Chapter 6 #2
I nod and move into position, pulling the pick set from my pocket and crouching lower, blocking the door with my body while I work.
Dervla stays tight to the wall beside me, blade in hand.
I can feel her attention fixed on the house, on me, on everything at once.
Aidan covers the windows. Cormac watches the garden and the rise beyond it.
I listen to the lock through my fingers. One pin. Two. Third catches. Fourth sticks for a second, then gives. The mechanism shifts with a soft click.
I test the handle again.
This time it opens.
I draw my gun, push the door inward a fraction with the barrel, and wait.
Nothing.
No footsteps. No voices. No movement inside.
Aidan motions once. I go in first.
Dervla moves in tight behind me. “Dining room is through here and to the left,” she whispers. I nod once and angle left, gun up, feet silent on the stone floor.
The kitchen is empty. Chairs tucked in. Counters wiped.
Nothing out of place except for the faint sense that a place can be too tidy when no one has lived in it properly for weeks.
I clear the utility room first. Empty. Back hall.
Empty. The pantry door stands open with shelves half stripped.
Someone has already gone through the easy targets.
Dervla stays close and points ahead with Henrietta. “There.”
I move to the dining room entrance and stop dead at the threshold.
The room is exactly as she described. Table. Eight chairs. Sideboard against the far wall. No art. No display cabinets. No obvious hiding places. It is almost offensively plain.
Aidan comes up beside me, gun low but ready. Cormac takes the opposite side of the doorway and scans the windows.
“We’ll clear the rest of the house,” Aidan says, gesturing to Cormac.
They disappear, and I look at Dervla before positioning myself near the doorway. She creeps forward and checks out of the windows, reaching to slowly lower the blind. Once it’s fully closed, she steps back, more relaxed and looks around.
“Where do I even start?” she asks in a normal tone. “There are literally no hiding places.”
“Go with your instinct,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Start with your dad’s chair.”
She nods once and moves to the head of the table.
It’s high-backed, dark wood, heavier than the others. She pulls it out carefully and checks the underside of the seat, running her fingers along the joints, the corners, the carved legs. Nothing obvious. She tips it forward and checks the base. Nothing. She sets it down and steps back, frowning.
I watch the doorway and listen to the house. Nobody shouting. Nothing urgent. Good.
I glance back at Dervla. She is checking the next chair, and the next.
She is getting frustrated already, I can see it in her eyes, but she methodically checks the next chair.
“When your dad had his mafia guest over,” I say with a smile that she growls at. “Where did he seat the most important man in the group?”
“The opposite head,” she says, already moving towards it. “Hidden right under their arse?”
“Maybe?”
She crouches down in front of the chair and runs her hands along the seat, the joints, the undercarriage. Her fingers move fast and purposefully, no hesitation now that she has a direction. I watch the doorway and listen to the house settling around us.
“Nothing under the seat,” she mutters and drops lower, checking each carved leg from top to bottom.
She pushes it over, and it hits the plush carpet with a dull thud. Kneeling in front of it, she examines every square inch of it. Then she blinks and leans in closer to the back left foot.
“What is it?” I ask, moving over and crouching next to her.
“There’s initials inscribed here.”
“TC,” I murmur.
She runs her thumb over it, but nothing happens.
“TC,” she murmurs and then freezes. “TC. Tiernan Callaghan.”
“Who?” I ask as we both straighten up.
“My great-great grandfather. He built this house.” She is already moving away from me into the hallway.
“Dervla, wait,” I mutter and follow quickly as Aidan and Cormac come down the stairs.
“Everything okay?” Aidan asks. “We heard a thud.”
“Fine,” I say. “You?”
“Clear. Front is clear as well. No cars in the drive, outside the wall or beyond,” Cormac says as Dervla rushes past him up the stairs. “Where’s she going with her arse on fire?”
“No idea. Follow.”
She rushes up onto the upper hallway and stops in front of a portrait of a stern-looking man, glaring down his nose at us.
“Isn’t that a bit obvious?” I ask sceptically. The first place everyone looks is a portrait.
“I’m not looking for the obvious,” she says, taking it off the wall and propping it up between the wall and her body. She runs her fingers along it as I move in next to her, scanning the frame to see if I can ascertain what she is looking for.
“Here,” we both say together, our fingers brushing as we both reach the carving.
“DC,” I murmur.
“Donal,” she breathes. “Great uncle.”
“I’m lost,” Cormac says as she drops the painting and moves off, back downstairs.
“She’s found a trail, just let her work it.”
We follow her back down the stairs, and she is already at the door to the library before any of us have caught up. She shoves it open and walks straight to the fireplace, running her hands along the mantelpiece. I stay in the doorway and watch.
“The house has been in the family for two hundred years,” she says, not stopping, not looking at us.
“Every generation added something. Tiernan built it. Donal extended it. Dad renovated it. But the original bones are all still here.” Her fingers move along the carved edge of the mantle, pressing, testing.
“Dad used to mention that Donal built this fireplace. He must’ve told me a hundred times.
I’d roll my eyes and tell him I fucking knew already. ”
“He wasn’t reminiscing,” I say. “He was making sure you clicked when the time was right.”
“Yep.” She stops and presses two fingers into a carved whorl in the stone above the grate. Nothing gives. She moves left. Presses again. Stone shifts under her hand with a dull internal click.
We all hear it.
Dervla goes still for half a beat, then drops to her knees in front of the hearth and reaches into the narrow seam that has opened along the right side of the mantel. Her fingers find purchase on something hidden inside the stone. She pulls.
A slim drawer slides out of the masonry.
“But that’s just obvious,” Cormac mutters.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and moving closer and staring down at another set of initials. “Cillian was a sneaky bastard. This is a treasure hunt and only Dervla can find the prize.”
She looks up at me with a grin and taps the two letters. “Bitchface.”