Among Thieves

As the door closed behind them, they didn’t look back. If they had, they might have noticed the man settling his check at the table near the window, two over from their table. He was of average height and build, and the only things that stuck out about him were his black hair and eyes against his fair skin. He’d arrived just after them, and sat at the table by himself, casually listening in on every word of their conversation.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Thursday morning was a total loss for Fi

Devon ’s wishes. Sometimes it seemed as though the canons of legal ethics were drawn with an eye toward creating as many dilemmas as possible for lawyers, blind to the difficult realities faced by those who paced the courthouse halls.

He started the day by dropping Sally off for school in the morning. She seemed in mildly better spirits after a decent night’s sleep. She was still quiet, but regarded him without animosity. Perhaps, he thought, she was coming around.

He let her out in front of the school. “One of us will be here to pick you up when school ends,” he said. “Probably me or Lissa.”

She nodded and said, “Thanks.” Then she slammed the door and headed up the stairs to the main entrance and Fi

Thanks. It was such a simple little word, said millions upon millions of times every day without thought or reflection. To the woman at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter who poured your coffee. To the man who held the elevator door for just a second longer to let you on. To the kid who bagged your groceries at the store for a summer job. It was said over and over and over, to the point where it almost lost meaning and became a part of the blur of modern reality. Said but never felt; heard but never acknowledged.

That was not the case with Sally. For her, common courtesy was a luxury-one that she clearly had rarely been afforded, and was hesitant to bestow on others. And so when she said the word to Fi

That feeling of accomplishment lasted only a moment, however, and as he swung the car around and headed for the office, he confronted reality. He would spend part of the morning putting together a motion for a new bail hearing. It made sense: he couldn’t get Devon out of jail until a new hearing was set. He would file the motion and then convince Devon that he was better off out of jail. Accomplishing that seemed a long shot. The man’s fear had been evident at their last meeting, when Devon explained the situation to him. He seemed determined to remain in jail, where he believed he was safe. Even if Fi

In the meantime, Fi

By the time he pulled up to the office he’d worked himself into a sweat, just wrestling with his options. That, in turn, made him angry with himself. Lissa was right after all. Devon was his client, not his family, and this wasn’t, in the end, Fi

He opened the car door and stood up. Arching his back to stretch out, he looked around him. The weather was warming, little by little, and the buds were begi

Liam Kilbranish was no longer watching the lawyer. He would return to that soon enough; for the moment he had other things to do.

He took his time. He was careful. He made sure that he knew the layout of the neighborhood well. One of the things that made pla

Once he was sure that he had memorized the area, he went back to the safe house in Quincy. He had to make preparations there, too, if his plan was going to work. The place had a basement, which made things easier. It was a shallow space, with a low ceiling and walls that blended cement with the natural bedrock that had been blasted away to hollow out the ground underneath the little house. There was a furnace that looked as if it had been replaced within the past decade, and a water heater that was smaller than he would have chosen. There were no windows, which was a blessing, and the only way in or out was a staircase leading up to a kitchen. With a little work it would be perfect for his purposes.

Broadark was sitting on the couch, and he watched as Liam went up and down through the doorway in the kitchen, getting the place ready. The television was off; the man had given up his cha

It took less than an hour, and then he was ready. He sat at the table at the kitchen, checking over his weapons.

“Are you sure?” Broadark asked at last.

“I am,” Liam replied.

“This was never part of the plan.”

“Plans change.”

“They do,” Broadark agreed. “It’s not always a good thing when they do. If this goes badly, there will be questions. No one wants us to put the organization in this kind of light.”

“It won’t go badly.”

Broadark had nothing to say to that. To question any further would have brought the two men into a confrontation from which there was no backing down, and both of them knew it. He stood and walked over to the window, looking out into the cement yard. “When?” he asked.

Liam was strapping the knife to his ankle. He checked his pistol and slipped a fully loaded clip into the handle. He wouldn’t need the automatic. Not for this task. “Soon,” he said.

Fi

At one point Lissa got up and walked over to him. “You all right, boss?”

“Fine.”

“You sure?”

He looked up at her. “There’s nothing more I can do,” he said. “I can write the briefs, I can make the arguments, but that’s it.”