“Santa Estela.” The words left Connor’s lips before he’d even thought of them.
“What about it?”
“A couple of years back, I was there right before the elections…”
“I remember.”
“On the night I was to leave, I was on my way down to the dock for the boat that was to pick me up, and I took a shortcut through an alley that ran between some abandoned warehouses. There was a deal going down; I watched from the alley. Six, seven men, a truck filled with kids. One of me. I was trying to figure out what to do when I ran into Brendan.”
“You ran into Brendan in the alley?” John had been clearly surprised.
“He walked in one end while I was at the other. Almost didn’t recognize him at first, it was dark, and let’s face it, the last person you expect to run into under those circumstances is a member of your own family.”
“What was he doing there?”
“He told me he was on the op that was just about to close down the kiddie traffic.”
“What op?”
“The operation to shut down the traffic in children coming out of Santa Estela. He told me not to worry about the kids in the truck because he was part of the team that was shutting it down that night. When I asked him about it later, he blew me off as if it wasn’t important, but an op like that could have had international repercussions and I…”
“Connor, there was no team in Santa Estela that had been sent in to work on the child-slave trade.”
“He must have been working for another unit then, because he told me-”
“Listen to me. He was working for me. He’s always worked for me, and only for me. There was no op. He was there to keep an eye on the rebels, to keep the political situation stable.”
“John, you’re wrong. They closed it down that night, he told me they did. There’s a whole file on this, he wrote a report-”
“Did you see it? Did he show you the report?”
“Well, no, but he told me-”
“Connor, we’re talking about the man who may have killed your brother. Why are you defending him?”
“I can’t believe any of this. The Brendan I knew-”
“Just how well did you know him?”
Connor had paused to take a deep breath.
“If any of what you’re telling me is true, I’d have to say I didn’t know him at all.”
There’d been talk after that of a memorial service to be held the following week.
“You might want to think about coming home for it, Connor.”
“I don’t have to think about it. I won’t be there.”
“I can arrange for you to come home.”
“That bastard.” Anger had started to take over. “The bastard. How could he have pulled the trigger on Dylan?”
“Well, like I said, he might not have realized he was shooting Dylan. It was dark, you were supposed to be there with Aidan that night. I don’t think Dylan was the target.”
“You think he wanted to kill me because I’d seen him in Santa Estela? You think he was part of that, selling truckloads of children? There’s no way he would have been involved in something like that, John.”
“Think it through. Why else would he have been there? We know there was no op to shut it down, so if he wasn’t shutting it down-and we know he lied to you about that-he must have been part of it. It had to occur to him that sooner or later, you would ask about that, and there was the danger that you’d figure out what was going on.”
“You really think he was involved in the trafficking?”
“I think he had to have been. And he had to know that sooner or later, you would be asking about how that all went down.”
“I did,” Connor had said softly.
“What?”
“I did ask. A week or so ago. I left a message on his answering machine, asking him what happened.”
“Why? What made you think of it?”
“Annie was asking me about Santa Estela. She knew I’d been there, and her new guy, that detective from Pennsylvania, had a murder vic who might have had ties to Santa Estela.” He had stopped to recall exactly what Annie had said. “I think it was more than one vic, young girls, and there was a question about some tattoos.”
“Did you tell Brendan that Annie had been asking?”
Connor closed his eyes, trying to remember what he’d said on the message. “Honest to God, John, I don’t remember if I did or not.”
There was silence while each digested what had been said.
“Is there a chance that Brendan wanted to kill Annie because I told him she was asking questions? Jesus, John, I don’t know.”
Before he hung up, Connor had asked, “How’s my dad doing? Have you spoken to my uncle Frank?”
“I spoke with your brother. Maybe you should give him a call. There was some talk about who would be the pallbearers.”
“Well, they can count me out. No fucking way.” The anger resurfaced. “Son of bitch murdered my brother, I’m going to carry his casket? How could Aidan even consider it?”
“I don’t think Aidan is thinking about honoring the dead as much as he’s thinking about honoring the living.”
Connor had let that sink in. Regardless of what Brendan might have done, his father-Connor’s uncle Frank-would be devastated at the loss of his son. To lose a son under these circumstances would be humiliating for a man-a family-who had served the Bureau long and well.
“Call Aidan, Connor,” John had said. “And if you change your mind about coming home, just let me know. I’ll clear it.”
“Don’t expect to hear from me.”
Connor had hung up and had gone to the balcony to look out over the water, his eyes stinging with tears. He’d had a hell of a time processing the information he’d received. His cousin had wanted to kill him, but shot and killed his brother instead. Then he himself was shot and killed while apparently planning on killing Annie.
What the hell had happened to his world?
He thought of Brendan as a young boy, almost a decade younger than Connor. He’d been the quiet one, the one who always held to the background. There’d been a time when he and Dylan had been adversaries of sorts, but that had long since passed. No, he couldn’t believe that Brendan could have fired that shot. Brendan, who had sobbed as he’d carried Dylan’s coffin down the steps of St. Bernadette’s Church, Brendan, who had comforted Connor’s father as well as his own.
Connor had started drinking after the conversation with John, and hadn’t stopped. Unfortunately, the whiskey hadn’t made him drunk, hard as he’d tried to silence the voices in his head.
He had called Aidan and berated him for even considering bearing Brendan’s coffin.
“It’s not for him, Connor,” Aidan had said. “It’s for Uncle Frank. And for Dad. You remember how Dad leaned on Uncle Frank through Dylan’s-”