Chapter 19 Roxy
The dinner was predictably frenetic.
The dining room table had been extended with two mismatched leaves, and the extra chairs pulled in to accommodate everyone reflected that same chaotic, cobbled-together spirit.
As for the food, it was all made from scratch and nothing short of a typical Murphy affair.
There was a massive platter of corned beef, sitting in its own juices, cabbage wedges glistening with butter, a mountain of colcannon with a well of melted butter pooling in the middle, and nostalgic, sweet-smelling soda bread.
Two of Liam's nephews argued loudly over whose turn it was to say grace.
Across the table, a trio of uncles argued over the trade of some athlete to another team.
Niall's booming voice cut through all of it every few minutes, delighted by his own jokes before he'd even finished telling them.
Somewhere in the kitchen, someone had a radio playing old Pogues songs low under everything, a warm, familiar hum beneath the chaos.
I'd forgotten how loud love could be in this family.
Growing up, dinner in my own house had been quiet, careful, the sound of forks against plates and not much else.
Here, love announced itself constantly, either shouted across the table or wrestled out of siblings, passed around in heaping, too-generous portions.
I sat wedged between Liam and his younger cousin, Mary, who immediately launched into an enthusiastic and largely unprompted account of her upcoming twenty-first birthday party.
Down the table, a plate of kid-friendly chicken fingers got passed hand over hand until it reached a small girl who could not have been older than four, her face already smeared with barbeque sauce.
It was somewhere between the second helping of colcannon and someone's toddler flinging a spoonful of mashed potato clear across the table that Niall leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, wine glass in hand, and fixed his attention on me.
"So," he said, his voice carrying easily over the din, clearly used to commanding attention. "Liam tells me you two are pursuing a divorce."
The table didn't go silent, exactly. I felt several nearby conversations quietly dim.
"That's the plan," I said carefully, setting down my fork.
Niall nodded slowly, considering this with the same seriousness he might've given a business proposal.
"Fortunately (or maybe even unfortunately, depending on how you see it), these types of marital disagreements are common in our tribe.
" He gestured vaguely down the table with his wine glass, taking in decades of family history in one sweep.
"Some wives are content to stay married for a generous stipend. I don't know if you'd be interested?"
I felt my face go hot, acutely aware of Liam gone very still beside me. I shook my head, once.
Niall accepted this without offense, nodding as if he'd expected exactly that answer and merely wanted it confirmed for the record. "Then we can provide a mediator, help you decide what's fair. It's pretty simple, as long as both parties are open to compromise."
"We are," Liam said immediately. I felt the warmth of his knee pressing briefly against mine under the table.
Niall's eyebrows lifted, something dry and knowing crossing his weathered face.
"Hm. That attitude might have been helpful during the actual marriage, no?
" A ripple of quiet laughter moved down the table.
"But I digress." Niall set his wine glass down with a small, deliberate click against the table.
Something in his posture shifted as he planted his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers.
"There's just one rule once you divorce, Roxy.
You will always be part of the family. We will look after you. "
I felt something loosen slightly in my chest at that, an old anxiety I hadn't fully realized I was carrying.
"But," Niall continued, and I felt the weight return, "once you remarry, you're no longer ours.
It will be in your best interest to stay close to us, or leave the life altogether.
" His eyes, sharp despite his age, held mine steadily across the length of the table, the noise of grandchildren and clattering plates suddenly feeling very far away.
"But marrying or even fraternizing with a rival family? That is unforgivable."
The word landed heavy in the space between us. For one strange moment, the warmth of the whole loud, overflowing table seemed to recede, leaving just the two of us and the quiet steel underneath his hospitality.
I understood, in that instant, exactly what kind of family I'd actually married into all those years ago.
It accompanied the loud dinners and too much cabbage and grandchildren flinging potatoes, like a side dish.
A set of rules older and harder than any of the warmth on the surface.
Rules that existed whether or not you agreed to them.
"So," I said slowly, holding his gaze, refusing to let my voice shake, "if I get remarried, it's either to another Murphy, or a normie. Got it."
A beat of silence. Then Niall let out a booming laugh, delighted, reaching over to pat my hand where it rested on the table.
"She's sharp, this one. Always was." He raised his wine glass toward me, some of the warmth flooding visibly back into his face.
"To Roxy. Our family, no matter what the paperwork says. "
Glasses rose around the table, a chorus of agreement, and just like that, the moment passed, swallowed back up into the loud, chaotic warmth of the room. Mary resumed her birthday monologue, a toddler demanded more chicken fingers, and the Pogues still played faintly from the kitchen radio.
* * *
I found Naomi's number still saved in my phone under "Naomi AC," followed by a little cocktail emoji.
I paced the edge of the front lawn and typed out a text before I could talk myself out of it. Hey stranger! Blast from the past, I know, but I've been thinking about our old Silver Anchor days lately. How are you??
Naomi wrote back immediately, asking if she could call.
"God, I still think about that place sometimes," she said, laughing. "Remember the bucket hat guy who always tipped in Sacagawea dollars because he thought it was funny?"
"God. He thought he was hilarious. I still have three of those in a jar somewhere," I said.
"Classic. Man, those were the days. Intense, but in a good way, you know? It was nice to stay busy."
I let the conversation breathe a while longer, genuinely enjoying it more than I expected to, before I steered it carefully toward where I actually needed it to go.
"Hey, random question," I said, keeping my voice light. "Whatever happened to Terry? I think about him sometimes, actually. He was always so stressed near the end there."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, just a half-second too long.
"Oh." Naomi's voice shifted, some of the earlier warmth draining out of it. "You didn't hear?"
My stomach dropped before she even said it. "Hear what?"
"He died, Roxy. Like, not long after everything shut down. Maybe six weeks after."
The room seemed to tilt slightly around me. "What? How?"
"It was so weird." Naomi's voice dropped lower. "He fell. Off a balcony, at some place he was renting up near the marina after he moved out of his old apartment. It was on the tenth floor. They said he'd been drinking, lost his balance, went right over the railing."
"That doesn't sound like Terry at all." The words came out of me before I'd fully processed them, some old, instinctive memory surfacing.
Terry had been the general manager of the Silver Anchor when I worked there.
"He barely drank. I used to give him a hard time about it.
He always ordered club soda with lime and pretended it was a real cocktail. "
"I know." Naomi's voice had gone tight. "That's what everyone said.
His sister flew in for the funeral and she was going around telling anyone who'd listen that something was wrong with the whole thing.
That he wasn't a drinker, that he was scared of heights, that he'd never in a million years be out on some tenth-floor balcony at two in the morning by himself. "
"Scared of heights." A cold, sick feeling was spreading slowly through my chest. "Naomi, was there an investigation? Did anyone look into it?"
"Cops ruled it an accident pretty fast. Case closed, no foul play, that whole thing.
But—" She hesitated again, and I could picture her exact expression, the one she used to make behind the bar when a customer said something that didn't add up.
It was a narrowed, skeptical kind of look.
"I always thought it was strange, how fast it got closed.
And the timing. Right after everything went down with the casino, all the money stuff, the audits.
Terry was so stressed that whole last month, jumpy, like he was waiting for something bad to happen.
Then a few weeks later, he's dead, and everybody's just supposed to accept it was some freak accident. "
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe evenly, aware of my own pulse hammering hard enough that I could feel it in my throat.
"Do you remember him ever mentioning anyone specific?" I asked, careful to keep my voice steady. "Someone he was arguing with, maybe? Around that time?"
"Not really. I mean, everyone was arguing with everyone near the end. Honestly, the whole place was falling apart. Why? Roxy, why are you asking about all this?"
"No reason." I forced a laugh that sounded thin even to my own ears. "Just...nostalgia, I guess. Feeling weird about getting older, I guess."
"Okay." Naomi didn't sound entirely convinced, but she let it go, and we drifted back into safer territory for another few minutes before saying our goodbyes, promising vaguely to catch up again sometime soon.
I stood there long after the call ended, phone still clutched in my hand, staring at the cinderblock retaining wall at the far edge of Niall’s property.
Terry was dead. Terry, who was scared of heights and didn't drink, had somehow ended up falling from a tenth-floor balcony six weeks after the Silver Anchor collapsed, six weeks after I'd watched him arguing furiously with someone over the phone in a back hallway.
Case closed. No foul play.
I thought about the loose page I'd unknowingly carried in a manila folder for over a year, so important that someone had broken into my apartment for it.
Something in me went go cold and very, very still.
I wasn't just sitting on evidence of some quiet financial cover-up.
I was sitting on evidence that had already gotten someone killed, and it was sitting on the passenger seat of Liam’s truck.
Holding this thought in my mind, I walked around the corner of the house towards the driveway. Liam’s truck also swung into view.
To my surprise, the passenger side door was open, and someone was standing behind it.