Building From Ashes
Page 73

Another pause. “Where’s Anne?”
“Galway.” Brigid smiled at him over her shoulder. “I’m not her only basket case, you know.”
“Don’t talk about yourself that way.”
“I’m joking. Aren’t you the one who never takes things seriously?”
His voice was sharp. “Is that what you think?”
Brigid smirked. “I’m not—”
“I take things seriously when they need to be.”
Her eyebrows raised as she examined him. The look in his eyes was unfamiliar. Raw. Vulnerable, in a way. “I know you do, Carwyn.”
He blinked and looked away, then rose to come stand beside her. “Can I help?”
“Why do men always offer to help when the job is almost finished?”
He grinned and grabbed two plates. “We’re smart that way. Why ruin the rare pleasure of watching a woman see to your needs?”
Now why did that make her skin heat? He was talking about food. Wasn’t he? Brigid shoved back the other images that sprang to her mind.
Wasn’t he?
She was definitely going to hell.
Carwyn leaned over her shoulder and took a deep breath.
“Smells fantastic, Brigid. Thank you.” She was frozen when he grabbed the two sandwiches and put them on the plates. Brigid turned around and watched him carry everything to the small table in the corner of the kitchen. He set them down and asked, “What would you like to drink, love? I’ll get it.”
Her eyes flicked to his neck a moment before she turned back to the counter to put away the plate of beef.
“Whiskey,” she said in a strangled voice. “Please.”
He didn’t respond, except to dart to the living room and fetch her a glass. Then he sat down with a beer and dug into his sandwich with gusto.
“When did you come back from South America?”
“A few weeks ago. Went to Cardiff first, then Dublin.”
Her ears perked up. “Dublin?”
Carwyn nodded. “Saw Murphy while I was there. Angie says hello, by the way. Sounds like you’re greatly missed.”
A soft smile stole over her face when he mentioned Angie. She had to confess she had been worried what the older woman’s reaction would be to her new immortality. She should have known. “Angie’s a good friend.”
“And I asked Murphy about your friend Emily’s boyfriend.”
“Axel? What did Murphy say?”
“He doesn’t appear to be taking it as seriously as you do. Seems to put more faith in his boys.”
“Declan and Jack.”
“Aye.” He frowned and took a drink from the bottle of beer he’d pulled from the fridge. “Why are you so certain that Lorenzo had a local connection? Murphy seems quite sure that this Axel was not involved.”
“He might not have been, but I’m surprised Jack hasn’t looked into it more. He was with me. We worked the streets together on the dealer thing. We both thought Lorenzo had to be the one funneling the new drugs into Dublin, because they died off quickly once he was gone. It was only weeks and the dealers were scrambling to get more. With him gone, the supplies had dried up. Lorenzo had to be the connection.”
“Then why would a local be necessary?”
“The drops they were making. The meeting points and the dealer network? According to your American friends, Lorenzo had been underground for years, not in Dublin. And it was too smooth to be someone new. There was no violence when the purer drugs first started showing up. No change in employees. The same people were getting the drugs out; they just had stronger stuff.”
“So you think Lorenzo made a local contact that he started supplying and that’s who helped him abduct Ioan. Maybe it was the Irish boy he’d turned?”
She shook her head. “No one knew him in the scene. I asked around. If he’d been the one, someone would have told me or Jack, especially after he was dead. No, it was someone else, and I think they’re still there.”
“Still selling drugs?”
“Why would they stop? They still have to make money. They still have to supply their dealers. They just have to be more desperate now since their supplies have dried up.”
Carwyn paused for a moment, staring at her as if deliberating something. Finally, he said, “Axel is the one who was selling Emily the drugs she gave you, Brigid.”
She blinked. “What? Axel?”
“Are you surprised?”
She thought. Was she? “A little. But I suppose it makes sense that she’d get them from him. I always figured he was shady in some way, but the drugs surprise me a little. He must have been dealing on a smaller level from someone—”
“Why are you so sure he’s not the connection?”
“I just…” She sipped her drink. “He’s not smart enough, Carwyn. I mean, you don’t have to be smart to use drugs, or even to deal. But to organize a network like what was in Dublin when I first got there? There were so few arrests by the human police. It was so carefully structured to keep the lower level—even the upper level—dealers in the dark. Someone smart was fixing it. Someone far smarter than Axel, anyway.”
He nodded and leaned back. “Fair enough. You’ll keep looking when you get back. If there are more people who were involved in Ioan’s death, I want to know who. And if Murphy is not following through, I know you will.”
“Count on it.”