Cloaked in Blood (41 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Crevan saw
Datello grip Helen’s arm.  He whispered something to her, too
low to be heard by any but the intended ear.

“More secrets?”

“We’re worried, Crevan.  Can you blame
us?  Five minutes ago, you couldn’t believe I’d suggest that
Aidan was the missing mastermind we’ve been looking for all this
time.  Now you’re acting like a madman who can’t beat himself
hard enough because he
might
be guilty.”

“You don’t doubt it.  And the more I
think about it, neither do I.  God, all this time, I rejoiced
when he wanted to talk about my job.  And the whole time, he
was just pumping me for information, Helen, information about
you
.”

She stared ahead through the
windshield.  Crevan couldn’t blame her for the anger, the deep
sense of betrayal she had to feel because he’d unwittingly helped
the very man who sold her – not once, but twice.

“I’m sorry, Helen,” Crevan’s entire being
radiated remorse, guilt, regret.  Self-recrimination made him
doubt his worth.  “If you can’t forgive me, I don’t blame
you.  I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Stop it.  This isn’t your fault any
more than it’s mine that my father
did
help Marie rob
armored cars.  If anyone is unforgivable in this, you know who
that person is.  You’re not like Aidan, Crevan.  You are
nothing
like him.”

Silence descended, hard and heavy,
suffocating.

“Helen, you’re not like him either,” Danny
said.  “What the hell is the matter with both of you? 
Can’t you see you’re nothing like him at all?”

“Aren’t I, Danny?  How can you of all
people say that, knowing what really happened to Rick.  I’m
just like he is.  The debate is solved.  It’s definitely
nature.  Nurture tried to curb my urges, but it just wasn’t
quite enough.”

Authority bled into Datello’s voice. 
Crevan cringed hearing it.  True enough, he wasn’t nearly as
tough as his little sister.  What had she said?  All
heart, no backbone.

“Both of you, knock it off.  We’ve got
the direction now.  We know where the answers lie.  The
next step is to hear the confession.  Or are you going to let
this morbid pity party keep you from doing what the both of you
know needs to happen to this bastard?”

Crevan looked at Helen, felt a little bit of
her steel infuse his spine.  He knew in his bones what she
would do when they confronted Aidan.  And by God, he’d not let
her carry that burden.  Not this time.

Chapter 41

It came as no great surprise to me when
Crevan parked behind the enormous home in Bay View.  I’d been
here once before, back in January, when inexplicably, I’d felt such
bone deep animosity toward Aidan Conall, I couldn’t even explain it
to myself. 

Oh sure, I tried to, went so far as to
convince myself that I hated him for his xenophobic views of
society, and on top of that, he made Crevan feel like shit for
being less than the man Aidan thought he should be.

Temptation tickled deep into the neurons of
who-Helen-really-is.  The gun tucked into the back of black
denim burned through flesh.  I itched to pull it out and drill
a hole in the left chest of Aidan Conall.  That place where a
heart
should
reside.

But no, that would be kind, and as much as
Crevan’s pain affected me, the answer wasn’t another murder. 
If I’d learned anything in the last year, it was that compounding
one wrong with another only created more problems.  Yes,
remorse finally invaded my heart.

“Helen,” Danny repeated his earlier message,
“we shouldn’t be here.  This is a
very
bad idea. 
Please.  Let’s get Orion to just arrest him.”

“Stop whispering to her, Datello,” Crevan
snarled.

“He thinks we should call Johnny,
Crevan.  I’m not sure that’s such a bad idea at this
point.”

“We still don’t have evidence, not that
either one of
us
needs it.  We know, Helen.  We
know
.  So let’s end this.”

“Where are we?” Danny asked with more than a
quiver of hesitation in his voice.

“What, you were never invited to the inner
sanctum?” Crevan sneered.  “Oh of course not.  What was I
thinking?  He couldn’t possibly let the patsy in through the
front door.  It would taint him by association.  He left
that to his lesser associates, men like Eugene Sherman, or should I
say, Gill Vorre?”

Datello’s voice dipped low and murmured to
me yet again, “Who the hell is Gill Vorre?”

“It’s the real name of the man who stole
Eugene Sherman’s identity,” I said.  “Oh, hell.  It’s a
long story.  If I promise to tell you everything later, will
you just stop quizzing me about it now?”

“We should
not
be here.  None of
us has the authority to do anything here.  And before you
argue with me, detective, do you have a warrant to enter your
father’s home?”

“Whatever for?  He’s my father.  I
don’t
need
a warrant to go inside, not when I have a
key.”

“What exactly do we plan to do when we get
in there, Crevan?  You might be his son –”

“And you his daughter,” he interrupted
tersely.

“Whatever, but we don’t have the right to
search for evidence against him,” I said.  “Maybe Danny is
right.  Just let me call Johnny and tell him what we saw, what
we suspect.  He can get a warrant.  We can get the
evidence against Aidan.  He’ll be arrested, stand trial, go to
prison for the rest of his life.”

“No.”  Crevan shoved the door of the
old truck open and was halfway to the house before Danny and I were
able to scramble after him.

“Helen, this is insane.  He’s totally
snapped!”

“Don’t you think I see that?” I
hissed.  “But he
is
my brother, and Johnny’s best
friend to boot.  I can’t just abandon him because I don’t want
to have his back.  Besides, if we leave him now, something
really awful
will
happen.”

“Like patricide?”

I glared.  “Did you forget what I told
you earlier?  Crevan doesn’t have the heart to kill anyone,
even if his life depended on it.  Aidan on the other hand,”
bitterness seeped into my tone, “he has no heart.  He’d kill
us all and not bat an eye.  After all, we’re the only ones who
have figured out he’s really behind all of this.”

We’d reached the back door of the massive
home.  Crevan already had disappeared inside.

“Danny, I think you should go back to the
truck.  Take my phone.  Call Johnny.  Tell him
what’s going on.  Then get out of here as fast as you
can.  It’s not safe for all of us to be here together. 
Aidan doesn’t know you’re still alive.  You’ve made yourself
the star witness in two different prosecutions now.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said
frantically.  “How could I live with myself if I do and
something worse –?”

“Do I have to remind you that you didn’t
even know how to use a gun when Seleeby showed up in my house this
morning?  Go now.  Your wife and daughter need you
alive.  And I need Johnny here.  Do this for me. 
Call him.  Tell him everything.  You can’t be here,
Danny.  If you are when Johnny shows up, Levine will be with
him, and you’ll be right back under the thumb of the FBI
again.”

“I don’t care about that!  I don’t want
you to die.”

I grabbed his shoulders and hugged him
hard.  “I’m sorry I ever misjudged you, Danny Datello. 
But your wife would never forgive me if I failed to save your life
a second time.  Please go.  Please!”

“Promise me you’ll be careful, Helen.”

I nodded and shoved him back toward the
yard.

He disappeared into the shadows, while I
walked into the jaws of the darkest nightmare I’d ever faced in my
life.  Again, temptation gnawed at my gut.  It would be
so easy to see this end swiftly.  No risk of a failure of the
justice system.

Datello drove only half a block before he
pulled the phone out and hit send on the key pad.  Helen had
entered the right number at some point on the drive from Downey
back to Bay View.  Or maybe she’d been debating whether or not
to call her husband all along.

It barely rang once.

“Helen?”

“It’s Danny Datello.  Helen told me to
call you.”

“Where is she?” Orion asked.

“Aidan Conall’s house.”

“And she told you to call me?” disbelief
dripped from every word.

“It’s Detective Conall, commander.  He
knows his father is behind this human trafficking thing, and I
think he’s gone a little insane.  Helen wouldn’t leave
him.”

“Is Aidan Conall at the house now?”

“I don’t think so.  I don’t know how he
could’ve gotten there before us,” Danny said.  “He was at Bay
County Correctional.  Helen’s had us camped out there all
day.  She was sure that whoever Henderson’s partner was, he’d
show up to see Melissa Sherman sooner or later.  Sure enough,
we watched him go into the jail about half an hour ago.”

“Shit.  Is Helen armed?”

“They both are,” Danny said.  “She told
me to tell you that she needs you.  I think she would’ve
called you right away, but the detective… he’s… I’ve never seen
anybody so messed up in my life.”

“Hang on a second.”

Datello listened to the muffled sounds of
Orion’s voice for a moment before it sounded like a door
slammed.

“Are you still there, Danny?”

“Yes.”

“I just sent Agent Levine over to Bay County
Correctional Facility.  Did Helen think that Aidan was going
to kill Melissa Sherman?”

“I have no idea.  To be honest, the
conversation never got to that point.  Once Detective Conall
saw his father show up, he pretty much lost it.  Why don’t you
sound surprised by any of this, commander?”

“Because Levine and I figured it out
ourselves about a minute before you called.”

Danny slumped against the seat of the old
truck.  “Thank God.  You’ve got to know that Helen’s
worried about not having proper evidence.  I think it’s pretty
obvious, but –”

“Juries don’t see it that way,” Johnny said
grimly.  “Can you give her a message?”

“She made me leave.”

“Shit,” Johnny said.  “Don’t stray too
far.  I’ll be there in a few minutes.  Where are you
exactly, Datello?”

“I’m at the end of the alley that leads to
the back of Conall’s house, Pritchard side of the block.”

“I’m fifteen minutes away, tops.  Stay
put.”

The call clicked off before he could argue
or tell Johnny that Helen absolutely didn’t want him near what was
about to happen.  Still, leaving her alone with Detective
Conall acting like a head case was even more disturbing than the
idea of being caught where he wasn’t supposed to be.

Johnny used lights and sirens as he sped
away from Beach Cliffs toward where Aidan Conall ruled his little
empire.  He silently prayed that Helen wouldn’t do anything
stupid – like kill Aidan so Crevan wouldn’t do it.

He didn’t doubt a single word out of Danny
Datello’s mouth.  Crevan would be mental over this, after a
lifetime of never being quite good enough, morally or as a man, for
his father, to learn this kind of secret would be beyond
devastating.

And Helen – she wouldn’t bat an eye. 
Conall threatened her life, her freedom, the safety of their
children.  Those would be more than grounds to put a gun to
his head and pull the trigger.  His earlier debate over
betrayal or how much he could share with David Levine seemed silly,
trivial even. 

When the chips were down, Johnny knew in his
heart that he’d choose his wife, no matter what.  Doubts
aside, she wanted him at her back, made Datello leave a dangerous
situation that was no doubt on the verge of implosion, and made him
call Johnny.

“Me,” he said, feeling a perverse surge of
happiness in light of how dire the situation had quickly
become.  “She needs me.”

The lies they both told, his propensity for
being domineering, hers for secrecy, burned away in the bright
light of reality.  They needed each other, and when it all
culminated to do or die, neither one of them could deny the
truth.

How she’d put it together, why she’d kept
her suspicions secret, none of that mattered so much to Johnny
right now.  Maybe it would later, or more likely, he’d take
one look at Crevan and see that Helen had no choice but to protect
her family – all of them.  Johnny, their unborn children,
Wendell, and yes, even her brother.  Especially her
brother.

The past eleven months flickered rapidly on
the backs of his eyelids.  Even before Helen learned her real
identity, there’d always been this strange vibe between her and
Crevan.  She showed a sensitivity toward him that no one else
ever felt.  It was protective, mothering even.  And the
normal jealousy such concern for another man would’ve evoked only
sparked once – when Johnny couldn’t remember the things he’d lost
at the hands of Mitch Southerby.

Finally, he saw Helen as something less than
tough, than guarded and a vault of secrets buried under carefully
constructed lies.  Levine’s reminder that Helen wasn’t always
this way made him determined to see her heal, to let go of that
forced mistrust of everyone but Wendell.

In the black of night, Johnny promised
aloud, “I’ll never let you down, Helen.  Never again.”

He shut off the sirens and lights the moment
he entered the Conall’s neighborhood.  What if Aidan slipped
out of the jail before David arrived?  What if he was already
back at the house? 

Johnny almost bypassed the alley and went
directly to the lone house at the end of a long, quiet
street.  No.  He owed Datello more than that.  The
man trusted Helen.  He called.  He gave Johnny the
message he felt like he’d been waiting his whole life to
receive.  At the end of the alley, he found the truck sitting
back, parked where someone’s trash normally waited for pick up.