Hard Irish (29 page)

“That explains what happened today,” James said.  I knew Jared was in deep trouble.  In pain.  And all I could see was a dusty sawmill.  All I could fell was the evil shadow of a killer hovering over Jared.  All of that is different from having Jesse and Jackson disappear from my vision.”

Emma reached up and hugged James.  “Son, I believe in instincts and intuitions no matter how the mind communicates them to us.  Maybe what happened is really important.  Maybe it isn’t.  I can tell you that you should never ignore what your gut is telling you.  Therein lays the extent of your responsibility.  You tell who needs to be told, take the precautions your gut is clamoring to take, and after that it is in God’s hands not yours.  And as much as you men like to think it, you’re not God, so don’t go taking on his job.”

Rocky could almost see the burden and fear rolling off James’s shoulders as he drew in a deep breath.

“Well said,” Jesse muttered.  “Jackson and I did take precautions.”

“Then there was no need to play God and keep me, Alexi, and Nan in the dark about it,” Emma admonished.

Jesse winced.

“That’s right,” Nan added. “We are practical, level-headed women, who have every right to be aware of situations as they arise.”

“And not learn about them after-the-fact,” Alexi said, narrowing her gaze at Jesse. “Or should I say after the fiction?  All of those excuses as to why you postponed you’re trip this week were lies?”

Jesse cleared his throat.  “Uh, not exactly.  An important situation did come up that has required me being here.”

“And that situation involved Jared and why he’s in surgery now?”  Emma asked.

“Yes,” Jesse said.

Rocky finally spoke up.  “Jared was hurt because I didn’t take his concerns for my safety more seriously from the start.”

“I’m not sure how that could have changed the outcome,” Jesse said.  “Jared was determined to stay by your side no matter what.”

“Yeah,” James said.  “Jared took one look at you and two things instantly happened.  He never looked away and he was determined to put himself between you and anything that threatened you.”

“I hate to interrupt this tell all, but I have news on our boy,” Jackson said from the doorway.

Rocky whipped around.  Once she saw the smile on Jackson’s face, she relaxed her cramped hands and breathed deep.

“Jared’s in recovery and doing fine.  It took longer because there was more damage to the spleen than they thought and they had to do a partial splenectomy.  We can see him shortly.”

Rocky decided to take the bull by the horns.  She turned to Jesse.  “The only way Jared is going to rest is if this situation I am in is over and done with.”

“If you’re suggesting we cut out of here and take care of business then I’m ready.  Besides, we just might be able to stop another murder as well.”

She gripped Jesse’s arm.  “What haven’t you told me?”

He smiled.  “That McNall refuses to tell Mulligan anything until he sees you.  They’ve been in a Mexican standoff for hours now.”

  James, who was near, leaned their way.  “How do you two think Jared will take both of you not being here when he wakes up?”

  Jesse grunted.  “It will be worse if we stay and then leave.  He’s down and needs to stay down until everything is healed, including his leg.   But the second Jared is aware you can put him into contact with Rocky on live video feed via this phone or the I-pad I will send over.”

James took the phone.  “Be careful, please.”

“Bank on it.”

She and Jesse left the hospital after taking a quick peek at her father.  Part of her heart was on the third floor with her Da, the rest of it was on the fifth floor with Jared.  She had to solve the puzzle before anything else happened.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

“Cagey, bastard.  Ye think you can get away with a move like that?” The man’s Irish burr boomed into the hallway.  Rocky quickened her step toward Jesse’s office with him on her heels.  That had to be McNall.

 “I did,” Mulligan said succinctly.  “What are you going to do about it?”

“Pummel your arse.  Checkmate!”

“What the hell?”  Mulligan sounded outraged and bewildered.

Rocky rounded the corner, expecting to see Mulligan and McNall at each other’s throat.  Instead, they were at the chess table with Mulligan glaring at the chessboard, and McNall sitting back in his seat with a satisfied smile, as he twirled the edge of his handlebar mustache.

“For real?”  Jesse cried from behind her.  “You did it? You nailed Mulligan?”  He moved into the room, staring at the chessboard.  “How?”

“I’ll not be givin’ away me secrets.” McNall looked up and gasped as if he’d been hit between the eyes with a two by four.  “As I live and breathe, I’m not believin’ me own eyes.”  He stood and limped across the room, grumbling about gout under his breath.  “Let me look at ye, lass.  You’re the spittin’ image of your father.”

Rocky blinked.  She’d always been told that she favored her mother more, which is what she expected McNall to say, considering he’d come all the way from Ireland at the mention of her mother’s name.  “You know Rory?”

McNall stopped halfway and narrowed his gaze.  He glanced at Jesse, and Mulligan, then sighed.  “Perhaps, I should’ve asked a few more questions before I saw ye.  Why don’t we sit, and I show ye a picture, and tell you a story.”

Everyone settled in the sitting area.  Jesse next to her on the couch.  Mulligan to the right, in a burgundy wingchair, and McNall opposite, in the matching wingchair.  The coffee table separated them in middle.  A strange feeling clawed through Rocky that no amount of buttery-soft leather could ease, despite the day’s exhaustion and turmoil.

McNall pulled out his wallet, flipped through a thick collection of photographs that nobody these days carried, and slipped a picture from its plastic sleeve.  “Here’s me brother Finn about a year before Liam was murdered.  Ye can say it paints a thousand words.”

Rocky’s fingers trembled as she reached for the photo.  It was frayed on the edges and a little worn from years of being carried, but the young man smiling from the picture had vibrant, clover green eyes and a dimple on his left cheek, just like her.  He was in his teens still, but the shape of his strong nose and chin were a slightly masculine version of Rocky’s own.  She exhaled as if sucker punched.

Rocky had come to grips with the idea that her mother had been Anne O’Loughlin, but she hadn’t even questioned that Rory McKenna was her father.  Now, she was seeing something that put everything into doubt.

McNall started to speak, his lilt was quiet, gentle, and warming, like a low burning fire.  “The murder of Liam and Shona in so brutal a way hit Finn and Anne hard.  Up until then Anne had been a studious young girl and Finn had been well on his way to Football stardom.  After the murders, they both became obsessed in seeing justice served.  Whoever killed Liam and Shona had to pay.  They fought hard, petitioned harder, and gathered numerous testimonies that pointed to the guilty soldiers.  When General Pearson absolved his men of any wrong doing instead of punishing them, Anne and Finn ran away from home and went underground to get justice.  Their grief brought them together and kept them together.  I’m not justifying what they did.  The Troubles were a horrible time for Belfast, for all of Ireland and for England.  I didn’t hear from Finn for several years, but just before he was killed in December of ’82, he came to me with a story.”

Rocky closed her eyes a moment, trying to gather the strength to hear what she knew was coming.

When McNall didn’t speak, she opened her eyes.  He had his gaze on her, his eyes sad.  He sighed then continued his story.  “I swore I’d go to me grave before breathing a word of it, but there’re some promises that can’t be kept.  Just isn’t right.  In early ’82 Finn and Anne connected up with the siblings of two of the other murdered students.   Dougal O’Prey, Sean’s brother, and Riley Dunlavey, Alan’s older brother.  The man had been with the Shankill Butchers, a notoriously brutal gang who used a political agenda as an excuse to kill.  Anyway, Riley had the luck of the devil.  He cut himself loose from the Shankills just before the authorities arrested and convicted them in ’79.  At that time, nobody believed anything the press said about folks.  Bloody Hell, back then every Irish man who fought against British rule was evil and a murderer.   So Finn and Anne didn’t realize what they were getting into until it was too late.”

Jesse interrupted.  “Riley Dunlavey?  Is he the thread that connects Riley Scott to this?  I sure as hell don’t believe in coincidence.  My man Ian has been scouring Ireland for information on Alan Dunlavey’s family.  This is the first we’ve heard.”

“Won’t find much,” McNall said.  “The Dunlavey’s weren’t from Belfast.  Came from Edinburg.  The father regularly beat the mother till she up and killed him and escaped back to Scotland.  That wasn’t too long after Alan was murdered.  Of course Riley had already joined the Shankill gang and the whole family had disowned him.  How old is your Riley Scott?”

“Was.  How old was he.” Jesse said, his voice trembled with suppressed rage.  “He kidnapped and tortured my brother today.  But it’s not the same man.  Riley Dunlavey would have to be in his fifties.  This Riley was in his thirties at the most.”

McNall grunted.  “Sometimes mean is in the genes.  I’ll see if I can have someone check into Dunlavey’s trail.  An acorn doesn’t fall too far from the oak.  Riley Scott could be the bastard’s son.”

“Please,” Rocky whispered.  “Go back to the story.  I can’t believe my mother was part of the horror.”

“Ye canna judge too harshly, lass.  Back then we were all part of the sickness, both us Ulsters and the Brits.  Anne and Finn were young and very bitter.  The world they lived in had killed all of their dreams, and gave no justice, or mercy.  Anne and Finn had left the underground group because the group had moved from writing and printing anti-British propaganda into violent demonstrations.”

Rocky felt a wave of relief flood her.  She must have exhaled or made a noise, because McNall stopped and nodded.  “They hated the violence, lass.  Violence had taken what they loved from them.  They only wanted the violence to end and freedom for their country.  When Anne and Finn met up with the siblings of the students murdered, they thought they were back into printing and distributing material encouraging all of Ireland to stand against British tyranny.  I’ve no doubt that Anne and Finn loved each other and would have had a different life were it not for the violence.”

McNall looked Rocky in the eye and continued the story.  “Anne became pregnant in the summer of ’82 and Finn took on a local job.  Neither of them had been hanging out regularly with the rest of the group for a few months, though Anne did babysit Dougal’s ten-year-old daughter often.  One day in September, Finn walked into the men’s hangout before work to find Riley and Dougal with a man and a woman bound and gagged.  The couple had been beaten, but were alive.  Dougal handed Finn a club and told him he could take justice for Liam.  It was then Finn realized the couple was General Pearson as his wife.  As far as the news media and the world knew, the couple was supposed to be vacationing in Scotland.”

Rocky closed her eyes and fisted her hands.  She didn’t want to hear what happened next.

McNall continued.  “Finn says he held the club, his whole body shaking.  He’d dreamed of revenge.  He’d dreamed of justice, but as he looked at the bloodied and beaten couple, he became ill inside.  He threw down the club and tried to run.  Riley and Dougal came after him, beat him, and tied him to a chair.  He told them, he didn’t want anything to do with this and that he and Anne would just go back underground.  That’s when Riley laughed and told Finn it was too late.  He and Anne were already involved.  It was at that moment that Anne and Dougal’s daughter, Mary, were picking up the million in diamonds ransom.  Anne thought she was picking up a package of new literature.  She and Mary weren’t overly surprised when Scotland Yard followed them.  Anti-British propaganda wasn’t legal, but when the constables started shooting, Anne became worried and suspicious.  She and Mary somehow eluded capture.  Anne called Dougal to say she had the package and that they’d been followed, but thought they were now safe.  Dougal told them to go to Anne’s apartment and stay there.  Anne became more suspicious.  She opened the package.  Amid stacks of paper, she found the diamonds and knew something was very wrong.”

“She left Mary and the package at the apartment to go to Finn’s work only to find he hadn’t shown up for his shift.  Returning to the apartment, she collected Mary and the package to go find Mary’s father, Dougal.  Mary kept asking Anne if they could go shopping first.  Anne told Mary they’d have to go later when they had money.  Mary said they could use the diamonds and Anne explained that they couldn’t because the diamonds weren’t theirs.  While this was happening, Dougal and Riley made Finn watch as they bludgeoned General Pearson and his wife to death.”

Rocky groaned, ill to her stomach.  Jesse clasped her hand.  “Go on,” he told McNall.  "Finish it.”  There was a deadly edge to Jesse’s voice, as if he wanted to reach into the past and annihilate the evil.

His anger helped to bolster her, Rocky opened her eyes and met McNall’s gaze.   “Yes, please.  I need to know what happened.”

“Anne heard Finn’s cries for Dougal and Riley to stop before she reached the men’s hideout.  She left Mary and the diamonds hidden while she crept up to see what was wrong.  Got to love a smart woman.  Anne went to the closest phone, called Dougal, and told him she and Mary needed help that they were running from Scotland Yard and gave him the name of a street about two miles away. While Riley and Dougal left Finn tied up and rushed to help, Anne went back and freed Finn.

Finn knew they would all be executed for what happened.  All he wanted to do was save Anne and the baby.  They took Mary to a friend’s house and left her there with the package.  Finn borrowed a car and took Anne to someone he knew was back in Ireland visiting family, who promised to smuggle Anne out of Ireland.  Finn refused to tell me the name of that person.  Said if I didn’t know, then it couldn’t be tortured from me.