was facing off against his grandmother. He would hate to
be in his shoes. “I’m fine.”

She whipped her head over to look at him. “You
ain’t
fine, Jamal Gage,” she stated emphatically. “You left
this house without my permission. You got yourself involved with that gang and
nearly got yourself killed. You is so far from fine, you might not ever see
fine in your lifetime.”

Sean sent Jamal a quick, sympathetic look and cleared his
throat to draw the grandmother’s ire back to him. “From what Jamal reported
yesterday, the only reason he agreed to participate in the gang activity is
because they threatened to hurt you,” Sean said. “Did you know that?”

She turned from Sean to Jamal and stared at him for a
moment. “Is that true?” she asked.

He shrugged and nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Devonte stopped
me when I was coming up the stairs.
 
He
told me if I didn’t come to the throw down, something bad would happen to you.”

He paused for a moment, searching her eyes for
understanding. “I couldn’t let them hurt you, Grandma,” he whispered, his voice
thick with emotion. “You’re all I have in this world.”

“I’d like to see them try and hurt me,” she blustered, but
Sean could see the old woman was afraid.

“Grandma, this
ain’t
no
game,” Jamal said. “They don’t care about no one but
themselves. They would have hurt you. They would have hurt you bad.”

She took a deep breath and turned to Sean. He could see that
her frail hand clutching tightly to a handkerchief was trembling slightly. “So,
what you gonna do about this?” she demanded. “How you gonna protect us?”

A thunderous pounding on the door interrupted the
conversation. “Police,” the word was shouted through the closed door. “Open up
immediately.”

Jamal and his grandmother looked at Sean in confusion.
“What’s this all about?” the old woman asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out,” Sean said,
standing and walking to the door.

He started to open the door and was in the process of
pulling out his badge when the door was kicked open the rest of the way, and
four SWAT members ran into the room, their weapons drawn.

“Freeze!” one of the officers shouted.

Jamal wrapped his arms protectively around his grandmother
and stood behind the wooden chairs.
 
His
grandmother’s eyes were wide with fear.

“There’s been a mistake,” Sean said, holding his hands away
from his body. “I’m Detective O’Reilly, First Precinct, and I’m interrogating
this witness. We haven’t charged him with anything.”

The lead officer turned to Sean. “You got ID?”

Sean slowly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out
his identification and badge and showed it to the officer. The officer reviewed
it and nodded. “Okay, you’re clear,” he said. “But I’ve got to take your
witness in.”

He turned to Jamal. “Jamal Gage, you have been charged with
multiple counts of murder in the gang-related deaths of over one hundred
victims.
You have the right to remain
silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will
be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

Dumbstruck, Jamal
just nodded.

“My boy didn’t kill
no one
,” the grandmother wept. “My boy’s a good boy.
He didn’t kill
no one
.
 
You tell him, Detective, you tell him the truth.”

 
“Wait,” Sean said, stepping between the officers
and Jamal. “There’s been a mistake. This kid is just a witness. He didn’t kill
anyone. He didn’t even make it all the way to the crime scene. He was across
the street.”

“We got a witness
who will swear he saw the perp swinging some kind of machete-like weapon and
causing the deaths of the gang members,” the officer replied.

Sean was
incredulous. “Are you freaking kidding me?” he asked. “Did you see the crime
scene?
 
What do you think, this kid is a
ninja? Whoever you got as a witness is lying.”

“Sorry, Detective,
I
gotta
do what the warrant states,” he said. “I’ve
got to take him in.”

“I get that,” Sean
said, coming up alongside the officer and lowering his voice. “But this is a
good kid. He didn’t do it. I’ll stake my badge on it. So, do me a favor and keep
an eye on him.”

The officer met
Sean’s eyes and a quick connection of understanding passed between the two men.
“Yeah, I can do that,” he replied softly.

Pulling handcuffs
from his tactical belt, the officer walked over to Jamal. “Okay, son, put your hands
out in front of you,” he said, his voice firm but gentle.

“Wait, you can’t
take my boy,” the grandmother cried, clinging to Jamal. She looked up at Sean,
tears streaming down her face. “If they take him in, something bad is gonna
happen to him. The Whispers are warning me. Don’t let them take him in.”

Sean was too Irish
not to understand the pit that was growing in the center of his stomach.
 
Whatever those whispers were, Sean believed
them, too.

“Officer Trudeau,”
Sean said, addressing the lead man. “How long can you keep an eye on him?”

The man shook his
head regretfully. “I’ve got two more hours on my shift,” he said. “After that,
he gets turned over to someone else.”

“You got kids?” Sean asked.

The man nodded. “Yeah, a son about his age,” he replied
softly. “And my gut tells me this kid’s no killer.”

“Where are you taking him?”

The officer took hold of Sean’s arm and guided him to the
far corner of the room. “For some reason, I was told that if there were other
law enforcement personnel at the scene I was not to tell them that I am taking
the perp to the Twelfth District,” he said softly and then continued in a
louder voice. “So, I’m sorry, Detective, I can’t tell you where we are taking
him.”

Sean nodded and whispered, “How slow can you drive?”

“We’ll take the scenic route,” Officer Trudeau replied.

The officer turned away from Sean and clapped a hand on Jamal’s
shoulder. “We’ve got to go, son,” he said.

“You take care of my grandma,” Jamal pleaded with Sean. “If
someone thinks I had something to do with those killings, she
ain’t
safe.”

“I’ll take care of her,” he said. “I promise.”

The officer guided Jamal forward while his grandmother
collapsed against the chair and wept.
 
Sean pulled out his cell and pressed one button for speed dial.
 
He waited a moment for someone to answer and
said, “Pete O’Bryan, please. This is Sean O’Reilly calling.”

He waited another moment and then, without taking any time
for greetings, spoke urgently into the phone. “Hey Pete, I need you to drop
everything and get down to the Twelfth District,” he said. “You got about ten
minutes to be there waiting, or this kid is going to get lost in the
system.
 
Yeah, this one seems more than a
little suspicious. Kid’s name is Jamal Gage.
 
You need to habeas corpus his ass out of there. Yeah, thanks.
 
Call me when you are both out of there, and I’ll
tell you where to meet me.
 
Oh, and Pete,
I’m doing you a big favor. You just got a great adventure tossed in your lap.”