Chapter 77

The museum is teeming with families and young children racing around the old carousels in the massive facility. Old-time music—the kind that reminds you of being a kid at the county fair—floats in the air.

Michael glances around for anyone who looks like a Fed—dark suits, sunglasses, erect posture, that kind of stuff.

The main attraction is a one-hundred-year-old carousel, the only one operable in the museum. A ride was included in the price of admission. He wanders over and watches as moms and dads hoist kids up on the painted wooden horses.

The carousel moves faster than he would’ve expected. No safety rules back in the day. A few teenagers stand on it clinging to tarnished brass bars, staring at their phones, looking bored, as the ride whirls around.

It’s then that he sees her.

The tall woman without any children with her standing on the carousel. As it rotates past, she makes eye contact with Michael. He’s met this agent before. She was the weird one who talked in riddles and told him about the disappearance of the guy who had the misfortune of running over mobster John Gotti’s son. Michael has a gnawing sense of dread.

The carousel makes it around again, but the agent is gone.

It’s then Michael feels the barrel of a gun jammed into his back. A voice says, “Let’s go outside. And let’s not risk hurting the kiddos.”

The voice isn’t that of the tall FBI agent.

It’s Shane O’Leary.