Chapter 9
9
SAMANTHA
E verything’s different. Everything’s the same.
It shouldn’t matter that the door to Birte’s refuge on the third floor is open. Now that I know Braiden’s first wife—his only legal wife—lives up there, I shouldn’t still be drawn to the end of the hall. I shouldn’t need to take careful steps over the runner, testing the floorboards for squeaks. I shouldn’t be sneaking around Thornfield.
But I do slink down the hall. I dart past the door to the infirmary as if monsters lurk under the hospital bed, waiting to suck me inside. And I don’t realize why I’m so on edge until I’m hovering outside Braiden’s office.
Braiden is meeting with Madden and Fiona. They’re talking Fishtown Boys business. The criminal empire is unfolding in that office, and I’m drawn like a lemming to a cliff.
Murder. Extortion. Racketeering in all its gritty filth—the sort of dangerous business that makes Thornfield’s electrified fence necessary, that accounts for the gatehouse with its armed men, that justifies a presidential-grade safe room and an armory to match.
I’ve been with Braiden for nearly three months, and I still don’t understand all he does to maintain his illegal domain.
I catch my breath to better hear what they’re saying.
Braiden is talking about butter .
After a minute, it makes more sense. He’s talking about counterfeit goods. About defrauding home cooks, maybe some restaurants. His plan might affect legitimate dairy farmers; he might cut into the profit of the dairy lobby.
But I’m ashamed when I imagine all the terrible things I thought they’d be discussing.
Before I can head back to my office, Fiona laughs. The sound is deep and throaty. I immediately picture her long limbs in a man’s silk pajamas, the top hanging open seductively.
On paper, Fiona and I are so similar we could be twins. Both of us were raised in the heart of organized crime. We’re accustomed to making our way as women in a world ruled by men. We speak up when we need to, and we fight for what we want.
In person, though, I can’t imagine a woman more different from me. I’ve spent the past eleven years filing off the serial numbers of my childhood. I’ve narrowed my life to black and white and gray, all I deserve after That Night.
Fiona, to the contrary, has apparently never doubted her value for a second. She’s jewel tones and leather, stiletto heels and hundred-dollar lipsticks. She takes what she wants, never doubting it’s hers, never questioning if she’s worth it.
And when Fiona laughs, I know I have no place in Braiden’s office. That meeting isn’t meant for me.
Down the hall, my own office feels cold and empty. I bring up a series of emails from Sonja Heller, the junkyard-dog lawyer I’ve hired to represent me in the proceeding that will determine whether I keep my law license. The ethics board has sent a list of demands. They want me to answer dozens of questions. There are hundreds of documents they want to review. They want medical records and pay stubs, and confirmation of dates of employment for every job I’ve ever held, including two weeks that I scooped ice cream during my sophomore year in high school.
And that’s only the start.
The board will decide if my hiding the drunk-driving deaths of three innocent people is a crime of “moral turpitude”. They’ll decide if what I did is so repulsive I can no longer be trusted as a lawyer.
I’ve done some legal research.
I haven’t found a single case where any other lawyer in any jurisdiction did what I did. It’s not just the three people who died. It’s the fact that I was drunk and high while I was driving. That I covered up the crime. That I kept it secret for eleven years, and would have hidden it for longer if a private citizen hadn’t made the details public.
It doesn’t help that I used Mafia money to cover up what happened in the first place. And my current employer is a corporation created specifically to protect billionaires from tax obligations. And my so-called “husband” is a Captain in the Irish Mob.
But most damning of all: Every last detail of my case continues to be front-page news on an almost-daily basis, because headline-crazed paparazzi follow me around like wolves chasing a wounded sheep.
It’s just a matter of time before I’m taken down, left without a law license, without a job.
The tip of my nose is icy. I realize I need a sweater, so I make my way to the pool house, squinting in the brilliant morning sun. I’m concentrating on the tarp that covers the pool, studying the stones that anchor its swooping edges. That’s my only excuse for not noticing the open door until my hand is on the knob.
The pool house is meant for guests to use. There’s no lock on the door. No privacy. I didn’t think that would matter, not when Braiden runs all of Thornfield.
“Hello?” I call, pausing in the doorway.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The inside of the pool house is as cool and dark as a cave. I left the window coverings down when I went to breakfast.
I catch a flash of movement by the counter. Blinking, I step to my right, letting more sunlight stream inside.
Grace Poole stands by the liquor bottles Fairfax left yesterday. She has one claw wrapped around the Belvedere. The other holds a battered, dented hip flask made of steel.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout, my voice even louder and harsher than I intend. I storm into my home, carried on a tide of raw rage.
She ducks her head like she thinks she’ll be smacked. Shielding her face with one hand, she pulls the full fifth of vodka close to her body.
No. It’s not full anymore.
Half the bottle’s been drained away. Even if her flask is filled to the brim, Grace has downed enough booze to pickle a rat.
“Ma’am,” she says, dropping the old-fashioned curtsey she uses like a weapon. “I thought ya were a’ th’ house.”
I could get drunk from the fumes on her breath. “I’m sure you did,” I say. “Who gave you permission to come in here?”
“No one, ma’am. I were checkin’ th’ linens. Makin’ sure ya have yer flannels and towels and whatnot.”
“You’re lying!”
“Ma’am!” She cringes like she thinks I’ll beat her.
“You’re supposed to be with Birte. Where did you leave her? Why aren’t you keeping an eye on her?”
“Miss Birte’s with th’ wean.”
The wean. That’s what Grace calls Aiofe. I remember from the day she cornered me in the greenhouse. “It’s Monday,” I say. “Aiofe should be with her tutor, now that Father Regis is gone.”
“Mr. John called out sick. Brown bottle flu, I say.” Completely missing any hint of irony, she sniffs like she smells something rotten before she mimes taking a drink. She seems surprised to find her flask in her hand.
“Grace, this is absolutely unacceptable. Now that Birte is allowed access to all of Thornfield, she needs more supervision, not less. You absolutely cannot let her wander the grounds alone.”
“Miss Aiofe is with?—”
“Aiofe is a child! A sick child who can’t watch over a grown woman. What if Aiofe needed to shout a warning? What if she needed to call for help?”
“Th’ first Mrs. Kelly?—”
“Stop,” I say.
“But Miss Birte is th’ first?—”
“Not another word.”
“Miss—”
“Enough!” I shout. “You’re supposed to be watching a fragile woman who’s roaming outside for the first time in years. You came in here without permission. You lied about why you were here. You stole liquor and now you’re drunk and you’re arguing to cover up the fact that you’ve endangered the life of a child.”
With every statement I make, Grace shrinks a little more. Her shoulders slump. Her chin digs into her chest. Her fingers curl into talons, clutching the only thing she cares about: Her flask.
Her weakness make me furious. I want to scratch her sullen face. I want to rip out her dull, matted hair.
If Grace had done her job properly, Birte would never have appeared in the dining room. I never would have discovered Braiden’s lies.
A tiny voice of reason whispers in the back of my mind: I should be grateful I found out now. Because of Grace, it’s not too late.
Too late for what? I just want to stop hurting .
“I’m going to Braiden right now,” I say. “I’m telling him to fire you.”
“Ma’am!”
“I want you out of here tonight.”
She starts to sob, a terrible sound, like pigeons boiling in a pot. “Ma’am,” she chokes out.
“On the next flight to Dublin,” I say.
She sinks to her knees. Grabbing the hem of my pants, she pleads in an unholy mixture of English and Irish. I stagger back, trying to escape the clutch of her fingers. I stumble, though, because someone’s standing behind me.
It’s Aiofe.
She’s wearing her puffy purple coat with the bright pink zipper—security against the occasional gust of March wind. Her hair is woven into two braids, with soft curls escaping at her temples and the nape of her neck. Her eyes are bright, almost feverish.
She gapes at Grace in shock. Her lower lip starts to tremble and two fat tears trickle down her cheeks.
Grace clambers to her feet. She drags the back of one hand across her face, scraping away tears and snot. With the other, she shoves her flask deep in her apron pocket.
“Hey ho, wean,” she says, shaky on the first two words, but smiling by the third.
Aiofe looks from Grace to me and back again. Her forehead puckers in confusion.
“Don’t ya worry, lass,” Grace says, patting her shoulder. “Herself and me, we was jus’ talkin’. Not t’ fear, wee one. Ya got nothin’ t’ fear.”
Aiofe nods as if she’s finished adding up a massive column of numbers. Her smile, when she manages one, is like the sun coming out from behind a bank of clouds.
As I watch, astonished by the transition, she unzips her jacket. Nestled inside, crushed against her dark blue cable-knit sweater, are a dozen flowers—tulips in pastel shades of pink and yellow and lavender.
I stare at the miniature turbans of the flowers’ tight-wrapped petals. Aiofe gathers them together and shoves them toward my hand. When I still don’t understand, she moves them from her heart to mine.
“They’re for me?” I ask.
She nods, as seriously as if she’s passing me a Nobel prize. She points toward my duvet cover, with its stylized tulips woven between banks of honeysuckle.
“Thank you,” I say. “They’re beautiful.”
Aiofe’s smile turns shy. She ducks her head and looks up at Grace through her lashes.
“I tol’ ya,” Grace says to her. “Posies make a house a home. The missus knows that, same as anyone. G’wan now. Put ’em in water, ’afore they wilt.” She points toward the highball glasses next to the liquor bottles.
Obediently, Aiofe takes one and holds it under the faucet until it’s half full. She sets the stems in the water carefully, like they’re made out of spun sugar and might shatter. Biting her lip, she takes her time arranging them, moving the colors around to make a secret pattern.
When she’s finally finished, she looks at Grace, her wide eyes clearly seeking approval.
Grace nods. “That’s savage, lass.”
Aiofe grins again, pride puffing her narrow chest. She hands me the glass with two hands, bowing a little in her excitement at presenting her gift.
“They’re perfect,” I say. I set the flowers on top of the microwave, where they can be seen from every point in the room.
When we’re all through admiring them, Grace says to Aiofe, “Now where’s yer Auntie Birte?”
Aiofe moves her hand in a waving pattern, shifting from side to side like a salmon swimming upstream. I don’t need words to understand that Birte’s in the greenhouse, watching koi in the Irish garden fish pond.
“Shall we get her, then? Bring her back t’ th’ house fer a cuppa ’n’ one o’ Fairfax’s biscuits?”
Aiofe shakes her head fiercely, then holds up two fingers.
“Two biscuits?” Grace asks. “Have ya been good enow fer two?”
Aiofe points emphatically to my flowers.
“A gift fer th’ missus. Yer right. Ya should get two biscuits fer that.”
Aiofe heads for the doorway, but Grace calls her back. The woman reaches for the pink zipper and slides it up to the top of the purple jacket.
“Don’t want ya catchin’ yer death o’ cold,” she says, even though it’s pleasantly warm in the sun.
“Aiofe,” I say, just before she steps outside. “Thank you again. The flowers are lovely.” She nods and slips her hand companionably into Grace’s.
Before they can leave, I call out, “Grace?”
The woman stops in the doorway without turning to face me.
“Forget what I said earlier. You can stay. Keep an eye on Aiofe and Birte, both.”
Something unhitches in her shoulders, and she takes a step forward.
But I call out again: “Grace? Leave the flask behind.”
For a moment, I think she won’t do it. But then she reaches into her apron with her free hand, the one Aiofe hasn’t caught. She fishes out the flask and stoops to set it on the threshold before she lets Aiofe drag her into the sunshine.
I don’t trust Grace Poole. She’s a drinking alcoholic who’s overmatched by her job.
But as I pour the vodka down the drain, I have to admit that Aiofe loves her. Aiofe needs her. And if there’s anything I can do to ease that poor child’s life, I’ll do it. No more questions asked.