Chapter 23 #2
"Your house." The distinction mattered. Trigger hadn't called it part of the investigation or reduced it to another piece of the mission; he had acknowledged that whatever waited behind those walls still belonged to Irish before it belonged to any of us.
Irish nodded once.
"Give me an hour."
Nobody argued.
That told me more about the club than all the declarations of brotherhood I'd heard since meeting them.
The meeting broke apart gradually after that.
Hawkeye left with Trigger to study the Saint Brigid's approaches.
Raze and Storm took over Cipher's transfer records while Maverick started making calls to solicitors and land registries.
Irish remained at the table for several minutes after everyone else found something to do, staring at the old scanned paperwork showing his father's name beside a project none of us had heard about until today.
I waited near the window.
Eventually he looked toward me.
"You don't have to come."
I had expected the sentence.
"Do you want me to?"
His expression shifted.
"That's not what I said."
"I know."
I moved closer to the table.
"Do you want me at the farmhouse?"
He looked down at Declan's name.
For a long moment I thought he would choose the easier answer and tell me no.
Instead, he said, "Aye."
The word came quietly.
That was enough.
We left The Blackthorn twenty minutes later with Brigid standing in the doorway reminding Irish that if he returned without her batteries, she would reconsider the value of hospitality.
The ridiculous threat followed us halfway to the SUV, and although Irish complained under his breath, I saw the slight easing it created in his shoulders.
The drive to the farmhouse felt different from the first one.
Yesterday, Irish had approached it as though the house itself were waiting to punish him for returning.
Today, there was purpose beneath the fear.
Not enough to erase it, but enough to keep him driving when the village disappeared behind us and the road narrowed between stone walls.
Neither of us spoke much. The weather had cleared enough to reveal strips of blue between the clouds, and the occasional flash of sunlight caught wet fields, low stone fences, and distant limestone ridges that seemed to belong to another century.
I watched the landscape because watching Irish felt intrusive.
He knew I was doing that too.
About ten minutes from the farmhouse, he said, "You can look at me."
I turned.
"Was I being subtle?"
"No."
"Shame."
His mouth moved faintly.
"I don't know what's in there."
"I know."
"Could be nothing."
"I know."
He glanced at me.
"You're not going to tell me buildings remember things?"
"Brigid already used the best line."
"My da used it first."
"I like him too."
His expression changed, grief moving through it so quickly that the warmth disappeared.
"You never met him."
"No."
I waited.
"But I like the pieces I've heard."
Irish looked back at the road.
"That isn't the same."
"I know."
I had learned that insisting I understood something I couldn't would only make him feel more alone.
We reached the lane several minutes later.
The farmhouse came into view behind the hedgerow exactly as it had the day before, gray stone beneath a dark slate roof, quiet fields stretching away on both sides. Nothing had changed in twenty-four hours, yet Irish slowed as though he expected something to be different.
He parked in the same place.
This time neither of us remained in the SUV.
Irish got out first.
I followed.
The wind carried the faint smell of salt inland from the coast, mingling with wet earth and grass. Irish stood near the front path with the key already in his hand.
Yesterday he'd reached the door before stopping.
Today he stopped at the gate.
I stayed beside the SUV.
After nearly a minute, he looked over his shoulder.
"You're very far away."
"You asked me to come. You didn't ask me to crowd you."
His gaze held mine.
"Come here."
I crossed the gravel but stopped beside him rather than moving all the way to the door, close enough to be there without taking the next step for him.
The farmhouse filled my vision differently at this distance.
The stonework was older than I'd realized from the car, local limestone laid irregularly but beautifully, with later repairs visible around the windows and the northern chimney.
Someone had maintained the exterior carefully enough to prevent serious deterioration, but the garden had been allowed to become wild around the edges, lavender and rosemary competing with grass near the front wall while an old climbing rose had grown beyond the trellis meant to contain it.
"You've kept it in good condition," I said.
"Paid people to."
"Still counts."
"No, it doesn't."
I looked at him.
There was no point arguing.
Not yet.
Irish opened the gate.
We walked toward the house together.
His pace slowed as we reached the steps, and I could see the key digging into his palm again.
"Callum."
He looked at me.
"You don't have to prove anything by opening it."
"I know."
"If you want to leave, we leave."
"Aye."
"If you want me to wait outside, I wait."
His eyes held mine for several seconds.
"No."
"No?"
"Stay."
There was more vulnerability in that one word than in anything he'd said since arriving in Ireland.
"I'll stay."
He turned toward the door.
The key slid into the lock.
This time his hand trembled slightly around the key, not dramatically enough that anyone unfamiliar with him might have noticed, but enough that I did.
I didn't reach for him because he deserved to decide for himself when and how that threshold would be crossed.
The lock turned with a heavy mechanical click, and Irish froze with one hand still resting against the door as though the sound had released far more than an old mechanism.
I could almost see memory moving through him in the subtle change in his breathing and the way his fingers tightened against the wood until his knuckles whitened.
For several seconds, I wasn't certain he would be able to push the door open, but eventually he drew in a slow breath and did exactly that, allowing it to swing inward while I remained half a step behind him.
The smell that escaped wasn't death or blood or anything else his mind had probably spent fifteen years expecting.
It smelled simply like a house that had remained closed too long—old timber, cold stone, dust, furniture polish, and the faint trace of damp that came with empty rooms and Irish weather.
He stayed on the threshold for another moment, staring into the hallway while I followed his gaze and allowed him to take in the home he had spent so many years refusing to enter.
A narrow runner extended toward the rear of the house.
A wooden staircase rose along one wall. Framed photographs still hung above a small console table, their glass dull beneath a film of dust. Someone had covered most of the furniture with white sheets, but the basic shape of the house remained intact.
Irish stepped inside and I followed. I was one footstep behind him when the floorboard beneath my boot creaked and I saw his entire body tense.
"Sorry."
"Don't."
I stopped.
He looked back at me.
"Don't apologize for the house making noise."
I nodded.
He closed the door behind us but did not lock it.
That detail hurt more than I expected.
We stood together in the hall while Irish stared at a place that had once contained his entire life.
The first photograph beside the staircase showed four children near the coast.
I recognized him immediately even though he couldn't have been more than sixteen.
Taller than the boy beside him, thinner than he was now, hair longer and falling across his forehead while a dark-haired girl leaned against his shoulder and another stood behind them making some sort of gesture above his head.
"Finn?" I asked carefully, pointing toward the youngest boy.
Irish nodded.
"Aye."
"And Maeve?"
"The one trying to ruin the picture."
I smiled.
The fourth must have been someone else, perhaps a cousin or friend, because Irish didn't explain and I didn't ask.
Another photograph showed Siobhan and Declan standing outside the farmhouse. Declan had one arm around his wife's waist and an expression that reminded me so strongly of Irish when he was trying not to smile that I had to look twice.
"You look like him."
Irish's face hardened instinctively, then softened.
"So, everyone says."
"Your mother was beautiful."
"Aye."
He moved farther into the house as I followed him slowly.
The sitting room held an old fireplace, bookshelves, a piano beneath the front window, and enough small objects left behind to make the absence of people feel more intimate than emptiness would have.
A ceramic bowl still sat on one shelf. A knitted throw lay folded beneath a dust cover.
Books occupied their places as though someone might return and continue reading them.
Irish touched nothing yet, moving through the rooms like someone walking inside a memory that might collapse if he disturbed too much.
The kitchen stopped him and I knew before he said anything. His body had already gone completely still in the doorway.
The room was large and old-fashioned, with painted cabinets, a heavy wooden table, stone flooring, and windows overlooking the fields behind the house.
A newer refrigerator and stove had been installed at some point, probably during one of the maintenance updates, but everything else looked as though it had belonged to the same family for decades.
Irish stared at the table.
"Da sat there."
I looked toward the chair nearest the end.
"The paperwork?"
"Aye."