Chapter 38
38
brAIDEN
“ I ’m telling you, Boss. This’ll be worth real money. Billions a year.” Seamus’s voice gets high when he’s excited; he sounds like some sort of cartoon mouse.
“It’s butter ,” I say.
“Look at what those guineas are doing with olive oil! Buy up the cheap stuff, slap a pretty label on it and call it ‘extra virgin.’”
“No one buys extra virgin butter,” I remind him.
“But they buy pure Irish. I talked to the missus. She says it’s real—more yellow, more fat. But we add a bit of food coloring, and who’s to tell them apart?”
I’m staring at the numbers. Feckin’ eejits’ll pay twice as much if it’s got the word Irish on it.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Figure out the supply chain and come back with a full report.”
He leaves my office like I’ve given him a birthday cake, an Easter basket, and a Christmas stocking, all wrapped up in one. I turn back to my computer, but I haven’t yet typed a word when I feel someone staring at me. I look up to find Aiofe framed squarely in the door.
“What’s the craic, little one?” I ask her.
She crosses my office and climbs up on my lap. It’s been a long time since she’s been in here. She’s almost too big to tuck her head beneath my chin.
She has a piece of paper clutched in her hand.
“What have you got there?” I ask.
She hands it over, her face grave. It’s a drawing, torn out of her sketchpad. It’s a woman’s hand, a left one. And on the fourth finger, clear as day, is my signet ring, with its four-fold Celtic knot.
Aiofe sighs and leans her head back against my chest.
“I miss her too,” I say.
But it’s impossible to explain to a child why Samantha’s gone. I can’t tell her the whole tangle—Russo in one corner, Fiona in another, Samantha and me trapped in the middle.
There’s a crash overhead, loud enough to make both Aiofe and me jump. I sigh and push the child off my lap. “Go find Grace,” I say. Because that’s another problem I can’t begin to untangle.
Not with Samantha down in Delaware.
Not with my bank accounts short a quarter billion.
Not now.