Hell's Angel: Devil's Backbone (BK 2)

Adventures in Babysitting

Dani's POV
(Nightwing27th)

Matt, Foggy, and I left Josie's and headed over to the place Grotto said looked like a war zone. And he wasn't kidding. I haven't seen anything this devastating since the battle of New York. We walked past a police car, following Foggy. He was searching for Mahoney. We walked out from behind an ambulance and I stopped. "Oh, my..." disgust laced my voice.

Matt stopped beside me. "Does it look as bad as I think?"

"Probably worse." I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The whole front of the building was full of nothing but bullets holes. It looks like someone blasted it with a machine gun, and the FULL nine yards. "Hey, Brett!" Foggy's voice broke me from my thoughts. "Guys, over here."

I turned to Matt, putting my hand on his arm. We quickly covered the distance between Foggy and us. "I would say it's good to see you, but under the circumstances..."

Mahoney looked more annoyed than anything. "Would you please step aside, sir?"

"We've got a couple of questions, Brett," Matt said.

"If you're here to case ambulances, you might notice there are none." His eyes shifted to me. Normal clothes, brown hair, this...amazing scar on my face. To the average person, no one would notice or think anything of it. But, Mahoney's not the average person. He knows I'm Angel, and so far has kept quiet. Let me run around town in a mask. He might just be waiting till he figures out who the other guy is. Good luck with that.

"Sergeant," I nodded. He gave me a knowing look, like he knew he'd regret helping us. But if I were him, I wouldn't let the people who did this get away because of some stupid protocol. "Any leads?" Foggy asked. Mahoney turned his gaze to Foggy.

"Read about it in the papers, like a normal person."

"I think we can agree," I said, "We're not normal people. You know I can help."

"You know I can't talk about an open crime scene. Those rules go double for you."

I scoffed and Foggy stepped in. "What if...hypothetically speaking...we may have recently acquired a new client that could help...shed some light on this investigation?" I sighed.

"How recent?" Mahoney asked.

"Farm fresh."

"Was he here?"

"Client privilege."

"Well, uh, Mr. Nelson, if that was true..."

"Hypothetically speaking."

"...I'd tell you that withholding your client from the NYPD would be obstructing governmental administration. And, I'd probably just arrest you myself. In theory."

"I guess we really can't help each other," Foggy said all cheery. I rolled my eyes. We're getting nowhere with this. Matt and I would've had better luck punching people on the street. Matt stepped forward. "It's over a hundred degrees out here tonight, Sergeant. Why would an Irish mobster wear body armor to a private meeting inside his own club?"

Mahoney thought for a minute. An officer walked by and he grabbed his arm. "Tell 'em keep it down in there or somebody's getting written up." The officer nodded and then was on his way. Please, I scoffed to myself. Like them whispering while scraping what used to be people off the ground is going to help.

Mahoney turned back to Matt, an intense stare on his face. "I help you...you help me," he asked, glancing my way.

"That's all we want," Matt said.

"There's a total clamp down on any of this getting out to the press. I'd like to keep it that way."

"Brett...you can trust us."