Page 6 of After The Storm
He’d always thought that to be a pretty dubious claim since he’d spent time in a lot of great cities around the world and none topped those two. Now he’d see if Butcher had been telling the truth or just bullshitting like usual.
Once he found what he’d been looking for, Nick began to give him the information he’d need to start the case. “The client’s name is Kate Sheridan. She’s a legal assistant to an attorney named Jonas Flynn. Mr. Flynn was found murdered a few hours ago, along with one of his clients. This woman believes she’s in danger and can’t go to the police.”
“Then how did we find out about her?” Roman asked, confused how Project Artemis was sniffing out these assignments if not by the usual way of through the cops.
Looking up from reading the information on his laptop screen, Nick answered his question. “Her friend told the police down there what I just told you. One of them called Persephone about twenty minutes ago. From what he said, she might be in real danger because they’re considering the possibility that her boss’s and his client’s deaths as mob hits.”
“Mob hits,” Roman repeated. “That’s definitely not some teenager flashing his teacher.”
A slow smile spread across Nick’s face. “No, it’s not. You might be walking into something pretty serious and not overzealous parents bad either.”
“I’ll start with the friend, so I’m going to need her name and where I can find her.”
“Gotcha covered. Her name is Eve Devereux and I’ll text you her address,” Nick said, nodding as he grabbed his phone.
“Anything else I need to know?” Roman asked, his mind already working on what the cops down in New Orleans thought about the lawyer’s death.
“Other than it’s a possible mob hit and it’s in New Orleans? That’s pretty much all the officer told Persephone. He got the feeling this Kate Sheridan’s friend knew where she’s hiding out, but she wouldn’t tell the cops. All she said was Kate didn’t trust anyone but her.”
“Any chance there’s an estranged husband or an ex involved?” Roman wondered aloud.
Something about this case smacked of someone close to her being part of it.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have any information about her boss being anything other than that, her boss. No romantic entanglement mentioned.”
“And the client? Any idea what kind of case he and the lawyer were working on? I’m thinking maybe he’s well-known for mob cases since the cops down there are pinning this on the mob not twenty-four hours in.”
Once again, Nick turned back to his laptop and began typing away. “I don’t know. Let’s see what kind of law Attorney Jonas Flynn practiced.”
As he searched for that information online, Roman thought about how good it would be to get away from the estate. Even if just for a few days until the New Orleans police could find Flynn and his client’s killer, it would be just what the doctor ordered. Tess may have thought getting chummy with the sports lovers would help, but he knew better.
Time away and work were what would make him happy. The more he had to focus on a case, the better off he’d be.
Still looking at his computer, Nick read what he’d found out about Flynn. “He was just a regular lawyer who handled a lot of basic personal injury cases. You’re average, run-of-the-mill legal eagle. Nothing special. He has no reputation for any special kind of cases which would make him a mob lawyer or anyone associated with the mob.”
He turned to face Roman and said exactly what was running through his mind at that moment. “I wonder why the New Orleans police tagged this as a possible mob hit.”
“Must be because of the way the two victims were killed. I’m guessing something pretty damn violent if they’re going with the mob as being behind this. The mob likes to make sure killing someone gets the point across. Never really ones for subtlety.”
Nick rifled through a small stack of papers on the other side of his desk and picked one out of the pile. After scanning it for a moment, he shook his head.
“No. They were both found shot in the head, but there’s nothing to even hint at a mob hit. The client, Samuel Darnell, was a carpenter. Why the hell would the mob give a damn about someone like him?”
Roman had no answers for him. All he had were more questions. “So what was this carpenter’s case Flynn was working on? Maybe that’s what got them killed? That might explain why the legal assistant thinks her life is in danger.”
A few more seconds of reading through notes and then Nick shrugged. “Weird. We have nothing on what the case was. I wonder why the cops didn’t bother to share that information.”
“Maybe they didn’t think it was related?” Roman suggested, knowing how ridiculous that sounded.
“A guy and his lawyer are killed on the same day and cops don’t think the case that connects them is related to their murders? This isn’t some backwater small town we’re talking about, Roman. This is New Orleans. Let me ask Persephone.”
Nick yelled over to the other person who ran Project Artemis, and she held up a single finger to tell him to hold on while she talked on the phone. A few seconds later, the woman who founded the group Roman worked for walked over to join them at Nick’s desk.
“Sorry, I was on the phone. Nick, I think I have a case for Julian, so let him know when you’re done here. He’ll have to leave as soon as possible.”
“Okay, but first, Roman and I are trying to figure out why we don’t know what case this Flynn guy was working on with the client who was also murdered in the New Orleans assignment with this Sheridan woman. Seems like an important detail we should have, doesn’t it?”
For a moment, Persephone stared at Nick and then looked over at Roman, her dark eyes narrowing as she thought about what she’d just heard. “Hmmm. I don’t know. The officer who called me told me they didn’t have a lot of details on what was going on, but they thought it might be a mob hit. We’re not going with her being in danger of being the next victim?”