what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

twenty three

Chapter Twenty-Three: Observations

While Sarah was safely recovering in Matt's apartment, her absence at the hospital hadn't gone unnoticed—and neither had Aaron McDermott's disappearance.

On the top level of a parking garage several blocks away, Ronan stood waiting, smoking a cigarette as McDermott's partner, Officer Connor Donovan, pulled up in an unmarked car.

"You find out where she is?" he asked the police officer without preamble as he got out of the car.

"No," Donovan answered. "Don't know where she went after the hospital, but she hasn't been back to her apartment."

"Well, that's just great detective work, officer. Isn't it your fault she managed to get out of the hospital in the first place?"

"My job was to tell you she was there, not to keep her there until you arrived," Donovan snapped. "Besides, I don't know how she got out of there. She looked half dead when I saw her."

"There's something going on there," Ronan said. "Those two idiots I hired to bring her to me never came back. Now McDermott's gone, and she managed to slip out of that hospital unseen. Sarah isn't smart enough to be doing all this on her own. She's got someone helping her."

"Who do you think it is?"

"Dunno yet."

"Well until you figure it out, we need to be focusing our attention on finding McDermott."

"Aw," Ronan cooed. "Does he mean something special to you? Are the two of you some kind of buddy cop rom-com?"

Donovan didn't take the bait.

"He knows about this arrangement," he said slowly, pointing from himself to Ronan. "And him being missing means the department is going to start looking closer at all of the arrests he and I have been bringing in lately. What if they connect the dots and realize we haven't been finding these guys on our own?"

"Why should I care if that happens?" Ronan asked in a bored tone. "So you'll get outed for being bad at your job."

"Alright, try this instead. What if McDermott skipped town because he decided to tell some of your criminal friends that you're the reason all of their hideouts keep getting busted? That you're ratting them out just so you can keep a tail on some girl?"

Ronan's face twitched into a sneer, but he had no retort.

"It's best for both of us if we find McDermott, and quick," Donovan continued. "So if you think your little girlfriend knows something then let's go to her apartment and make her tell us."

"No."

"Why not?" he demanded. "I know you like playing around with her but I'm not about to risk my job because you want to drag this out—"

"She doesn't react to being attacked. You threaten her and she just stares at you like an idiot," he said bitterly. "If we want her to tell us who she's working with and what she knows about McDermott, we have to get under her skin. And the only thing that ever seems to get a rise out of her is the people she cares about. Mess with them and I'd be willing to be she'll come ot us."

"Fine," Donovan said impatiently. "Her dad, then. We already know where he lives. Who else?"

"There aren't a lot of options. She's not Miss Popular," Ronan said. "But she has a best friend. I don't have a name, but she's in a lot of Sarah's photographs. Tall, blonde. Seems to mean a lot to her."

At the mention of Ronan's collection of Sarah's photographs, Donovan gave him a vaguely disgusted look before rolling his eyes.

"Anyone else?" the officer asked.