The Death Dealer

She wasn’t uncomfortable about going into O’Malley’s.



She was uncomfortable about confronting Joe.



What if he was with a woman? He might not have skipped the Met just because of traffic.



Then she would sit at the bar, have a soda and chat with the bartender. She didn’t know who was on, but whoever it was, she would know him. Just as she would know a dozen of the old-timers who came here. Guys who had long since retired. Perhaps they had lost their wives, perhaps they’d never been married, but they liked to come to O’Malley’s. It was comfortable. The beer was good, the food was tasty and the prices were reasonable.



No matter what was up with Joe Connolly, she would be fine.



She pushed open the door.



Joe wasn’t with a date. At least, she didn’t think so. He was leaning against a bar stool, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loosened.



“Hey, Joe.” She walked over to him.



Joe was a regular at the pub, too. She knew that he spent a lot of time here because he liked it. Because the beer was good, and the food was tasty and the prices were reasonable. But it was still more her place than his, she told herself. Even if he fit in just fine.



He was playing darts with Paddy O’Leary and Angus MacHenry. Regulars. Neither one of the octogenarians really drank much. She usually found them drinking soda, water or tea—hot Irish breakfast tea, always with sugar and milk.



She greeted both of them as she got closer.



The older men paused to kiss her cheek and offer her giant smiles. “Y’ doin’ okay?” Angus demanded.



“On top of the world,” she assured him.



“Y’ sure, lass?” Paddy demanded, searching out her eyes.



“I’m just fine.”



She’d been saying the same thing for a year now, but with Angus and Paddy, it was all right. They asked after her every time they saw her, took her word that she was doing fine and moved on.



Joe threw his dart. It was just shy of a bull’s-eye. He walked over, and also offered a hug and a kiss on the cheek. It was awkward, though. As if he were simply going through the expected motions.



They were friends, she told herself. Like she was friends with Paddy and Angus.



Except that Paddy and Angus could have been her great-uncles, while Joe was young and straight and pretty much the perfect man.



Too damned perfect.



“Aren’t you supposed to be up at the museum, girl?” Paddy asked.



“I was at the museum,” she said. “Now I’m here.” She smiled to take any sting out of the words.



“Ah, a great night, eh?” Angus asked, rubbing his white-bearded chin.



“It was a very good night,” she agreed. Then she hesitated. “I need to speak with Joe,” she said. “I don’t mean to mess up your game or anything.”



“Ah, don’t be silly, child,” Paddy told her.



“Get on over there with the girl, Joseph Connolly,” Angus said cheerfully. “Ye can knock the socks of the both of us old geezers later.”



Joe arched a brow, but he didn’t complain; he just reached for his jacket and said, “Certainly, gentlemen. I’m delighted to speak with Genevieve. At any time.”



His words were polite, almost gallant, but then, Joe was always polite. It seemed to come naturally to him.



But he seemed distant. He indicated an empty booth, and she took a seat. He sat across from her and ordered “another beer” as soon as the waitress arrived. Gen asked for a soda and frowned. Joe had apparently had a few drafts already.



“Are you driving?” she asked him.



He shook his head. “Nope. Don’t worry. I came by subway. You know me.”



Do I? she wondered.



“So how was the party?” he asked her.



“Great. I actually think you would have enjoyed it.”



He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I intended to come.”



She nodded. “My mother wanted to see you.” Oh, that was horrible. Laying a guilt trip on him when she knew how much he liked Eileen.



“How is she?”



“Fine. Not as worried as I think she should be.”



He arched a brow. “Ah. The ‘Poe Killing.’”



“You don’t appear to be too concerned, either.”



Again, he shrugged. It bothered her that he seemed so distracted. “I wish I could lose sleep over every terrible thing that happened, but I can’t. We all need to keep a certain distance. It’s the key to sanity and survival.”



“I want you to take the case.”



He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Gen,” he said softly, giving her his attention at last, “your mom isn’t one of the key players in that organization. She doesn’t write about Poe. Hell, she belongs to a zillion clubs, most of them trying to make the world a better place. I can’t see her as a target.” His argument was rational, and the same one Eileen had given her.



“You can’t know that,” Genevieve said.



He inhaled, looking off into the distance. “Gen, I’m thinking about heading out to Vegas.”



She was stunned, and upset that his sudden announcement hurt her so badly. Sure, he was tall. Rugged, handsome. Frigging charming, even.



But she had led a life that didn’t include a lot of wild dating, and that was by choice. If she had wanted…well, there had been plenty of willing men out there, if for no other reason than that she was rich. She had just thought that…



She shook her head. “Fine. Move to Vegas,” she said with a shrug. “But take this case first.”



“Gen, I’m willing to bet this murder was committed by someone who just wanted to kill Thorne—the Poe angle was just a convenient smoke screen.”



“Prove it.”



He looked away for a moment.



She leaned forward urgently. “Joe, did you know that Sam Latham was driving the first car that got hit in that accident on the FDR today?”



“What?” He looked at her with a frown.



“Sam Latham. He’s a member of the New York Poe Society, another Raven.”



“And I’ll bet that at least two-thirds of the other people involved were all members of some society or other. We’re social creatures. Usually,” he added.



She shook her head, irritated. “Joe, the New York Poe Society is not a huge group. The local membership is pretty small. Both Thorne Bigelow and Sam Latham are…were on the board. As is my mother.”



For a moment, at least, that seemed to pique his interest.



“Joe, there are only nine other board members, and two are Bigelow’s family members. Jared, his son, and Mary Vincenzo, his sister-in-law. Then there are Brook Avery, Don Tracy, Nat Halloway, Lila Hawkins, Larry Levine, Lou Sayles and Barbara Hirshorn. There were twelve in all, but Thorne is dead. And now Sam is in the hospital.”



“Genevieve…it was an accident. I’m sure I don’t know Poe’s stories as well as the Ravens do, but since he died in the middle of the nineteenth century, I don’t think any of his characters murdered anyone with a car. Somebody was probably driving recklessly, might have been drunk, might have been an asshole, but it was an accident.”



“Or maybe the driver was pretending to drive recklessly, but he was really trying to hit Sam.”



“No,” he told her firmly. “I saw it, and it was an accident.”



“You saw the whole thing?”



He hesitated. “I saw a lot of it.”



“A lot of it?”



He didn’t answer her at first. It was as if he hadn’t even heard her. He was frowning, as if he were deep in thought.



“Joe?”



“I told you, I saw most of it. And before that…before that, I saw the guy who probably caused it. He could have hit any car on that highway. He was driving like a maniac.”



“Did you get a look at him?”



“A saw a car weaving through traffic, and my instinct was to stay the hell away from it. Genevieve, I’m not a traffic cop.”



He was irritated, which surprised her.



“What did the car look like?” she asked.



He shook his head, still looking irritated. “Some kind of sedan. Black, dark blue, maybe dark green.”



She wasn’t sure why, but she was certain he was angry with himself, and not with her.



Because he should have noted the car. He should have known the exact color, make and model. He should have gotten the license plate. He was an ex-cop, and in his own mind, he thought he should have done all those things, because the driver had ended up killing someone.



“It was you!” she exclaimed suddenly.



“What?”



“It was you.” She knew it beyond a doubt, without need for verification. Oh, yeah. It sounded just like Joe, saving a life, then walking away. The man hated the limelight.



“I was not driving drunk!” he said indignantly.



“I’m not talking about the driver,” she said.



A curtain seemed to drop over his eyes, along with a lock of his wheaten hair.



“What was me?” he asked warily.



“The missing hero.”



He waved a hand in the air, his gray-green eyes as expressionless as steel.



“What are the odds? I’m not sure myself. Eight million who live in the city, how many million more when the work force is at its peak? During rush hour—”



“It was you,” she said. “There were eyewitnesses, and you’ll be identified eventually.” She saw his hand where it lay on the table and grabbed it. He winced. She turned it over. There was a big scrape mark on his palm.



“Look, I really don’t want a media frenzy. You understand that.”



“Yes, I do,” she said quietly. Life could be so odd. She had met Joe when he and Leslie MacIntyre had discovered the horrible pit in the subway tunnel where she had been taken after she’d been kidnapped by the monster who’d been stalking the streets of Lower Manhattan. His other victims had wound up dead. Leslie had been killed in the showdown.