“She is perfect.” Maddox finished as he jumped into a nearby armchair, made of a dark green suede. “But she has a wicked memory and stuff. That’s why she knows so much and is good at working things out with people.”
“Photographic memory.” Misha finally spoke louder, voicing what he had been whispering to himself about. “She seems like she has that, as well as excellent observational skills that are borderline genius. So I presume she had a very high IQ as well.” He glanced at me a moment and switched to Spanish when Ares nodded to his questions and headed to the nearby wooden sideboard to grab a small black phone from one of the drawers.
“What?”Seeing the look on Misha’s face, I switched to Spanish and kept my voice low.
“John’s first wife had a photographic memory and was well documented as being exceptionally intelligent. Though the traits for the condition and being smart to that extent are rare, it seems unusual that it would pass through to what wouldn’t be her biological niece.”
I nodded, agreeing with the undertone of his thoughts.“Unless she isn’t her niece?”
“Exactly.”Misha replied, as Ares finished texting and shot us a blinding grin.
“Would you like a cuppa, then? Might as well seeing as mum’s gonna be at least forty minutes before she’s home.” Hesaid. “It seems pointless to just sit around doing nothing, so might as well have a drink and talk about what it would take for you to let me play with one of your guns.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Shannon O’Malley was petite, calm and entirely unthreatening. Her eyes were dark – the same as her son’s – and she had hair the colour of coal that had been twisted in a bun on the back of her head. She wore a pantsuit made of a slightly vintage tweed style, and a pair of sensible shoes. Honestly, she lookednormal. She looked like absolutely nothing dangerous or special and it was weird meeting her and having all my high expectations stilted.
The only weird thing about her was that I felt like I knew her. And sure, I could have been mistaken. But the last time I had felt that way had been when I’d first met Elaina. I’d been sure for weeks on end that I had seen her somewhere before, and though I had been wrong, I had also been valid for thinking it. Elaina looked like her sister, Luciana. And I had seen pictures of Sapphire’s mother before in photo albums and things in my house, as well as a handful of news articles. That meant when Itook a single look at Shannon O’Malley and weirdly felt like I had met her before, I took it seriously.
We were hunting her sister, after all. If I felt like I knew Shannon, then perhaps it was because I had seen Cassie somewhere.
Shannon had been polite as anything when she’d come home. She’d dismissed her children – even Maddox, who she apparently had custody of, alongside his older sister who was away in university – with kind words and an order for all of us to take a seat in the living room on the various chairs. We’d been offered hot drinks, snacks and mothered a bunch as though we were guests that had been happily invited over, and not a bunch of gangsters on a mission that had simply walked through the front door after pulling guns on her son.
Eventually, though, the small talk and niceties had gone on for long enough, and my girl had explained her real reason for coming as fast and blunt as she could. But the minute she mentioned Cassie O’Malley being the one we were after, Shannon cut her off with a bright, only slightly false smile.
“I haven’t seen her in over a decade.” She said. “I don’t have anything to do with that family, especially when I owe Ford mine and my children’s lives.”
She’d confirmed that she had gone to Ford when she had been worried about her brother and his temper. The pair had made a deal of some kind and Ford had helped Shannon, her husband, and the kids escape from an oncoming brutal death at the hands of John O’Malley. But we already knew all of that, so whilst it was nice to have mine and Darius’ research confirmed, it didn’t offer us anything else that we had travelled thousands of miles to get.
Sapphire leaned forward on the pale cream couch that she sat on, me and Kody on her sides. Price was hovering on the other side of the room, Lincoln too. Logan sat on the otherarmchair. We weren’t exactly on guard, but we also weren’t relaxing like idiots.
Shannon was still an O’Malley regardless of her changed name and apparent dislike of her blood.
Sapphire tapped her nails against her thigh, her free hand resting on Kody’s leg. She’s done it a lot lately – touch one of us. It was like she couldn’t sit here on her own without reassurances that we were with her and that we were real. Kody had been the most frequent one she’d been near, but I understood. Sapphire was still recovering from her captivity, and she had spent the entire time thinking Kody was dead. I didn’t blame her for being clingier or needing a physical reminder that she wasn’t alone, nor had she lost him.
“I don’t think you do know where your sister is. But that is not why I come here today.” She said, as Kody rest his hand over hers, thumb stroking her and instantly making her relax.
Shannon frowned and leaned back in her chair, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Then what do you want? You didn’t come here for a cuppa and a chat.”
She’d been unable to sit still the entire time she’d been with us and, whilst she could have just been uncomfortable, it was making me edgy. Surely she was capable of not messing with her hair or clothes every ten seconds unless she was nervous? And if shewasnervous, then I wanted to know why.
Was it regular fear about Sapphire and all of her Montana-ness? Or was it about something worse?
“To know if you have pictures of her – if you can tell us what she looks like so that we can put a face to her name.” My girl explained our predicament as I silently got to my feet, wanting to pace away my uncertainty. “We don’t know what her face is like, so it is hard for us to find her. I figure that as her sister, you would know her looks enough to help me.”
That, and Widow had suggested a rather foolproof way to confirm who Cassie was when we had suspects by testing everyone’s DNA. And despite saying it would be a long shot and probably not work, Mom had given Sapphire a bunch of needles and blood storing jars, and explicit instructions on how to draw some of Shannon’s blood, so that we could get it tested against anyone we thought might be guilty. It was brilliant, really – DNA couldn’t lie. The menace of a stalker wouldn’t be able to hide who she was when we had scientific evidence to prove it and I was glad Widow had thought of such a cool idea.
Shannon shook her head. “I have nothing from my old life beyond my family. I don’t evenlookthe same.” She waved at her face. “I had a nose job, filler, laser eye surgery, and dye my hair. There is nothing near me that could link back to the O’Malley’s, so sorry, but there are no pictures.” She paused a second, licking her lips. “I do know of a handful of safe houses my dad owned that may still be in the O’Malley name, if that is of any use to you. They’re good places for hiding people and secrets.”
Sapphire flinched a little at the reminder of the type of place she had been, but she shook it off and nodded. Kody handed over his phone, getting Shannon to write down each address she knew, and whatever else she could think of that would help. And though it wasn’t as good as we had been hoping for, it was nice that our visit wasn’t entirely a waste. Not just because one of the addresses Shannon listedwasthe one where Sapphire had been held, but because one of the other places had been busy rather a lot in the last handful of weeks. So though we didn’t know where the stalker was, within a handful of minutes of passing the information over to Beau and Darius, we discovered one brilliant thing…
John O’Malley and his Vice King scum were more than likely holed up in a mansion, only a few miles from my own home, back in Diamond Grove.
As everyone else kept talking, I wandered the room some more, staring at all the pictures dotted about and finding nothing suspicious. They were showing a large and loving household, not too dissimilar from my own. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t entirely a waste was when I glanced out of the window, spotting Delilah climb out of the car. She took a handful of steps away on her phone, and I could see her face quickly scrunching up with what looked like annoyance. But other than that, which was entirely irrelevant until we could ask her what was wrong, there was nothing in the house itself to give me any reason to find Shannon suspicious or strange.
She was a normal O’Malley — a non-evil, regular woman.
I turned my attention back to the conversation as Sapphire narrowed her eyes.
