Chapter Four #3
“I don’t solve shit for a living, Finn. I’m not sure what you heard about me, but I protect. I’m armor for everyone. That’s my only role in life.”
Jesus.
Yeah, he sounded incredibly angry about that from the tone in his voice.
And honestly, he couldn’t blame him. To feel like that had to be brutal. That had to hurt to assume that was the only worth someone had in life.
“Well, I was just letting you know in case it got boring here tonight.”
Oh, well, he doubted he’d be bored.
“Oh, and in case anyone calls early in the morning, before Graham comes out of his booze stupor, and they say it’s about a painting, it is.”
He could handle a few calls. He couldn’t go diving until after the sun was up anyway.
“What about?” he asked.
Finn shared.
“There’s a painting out being rehabbed. There’s something under the painting that Gabby wanted to get figured out. They might be calling to let us know it’s ready to be delivered. If it is, tell them to swing by.”
He could do that.
“Sure.”
Finn told him one more time.
“And again, if that curiosity bug bites ya on the arse, the book is in the library. Don’t wander around too much because this place can be dangerous. Avoid the tower while alone. Weird shit happens there.”
Michael knew some of the story about the happenings in the castle.
How could he not?
Tony liked to talk, and talk, and talk...
He just didn’t know all of it, but that sounded ominous to him.
“How dangerous are we talking?”
Finn knew that he needed to know the basics about this place in case it got…
Weird.
So, he told him everything he could to get him up to date on the situation, and while he did, Michael looked confused.
“For real?” he asked, incredulously.
That sounded ominous.
Tony went into details, but not all of them, and he could see why he didn’t. If Elizabeth got wind of this, she’d shit her britches.
BIG.
TIME.
“Yeah. We all saw Duncan and Ciarán down by the water when the bones floated to the surface. There’s something ominous in there.”
Okay, call him curious.
“Whose bones are they?”
Finn shrugged.
“We don’t know. All we know is that we haven’t found Ciarán’s bones yet. Tony thinks they might have been moved to be behind the wall to protect him or there is the possibility that he’s in the water, and has been for a long time.”
He was curious.
“Wait. Why did he put his lover’s bones in a wall, or toss them in the water?”
He shared how Ciarán was killed.
“The villagers, well, someone who was very anti-gay, likely the church, paid off the staff to let them in. In the middle of the night, they snuck in to kill Duncan for sins against God—being gay.”
Oh, shit.
Was that why the two dead men were so willing to help him when it came to Graham? Could they tell from the great beyond that he was gay?
Was their gaydar going off?
Then again, Graham wailing like a banshee at the edge of a cliff probably brought on plenty of attention to the two men’s lives.
Finn kept going.
“Ciarán was sleeping with him, and woke up to put his body over his, and took the death blow. They killed his lover, and he watched him die in front of him.”
Um…
That hit home.
Why?
Oh, maybe because the similarities…they were eerie.
During a particularly gruesome battle, Graham had gotten cut off from him, and the enemy had targeted him. Michael had to charge to his position, and he put his body over the man he loved to protect him.
That was when he took a bullet for the Black Watch soldier.
His soulmate.
At the time.
That had been why he’d been given the Purple Heart, and a few Silver Stars for valor for saving a Scottish soldier in a group ambush.
Hearing that the man put his body over Duncan’s, much like he’d done, willing to die for the man he loved…
That made him feel…edgy.
How could it not?
That was freakily similar.
Finn kept talking.
“After he was awoken, Duncan killed everyone who came at them to avenge what happened. I don’t think he ever got over losing him because he spent the rest of his days alone, mourning the loss of his love. He died a few years later.”
He was curious as to what was going on there, and why it was running parallel to his and Graham’s relationship.
As Elizabeth always said, ‘coincidences were a bucket of bullshit’.
And he agreed.
He had, after all, felt like he’d been dealt the death blow when he lost Graham.
“Did they find out who betrayed him?” he asked, curiously.
Finn shook his head.
“Not that we’ve found out. There might be more pages from a journal, or documentation. Gabby and Ian were searching for it while they were both here at the castle, and they didn’t find out this last part until Gabby’s leg of this creepy-ass marathon.”
When the lights flickered, both men looked around.
“Rats?” Michael asked.
Oh, he wished.
“We aren’t that lucky, Laddie. Not even close,” he admitted, rubbing his arms to dissipate the goosebumps.
While it was freaky, it also did pique his curiosity a bit.
Okay, call him a cat—a stupidly curious one.
Maybe he would read the book.
It wasn’t like he was sleeping tonight. He was on Graham watch, and if this place was that filthy with the dead, who the hell would want to sleep?
“And he never moved on and found someone else?” he asked.
Finn shook his head.
“We know for a fact that he raised his son because there’s a journal from one of his daughters-in-law hundreds of years later. So the son lived, and kept the bloodline going, but we believe that Duncan stayed dedicated to his one true love.”
Michael listened.
“That is all we know. Oh, and that he lived with a woman, his wife’s sister, but we found out that it was platonic, and mostly to get her free from her father.”
Well, yeah, especially if he was as gay as the day was long.
Finn went there.
“Personally, since I solve shit for a living, I think that Oison Darragh killed his daughter. He was disgraced that she was being sent away, so he showed up with the replacement daughter, and…boom. Shoved her out the window. Can we prove it? No, but again, this place isn’t fully renovated yet.
Who knows what letters or evidence will fall out of the wall? ”
He guessed.
“Where is the place she was shoved from?”
He pointed up at the tower that was above the remodeled kitchen.
Michael was appalled.
Oh, great.
Not only did she get shoved to her demise, but she died at this location. That couldn’t be good when it came to ghostly hauntings.
He was no pro, but that felt like a problem.
For.
The.
Living.
“So, he killed his own kid, and then tried to pawn off his other daughter on a gay man? That doesn’t seem like a productive thing to do.”
Finn nodded.
He agreed, and he wasn’t even gay.
“Yeah, he tried, but Duncan had learned his lesson after the first daughter. He doesn’t exactly speak highly of Ceit. He loved her, but not like that. I think it was more a ‘I love her as the mother of my child’,” he admitted.
He understood now.
“The Darragh family was crazy, and Catherine, his youngest was barely a child. She was just turning into a teenager.”
Michael looked disgusted.
Oh, and Finn agreed there.
It was something that was gross beyond gross, and he didn’t care if it was in the sixteen hundreds.
“Eww,” Michael said.
Yeah, he could say that again.
“So he pretended to join with the youngest daughter, and he gave her a safe place where she wouldn’t be given away to a man to birth babies. Instead, she raised her sister’s son and lived in peace. Gabby found that out online in the research archives.”
Michael was listening intently.
This was like a soap opera.
Finn continued.
“Meanwhile, as everyone thought he was perfectly fine sleeping with a child, and appalled by the man-on-man action, he was hiding in plain sight with Ciarán and living happily ever after. Well, until Ciarán was murdered instead of him.”
None of this sounded like a happy life for anyone who lived in this castle.
In fact, this place was definitely filled with pain.
No wonder it was haunted.
Finn patted him on the arm.
“So now, you’re caught up on that home front. The bones might be Ciarán, but we don’t know because there needs to be more of them.”
And that was where Michael came into play.
“Ceit, the wife who was murdered, told Gabby there were four ghosts here. We don’t know who the fourth is, but the unknown one is EVIL. It can body jump.”
He lifted a brow.
Wait.
What?
Why did that sound appalling?
“What’s that mean—body jump? And why does that sound incredibly uncomfortable?”
He told him all about Gabby nearly jumping out a window in the tower when she was overcome with the dark entity’s spirit.
“Maybe I should have called it a possession,” he suggested. “That might be a better phrase for it.”
Oh, well, that was worse.
Michael the Archangel might just need help from the real Michael the Archangel at this point.
Thank God Addison had taught every single one of them how to pray on a rosary, and to God. He might just need it at this point.
Who would have seen that coming when he landed here?
“Well, that sucks for me. Why? Because I have to babysit Graham all night,” he admitted. “In a castle that’s in the middle of a battle for good and bad, apparently. I don’t like being caught in the crossfire.”
Yeah, he didn’t either, and that was why Gabby was NOT in the building at night.
Lesson learned.
This castle was no joke, and it wouldn’t be a family-oriented place until the mystery was solved, and peace could come back to Ravensmire.
IF peace could come back here, and that was a very big IF too.
Now, Finn felt bad dumping his best friend on the man’s ex. That didn’t seem fair.
So, he tried.
“I can send Gabby home. She’s waiting in the car, and I can stay here,” he said. “If it’s a burden…”
He stopped him.
That’s just it.
It wasn’t a burden.
That was what scared the hell out of him. Graham had been such a huge part of his life that he knew he could easily fall right back into what had been.
If he trusted him.
Unfortunately for Graham, that ship had sailed.