He grins. “You’re a bastard.”
“I am,” I say. “And you are late for your dentist. Go.”
By midday the wind comes up and turns the water a mean green. I move through schedules and guard lists, shift two men to the north gate, swap a pair of drivers so no one builds a habit that a rival can study. There is a rhythm to it—weight, counterweight, a dance I learned at my father’s shoulder while pretending I didn’t see the blood on his cuff. When the calls die down and the men look busy enough to forget I am there, I take the car to the restaurant. I stand beneath the mezzanine and watch Aoife direct traffic with two fingers and a tilted chin. Her hair is up, pencil speared through the twist. She moves in lines the eye likes—clean, economical, sure. She wears a navy apron over a sweater the color of green glass. On the prep table, a row of copper pots gleams like coins just hammered.
“Those shelves are an inch too high,” she says to a carpenter without looking at him. “I am five-seven and stubborn. Do the math.”
The man laughs, lowers the shelf. She tastes a reduction, frowns, reaches for salt, then for vinegar. “It’s not a funeral,” she tells the sauce. “Wake up.”
I stay where I am. My body has learned that if I cross a kitchen threshold, every other thing I planned for the day dissolves. I pull my hands from my pockets, flex them once, and slide them back in. She catches me anyway. Her eyes flick, find me under the mezzanine. The corner of her mouth betrays her, just a twitch, then she sets the spoon down and returns to battle. I let the sight of her settle on my tongue like good whiskey. I have always been a thirsty man.
By late afternoon my phone starts to buzz in the pocket I keep for bad news. Seamus from Charlestown first, voice low, the background clatter of a bar he owns but pretends not to. “Another one,” he says. “Southie, near the bus line.”
I step out into the cold. “Give me the shape.”
“Single woman, mid-twenties. Worked dinner shift at a tavern. Stab wounds. Neat.”
“Neat how?”
“Like someone who doesn’t mind blood,” he says, “but keeps it tidy for church.”
I hang up and the second call lands before the screen goes dark. Brigid from my South End safehouse. “You hear about the girl in Dorchester last week? Same blade work.”
I walk the gravel path fringe with old snow. Two at least, likely three. Hospitality. Late shifts. No witnesses. The papers will call it love gone wrong because they are lazy and because passion sells ad space. It isn’t love. It is a hunter, and the hunter has moved closer to my ground.
I tuck the phone away and look back at the restaurant, where a light has come on in the pastry kitchen. Someone inside cracks eggs against a bowl. The sound is absurdly hopeful. I do not tell Aoife. I want her to build this place with music in her head, not sirens.
I call Kieran. “I want eyes on the perimeter tonight,” I say. “Unmarked. One car on the lane, one on the service road. No contact. If anyone asks, you’re checking the pipes.”
“You think this ties to us?” he asks.
“I think women are dead,” I say. “And that’s enough.”
“And if it’s a message?”
“Then we’ll answer it,” I tell him. “But not with noise.”
I hang up and return inside. She’s at the far counter with Siobhan, who smiles too bright and says something I can’t hear. The smile never reaches her eyes. I file it and move on. I do not like when smiles don’t travel.
Night gathers early and hard. I circle the block of the restaurant one more time and park where I can see the back door. The staff trickle out in twos and threes, laughing, texting, calling rides. Steam curls from the vent like breath. A cat with half an ear stalks the dumpsters and finds only disappointment. I wait. The cold moves into my bones and decides to rent long term. When the last prep cook leaves and kills the lights, I get out and walk the lane.
The door is secure. The lock is clean. The snow at the threshold isn’t disturbed, except for a single mark that doesn’t fit—a thin red line tied around the handle in a neat bow, silk bright and obscene against the dull metal. No note. No tag. Just a ribbon. It could be innocence. It could be a girl with too much time and an Instagram account. It isn’t.
I hold it between two fingers and feel the knit of the weave. Expensive. Not a party store. The knot is square and professional, not a child’s. I worry it loose, roll it, slide it into the pocket inside my coat where I keep things I want with me when I sleep. The air smells faintly of something sweeter than the night should—orange peels in a bin, maybe, or that ribbon itself, ghosted in perfume.
Kieran pulls up slowly without headlights and leans out. “All quiet, Boss?”
“Not quiet,” I say. “But still.” I tap my pocket. “Someone left me a bow.”
“Christmas came early,” he tries.
“Watch the roads,” I tell him. “Two cars. Do not be seen.”
He nods. “Aye.”
The men roll back into the dark like they were never here. I stand in the cold until my breath smokes and vanishes. The ribbon warms slowly against my ribs.
16
