Chapter 33
33
brAIDEN
F inally, a glimmer of good news amid all the shite.
Rory O’Hare gets news of a warehouse outside of Philadelphia—run-down, sagging roof, cracked foundation—the type of place I’d just as soon demolish as try to repair. But rumor has it, Russo’s been using it for something.
Russo should be putting his valuables in the freeport now, storing them in his personal gallery and taking advantage of the tax breaks Samantha has worked out for all of us. So I tell O’Hare to take a drive by the warehouse after midnight, to bring a few men along, just to see what’s what.
He’s busy enough with other work that he asks if I can send someone else. He wants to know if I’ve been in touch with Madden, if my brother can make the run instead. I tell him Madden can’t make it, but I’ll call Patrick back from Boston if I have to.
O’Hare says everything is under control. He makes the run that night, to prove I can trust him.
The place is packed to the rafters with fireworks.
They aren’t in the freeport because Prince won’t allow explosives past the gate. In the most recent round of security updates, he added bomb-sniffing dogs; every vehicle is checked before it’s allowed on the property.
Russo must have cleaned up after the Fourth of July, bought out everyone he could. Fireworks are legal in Pennsylvania, but not in Maryland or New Jersey. Come next Independence Day, he can drive his stash over state lines and sell them for a tidy profit, same as he would any contraband.
It takes Seamus twenty-four hours to line up our own warehouse—a newer one, a dryer one, and one we can easily keep a guard on. After that, it’s easy enough to use Kelly Construction trucks and O’Hare’s runners. The fireworks are cleaned out before Russo even suspects they’ve been discovered.
I authorize a few sales up in New Jersey. Independence Day is over, but people always want to make loud noises and see pretty lights. When a short shipment to Trenton sells out overnight, I tell Seamus to unload the rest of it—no need to wait until next July.
Seamus needs someone to coordinate driving, and I tell him to use Liam Murphy. I need to forgive the blighter. After all, the only crime Murphy truly committed was letting Samantha get that tattoo. I haven’t forgotten how persuasive she can be. The fella didn’t stand a chance.
A week after O’Hare found the warehouse, I’m a million dollars richer.
Better yet, I have other captains sitting up and taking notice. Reardon calls from Chicago to find out how I unloaded that many fireworks after the Fourth. Our counterpart in New Orleans chimes in too; he imagines he can build a new market shipping into Texas.
I’m not interested in setting up a consulting business, advising either one of those captains. But it’s nice to know people are paying attention.
It’s even nicer that I landed my million bucks when the Grand Irish Union is still in disarray. Without a general to claim his ten percent, I keep every penny.
So I’m feeling rather flush as I sit down to dinner with Aiofe. She, though, doesn’t share my good mood. She spends the better part of half an hour pushing buttered egg noodles around on her plate. Every time she sighs, something twinges beneath my ribs. I’d rather be out on the front lines in my brooding war with Russo, than sitting at a dining room table with a moody pre-teen girl.
O’Hare reported Aiofe didn’t say a word when he drove her back from her therapist this afternoon. She didn’t push for a walk around the block to see the puppies at the home of one of her classmates. Instead, she went straight to her room and closed the door.
Gritting my teeth, I ask, “How was your meeting with Miss Sharon today?”
More poking at her plate. I wonder if Aiofe’s decided she’s through with talking. At least when she was silent before, she responded to direct questions with a range of expressions on her face. Hand signals, even.
“Aiofe?” I prompt, wondering how I should proceed.
She talks to her fork. “Miss Sharon said I should ask you a question if I want to know answers. Even if it’s private. Personal.”
I put down my own fork. Fairfax has given Aiofe an entire book on how her body works. I’d expect her to turn to him if she’s confused. But I do my level best to sound open to whatever she has to say. “What question do you have?”
She takes her napkin from her lap. Folds it into quarters. Opens it again.
“Aiofe?” I ask again.
And in a tiny voice, so soft I have to catch my breath to hear, she asks, “Did Samantha leave because of me?”
The instant the words are out of her mouth, I’m bowled over by a tidal wave of relief. I don’t need to elaborate on Fairfax’s book. I don’t have to find words that work for a child.
But the relief is immediately swamped by shame. There’s no reason on earth Aiofe should believe Samantha left because of her. I’m an eejit for not addressing the matter sooner. “No,” I say, too fast. Too loud. “Samantha’s leaving has nothing to do with you.”
“She wasn’t angry with me?”
“Why would Samantha possibly be angry with you?”
“Fairfax took me to the Rittenhouse. I went swimming in the pool, and I got to spend the night at the hotel. But Samantha had to work. She couldn’t play with us. And when I got home, sh— she was gone.”
She was gone because she and I fought in the foyer. She was gone because I couldn’t hold my tongue. She was gone because I said things I’ll never repeat to this child.
How long has Aiofe been believing she was at fault? It never dawned on me she might think Samantha would be jealous of yet another stay at the Rittenhouse.
“Samantha didn’t leave because you went to the hotel,” I say. “I promise.”
Aiofe nods solemnly. But she whispers to her plate, “I miss her. A lot.”
I want to say that’s ridiculous. Aiofe lived with me for seven years before she ever met Samantha. Fairfax is still taking care of her, morning, noon, and night.
But Aiofe’s lost a lot in the last few months—Samantha, sure, but Birte and Grace too. Aiofe’s clothes burned at Thornfield, and all her sketchbooks too. She only kept her manky stuffed rabbit because she had it with her in Fairfax’s cottage, the night of the fire.
She’s suffered. And she’s a child, who brought none of this on herself. So I answer with an honesty that catches me by surprise. “Yeah, little one. I miss her too.”
“Where did she go?”
“She’s in Dover. In Delaware. The place where she works, where Liam used to drive her.”
“Where’s that, on a map?”
I take out my phone. And before I can pull up a general map, I think of something that might comfort the girl. I open the tracking app, the one I set when we were in the Rittenhouse, when my eyes were burned and threats seemed to lurk in every unseen corner.
A dial spins on the phone screen, the app working its magic to locate the distant tracker. For a moment, I think Samantha’s erased the connection on her end. There’s no reason for her to keep it. She’s not mine to follow any longer. She never truly was.
But the dial stops moving. A tiny red drawing pin hovers over a field of green labeled Diamond Freeport.
“There she is,” I say to Aiofe.
The child levels a finger over the pin. When she finally looks up from the screen, she’s smiling. “Thank you, Uncle Braiden.”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
“May I be excused from the table?”
I should make her finish her dinner. I should tell her to carry her plate into the kitchen. I should warn her it’s time to get ready for bed, and she has forty-five minutes for reading before turning out the lights.
But instead, I say, “You may.”
And I stare at the screen long after Aiofe’s left, wondering why Samantha’s still working at a quarter past eight on a Monday night in the middle of the feckin’ summer.