King of the Castle

by Heather Graham

  Kit started to tremble. Eight years was a long time. A long enough time in which to forget. But she had never forgotten him. Kit felt his eyes on her, and warmth rushed through her, as if her blood had been set on fire. And he hadn’t said a word.

  “Michael McHennessy, lad?”

  Just his voice sent a new rush of tremors racing through her.

  “Katherine,” he said then, and he stared at her with such fury that she couldn’t begin to fathom its source.

  “Justin.” She tried to sound casual, but her voice faltered, leaving her furious with herself. She wasn’t eighteen anymore. He could be the great lord of anyone here, but not her.

  “Kit,” Mike offered innocently. “Friends call Mom ‘Kit.”’

  “Do they now?” Justin replied. His gaze was on her again, his eyes raking her with a crude and negligent interest from head to toe. She flushed despite herself. To her horror, she could remember him so clearly—in the flesh. She remembered not the gentle and tender times, when he had eased away her pain.

  No… She remembered the last time she had seen him. In the flesh… The thought made her hysterical, but it came nevertheless, and she could see her hands against his naked chest, her fingers winding into the dark hair there, her skin so pale against his. She could remember the feel of his hands on her, could see the muscles in his arms when he braced himself above her, and the hard plane of his belly, and…

  Kit wished she could disappear, that she could sink into the ground, that she could do anything to hide from Justin O’Niall.

  Because he was remembering, too. She knew it; she could see it in his eyes. She could feel his mocking expression.

  “You—you knew I was here,” she rasped out.

  “Of course,” he said smoothly. “I am the O’Niall.”

  Without uttering another word, he turned his back on her and walked away down the hill.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Who was that?” Mike asked Kit curiously.

  “Justin O’Niall,” she replied, watching the man’s retreating back instead of meeting her son’s eyes.

  “You knew him, too?”

  “Yes,” Kit said slowly, trying to stop shivering.

  “He’s neat,” Mike decided.

  “Yeah. Real neat,” Kit murmured bitterly. “Come on, Mike. I’ll take you to the grave. Then we’ll go and get something to eat.”

  * * *

  Bailtree wasn’t much larger than Shallywae, but like its coastal sister, it had a town center with a few shops, a post office, a town hall, a garage, a grocery and three restaurants. One was the local men’s pub, and Kit steered away from it, not certain if a woman and child would be welcomed or not. “Mary MacGregor’s” turned out to be a nice home-style restaurant that catered to the tourist trade, since they weren’t far from Blarney Castle.

  The seating was family style around trestle tables, an open hearth warmed the room, and the service was quick and friendly. There was a bar, too, and a number of old-timers stood around it and in front of the hearth, a few of them whittling small dolls out of wood as they drank their pints.

  Kit suggested to Mike that they split an order of lamb chops and boiled new potatoes. He agreed quickly. It was beginning to look as if he might lay his head on the table and fall asleep at any moment.

  They were served a beautiful fresh garden salad, which their waitress had affably split onto two plates. Kit, tired herself, showed her appreciation with a warm smile.

  “Och, ’tis nothing. I’ve a household of five meself, and I know it can be difficult eating out with the loves.”

  Mike ate his salad. He was very quiet, but appeared content enough. When their entrée came, Kit noticed that he was watching one old man in particular, who was whittling away at a piece of wood about five inches long.

  Kit also noticed that the old man was aware of Mike’s intense scrutiny. He didn’t smile, but he nodded to Mike, as if in acknowledgment.

  The lamb chops were delicious, and when she had finished eating, Kit was pleased to discover that “Mary MacGregor’s” also served a nice strong cup of coffee. Mike, to her surprise, was awake enough to want a piece of cherry pie.

  It was then that the old man muttered something to his cronies, left his place by the hearth and approached her with his pint in one hand, his stick of whittled wood in the other.

  “Evenin’, ma’am.” He was very tall and thin. His eyes were a watery green, and although his hair was as white as foam, it was thick and abundant. He seemed all bones, but Kit liked the multitude of smile lines around his eyes and his lean, hollow-cheeked face.

  “Good evening,” she returned.

  “Hi!” Mike said.

  “Barney Canail,” the man offered, stretching out a weathered hand to Kit. At last he smiled, and she liked his smile.

  “Kit McHennessy, and my son Mike.” She hesitated only a moment. “Won’t you join us, Barney?”

  He had obviously been expecting the invitation, and he slid in next to Kit, watching Mike with warm eyes from beneath his bushy white brows. “Y’er American, then?”

  “Yes, but part Irish,” Mike supplied. Kit was beginning to feel that her son’s assertion sounded like a tape recording.

  Barney stretched his liver-spotted hand across the table, offering Mike the stick of wood.

  “This is Irish, too, son. A flute. Ye might enjoy havin’ it; the hills can be lonely.”

  “Oh! He can’t accept it—” Kit began, but Barney interrupted her quickly with a tisking sound.

  “’Tis nothing, nothing at all. Ye sit about and whittle many a night away at my age. I’d like the boy to have it, if ye don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind, it’s just—”

  “Oh, Mom, can’t I keep it?”

  Barney’s eyes were clear and kind. Kit shrugged and smiled. “Thank Mr. Canail, then, Mike.”

  Mike did, enthusiastically.

  “Do ye like dogs, son?” Barney asked him.

  “I love them, but Mom says we can’t have one in the city.”

  “That’s true, Mike, that’s true. The city’s no place for a dog. But if ye’d like to see a good one, my sheepdog Sam is waiting fer me outside the door. He’d be grateful, for sure, were a boy to rub his ears fer a spell.”

  “Can I, Mom? Can I?”

  “All right, Mike.”

  He left the table eagerly. Barney Canail shifted to sit across from Kit, then stared directly at her and spoke. “Would ye be the same young Mrs. McHennessy who lost her husband in these parts?”

  Kit shivered as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips, then nodded.

  “I thought so. I hear tell y’er here to write a book, lass.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Barney nodded slightly, his old eyes on the fire. “Y’know there’s been another murder, lass.”

  This time she managed to sip her coffee. “I know. I read about it in the paper at home.”

  “I’m the constable for Bailtree, lass.”

  “Are you? Then you must know Constable Liam O’Grady over in Shallywae.”

  “Aye, that I do.”

  “How is he?” Kit asked, remembering Liam O’Grady’s kindness to a very distraught young girl.

  “Well as a man can be, girl.” He looked back at her again. “The town’s all well, lass. ’Tis easy to say, for between the two o’ us—Shallywae and Bailtree—we haven’t a population of so much as two thousand.”

  Kit laughed. “I didn’t know the population was even that large.”

  He smiled vaguely, but still seemed bothered by something. He took a long draft from his pint, and when she reached into her bag for a cigarette, he quickly struck a match on the table and brought it to the tip of her cigarette.

  “We’ve had media folks by the scores drifting around her lately. Private detectives, authorities from Cork, even as far as Dublin.”

  “I assume,” Kit murmured, “it all has to do with comparisons to that poor girl who had her throat slit all those years a
go. I mean, you know, now…another woman, this one strangled…” Her voice trailed away.

  “What has surprised me,” Barney said, “is that they’ve never mentioned your husband.”

  Kit felt her heart quicken. “He…he…they never found any reason to believe that Michael was murdered. The assumption was that he wandered too close to the cliffs. He was a stranger in a strange land, you know.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Kit held her breath for a long moment. When she exhaled, she felt Barney’s astute gaze upon her. “No, I don’t,” she finally said.

  “Neither do I, lass.”

  It was foolish to be having this conversation with a stranger, Kit thought, even if the stranger was a constable. This was a land of strange legends, where secrets were best kept quiet. But she couldn’t help blurting out a question. “Do you believe that Justin O’Niall is a murderer?”

  Barney smiled, then chuckled. “Girl, there’s few who don’t know Justin was the man who befriended ye in y’er troubles, so I’m thinking that you don’t believe it’s so. But I agree with ye there, lass. Justin is a hot-tempered man, I’ll not deny, but one to slit the throat of a defenseless lass? No, ’twouldna be his way.”

  Kit lowered her voice. “I read that his fiancé was strangled.”

  “You read right.”

  “And then thrown into the sea.”

  “Aye.”

  “But no one knows who did it?”

  “No one who’s sayin’ so, lass.”

  Kit sighed. She had hoped that she might learn something. Now she stubbed out her cigarette and leaned across the table. “Barney, is there any possibility that…”

  “That what, lass?”

  “I don’t know,” Kit murmured weakly. She had been thinking that Mike had died on Halloween, and that the first murdered girl, Mary Browne, had also died that night. But it was only the first of October now, and Susan Accorn had been killed a month ago.

  “Nothing, really. Just a vague idea. I was…just wondering if you thought all this might have something to do with a—”

  “A devil cult?” Barney queried.

  “I—I guess,” Kit muttered, lowering her eyes and feeling a bit ashamed of herself for saying such a thing to a man like Barney.

  He, too, leaned across the table. He smiled. “There never were any ‘devil’ cults in the district, Mrs. McHennessy.”

  “But I’ve read—”

  “Not devil cults. Long ago, long before Christianity came to the land, the Tuatha de Danann invaded. They were worshippers of the goddess Diana—the moon goddess. The Celts came, and their god of the sea was Mannanan MacLir, and Crom was the thunder god. They were ancient times, lass. The people were primitive. They worried about the sea and the earth, from whose bounty they survived. They made their sacrifices for good fishing, fair sailing, strength in warfare—and for good harvests. The devil came to us as a Christian notion.”

  Kit listened, a little fascinated, a little impatient. “But there was a rite, I know, here on Halloween. All Hallows’ Eve—”

  “Aye, lass, that there was. But All Hallows’ Eve just combined with an ancient day of homage to the harvest.”

  “Still…”

  “Girl, I know this part of God’s earth as I know me own hand. I attend the celebrations each year on All Hallows’ Eve. There’s a bonfire, lass, a lot of drinking and a lot of eating of homemade specialties. Nothing more.” His grin deepened. “The only thing like the ancient times is this: with all the dancing, the excitement—and imbibing of home-brewed Irish whiskey—there will be a multitude of procreation taking place on such a night.”

  Kit smiled but she still felt uncomfortable.

  “Ease yer mind, lass, there’s nothing frightenin’ that occurs up on the cliffs. The days of the druids are long gone. And, as ye should know if y’er writin’ a book, girl, in pagan days, the kings were just.”

  “I know,” Kit murmured. “Actually,” she admitted, “I should know much more than I do.”

  “Then ye should meet with Mrs. McNamara at the Shamus Bookstore in Cork,” Barney told her with a smile.

  “Mrs. McNamara? I’ll do that,” Kit promised. She paused, smiling as the waitress refilled her coffee cup. “You sound a bit like a history book yourself, Barney.”

  His rheumy eyes took on a merry twinkle. “I studied Irish history afore I turned to the law, girl. Long afore ye were born, lass, I thought I’d like to teach in one o’ the big universities. But there’s something about our part of the land. It seems to draw us all back here. ’Tis where I was born, ’tis where I’ll die. How long are ye stayin’, lass?”

  “Oh, only a day or so more, I think,” Kit murmured.

  Barney rose. “That would be a mistake, lass. Ye may not want to know it, but ye’ve been called back yerself, in a sense. Ye’ll not be happy until ye understand yer own past.”

  Kit smiled weakly, unwilling to dispute him. She placed some money on the table—including a generous tip for her helpful waitress—and allowed Barney to escort her to the door.

  Outside, in the crisp night air, Mike was happily scratching away at the sheepdog, Sam, who had all four legs raised euphorically to the star-speckled sky so that Mike could freely rub his belly.

  “He’s a great dog!” Mike told Barney enthusiastically.

  “Aye, he’s a good old friend.”

  “Mike, say thank you to Mr. Canail again, then we’d better get you into bed.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Canail,” Mike said dutifully.

  “Nothin’ to thank me fer, boy. And I’m just Barney, to young and old alike.”

  Mike talked all the way back to the inn. He was excited about Barney, and he was excited about Sam the sheepdog. He was, in short, excited about everything.

  “Can’t we stay here a while, Mom? Can’t we, please?”

  Her head was pounding. She didn’t have the strength for an argument with her son. He was excited but tired, and if she gave him a flat no, he would get teary and keep arguing.

  “Well see, Mike.”

  After a few minutes she realized that Mike had fallen silent. She gazed at him quickly and saw that he had fallen fast asleep in his seat.

  A few minutes later they were turning into Jamie’s place. Kit parked the car and decided to try not to waken her son. He weighed about sixty-odd pounds, though, and she was grunting as she lifted him from the seat. He stayed asleep, though.

  The front door was open, but old Jamie was nowhere to be seen. Kit made her way up the stairs, struggled for a minute to fit her key into the lock, then went through her room to the little chamber beyond it. A second later she half fell onto the bed with Mike as she tried to lower him to it. She thought for sure that she had awakened him, but all he did was issue a tired little sigh and curl on his side.

  Kit pulled off his jacket, shoes and pants, then decided he could sleep quite well in his knit shirt and pulled the covers up to his neck. With a last glance at him, she flicked off the overhead light, backed into her room as she closed the door, and then choked back a scream, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes widening in fear and astonishment.

  She hadn’t been able to close her door behind her when she had entered, and now there was a man standing in the doorway again. This silhouette was tall, broad in the shoulders, dominating the room. She caught her breath and kept herself from screaming—because she knew him.

  He took a step forward into the light. “All right, Kit. What the devil are you doing here?”

  She should have told him it was none of his business, that she had a right to be anywhere she chose—and that he had no right to enter her room unasked. Instead, she clenched her hands behind her back to keep them from shaking. “I’m writing a book—” she began feebly.

  “The hell you are!” he exclaimed, so sharply that she took an involuntary step backward.

  And then she was angry with herself for allowing him to intimidate her. “Justin, I was hired to write a book, and I reall
y don’t give a damn what you think. It’s the truth.”

  “Oh?”

  Her heart quickened its beat as he took off his trench coat. It appeared as if he intended to stay a while—invited or not.

  He draped his coat over the foot of the bed, pushed up the sleeves of his tweed sweater and stuck his hands in his pockets, staring at her with eyes that were politely questioning—and very cold.

  “A book on Shallywae? Or on Bailtree? Such large towns!”

  The depth of his sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She also noticed that his accent seemed very strong tonight. She remembered clearly that it had always been that way when he was angry. “Since I had to come to Ireland anyway,” she replied coolly, “I promised Mike that I would bring him to see…the cemetery.”

  “Did you really?”

  “Yes, of course!” Her palms were sweating, and she realized that she should order him out of the room. If only she could!

  “Haven’t you heard?” he asked her. “There’s been another murder.”

  “Yes,” she said faintly. “I’ve heard.”

  “Get out of Shallywae, Kit.”

  “This isn’t Shallywae. It’s Bailtree—”

  “Get out, Kit!”

  “Are you threatening me, Justin?”

  She had been wrong when she had thought he hadn’t changed much. He had. His face was gaunt. Lines of strain were etched deeply around his mouth, which now appeared to be nothing more than a thin line. He was very tense. As she watched him, she could see a tic in his jaw and the furious pounding of a vein in his throat.

  He took a step closer to her, and she clenched her teeth. She had forgotten that he was such a big man.

  She hadn’t expected him to react to her one way or another. It had been a long time. She had run out on him, true, but she had left the note. And he must have understood her feelings about what had happened. He shouldn’t be so angry now, so hostile. He shouldn’t be looking at her with his eyes so hard and cold. So merciless. She realized that she didn’t know him at all.