1
Ronan
Salem, Massachusetts, June, present day…
Ronan O’Mara couldn’t believe three years had passed since his son, Ezra had come into his life. He remembered feeling a sense of awe knowing the O’Mara name would live on through the tiny infant. Not that Everly couldn’t continue his name, but it hit differently with a son.
Now, Ezra stood on one of the kitchen chairs, dressed in a red and white striped shirt, black shorts with a red bandana on his head and a patch partly covering his left eye, as his friends and family sang to him. “Happy birthday, dear Ezra! Happy birthday to you!”
“Arg!” Pirate Ezra shouted, lifting his plastic sword into the air. “Me want cake!”
Ronan snorted. “It’s a good thing we did the pirate theme, Ezra already talks like one.”
“He’s the cutest pirate ever to sail the Spanish Main,” Ten agreed, snapping pictures of the birthday boy.
“Cake!” Captain Ezra demanded, stomping a foot. “Cake!”
“Avast, ye scurvy dogs, there be cake a’comin’,” Ronan said, holding his plastic sword up high. He opened up a pack of plates emblazoned with the Jolly Roger, while Ten started cutting the cake.
“The eyepatch looks pretty good on you, One-Eyed Willie.” Jude smashed his sword against Ronan’s, setting off another battle.
“Boys, play nice!” Ten said with a sigh, when Ronan’s thrust caught him in the shoulder. “We don’t stab our husbands with our swords, do we?”
Ronan tried to look suitably chastised, but failed. “I stab you with my sword all the time, don’t I, matey?”
Jude snorted. “TMI! Can I get some cake to jam in my ears?”
“I love shivering Ten’s timbers!” Ronan waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “When Ten parries, I thrust. I can’t tell you how many times, I-”
Ten stopped whatever was coming next with a well-placed forkful of cake. He traded the plastic sword for a cake plate.
“No fair!” Ronan said, taking a bite of the birthday cake, which was shaped like a pirate ship.
“You can have it back if you promise to stop poking Jude. He’s your friend, not a scurvy dog.” Ten rolled his eyes.
Ronan looked as if he had a comeback for his husband, but settled for another bite of cake. He’d ordered red-velvet, so it would look bloody when it was cut open. He had to admit the cake tasted as good as it looked.
Jace and Fitz had offered to host the party so the kids could play in the pool. They’d helped Ronan decorate the patio the night before with various pirate themed decorations and Pin the Patch on the Pirate. Jace had stuffed the pirate ship pinata, which Ronan couldn’t wait to see cracked open.
“Curvy dog!” Ezra announced, swatting at his eye patch, which was now over his nose and covered in frosting.
“Can I help you?” Ten asked, wiping his son’s face with a towel and rearranging his patch.
“Arg! Me a pirate! Dada, you walk the spank!” Ezzie poked his sword at Tennyson.
“It’s the birthday boy who gets spanks!” Ronan grabbed Ezra and hauled him off his chair.
“No!” Ezzie shrieked. “Me good. Spanks bad.” He ran toward the swimming pool and jumped, feet first, into the shallow side.
The other kids took that as a sign to abandon their cake and join Ezra in the water.
“That’s not what your father says,” Ronan muttered loud enough for Ten to hear him.
“No one is spanking anyone.” Ten rolled his eyes. “At least not until later, Long Dong Silver!”
“Ha! There’s my buccaneer. Ye’ll be swabbin’ me poop deck all night long.” Ronan leaned forward and smacked a kiss to Ten’s cheek.
“Can we press pause on your pirate porno, Good Ship Dropped the Soap, for a minute and talk about something serious?” Fitz asked, taking the seat beside Ronan.
“What could be more serious than-” Whatever Ronan had been about to say was forgotten when Ten shoved another bite of cake into his mouth.
“Vacation,” Fitz said. “It’s June. The kids get out of school for the summer on Tuesday and we haven’t planned any kind of trip yet.
Yeah, we went to Hampton Beach for Memorial Day, which was fun, but I’m hoping for something longer and without haunted jails, and haunted lighthouses, and haunted beaches. ”
Ronan studied his boss for a few seconds. Fitz had been looking a bit tired lately. “You okay?”
“Other than being tired, yeah. The Sherman case really took the wind out of my sails, so to speak.” Fitz shrugged and took another bite of cake.
The last case the team had worked involved a widow named Nancy Sherman who’d been found murdered in her bed in 2001.
The only suspects in the case were Nancy’s two sons, Cal and Jack, who’d been in their early forties at the time.
Since no formal charges had ever been brought, the sons were able to inherit their mother’s sizable estate.
It wasn’t until Tennyson had been able to speak to Nancy that the boys had been taken off the suspect list. Surprise, surprise, it wasn’t Nancy’s sons who’d done the foul deed, but her daughters-in-law who’d murdered the old woman.
They’d known their husbands would have fucked it up, so they’d taken care of things themselves.
If not for Tennyson’s gift, Nancy’s killers would have never been caught.
“Yeah, that was a rough case,” Ronan agreed. All of their cold cases were rough. Murder was an ugly game and they were all that stood between getting justice for a family or the killer getting away scot-free.
“Let’s just go somewhere for two weeks,” Ronan suggested.
“What kind of somewhere?” Ten asked. “Mountains, lake, beach?”
“The beach would be nice,” Jace said. “We’ve been to Florida, New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode Island over the last few years, where else could we go? Jersey shore?”
“God, no!” Jude laughed. “There would be too many Jerseyites there.”
“How about the Chesapeake Bay and all the crabs we could eat?” Ronan suggested. “There’s a great aquarium in Baltimore, we could take the kids sailing again. The B&O Railroad Museum is there. I bet Wolfie and Ezra would love that.”
“Ah, yes, the good old Body Odor Railroad.” Jude laughed. “It was always my favorite thing to buy on the Monopoly board.”
“How about something a little closer to home,” Ten began. “What about Cape Cod? Ronan and I went once. We stayed in Dennis at a place called Sand Dollar Shoal.”
“The Cape’s not a bad idea,” Cope said. “Jude and I went a few years ago. Remember babe?”
“Ah, yes, the trip that was brought to you by the letter M for motherfucker.” Jude shivered. “Maybe the Cape isn’t the best idea. The last time I was there, it tried to kill me. Repeatedly. Maybe this time it will succeed!”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “Isn’t there a pirate wreck out there somewhere in Chatham or Nauset?”
“Wellfleet,” Jude said. “The pirate ship Whydah wrecked on a sandbar and broke apart. It’s the only confirmed pirate shipwreck that’s ever been found.”
“Oh, says here there’s a museum too, with gold coins and other artifacts recovered from the wreck site.” Fitz sounded excited over the prospect of seeing the treasure. “It’s located in the best town for a pirate museum.”
“The best town?” Jace asked. “I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yarrrrmouth.” Fitz said, giggling.
“You are so ridiculous,” Jace said.
“What do ye say, maties? Come to the Cape with me and we’ll search for booty.” Fitz grinned.
“Let’s not put our eye patches before the treasure chest here.
We’re talking about the Cape. It’s already June.
I have to imagine hotel rooms and Airbnbs have been booked for months.
Don’t say anything to the kids. I don’t want to disappoint them if this doesn’t work out.
” Ronan hated to be a wet blanket, but they were a party of twelve, it wasn’t easy to find lodging under the best of circumstances.
Fitz had booked their Memorial Day Weekend house a few days after Labor Day the year before.
Beachfront property went fast, especially when Massachusetts had such a short summer season compared to the Carolinas, and Florida, where it was always summer.
“Come for breakfast tomorrow morning and we’ll map it out, see if we can find a way to make it work,” Jude said, sounding excited.
Fitz had admitted how tired he was and looking at Jude, the same was true for him.
The work they did brought justice and closure to so many families who had waited years or even decades for a resolution.
Even though the work they did was vital to the community and public trust, it wasn’t the kind of job that left you feeling happy and joyful when it was over.
The older he, Jude, and Fitz got, the more essential it was to keep their mental health in a good place. To be honest, there was no better place in New England to work on his head than on Cape Cod. The last time he and Ten had been down there, Everly wasn’t even a thought.
Now, Ronan would be able to share the magic of that special place with his kids. He crossed his fingers and hoped that Fitzgibbon’s wish of a ghost-free vacation would come true.