“Well, partway through the dancin’ Ben shows up in a fancy uniform, just walks in like he was invited and starts arguin’ with Miriam. Well, that girl don’t deserve the treatment that animal gives her, so I stepped in. I’m the patriarch of this family, and it’s a duty I take seriously. Started talkin’ lippy, and I told him what for. He says, ‘I don’t hit old men,’ and o’course, that did me in. Gave a left and a right, I did, and there ain’t a man alive who can stay up when I’ve hit ‘em. Back in my day, there wasn’t a man in Ireland who could stand against me, and believe you me, boy-o, they tried. They came from miles around to try their luck against Séan Byrne, and by god, I took ‘em all on. I may be old, but I still got a right hook what’ll make your granddad feel it. I hit that boy, one-two, and he went tumblin’ arse over teakettle.”
Carson laughed. “Wait, you punched Ben?” That impressed him. Everything he was finding out about Benjamin Omar led Carson to realize knocking him down was no easy feat.
“Well sure! He’d shown up uninvited at my granddaughter’s wedding, and was talking a bunch of shite, tryin’ to scare Miriam into leavin’ with him. So, I showed him how to behave.” Séan’s face darkened. “Only, he proved to be a damn fine fighter, I’ll give him that.”
“So what happened?” asked Jenn, speaking for the first time.
“Well, he was doin’ a number on my boys. We’d have taken him, but Miriam, bless her heart, she wasn’t havin’ none of it. I suppose when Ben broke my Jackie’s arm, she just couldn’t take it any more. Her poor sweet heart was breakin’ I think, and she was still all confused by everythin’. She didn’t know what she wanted. Well, no, that ain’t true neither. She knew, she just didn’t believe herself worth it. She left with him, Miriam did. She stopped the fight, and walked away with that Ben. She didn’t want to, I could see that, and so could poor Jackie.”
“What did Jack do?” Carson asked.
“Oh, he wanted to go after her, take her back, but I wouldn’t let him. She needed to face Ben, she needed to make her own choice, or she wouldn’t ever be free of him. If Jackie kept rescuing her, she’d always be a slave to what she was afraid of. Jackie, he’s got too kind a heart for his own good, sometimes.” Séan cocked his head, thinking. “You said you were investigating Ben’s death? How’d he die, then?”
Carson shook his head. “I can’t divulge that at this time.”
“But you suspect Jackie?”
“We’re pursuing every angle, sir.”
Séan huffed. “Don’t bullshite me, son. You’d not be here if you didn’t.”
“We think he may have something do with it, yes. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will. I don’t personally think Jack killed Ben himself. He would be an accomplice, at most. Can you tell me where he’d be, Mister Byrne? So I can ask him for his side of the story?”
Séan shook his head, grunting a negative. “I’d tell you if I knew. Jackie’s a good boy, and if he did have aught to do with it, it was only to protect Miriam.”
“Have you seen her since the wedding incident?” Carson asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. I keep hopin’ Jackie will show up with Miriam, but it never happens. Jackie went to work the next day, but I ain’t seen him since, neither. I’m worried for him, to be honest with you. That Ben was a dangerous sort. He had the look of man who could do murder, I’ll tell you that much. My Sight tells me they’re both still alive, and that you’ll find ‘em when you’re meant to.” Séan looked as if he hadn’t meant to say that last part.
“Your sight? What do you mean, Mister Byrne?”
Séan didn’t answer right away. He peered at Carson, who felt as if the old man was staring into his soul, probing him, weighing him. “I like you, lad,” Séan said, at length. “I get a good sense from you. I’ll tell you somethin’ I shouldn’t, but you gotta listen and not interrupt. I’m old Irish, Detective. Grew up in County Cork, and my own mum, God rest her, had the Blood of the Niall, the Second Sight. Don’t no one know what that is no more, so I’ll tell you. It’s visions of the future. But it’s more than that. My grandson Jackie has it too, though he ain’t accepted it yet. You’re all tangled up together in somethin’ and this is just the start of it. You ain’t gonna figure this out till you accept certain things, though I can’t see what. You’re closin’ your mind, and that’s gonna slow you down and keep you blinded to the truth.”
Carson wasn’t sure what to say to this. No one he’d spoken to had seen Jack or Miriam, and he was sure he was going to find their bodies somewhere. The old man had a vision of some kind, and that was supposed to mean something to Carson? This was a murder investigation, not a damned Séance. He didn’t say this to the old man, though.
What he ended up saying was, “If you hear from either of them, have them call me right away, please.” He handed Séan his card and left.
He was starting to exhaust his leads. At this point, he had to either find Jack and Miriam, or find their remains. Carson was starting to worry it’d be the latter. He was getting a picture of Miriam, and despite his best efforts to keep a professional distance from her, he found himself liking her. He wanted her to be innocent. She had obviously made an impression on Jack’s grandfather, and he seemed like a hard man to impress. Any 80-year old who was capable of knocking down a 30-year old ex-Marine was okay in Carson’s book.
Chapter 14: Then
Miriam called Larry the next morning and told him she needed some time off. He didn’t like it, and liked even less that she wouldn’t explain why, but he knew her well enough to grant it. She’d worked for him for a long time and never taken a single day off, so to ask for two weeks meant something was up.
“Hey, if there’s anything I can do…” Larry said, before hanging up.
“Thanks Larry, I’ll be fine. I just…need to figure some things out.”
“Okay. But seriously, though, call me if you need anything. You know I’m here for you.”
Miriam knew he meant well, but he wouldn’t be able to handle the trouble she was in. He wouldn’t know where to start. Neither did she, if she was honest. A million questions were banging around in her head like moths trapped in a lampshade, and she had answers to none of them.
Who was she? If she had all this magic inside her, where did it come from? Her parents had never seemed to be anything but normal. Unless they had adopted her and never told her? But no, she’d seen the certificate of birth from the hospital in Beirut with her parent’s signatures on it. She’d seen pictures of herself as an infant in her father’s arms; she looked just like him, got her dark brown eyes from him, her thin nose and full lips from him. Then where was this fire inside coming from?
She was going in circles, asking questions that had no answers. She had to get out. She couldn’t stay in her dinky little apartment any longer. Besides, Ben would show up eventually. Or Jack would. And if Jack showed up, she’d go back to him, and then it would start all over again. Ben would do something else, hurt Jack again, or his family, or something. He’d let her go, but she knew he wasn’t done yet. He didn’t forget.
She stuffed some clothes in her tattered Jansport backpack, got in her car and drove, not really going anywhere in particular, just driving to get away. She needed space from everything, from men, from her own fears and desires, from magic. She was hoping, somewhere deep inside, that she’d find answers to her questions somehow. Maybe the magic would provide answers on its own.
Maybe Jack would find her anyway. She had her cell phone, and she’d heard it buzz a number of times, but she refused to look at it. There would be a dozen messages from Jack, all of them probably pleading with her to answer, to talk to him, to tell him she was okay. She didn’t want him to worry, but she couldn’t talk to him, couldn’t have any contact with him. The only way to protect him was to keep away. Maybe if she stayed away, he’d forget about her. Find a girl to love who didn’t come with so much baggage. The thought of him with another girl sent pangs of pain knifing through her heart,
but she knew he deserved that. He deserved better than she could give him. She was damaged goods, and he was…Jack was perfect.
She felt tears dripping from her chin, but she didn’t care. She wiped them away, let herself cry, let herself grieve for what she could have had, did have, if only for a moment. It was gone now, though.
She was driving too fast, going north, away from the city. She was on I-75, speeding faster than her car could really handle, but she didn’t care. She passed Great Lakes Crossing without noticing, her thoughts spinning in circles, going from questions about the fire and magic in her blood, to thoughts of Ben and the man he had been before he went to Afghanistan, to Jack and how tender he was.
So consumed was she in her own thoughts that she never even glanced in her rearview mirror. If she had, she might have noticed the red Maserati two cars back, and she might have noticed that it had been following her since she left her apartment.
Hunger gnawed at her stomach and thirst scratched at her throat, but she didn’t stop. If she stopped driving, she might never start again, she might just curl up in the back seat and cry until she slept, and then she would sleep forever. She kept driving, paying no attention to mile markers or exits or landmarks. At some point she passed the Birch Run Outlets and she realized she had driven a lot farther than she’d realized. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care where she was or where she was going, as long as it was away from Ben, away from the temptation of Jack, away from everything.
Miriam kept driving, mile after mile humming under her tires. She was forced to stop when the gas gauge needle buried itself in the ‘E’. She had no idea where she was; she hadn’t been paying attention to anything but the road in front of her, driving on autopilot, lost in her whirling thoughts. The exits were few and far between, here, and the trees were beginning to fade from deciduous to conifer, oaks and birches and elms becoming pine and spruce and fir. How far had she gone? She started watching the road signs as they passed, waiting for one that indicated a gas station. After another twenty minutes she passed a sign advertising a Tubby’s and a Sunoco, left, 3.3 miles. She wasn’t sure she’d make it another 3 miles, honestly. When this beat up old Volvo hit empty, it quit running without warning. She’d learned that the hard way.
Miriam pulled off the expressway and turned left, cursing under her breath as the engine sputtered. It coughed, caught and kept going, and Miriam decided to throw caution out the window and gun it, hoping to get as far as possible before it died on her. She really didn’t want to have to walk to a gas station and back, alone, way out here in the boonies. She glanced around her, realizing how far out in the middle of exactly nowhere she was. Farmland spread out in every direction, row after row of corn and other crops she didn’t recognize, the sprawling farms lined by distant walls of trees and dirt roads, dotted with farmhouses and barns. The road she was on plowed in a perfectly straight line out of sight, reminding her how far 3.3 miles was, when you had no idea where you were. The Volvo coughed again, guttered and sputtered, and then went silent. She coasted it to the shoulder and turned the ignition, despite knowing it wouldn’t start. The engine turned over, but stayed dead. Awesome.
She got out, locked the door and opened the trunk with her key to get the red gas can; she’d run out of gas enough times that she always kept one in her trunk. With a sigh and a curse, Miriam set out down the road, grateful that at least the weather was warm and dry.
Jack consumed her thoughts, filling her stomach with a heavy pit of sadness. He had been so kind to her, so understanding. He didn’t deserve this kind of jerking around. She had to at least tell him it was over, in so many words. She pulled her phone out of her purse, not surprised to see 13 text messages, 10 missed calls, and 3 voice mails, all from Jack.
She scrolled through the texts first. They started out simple enough: Miriam plz call me…at least lemme know ur ok…im getting worried now. just send me a text so i know ur not hurt or anything…Then, as she had continued to ignore her phone, they started to get ever more desperate: im going crazy, Miriam! call me before i flip out, plz!…i swear to god if he hurts you i’ll f-ing kill him…Miriam’s heart contracted, filling her with guilt. He was worried sick. She had no cell signal, so she couldn’t listen to voicemails, or call him. She desperately wanted to hear his voice, to reassure him that she was okay. She dialed his number, something she’d never actually done before, she realized. He’d always just..shown up, been there, seeking her out. Her phone beeped, telling she was outside signal range. She’d have to wait to talk to him.
She heard a car approaching from behind her, and she moved farther over to the side of the shoulder, looking up from her phone to realize the sun was setting and darkness was falling around her. She turned to watch the car drive by, and felt her stomach clench. It was Ben, pulling next to her, rolling down his window, pacing her. How had he found her? He must’ve followed her, she realized. She turned away from him and kept walking.
“What are you doing out here, Miriam?” He sounded sober, and calm. Miriam ignored him. “Don’t ignore me, baby, please. Just get in the car. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m not your baby.”
“Okay, fine, Miriam, please, let me take you home. Come on.”
“I don’t want to go home. I’m fine.” She refused to look at him. He was looking at her with puppy-dog eyes, pleading silently.
“Look at me, Miriam. Just stop for a second. It’s sunset, you’ll be walking for hours. Anything could happen out here.”
“I’ve walked home alone in the dark plenty of times. I can take care of myself. I’m a freak, remember?”
“I’m sorry I called you a freak. I’ve been an asshole, I know I have. I’m sorry, okay? I apologize. I can change, I promise. I’ll stop drinking, and I’ll treat you right. Just–just let me take you home.”
“You’ve said all this before, Ben. Nothing has ever changed.” She really didn’t want to be walking alone. The adventure of ‘just driving’ had worn off. But was she ready to get in a car with Ben again? Even just to get home? And how would she get her car back, if she went with Ben? What was she thinking? She’d sworn to never talk to or listen to Ben again.
She stiffened her resolve and quickened her pace. “Go away, Ben. I don’t want your help.”
“Miriam, this is stupid!” Ben said, frustration bleeding into his voice. “Come on. Just get in. I’ll take you right home.”
“Yeah, right home. Sure. Funny how ‘right home’ always turns into your house, and you trying to grope me. No thanks.” Ben hissed, gunned the car and pulled it over in front of her, got out to stand in front of her, not quite touching her. She stared at his chest, refusing to meet his eyes. “Get out of my way, Ben. You’re wasting your time.” She pushed him out of the way as she said this. Or tried to, though he didn’t move.
“No, Miriam. This is totally stupid. You’re gonna end up dead, Miri. You never know what kind of freaks live out here in the boonies.”
“The only one bothering me right now is you.” Miriam darted around him, and he grabbed her arm. She wrenched her arm free and slapped him, hard. “Don’t touch me.”
“Listen, please. No, don’t walk away, just listen. Do you remember how we met?” Ben was walking beside her, his car still running, door open, on the side of the road. “You had just started at the Taproom. You were living in your car, and you thought no one knew. You didn’t say one word the entire first day, just followed Beth around on your shadow shift, watching. You looked scared of everything. Your hair was braided down to your waist, and you had a ton of eyeshadow on, making your eyes look big and even darker than they are. God, I was crushing on you from that first day. There was something mysterious about you; there always has been, actually, and that’s part of what makes you so attractive, aside from your looks. There’s this sense of…I don’t know…mystique, something secretive about you. You refused to even look at me, that first day. You’d come up to the service bar, standing behind Beth, and you’d just s
tare at the liquor bottles, or out at the customers. You wouldn’t look at me, and it drove me nuts. I thought you were so hot, and I just wanted to say hi, but you wouldn’t cooperate. You barely glanced at Larry during your interview. Everyone wanted to know what your deal was, who you were, why you lived in your car, but you wouldn’t talk to anyone. It was months before you even looked at me.”
Miriam remembered. She had tried to leave Nick. When she woke up with Nick holding a knife to her throat, she’d finally gotten desperate enough to run, but Nick had come after her, found her at The Taproom, tried to scare her into going with him. Ben had hospitalized Nick, protecting her, and after that, he had acted like a protector to Miriam, going out of his way to talk to her, make her laugh.
She had still been wary, keeping her distance from him for several months, putting him off at every turn. That had only made him want her more, though, made him chase her all the harder. Eventually she had given in, let Ben take her to his apartment, let him kiss her, let him touch her, let him sleep with her. He was nicer than Nick, at first. He seemed normal, sane. Things had been fine for about six months, and then he told her had enlisted with Marines. She had just started to get attached to him, so it hadn’t been welcome news. He had always shown a quick temper lurking just beneath the surface, and that had worried her. The ease with which he had ripped into Nick had sent warning flags waving in her head, but she ignored them. He was big, and tough, and promised to protect her, which was exactly what she wanted after Nick. Ben made her feel safe, or at least provided the illusion of safety. She allowed herself to ignore the warning signs, one after the other. He got drunk the day he had received his orders sending him to Afghanistan, and he’d been rough with her that night. He hadn’t been violent, just rough in the way he threw her to the bed and stripped her clothes off, rough in the way he had slammed himself into her, ignoring her whimper of pain. That should’ve been warning enough, but she’d ignored it. Then he shipped out, and his letters and Skype calls got more and more infrequent, and the times he did call or write, it was in short, terse sentences. He came back after two tours, voluntarily signing up for the second one, not even coming home in between. She met him at the Detroit Metro Airport, and she had seen the difference right away. It was in his eyes, in the way he assessed her, the way he hugged her. There was a distance, somehow, a gap of a million years between them, a chasm ripped in his soul by whatever he’d seen or done over there, things he refused to talk about, which gave him nightmares, even still.
Jack and Djinn Page 14