by J. D. Robb
He wouldn’t wait much longer to seek out the next light.
Eve began her first level of cross-checks while she waited for the authorization to go deeper. And she worried about some faceless college kid already caught in the crosshairs of a camera lens.
And she worried about Roarke, trapped in the cage of his own past.
He hadn’t traveled often to the west of the country where he’d been born. Most of his business was centered in Dublin, or south in Cork, north in Belfast.
He had some property in Galway, but he’d never stepped foot on it, and had spent only a handful of days in the castle hotel he’d bought in Kerry.
Though he didn’t share his wife’s ingrained suspicion of the countryside, he usually preferred the city. He doubted he’d know what do to with himself for long in this place of rolling green hills and flower-strewn yards.
The pace would be too slow to suit him for more than a short holiday, but there was a piece of him that was glad it had been left much as it had been, century by century.
Green, velvet green, and quiet.
His Ireland, the one he’d fled from, had been gray, dank, mean, and bitter. This curve of Clare wasn’t simply another part of the country, but a world away from what he’d known.
Farmers still farmed here, men still walked with their dogs across a field, and ruins of what had been castles and forts and towers in another age stood gray and indomitable in those fields.
Tourists, he supposed, would take pictures of those ruins, and scramble around in them—then drive for miles on the twisting roads to find more. And the locals would glance at them now and again.
There, you see, they might say, they tried to beat us down. Vikings and Brits. But they never could. They never will.
He rarely thought of his heritage, and had never held the grand and weepy sentiment of Ireland so many did whose ancestors had left those green fields behind. But driving alone now, under a sky layered with clouds that turned the light into a gleaming pearl, seeing the shadows dance over the endless roll of green and the lush red blooms of wild fuschia rise taller than a man to form hedgerows, he felt a tug.
For it was beautiful, and in a way he’d never known, it was his.
He’d flown from Dublin to Shannon to save time, and because the night’s dip into whiskey had given him a miserable head. Conversely, he’d opted to drive through Clare, to take his time now.
What the hell was he going to say to them? Nothing that had run through his brain seemed right. He’d never be able to make it right, and could find no logical reason for trying.
He didn’t know them, nor they him. Going to them now would do no more than open old wounds.
He had his family, and he had nothing in common with these strangers but a ghost.
But he could see that ghost in his mind’s eye, see her walking across the fields, or standing in a yard amongst the flowers.
She hadn’t left him, Roarke thought. How could he leave her?
So when the route map he’d programmed into the in-dash ’link told him to turn just before entering the village of Tulla, he turned.
The road wound through a forest, much of it new growth, no more than fifty years old. Then the trees gave way to the fields, to the hills where the sun was sliding through the clouds in a lovely, hazy way.
Cows and horses cropped, close to the fenceline. It made him smile. His cop wouldn’t be pleased with the proximity of the animals, and she’d be baffled by the little old man, neatly dressed in cap and tie and white shirt, puttering toward him on a skinny tractor.
Why? she’d wonder in an aggrieved voice he could hear even now, does anyone want to do that? And when the old man lifted his hand in a wave as if they were old friends, she’d be only more puzzled.
He missed her the way he would miss one of his own limbs.
She’d have come if he’d asked her. So he hadn’t asked. Couldn’t. This was a part of his life that was apart from her, and needed to be. When he was done with it, he’d go back. Go home, and that would be that.
DESTINATION, the ’link informed him, ONE-HALF KILOMETER, ON LEFT.
“All right then,” he said. “Let’s do what needs to be done.”
So, this was their land—his mother’s land—these hills, these fields, and the cattle that grazed over them. The gray barn, the stone sheds and fences.
The stone house with its blossoming garden and white gate.
His heart tripped a little, and his mouth went dry. He wanted, more than he wanted anything, to simply drive straight by.
She’d have lived here. It was the family home, so she’d have lived here. Slept here. Eaten here. Laughed and cried here.
Oh Christ.
He forced himself to turn the car into the drive—what the locals would call the street—behind a small sedan and a well-worn truck. He could hear birdsong, and the distant bark of a dog, the vague sound of a puttering motor.
Country sounds, he noted. She’d have heard them every day of life here, until she didn’t really hear them at all. Is that why she’d left? Because she’d needed to hear something new? The bright sounds of the city? The voices, the music, the traffic in the streets?
Did it matter why?
He stepped out of the car. He’d faced death more times than he could count. At times he’d fought his way around it until his hands ran with blood. He’d killed—in blood both hot and cold.
And there was nothing in his life he could remember fearing as much as he feared knocking on the bright blue door of that old stone house.
He went through the pretty white gate onto the narrow path between banks of cheerful flowers. And standing on a short stoop, he knocked on the blue door.
When it opened, the woman stared back at him. His mother’s face. Older, some thirty years older than the image that was carved into his brain. But her hair was red, with just a hint of gold, her eyes green, her skin like milk tinted with rose petals.
She barely reached his shoulder, and for some reason, that nearly broke his heart.
She was neat, in her blue pants and white shirt, and white canvas shoes. Such little feet. He took it all in, down to the tiny gold hoops in her ears, and the scent of vanilla that wafted out the door.
She was lovely, with that soft and contented look some women carried. In her hand was a red-and-white dishcloth.
He said the only words he could think of. “My name is Roarke.”
“I know who you are.” Her voice held a strong west county accent. Running the cloth from one hand to the other, she studied him as he studied her. “I suppose you’d best be coming in.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“Do you plan on disturbing me?” She stepped back. “I’m in the kitchen. There’s still tea from breakfast.”
Before she closed the door, she took a look at his car, lifting her brows at the dark elegance of it. “So, the claims you’ve money coming out of your ears, among other places, are true then.”
His blood chilled, but he nodded. If they wanted money from him, he’d give them money. “I’m well set.”
“Well set’s a variable term, isn’t it? Depending on where you’re standing.”
She walked back toward the kitchen, past what he assumed was the company parlor, then the family living area. The rooms were crowded with furniture and whatnots, and fresh flowers. And all as neat as she.
The table in the big family kitchen could have fit twelve, and he imagined it had. There was a huge stove that appeared to be well-used, an enormous refrigerator, miles of butter yellow counters.
The windows over the sink looked out over garden and field and hill, and there were little pots he supposed were herbs sitting on the sill. It was a working room, and a cheerful one. He could still smell breakfast in the air.
“Have a seat then, Roarke. Will you have biscuits with your tea?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Well, I will. Don’t get much of a reason to eat a biscuit in the
middle of the day, might as well take advantage of it when I do.”
She dealt with the homey chores, and had him wondering if she was giving them both time to settle. The tea was in a plain white pot, and the biscuits she put on a pretty blue plate.
“Yours is a face I never expected to see at my door.” With the chores done, she sat, chose a biscuit. “So, why have you come?”
“I thought I . . . felt I . . . Ah, well.” He sipped the tea. Apparently, she hadn’t given him time enough to settle. “I didn’t know about you—about Siobhan—until a few days ago.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Know what?”
“That you—she—existed. I’d been told, I believed, that my mother . . . the woman I thought was my mother, had left. Left me when I was a child.”
“Did you?”
“Ma’am—”
“I’m Sinead. Sinead Lannigan.”
“Mrs. Lannigan, until a few days ago, I’d never heard the name Siobahn Brody. I thought my mother’s name was Meg, and I don’t remember her particularly well except she had a hard hand and she walked out, leaving me with him.”
“Your mother, your true mother, wouldn’t have left you if there’d been breath in her body.”
So she knows already, he thought. Knows her sister’s long dead. “I know it now. He killed her. I don’t know what to say to you.”
She set her cup down, very carefully. “Tell me the story as you know it now. That’s what I want to hear.”
He told her, while she sat in silence, watching him. And when he’d told her all he knew, she rose, filled a kettle, put it on the stove.
“I’ve known it, all these years. We could never prove it, of course. The police, they didn’t help, didn’t seem to care. She was just one more girl gone astray.”
“He had a few cops in his pocket back then. One or two is all it takes when you want something covered. You could never have proved it, however you tried.”
Her shoulders trembled once on a long breath, then she turned. “We tried to find you, at first. For her sake. For Siobhan. My brother, Ned, nearly died trying. They beat him half to death, left him in a Dublin alley. He had a wife, and a babe of his own. Much as it pained us, we had to let you go. I’m sorry.”
He only stared, and said, very slowly. “My father killed her.”
“Yes.” Tears swam into her eyes. “And I hope the murdering son of a whore’s burning in hell. I won’t ask God to forgive me for saying it, for hoping it.” Carefully, she folded the red-and-white dishcloth, then sat back down while the kettle heated for more tea.
“I felt, when I learned all this, what had happened to her, I felt you—her family—deserved to be told. That it was only right that I tell you, face-to-face. I realize it’s no easier hearing it from me, maybe harder at that, but it was the only way I knew.”
Watching his face, she leaned back. “Come from America, did you, for this?”
“I did, yes.”
“We heard of you—your exploits, young Roarke. His father’s son, I thought. An operator, a dangerous man. Heartless man. I think you may be a dangerous man, but it’s not a heartless one sitting in my kitchen waiting for me to slap him for something he had no part in.”
“I didn’t look for her, never thought of her. I did nothing to put it right.”
“What are you doing now? Sitting here with me while your tea goes cold?”
“I don’t know. Christ Jesus, I don’t know. Because there’s nothing I can do.”
“She loved you. We didn’t hear from her much. I think he wouldn’t let her, and she only managed to sneak a few calls or letters off now and then. But she loved you, heart and soul. It’s right that you should grieve for her, but not that you should pay.”
She rose when the kettle sputtered. “She was my twin.”
“I know.”
“I’d be your aunt. You have two uncles, grandparents, any number of cousins if you’re interested.”
“I . . . it’s difficult to take it in.”
“I imagine it is. Aye, I imagine it is. You have her eyes,” she said quietly.
Baffled, he shook his head. “Hers were green. Her eyes were green, like yours. I saw her picture.”
“Not the color, but the shape.” She turned around. “The shape of your eyes is hers. And like mine, don’t you see?” She stepped to him, laid a hand over his. “It seems to me that the shape of something is important, more important than the color.”
When emotion stormed through him, Sinead did what came naturally. She drew his head to her breast, stroked his hair. “There now,” she murmured, holding her sister’s boy. “There now. She’d be glad you’ve come. She’d be happy you’re here, at last.”
Later, she took him out to where the edge of the yard met the first field. “We planted that for her.” She gestured to a tall, many-branched tree. “We made no grave for her. I knew she was gone, but it didn’t seem right to make a grave for her. So we planted a cherry tree. It blooms fine every spring. And when I see it bloom, it gives me some comfort.”
“It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful place.”
“Your people are farmers, Roarke, generations back.” She smiled when he looked at her. “We held on to the land, no matter what. We’re stubborn, hotheaded, and we’ll work till we drop. You come from that.”
“I’ve spent years trying to shake off where I came from. Not looking back.”
“You can look back on this with pride. He couldn’t break you, could he? I bet he tried.”
“Maybe if he hadn’t tried so bloody hard I wouldn’t have gotten away. I wouldn’t have made myself. I’ll . . . I’ll plant a cherry tree back home for her.”
“There’s a good thought. You’re a married man, aren’t you, married to one of the New York garda.”
“She’s my miracle,” he told her. “My Eve.”
His tone stirred her. “No children though.”
“Not yet, no.”
“Well, there’s plenty of time for them yet. I’ve seen pictures of her, of course. I’ve kept tabs on you over the years. Couldn’t help myself. She looks strong. I suppose she’d have to be.”
“She is.”
“Bring her with you next time you come. But for now, we should get you settled in.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You don’t expect to get away so easy, do you? You’ll stay at least the night, meet the rest of your family. Give them a chance to meet you. It would mean a great deal to my parents, to my brothers,” she added before he could speak.
“Mrs. Lannigan.”
“That’s Aunt Sinead to you.”
He let out a half-laugh. “I’m out of my depth.”
“Well then,” she said cheerfully, and took his hand, “sink or swim, for you’re about to be tossed into the deep end of the pool.”
Chapter 17
She questioned over two dozen registered owners of vehicles with carpet matching the fibers found on the victims. Including a little old lady who used hers to transport other little old ladies to church on Sundays.
Eve found herself trapped inside a two-room apartment that smelled of cats and lavender sachet. She wasn’t sure which was worse. She drank weak, tepid iced tea because Mrs. Ernestine Macnamara gave her no other choice.
“It’s so exciting—terrible of me, but I can’t help myself. So exciting to be questioned by the police at my age. I’m a hundred and six, you know.”
And looked it, Eve thought sourly.
Ernestine was tiny and dry and colorless, as though the years had leached her. But she shuffled around the room with some energy in her faded pink slippers, shooing or cooing at cats. There appeared to be a full dozen of them, and from some of the sounds Eve heard, some were very busy making more cats.
She supposed Ernestine would be considered spry.
Her face was a tiny wrinkled ball set off by oversized teeth. Her wig—Eve hoped it was a wig—sat crookedly on top and was the color of bleached wheat. She wore some sort of t
racksuit that bagged over what was left of her body.
Note to God, Eve thought: Please, if you’re up there, don’t let me live this long. It’s too scary.
“Mrs. Macnamara—”
“Oh, you just call me Ernestine. Everybody does. Can I see your gun?”
Eve ignored Peabody’s muffled snort. “We don’t carry guns, Mrs. . . . Ernestine. Guns are banned. My weapon is a police issue hand laser. About your van.”
“It still shoots and knocks people on their butts, whatever you call it. Is it heavy?”
“No, not really. The van, Ernestine. Your van. When’s the last time you used it?”
“Sunday. Every Sunday I take a group to St. Ignatious for ten o’clock Mass. Hard for most of us to walk that far, and the buses, well, it isn’t easy for people my age to remember the schedule. Anyway, it’s more fun this way. I was a flower child, you know.”
Eve blinked. “You were a flower?”
“Flower child.” Ernestine gave a hoarse little chuckle. The sixties—the nineteen sixties. Then I was a New-Ager, and Free-Ager. And oh, whatever came along that looked like fun. Gone back to being a Catholic now. It’s comforting.”
“I’m sure. Does anyone else have access to your van?”
“Well, there’s the nice boy in the parking garage. He keeps it for me. Only charges me half the going rate, too. He’s a good boy.”
“I’d like his name, and the name and location of the garage.”
“He’s Billy, and it’s the place on West Eighteenth, right off Seventh. Just a block from here, so that’s easy for me. I pick it up and drop it off on Sundays. Oh, and the third Wednesday of the month when we have the planning meetings for church.”
“Is there anyone else who drives it or has access? A friend, a relative, a neighbor?”
“Not that I can think. My son has his own car. He lives in Utah. He’s a Mormon now. And my daughter’s in New Orleans, she’s Wiccan. Then there’s my sister, Marian, but she doesn’t drive anymore. Then there’s the grandchildren.”
Dutifully, Eve wrote down the names—grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and God help her, the great-greats.