by JoAnn Ross
“Cadel wasn’t his father.”
“Aye. And don’t I have even more reason now for telling Jamie the truth. Because I’d hate to have him someday feeling guilty for having wished such a thing.”
“Speaking of which,” Alec said carefully, still not entirely knowing how she’d react to his news, “I found something out yesterday. I was going to tell you last night, but we got sidetracked…. It’s about Sinclair.”
“Oh?” Her voice was calm but her fingers had tightened ever so slightly on the handle of the teacup. “Are you about to tell me that you looked him up?”
“Not because I felt threatened by any memories you might have of him.” It was vital that she understand and believe this. “Or that I was worried about the guy showing up someday wanting to pick things up where the two of you left off. But it occurred to me that when you did tell Jamie the truth, he’d have questions. I thought it would be easier if you had some answers. I realize that you’ve a perfect right to tell me that I’ve no business interfering in your life—”
“Of course you have every right. You love me. As I love you. And isn’t that what we sometimes do for those we love and want to protect? What did you learn?”
“He died.”
“Died?” She stared at him in disbelief.
“I know it’s damn ironic that you learned that Jamie’s natural father and biological father are both dead on the same day, but it turns out that Sinclair died in a car wreck at Sussex that same year you met him.”
“The Glorious Goodwood festival begins in Sussex only weeks after our Derby.”
Alec was not surprised she’d know that, since the twenty-one-day event, often referred to as a garden party with horses, drew some of the world’s leading owners, trainers and jockeys to Great Britain’s hallowed turf.
“It was sixteen days after the Irish Derby the year Jamie was conceived.” He watched as realization dawned.
She turned to look out the window at the sky that was turning from the bright, bleeding colors of sunset to a soft dusk. “He may have been serious,” she said slowly. Thoughtfully. But not, he thought, regretfully. “About me joining him in America.” She turned back to Alec. “He may have come back, as he’d promised.”
“I suspect, having made love to you, he wouldn’t have been able to resist.”
She offered a soft smile at that.
“I’m sorry, Kate. I wish things could have turned out differently for you.”
“It would have been lovely if I could have been spared those years with Cadel. And I’m truly saddened to learn about Andrew’s death. He was a man filled to overflowing with life. It’s a shame his flame was snuffed out at such a young age.
“As for my life turning out differently …” She lifted a hand to the side of his face. “Aren’t I here, at this time, in this place, with you, exactly where I belong?”
“No escaping destiny,” he agreed, surprised by the amount of relief he was feeling. Obviously he’d been more concerned about her reaction to lost opportunities than he’d been willing to admit to himself. “There’ll be talk,” he warned her. “About what I told O’Neill. And about your alibi about us having spent the night together.”
“Isn’t that the least of my concerns,” she replied mildly. “There are those few people in the village who’ve been talking about me my entire life.” She took another sip of tea. “In truth, I feel sorry for them, that they lead such uneventful lives they need to be gossiping about mine to spice up their existence.”
“Do you have any idea who could have killed him?”
“Cadel had a way of getting on the wrong side of people. But drinking and bullying people weren’t his only vices. Jamie told me that he’d come here for money to pay his gambling debts. It wasn’t the first time, certainly. The day Quinn sent him away, he’d torn the house apart, looking for my bankbook. I’d be suspecting that perhaps one of those gamblers finally got tired of not being paid.”
“That makes sense. Especially if he was killed to set an example to other welshers.” Alec reached across the table and linked his fingers with hers. “This changes things. Opens up more possibilities we need to talk about.”
“Aye.” Her eyes were both warm and weary. Alec was encouraged by the love he viewed in those lake blue depths.
“It’s been a long day. And you didn’t get any sleep last night.” He skimmed his knuckles up her cheek. “How about we table the discussion until tomorrow?”
He was leaving the day after. Sometime between last night and when he’d learned about Cadel O’Sullivan’s murder, Alec had made the decision to take Kate with him.
Staying in the shadows and taking care not to step on the squeaky step, Jamie crept down the stairs. He suspected his ma wouldn’t approve of him using his new birthday spy equipment to eavesdrop on her conversation with Alec. But his second thought upon hearing that his da was dead, right after relief that he’d no longer be able to beat on people with his big mean fists, was that now his ma could marry Alec.
Ever since the American had come to stay with them, Jamie had been slipping off to the lake on his way back from Rory’s each afternoon to make a wish. Each day that wish was always the same. That somehow, Alec could become his new father. He didn’t know about the law, only vaguely understood that it would still be a long time before his ma was free to marry again, but surely if the Lady could be bringing Rory a father, he’d kept telling himself, she could be making the same magic for him. Now it appeared she’d answered his wish, by getting rid of his da just like Diancecht had cut off the heads of the evil snakes, then rid Ireland of them by throwing their ashes into the River Barrow. Which was why he wanted—needed—to hear what the grown-ups would be saying about his father’s murder.
He was wearing his night vision goggles. Since the lights were on in the kitchen, he didn’t need to turn on the headlamp, but he felt more like a spy when he was wearing them. His ma and Alec were talking so quietly that he couldn’t quite hear them. No problem, he thought with satisfaction, thanks to Alec and Zoe. He stealthily opened the blue plastic spy case they’d bought him at Monohan’s, the same one he’d been wanting ever since Mrs. Monohan had first put it in the shop window, and pulled out the combination microphone, voice magnifier and tape recorder.
At first Jamie thought there must be something wrong with the transmission he was hearing in his earplug. There was more static than he suspected 007 had to deal with, but from what he could hear through the crackling, Alec didn’t believe his da was really his da. Jamie waited for his ma to set the American straight.
But she didn’t. Instead she was saying his father was someone named Andrew Sinclair!
Jamie wanted to burst into the kitchen and demand answers. But he still wasn’t certain he’d been hearing right and didn’t want to get into trouble for eavesdropping and have his spy kit taken away from him.
The thing to do, he decided, was to go down to the cave, where he could listen to the recording. As he tiptoed out of the house, Jamie told himself that he must be mistaken.
His mother would never lie to him.
Would she?
32
KATE WAS EXHAUSTED. The day had been an emotional one, what with Cadel’s murder and learning of Andrew’s death, which brought with it the discovery that he’d not betrayed her as she’d believed all these years.
She checked on Brigid, who was lying crossways on the mattress, her red balloon resting on the ceiling above the bed, the stuffed purple elephant Alec had won for her shooting at a moving line of metallic ducks beside her. She didn’t know it, Kate thought as she tucked her properly in and brushed a kiss against her cheek, but Brigid’s life had changed greatly today. And all for the better. Knowing that her daughter was safe from Cadel O’Sullivan gave Kate’s heart wings.
Next she climbed the stairs to the attic. At first, when she didn’t see her son lying in his bed, Kate thought her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light. She bent and placed her hand on the pillow. W
hich was empty. Nerves skittering, she swept her suddenly ice-cold hand across the bed, from head to foot.
Nothing.
She turned on the lamp. Abubble of fear rose in her throat. You’re letting your imagination run away with you, Kate Fitzpatrick. Sure, he drank a great deal of lemonade and orange soda today. He’s only downstairs ridding himself of a bit of it.
She kept telling herself that as she tore back down the steep, narrow stairs, her mind plagued by the fact that his spy kit was missing as well. She ran from room to room on the second floor. Then raced down to the kitchen, where Alec was slicing beef from last night’s roast for a late-night sandwich. He glanced up as she flew into the kitchen, face paper pale, eyes frantic, appearing on the brink of hysteria.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jamie! He’s gone!”
“Gone?” She was trembling like a willow battered by a hurricane. “What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean gone!” Her voice rose, cracked. Her eyes were wild, circling the kitchen like a trapped sparrow seeking to escape. “His bed is empty. And his spy kit is missing, as well. But I found this on the floor right outside the kitchen door.” Hand shaking, she held up the plastic pen filled with invisible ink.
“Shit.” Alec shook his head. Of all the goddamn things to happen. “He heard.”
“Aye.” Tears began to stream unchecked down her cheeks. Her shoulders slumped. She looked more beaten than when he’d first seen her coming back from the beach with her son, her lovely face marred with angry bruises. “He heard.”
It was true. Jamie sat on the sand in his secret spy hiding cave, still stunned after listening to the tape for the third time in the past ten minutes. Part of him was angry at his mother, for keeping such a secret from him. For bringing such a hateful man into their lives and pretending all these years that they could ever be a real family. Like the Joyces and the Gallaghers. But then he remembered all those times of bruises and silent tears his mother would shed when she thought he wasn’t watching and knew that she’d suffered far more than he had.
“James Sinclair,” he murmured, trying out the name he might have had if his real da hadn’t died in England and his mother hadn’t married horrid Cadel O’Sullivan. “Jamie Sinclair.”
It was a nice enough name. But strangely, it didn’t feel natural on his tongue or in his heart. He just didn’t feel like Jamie Sinclair. He decided to try another name. The one that had been teasing at the back of his mind for weeks. The name he hadn’t dared allow himself to say out loud.
“Jamie MacKenna.” Better, he decided. “James MacKenna.” He nodded. Definitely better. Deciding to write it down, just for himself, so he could see how it looked, he rummaged around in the blue plastic spy briefcase for his pen with the invisible ink that could only be seen when activated with lemon juice.
It was gone. He thought back. He’d had it when he’d first gotten home, because he’d written all about his da being murdered in his spy notebook. It must have dropped out when he’d taken out his secret eavesdropping equipment.
He thought about going back to retrieve it, then worried his mother might hear him sneaking into the house. From what he could tell from the taped conversation between his mother and Alec, they weren’t going to talk about getting married until the morning. But from what Rory had told him about Nora and Quinn’s romance, adults often said one thing and ended up doing another thing altogether when they were in love, so he didn’t want to interrupt just when Alec might be proposing.
He’d give them a little while, he decided, hitting the rewind button again. Meanwhile, he’d listen one more time to the glorious news that he didn’t have to worry about having Cadel O’Sullivan’s blood, after all.
They all came: Nora and Quinn, Michael and Erin, Mary Joyce and Brendan, who brought along all the men and women who’d enjoyed the May Day party at the Rose when they’d gotten the word that Jamie O’Sullivan had gone missing.
Sergeant O’Neill arrived with other Guards, divided the area around the stud into quadrants and sent teams of police and volunteers out to comb the fields. The only bright spot in the night, if it could indeed even be called that, was his news that the Galway Garda had arrested a thug, known to work for the gamblers to whom Cadel had been so badly in debt, for her husband’s murder.
Father O’Malley arrived to offer whatever comfort he could, and Mrs. Monohan from the mercantile brought baskets filled with cheese, crackers, bread and sliced meats to feed the army of searchers.
It took every bit of the persuasive skills Alec and the others possessed to talk Kate into staying behind in the house when she so desperately wanted to be out searching for her child.
“It’s best you stay here,” Nora soothed, “to welcome our Jamie home.”
“He’ll undoubtedly be wet and cold and frightened,” Erin Joyce had backed up her sister-in-law. “He’ll be wanting his mother.”
“I should have sensed he wasn’t taking Cadel’s death as calmly as he seemed to be.” The way Kate was dragging her trembling hands through her tangled hair reminded Alec of the stories he’d read of keeners, women hired to wail and tear their long hair out at Irish wakes. The wild panic in her eyes slashed at him.
“It’ll be all right,” he assured her. “Jamie will be all right.”
“He thinks himself to be a spy. Why didn’t I realize he’d be spying on us to learn more about the murder?”
“It’ll be all right,” he repeated, as if saying the words with enough strength would make them so. He ran a hand down her ice-cold arm. “I promise you, Kate. Nothing’s going to happen to your son.”
It was the splash of icy water that woke him up. Jamie jolted awake, realizing that he’d fallen asleep on the sand. The sky outside the cave was as dark as inside. Rain was falling like a thick curtain in the entrance. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but it must have been a while, since the torchlight radiating from his night vision goggles was not nearly as bright as it had been when he’d used the beam to find the cave and see the buttons on his tape recorder.
The sand, which had been dry when he’d first sat on it, was now wet. So was his recorder. Jamie pressed the play button, grimacing when nothing happened and hoped Alec wouldn’t be angry with him for having broken his lovely present so soon after his birthday.
Another wave splashed over him, reminding him that as bad as ruining his spy microphone and eavesdropping device might be, he had a more vital problem to deal with. He stood up and was nearly knocked off his feet by another stronger, higher wave, that splashed all the way to his chest. He’d just told himself that he’d best be leaving, before the incoming tide cut off the way to the nearby steps that led to the top of the cliff, when the light atop his goggles flickered.
Once.
Twice.
A third time. Then flickered out, pitching him into a coal-black darkness.
“It’s all my fault,” Kate was moaning when Alec returned with the priest to receive a new search assignment after failing to locate Jamie at the Joyce castle ruins. She pressed a fist against her mouth, as if to keep from screaming. “If I hadn’t married Cadel … I knew something would happen. I knew there would be a price to be paid for being happy again after all these years.”
“That wouldn’t be the way it works,” Father O’Malley said quietly as he pressed yet another cup of tea into Kate’s hands. The priest was a young man, tall and thin, with a bookish appearance. Behind the steamed-up lenses of his wire-frame glasses, his eyes were kind.
“Now I know you’ve chosen to follow the old ways, Kate. But whatever path one takes to the Creator, the one constant is that the Maker of all things seen and unseen is too all-powerful to stoop to petty behavior such as giving with the right hand and taking away with the left.”
He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly with his long fingers. “God gave you a grand gift, with Jamie and Brigid. I’ve prayed every night since I first arrived in Castlelough that He’d also give you the s
trength to do what you had to do to keep yourself and your family safe. And weren’t those prayers answered? I have every faith that God will keep your boy safe in His arms until he can be returned to yours.”
Despite her pagan beliefs, Kate appeared to garner strength from the priest’s words. When Alec gathered her close before resuming the search that thus far had proven futile, her tremors eased ever so slightly.
She clung to him. Then tilted her head up, the anguish in her eyes nearly breaking his heart. “Find him, Alec,” she begged on a sob. “Please find my son.”
After promising her yet again that it was only a matter of time when Jamie would be back home where he belonged, Alec left with the priest to take on their new assignment along the cliff.
“That was a nice thing you did,” he said as they made their way across the back pastures that had already been throughly searched.
Father O’Malley slanted him a look. “You sound surprised.”
Alec shrugged. “Well, you’re Catholic. Irish Catholic,” he stressed, implying that, although he hadn’t given it a great deal of thought, if he had, he would have expected the priest to be more rigid about New Age religions than a more liberal American one might be. “And Kate’s pagan.”
“Aye, so she says. You know, religion was an intensely personal thing to the Celts, filled with the wonder of the Creator’s daily miracles. It often seems to me that when God looks down on this miraculous world He’s created, one of the things that makes Him the most sad, along with wars and hunger, would be the fact that His people have lost their wonder.”
“Not Kate.”
“And wouldn’t that be my point,” the priest agreed as they climbed over a stone wall. “Kate’s life, like those of the old Celts, whose belief system she’s embraced, is a ceaseless, endless prayer of nature, while too many of us have forgotten that no matter how powerful man is, we all live on this planet as guests in the divinity of nature.
“I only wish I could convince her that her beliefs and mine share a common ground, because I believe she could bring a great spiritual strength to our Catholic congregation. Meanwhile, I consider myself blessed to have her as a friend.”