A headline on the third page screamed Michael Connaught Seduces Jessica Wyeth complete with pictures of them together, arm in arm either dressed like royals at some formal event, and other candid shots of them taken at the race. He paced in small circles, opening and closing his hands into fists. He could not hear their conversation, but he could tell that Michael was doing everything Tim could not do to woo her.
Tim had watched them carefully. Jessica’s movements were those of a frightened horse. She moved her shoulder away from Michael’s touch, taking steps back. Her face angled down, avoiding eye contact. Her body was tense and signaled to Tim she wasn’t about to yield. Michael seemed stiff in the way he did as a boy, when he was angry enough to hit something but was controlling himself. Tim puzzled the pieces. Could Michael sense she didn’t like the barn? Or did she act that way because she no longer liked Michael? Maybe Nan was right. Tim would try again to get Jessica to love him. He had to make sure his second try didn’t fail.
Tim wanted to watch her before she disappeared into the great house. He crept around the side of the barn and looked up the hill. A near silent wisp of branches made him reflexively drop to all fours and look in its direction. The man with the rifle walked toward him, muzzle raised.
“Jay-sus, Tim! What are you doing creeping around like that?” the sniper re-engaged the rifle’s safety and pointed it to the ground.
“Rourke!” Tim said with practiced enthusiasm, “Sorry to give you a start, man. What’s that you’re doing here?”
Athletic and lean, Rourke crossed the opening to Tim in easy strides. “The young Mr. Connaught has me keeping the riffraff out.”
Tim clasped Rourke’s outstretched hand and gave it a pump, eyeing the cradled rifle. “It’s good to see you, my man. Good to see you. How’s the missus?”
“The missus and I are parents now. Garrett is four and Caroline is six months.”
Tim widened his eyes and shook his head back and forth slowly, Nan’s lessons well learned. “Doesn’t seem possible that my bunkmate at training is a father. Young Liam, may he rest in peace, was right when he said you were the marrying type. Last I heard you were part of the militia near the Bogside. Good to see you in these parts.” He remembered their training—hand-to-hand combat where it always ended with Rourke’s face pressed to the mud and Tim holding the wooden dowel used for drills to his throat. He won at that. Lost to him at target practice.
“What brings you ‘round? I hadn’t heard you were part of the team here.” He patted his pockets and produced a folded paper. He read it carefully. “They’ve left your name off the list, Tim.”
Tim noticed the way Rourke tightened his core muscles and lifted his chest a fraction of an inch. The pupils of his eyes grew for that split second long enough for Tim to be on alert. He gave Rourke his most rehearsed smile. “True enough. Seems that Michael wanted a fast start on the barn and brought me in to get things going.” As they spoke, he led them inside the barn and motioned to the yellow tape and blue lines. “I plotted out the new stalls and rough marked where the plumbing should be.”
Rourke relaxed. “Ma told me that Michael’s woman had a way with horses and you worked at the cottage, too. What’d you think of her?”
He gave a slight sputter before he responded. What else had been said? He didn’t want to talk about Jessica. He didn’t want anyone watching him while he thought about her. “She doesn’t have a firm enough hand with them,” he said, suppressing the urge to walk in tight circles. Instead, he could feel his back become rigid and the first pulses of rocking begin.
“You were never one to spare the rod. I heard she got great results with the horses you chose for Aintree. Folks at Tully Farm said their stable never’s been worth so much. They turned down seven million pounds for that horse she rode and anticipate making a killing on stud fees. Maybe the two of you would make a brilliant team.”
Tim could feel his lips involuntarily pull back, baring his teeth like a snarl. He didn’t want anyone talking about her. Rourke didn’t have the right to talk about her. He tried to remember what Nan had said. People couldn’t read his thoughts like he could read theirs. People couldn’t see inside his head. Rourke didn’t know his secret. Rourke didn’t know Tim was going to make her his own. Tim relaxed his lips to form a skewed smile. “My job’s with the barn.”
Rourke straightened his back and gave a last look around. “Well, it will keep you busy enough. I’d best be going.”
“You off now?”
Rourke looked up at the sun, still high. “I’ve a few hours left before the next shift starts. I’ll make note to add your name to the list. You’re lucky I’m the one who found you. Otherwise I’m not sure you’d still be standing.”
Tim patted Rourke’s back, assessing his strength. He would prove to be no contest. “Aye, fair enough. I’ll be seeing Michael myself in a bit and will see to the list. No need to worry yourself with it.” He embraced his friend, knowing it was for the last time. “Téigh le Godspeed, mo chara.”
The bouquet of primrose, bee orchid, and foxglove Jessica and Michael had gathered that afternoon was placed next to the china and crystal recently excavated from the bowels of the attic. She saw a half smile brush across his brow as he traced the stem of a wine glass with his finger. He had requested dinner in the alcove of the master bedroom, and she appreciated the incremental steps he took to bring her into his world. Sitting at the overly long dining room table would have rung hollow and odd, like children wearing their parents’ shoes.
Over her favorite broccoli and black olive pizza and Murray’s masterful mac-n-cheese, the easy rapport she loved between them surfaced. The wine worked to relax her, and she let herself be beguiled. Being together was easy as long as she didn’t let reality interfere. She fingered a silver spoon. “Your family’s?” The question was innocent enough.
“My mother’s,” he answered, a bit more loudly than the close space required. “My father insisted on everything being his decision. She didn’t have to try hard to banish him to the States.” He tried to make it sound humorous, but neither laughed. They both knew his father made sure his mother never finished putting her mark on her home. The lines on his face deepened. “I’m not like him. I could never do what he did.” He tried to be convincing.
She took him by the hand and led him to bed. He started to say more, and she silenced him with her mouth over his, pulling off his clothes and slipping out of hers. She closed her eyes and blocked out everything except the feeling of his hands running over her body. Her only thoughts were of where to kiss him and how hard. They consumed each other with equal hunger, giving as much as they received. Her connection to him was so perfect, as long as she stayed in a bubble.
Her head rested on his chest and she listened to his heartbeat. The pads of her fingertips traced lopsided circles on his skin. He was leaving again and was doing all he could to create a life she could slip into without effort, but with purpose and a future. All she had to do was breathe.
“In exchange for you working on the stables, I promise to take you to see every living person you discover who knew your mother.”
If he was holding her with promises and bribes, she wanted the terms clear. “And father,” she pressed. “I need to know about Gus, too.”
An hour later she lay alone in the enormous bed still warm from their lovemaking and looked around the room she could call home. She could see the last glint of the limousine’s taillights as they wound down the drive. Head nesting in a pillow, she let the silence of another Irish night close in around her. She was alone again, and for the first time did not welcome the feeling. As hard as it was for her to admit, a piece of her inner being traveled down the drive, too.
The vise grip around her chest told her, one way or another, their relationship wasn’t ever going to be easy. Something organic within her resisted his hold, and then she’d miss him. She stretched and idly looked at the length and silhouette of her arms. As a girl, she would do the exact
motion—raising her arms above her head and letting her hands glide through the darkened air. She remembered how her arms had changed along with her body, growing more lithe and strong as she emerged from girl to woman. She would stare at them, committing every freckle and sinew to memory, marveling that they were hers, and tracing their lines up to her heart to make sure.
She let her right hand smooth up her arm, over her shoulder and down her chest, cupping her breast before her fingertips felt that not yet familiar smoothness of skin that she could not deny but refused to acknowledge. In full light, the long scars were still an angry red with edges fading to a shiny white, as if something she had no chance to refuse had branded and claimed her.
She had been tracked and hunted like an animal on that cold mountain, tortured with cold and pain, and brought to the brink of wanting death more than anything. In the age-old and endless game of power and control, she had stared into the barrel of Michael’s gun aimed at her head while her captor held a knife to her heart. The decision that took only a fraction of a second, determined what remained of her life. She looked into Michael’s eyes and saw he wanted something more for both of them. She had seen that same look in his eyes tonight.
Her mind thrashed with disjointed memories and mismatched fears as the moon slowly arced from one side of the windows to the other. On other nights like this, she would use her insomniac energy as an excuse to pad out to the barn and check the horses. The excursions were a Trojan of productivity. What seemed to be boundless energy in the middle hours of the night always proved to be a sinkhole of exhaustion in the morning.
Tonight she had no Michael to spoon or horses to check. The minutes passed with maddening relentlessness. With nothing to do but toss and turn, she threw off the covers and stood in the middle of the room letting the chill of the night air brace her skin and bring her to seeming alertness. She dressed in yesterday’s jeans and fleece and cracked the door open to listen. Hearing only the ticks and groans of a cavernous old home, she headed to the kitchen. At least she could look at more of her mother’s pictures.
The air changed as she descended the stairs feeling as if she had plunged too deeply into a lake’s cold waters. It felt thick, like the slurry of gelatin immediately before it set, pushing her back up the stairs. She hugged her arms and hunched her shoulders against the growing chill that tingled up her spine and settled into the hollow below her skull. Habit made her movements silent. She reached out and steadied herself on the newel post, quickly recoiling when she thought she felt a light caress down the back of her hand.
Murray left lights on for her nocturnal roaming. The hallway’s Tiffany lamp projected her shadow alongside splotches of color from its glassed and leaded shade. The door to Michael’s study was slightly ajar showing the green shaded lamp on his desk glowing warmly. The dining room sat silent with bits of silver and glass reflecting the dimmed light on the mahogany sideboard. Everything was familiar from past evenings, except the yellow sliver of light did not shine under the swinging kitchen door. She pressed her ear against it. Silence meant nothing, so she peered through the crack barely more than the width of her finger.
Her eyes adjusted enough to identify each shadow. The door was at the end of the rectangular kitchen and gave a clear view of the length of the room. The kitchen was bathed in the soft blue-blacks and grays of night, flattening everything to two dimensions. Chairs were tucked neatly under the far table by the windows where her mother’s papers sat. The pantry door was closed and the long counter was clear of clutter. The glass panes of the cabinet doors reflected the barest of light from a setting moon. The straight lines of the center island held the shadow of a vase of flowers and the breakfast plates Murray always set out for her.
Nothing seemed out of place, so she had trouble assessing the angular shadows at the end of the island. Perhaps the form was a throw rug not remembered. With everything in order, she felt stupid for her caution. Her eyes adjusted more, and she swept them again over the surfaces. Then she recognized the shape as two feet lying askew. Murray.
Panic is irrational even in its pure focus. She wanted to run to his side, to smooth her hand over his brow, and tell him everything would be all right, that she was getting help. Instead, as soundlessly as she could, she pulled away from the door and took two steps back before she turned and ran to the solarium. She hoped Murray would forgive her cowardice.
The seconds it took for her to grab the phone and dial the only number she knew were not enough to sift through what could be with what was. She listened for the connection click through to Michael’s cell but heard a sound from within the house instead.
She raised her voice above a whisper. “Murray? Are you okay?”
The only response was a crash and scrambling noises coming closer. She dropped the phone and ran. She pushed through the glass doors with all of her strength, waiting for the wail of the alarm to mix with the screech of the old hinges.
Nothing happened. The door swung open on greased hinges. Alarms did not sound.
Incredulous, she bolted across the lawn toward the gatehouse, hoping that the web of motion detectors would begin their synchronized plotting of her position. The moon had completed its task and set, leaving her in the darkest time of night. She ran to the front of the house, across the drive, and dashed into the cover of the woods and listened.
No warnings sounded. No lights flashed on. A metallic taste she recognized as fear coated her mouth. She had no place to hide until she figured out what was going on.
High-pitched, tingling sounds of metal hitting metal grew louder and mixed with the sounds of snapping branches. Something big was out of breath. Two crashes. Different approaches. Her pursuers were getting closer, not caring if she heard them. Her legs felt featherweight and lightning fast as they propelled her to the gatehouse. Through the trees, she could make out the building. The huge shape loomed in front of her and her heart sank as the darkened windows registered their meaning.
Her legs were still pumping her forward when she tripped over something too soft to be a fallen log. Frantically, she moved her hand along the shape and felt clothes and cooling skin. Even without light, she knew that Rourke’s head and body sat at an inhuman angle. She barely had time to get to her feet before she was pushed forward on her face with such force that leaves and twigs packed into her mouth, open for a scream cut short.
She stayed motionless, trying to make sense of what was happening. A dog’s snout shoved its way to her face and around her body, its rapid sniffing making the tags on its collar ching in syncopated rhythm. Someone gripped her shirt and pulled her upright. A beam of a flashlight blinded her. Squinting and shielding her eyes with her hands, the clear alert eyes of two wolfhounds watched her every move. Their huge bodies sat to the side, ready for action they were trained to see as a game.
Tim reached around and put his hand over her mouth before she had a chance to move. He steadied his breathing, and his chest pulsed in time with his pounding heart. He brought his mouth down to her ear.
“No sound,” was all he said in a whisper that was barely more than the movement of his lips to form the words. He raised the palm of his hand up to his dogs and gave his wrist a flick. The dogs instantly turned and sniffed around Rourke’s body and fanned outward. They both stopped at a point about ten yards away, heads raised and tongues out. Tim snapped his fingers, and they followed him as he walked in the opposite direction deeper into the woods, one in front and the other in back.
He kept a grip over Jessica’s mouth with one hand, holding her up with his other as her feet tangled on brush. She tried to slow their progress as much as she could by sinking down on his arms, becoming dead weight, but he was much stronger and more determined. He was rough with her, seemingly immune to her stumbles and muffled gasps of shock. A few times the dogs stopped and scanned the woods with their snouts and eyes. Tim mirrored their actions and only started to move again after the dogs had glanced back and received permission to continue.
They walked for ten minutes and entered a small clearing. A ribbon of orange began to glow on the horizon. She could feel her blood begin to circulate when he released her. He retrieved something from under a log.
“Tim! What’s going on?” She wanted to say more, to ask him what happened to Murray, and to find out if he was all right. What about Rourke? Why wasn’t there power for the alarms or the gatehouse? She wanted to say so much more but was only able to draw in a breath when he closed the space between them holding a narrow cylinder in his hands. A pen?
In a practiced move, Tim bent his arm at the elbow and quickly straightened it. She was aware of a bee stinging her thigh before her reality turned sodden and dark.
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND
DALLY’S FINGERS FLEW over the keyboard as her thoughts poured through them. Nothing like a deadline to get the words flowing! She had only one more hour to put the finishing touches on the day’s story. The week’s series of articles accomplished exactly what she had hoped. Her stories moved up in the paper. Wednesday’s story was on page six and Thursday’s was on page four—just a smite away from the prime spot in the newspaper world, that lofty region on page one, above the fold. She had almost been there once. She wasn’t going to let this chance slip by, and Freddie was going to help put her over the top.
Papers were selling out earlier in the day, prompting larger volume print runs. Pings to the paper’s tip lines increased with people convinced they had spotted Wyeth and had proof. For a few hundred pounds, some tipsters offered to produce blurry photographs of couples they emphatically insisted were Wyeth and Connaught. Conspiracy theorists were beginning to weave their tales and post them on the paper’s fledgling Web page. The nuts were coming out of the woodwork. Most importantly, reporters from other papers started dogging her trail, hoping to get a grip on another angle to the story and fuel the frenzy. All of that was a sure sign she was doing her job.
The Troubles (The Jessica Trilogy Book 2) Page 38