Chapter Twelve
“Sit down, Miss Carmichael,” Kenney said. It was an order rather than an invitation.
Rynn sat with what grace she could muster in the upright wooden chair he indicated, which was right across the table from
him. The light from the lamp behind the table fell directly on her face. No doubt the lamp had been positioned there for just
that purpose. She tried not to let any emotion, anything of what she was thinking or feeling, show.
“I want to know where Seamus and Donal O’Reilly are. If you tell me that, I’ll have no further business with you and you may
go.” Kenney’s eyes bored into hers.
“I don’t know where they are.” If she sounded tense, why, what was there to wonder about in that? Worry over the men’s fate
would be a natural cause of tension. “Everyone is saying that they’ve drowned.”
“I’m sure that’s what everyone is saying.” He smiled at her, a thin, terrifying smile. With his face in shadow, his eyes gleamed
at her. Like a shark’s, she thought, if it came swimming at her from the depths. “You haven’t heard from them?”
“No.”
“Do you expect to?” His tone was almost affable now.
The room was warm. She was not. Her hands, curled in her lap, felt like blocks of ice. Inside, she was cold with fear. Be careful.
“I . . . pray to God I will.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Praying?” He waited, but she didn’t answer. “How long have you known they were smuggling in guns?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you know that Seamus O’Reilly is a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood?”
Of course he was. Somewhere deep inside, she’d suspected it. “No. I no.”
“I would ask you the same about Donal O’Reilly.”
“He is not. I’m sure he is not.”
“You’re most emphatic.” His mouth tightened. “Oh, that’s right. I’ve been informed that he’s very special to you. So special
that you would lie for him? If so, I must warn you that lying to me would be a dangerous thing for you to do.”
His eyes were intent on her face. She was hideously conscious of how the light must be illuminating every nuance of her expression.
The implied threat hung in the air between them, tangible as a dark cloud. And then it hit her: He’s speaking of them in the present tense. As if he doesn’t think they’re dead.
She did not wet her lips. She did not blink. What she did was call on every saint she’d ever heard of and every long-deceased
ancestor whose name she knew for courage and lifted her chin and returned him look for look.
“I’m not in the habit of lying, I assure you.”
He seemed to consider her. Inwardly she quaked. Outwardly she tried her best to remain unmoved. Was she succeeding? Impossible
to know.
The silence between them stretched out until she thought she would jump out of her skin with nerves.
“Where were you on Christmas night, Miss Carmichael?” he asked finally, shooting the question at her.
Ah, but she’d been expecting that one. A little of her terror eased.
“At Ballyshannon Court.”
“All night?”
“Yes.” She had Lord Thomas to thank for the conviction with which she answered. He’d given her the alibi and she would use
it, knowing he would say the same if asked.
“Isn’t that a trifle . . . unusual?”
“I am a nurse. I was needed by a patient. A very important patient. Lord Thomas Dunne.”
“So you stayed at Ballyshannon Court with this important patient for all—the entirety—of Christmas night.” He made no effort
to hide his skepticism. It was clear the name Lord Thomas Dunne meant nothing to him. Her hope that her patient’s identity
might give him pause withered and died.
“I did.”
“Did you ever, at any time during that night, go to the Strand?”
Why would he ask that? Her pulse quickened. “I did not.”
He looked down, reached for something on the floor near his feet, out of her sight. A quiver of foreboding almost gulled her
into taking a deep, calming breath. She did not. She did not move, did not shift in her seat, did not change expressions.
All while she thought she might expire of fear.
Straightening, Kenney plunked something down on the table in front of her.
Shoes. The black satin single-strap pumps she’d worn on Christmas night and lost to the sea. The ones with the delicately
crafted rosemary blossoms sewn onto the straps. Her mother’s shoes, that had been stored in the trunk with the dress they
matched. Now splotched with drying seawater and crusted with salt and sand. How had he ended up with them?
It didn’t matter. There they were: her mother’s shoes.
One of a kind. Crafted specially for the acclaimed young actress in her final performance before she left the stage forever to wed. Possibly identifiable by anyone—any woman her mother’s age or older who might remember her, at least—in the village.
Rosemary blossoms for Rosemary Shaughnessy.
It was all Rynn could do not to stare at them in horror. She prayed her reaction didn’t show. How could she explain how they’d
ended up in the bay? To be caught in a lie could prove her undoing.
“I see you recognize them,” Kenney said.
Her face, her telltale face!
Dear God, what could she say? Her heart raced.
“They’re not mine, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. Once again, it was the truth. She did much better with the truth.
He stood up abruptly and came around the table to loom over her.
“Look at me.” His voice was soft. Terrifyingly so.
Rynn called on every tiny reserve of courage she had left and did as he ordered.
“We’ve had word that a woman was out gunrunning with the O’Reillys that night. A young woman with long black hair. Tall, slim,
very beautiful. Unusually dressed, possibly in men’s clothes. Was that woman you?” His hand dropped onto her shoulder. Weighty.
Intimidating. Purposely so, she thought, even as she successfully fought to contain a shiver.
“No.” There was no other answer she could give and survive.
Meanwhile, her mind raced. He’d had word—from whom?
If he was asking if the woman in question was her, whoever it was who’d seen her hadn’t known her identity.
That eliminated Donal, Seamus, Fergus—and Owen Maguire.
As well as practically everyone in and around Bundoran.
One of the soldiers on the Strand? But it had been so dark, and she’d been so far away.
And she’d been described as wearing men’s clothes.
She’d only changed into them after she was on Maguire’s boat.
One of the Reaper’s crew, then? Or someone who’d boarded her at Inishmurray?
Or was Kenney bluffing? If so, it was a very specific bluff.
His hand slid around to grip the back of her neck. It felt hot and damp and skin-crawlingly repulsive against her exposed
nape. She stopped breathing.
Then he trailed a caressing forefinger from her hairline down her spine to the top of her dress.
“Stop that!” Too outraged and horrified to do anything but react, she jerked away and jumped to her feet, facing him with
fear and fury combined. “How dare you?”
He smiled at her.
“You’ll find that—” he began.
A knock at the door: Rynn had never been so glad of an interruption in her life.
“Detective Kenney!” Gillie’s voice, muffled by the door.
“Not now!” Kenny barked, making Rynn jump.
The door opened, and Gillie stuck her head into the room. “It’s sorry I am to interrupt, Detective Kenny, but there’s a telephone
call for you from Special Branch. A Mr. James McBrien says he must speak to you most urgently.”
Her words had a profound effect on Kenney. His mouth contorted. Blood rushed into his face, turning it bright red. Glaring
in Gillie’s direction, he seemed about to dismiss her out of hand before appearing to think the better of it.
“We’ll continue in a moment,” he said curtly to Rynn, and strode past Gillie and out of the room. With a wide-eyed glance
at Rynn, Gillie followed, closing the door behind her.
Rynn’s knees sagged. Her hip found the edge of the table, and she rested against it, thankful for the support. She wanted
to sit but did not. Kenney would be back, and to give him the opportunity to loom over her again—she wouldn’t do it.
What am I going to do?
His actions had already driven home to her how truly defenseless she was. It was within his authority to interrogate her as
he saw fit, to have her arrested, sent to Dublin Castle—and worse.
He was gone for just long enough for Rynn to conclude that her only option was to deny all knowledge of everything. If he
didn’t believe her, well, he couldn’t prove otherwise. Could he? Would he even need proof?
As an officer of the Crown, he held all the power.
If he touched her again, she would scream the place down. Although she wasn’t sure if it would do any good.
When the door opened, she straightened away from the table. He was scowling as he came toward her. Whatever the call had been
about, it had clearly put him in a filthy mood. She kept her face as expressionless as she could while her heart knocked and
her insides curdled with fear.
Steady.
He stopped when he reached the far edge of the table. His gaze was darkly malevolent as their eyes met, and she was once again
reminded, horribly, of a shark.
“You. May. Go,” he said. Each word as it emerged sounded as if it was being wrenched from his throat.
What?
“We will finish this at another time.” Despite the unbelievably welcome message, there was no mistaking his underlying rage.
Rynn didn’t reply. Instead, she embraced the miracle of it, inclined her head in stiff acknowledgment and walked past him and out of the room, retrieving her coat on the way.
Without saying a word to anyone, not to Gillie, who gave her a commiserating look, not to Colonel Pelly, who stood talking with a pair of soldiers just inside the door and stopped to watch her pass, not to any of the onlookers, most of whom she knew, she continued out of the building and down the walk, pulling on her coat as she went.
Head high. Pace measured. When it was all she could do not to run.
The car waiting for her outside was the green DeLion belonging to Ballyshannon Court.