Chapter 23
Skye
By the time Irish and I returned to The Blackthorn, whatever ease had followed his reunion with Niamh and Eamon had disappeared beneath the sharper focus I had learned to recognize whenever the investigation reclaimed his attention.
He didn't walk faster or become visibly tense, but the change was there in the way his gaze began cataloging the street again, the way one hand remained close to his phone, and the way his answers shortened as we crossed the final stretch toward the pub.
Less than half an hour earlier, I had watched a version of him I hadn't known existed hold a seven-month-old baby while his former girlfriend laughed at him and his childhood best friend threatened to fly across an ocean if he disappeared again.
Now Cipher had found Saint Brigid's, and the man beside me was already becoming Irish again, pulling the familiar armor into place before we reached the door.
Brigid took one look at us when we entered and pointed toward the private room behind the bar. "Your friends are in there."
Irish stopped. "Friends?"
"The large one who looks like he could remove the door without opening it, the one who hasn't stopped talking since he arrived, the terrifying woman I like, and the quiet lad who apologized for standing in my way when I walked into him."
I knew immediately who she meant.
"Trigger, Raze, Storm, and Hawkeye."
Brigid nodded. "Maverick came too. He's already tried to convince me poker is an acceptable way to settle the bill."
Irish sighed. "Don't play cards with him."
"I've owned a pub for thirty years."
"That's not the same thing."
"It means I recognize a cheat."
"Maverick doesn't cheat."
Brigid's eyebrows lifted.
"He doesn't need to," Irish corrected.
"That's worse."
I smiled as we followed him toward the back room.
The banter should have felt out of place given what waited for us, but I was beginning to understand that this was how the Flaming Skulls survived living so close to ugly things.
They didn't pretend the darkness wasn't there.
They simply refused to let it own every room they entered.
Trigger stood over the large table when we walked in, one hand braced beside a map of County Clare while Maverick occupied the chair nearest the window with his phone and three open folders spread around him.
Storm had commandeered another chair and was speaking quietly with Cipher through a laptop, while Raze leaned against the wall eating something Brigid had apparently handed him within minutes of his arrival.
Hawkeye sat apart from the others, notebook open across one knee, his attention moving between the map and the windows without needing to be told to watch either.
Raze looked up first.
"How'd the shopping trip go?"
Irish dropped Brigid's list onto the table.
"Didn't make it."
Storm looked at the empty space where the requested supplies should have been. "You had one job."
"We got distracted."
Raze's grin appeared immediately.
"By?"
I set my hands on the back of an empty chair. "His former girlfriend, her husband, and their baby."
The room went completely quiet.
Irish looked at me.
"What?"
"You were going to tell them eventually."
"Was I?"
"No idea."
Raze pushed away from the wall. "Former girlfriend?"
"Don't."
"Married to your childhood best friend?"
"Raze."
"With a baby?"
Irish's expression darkened.
Raze's grin widened.
Storm intervened before he could make the situation terminal. "Was it awkward?"
Irish looked at her as if considering whether betrayal was contagious.
"No."
I sat beside her. "Actually, it was lovely."
Raze made an exaggerated sound of disappointment.
Hawkeye looked up from his notebook. "Baby okay?"
The question was so sincere that everyone paused.
Irish nodded. "Aye."
Hawkeye returned to the map. "Good."
Raze stared at him. "That's all you've got?"
"What else am I supposed to ask?"
Storm hid a smile behind her hand.
Trigger finally tapped the table. "Can we torment Irish after Cipher tells us what he found?"
"Preferably never," Irish muttered.
Cipher's face filled the laptop screen as everyone settled. "Saint Brigid's isn't one property. That's why we couldn't pin it down."
I leaned forward.
"What is it?"
"A trust structure. Or it was originally. Saint Brigid's Residential Trust was incorporated twenty-four years ago as a charitable housing organization connected to religious and heritage-restoration projects in western Ireland. It dissolved on paper twelve years ago."
"But not actually," Storm said.
"No. Its assets moved into three successor organizations. One handles supported housing, one owns agricultural land, and one administers historic properties through something called the Brigid Heritage Foundation."
Irish went very still beside me.
Cipher noticed.
"So did I," he said.
"What?" Trigger asked.
Cipher opened another document.
"The heritage foundation worked with Covenant Renewal's predecessor organizations on restoration projects before Covenant Renewal existed under its current name."
Maverick leaned closer. "How far back?"
"At least twenty-two years."
Irish folded his arms.
"Declan?"
Cipher hesitated.
That was enough to change the room.
"Aye," he said finally. "Your father's name appears on two early project records."
Irish didn't react visibly, but I knew him well enough now to see the muscles tighten along his jaw.
"Which projects?"
Cipher brought up a map and highlighted a property southwest of Ennistymon, farther inland than the village but close enough to the coast that the road network still overlapped everything Irish had grown up around.
"Former Saint Brigid's Convalescent Home. Originally a religious care facility, later converted into residential housing and then supposedly abandoned after structural problems made it too expensive to maintain."
"Supposedly," I murmured.
Raze pointed at me. "I hate that word now."
"You should."
Cipher zoomed closer.
The property consisted of a main stone building, a small chapel, several outbuildings, and enough surrounding land to keep neighbors at a considerable distance.
"When did it close?" I asked.
"Officially? Sixteen years ago."
Irish's gaze sharpened.
"Year before my family died."
"Yes."
Nobody spoke.
Cipher opened another record.
"Declan O'Brien was listed as an independent restoration consultant on the property five years before closure. After that his name disappears from the public paperwork, but not from the internal archive we pulled from Croft House."
Irish looked toward the screen.
"What internal archive?"
"A note tied to Harrow's predecessor account. It references an unresolved discrepancy in the Saint Brigid's restoration and identifies Declan as the person requesting source invoices and occupancy documentation."
Storm swore softly.
I felt the same cold certainty I had experienced the first time Blackridge Hall refused to balance.
"What discrepancy?"
"We don't have the complete report. Only the reference."
"Could it have been structural?" I asked.
Cipher shook his head. "Maybe, but the associated files include medical expenditures, private transport invoices, and security upgrades."
The building suddenly felt familiar despite never having seen it.
"Hidden residential space."
"That's my guess."
Irish's voice was quiet. "Da found it."
Nobody answered immediately.
He looked at the map rather than any of us.
"He found something at Saint Brigid's."
Trigger leaned against the table. "Looks that way."
"And Harrow knew."
"Looks that way."
The repetition didn't anger Irish the way likely had once angered me. He understood the language of evidence far better than I had when this started. Still, something in him seemed to pull inward as he stared at the property.
I watched his hand move toward the inside of his jacket.
His fingers settled over the place inside his jacket where he carried the farmhouse key, though he didn't take it out, as if simply confirming it remained there was enough.
Maverick spoke carefully. "We can drive Saint Brigid's today."
Trigger shook his head. "Not until we know who owns the land now and whether anyone is using it."
"I can get eyes near it."
"So can Hawkeye."
The prospect looked up.
Trigger pointed at the satellite image. "No close approach. Long-range observation only. We don't know whether Croft's escape reached this network before we did."
Hawkeye nodded. "Understood."
Cipher continued. "There's one more piece."
Irish's gaze returned to the screen.
"I found a scanned inventory from the Brigid Heritage Foundation dated three months after Declan stopped consulting for them. It refers to documentation removed from the project office and returned to the originating consultant."
"Returned where?"
"No destination listed."
I understood before Irish did.
"His house."
Every head turned toward me. I looked at the map and then at Irish.
"If Declan was working from home at least part of the time, records he requested could have gone back to the farmhouse. Especially if he stopped trusting the foundation enough to keep his copies off-site."
Irish's expression closed.
Storm studied him. "You ever go through his office after?"
"No."
The answer came immediately.
Raze's expression lost the last of its humor.
"Police?"
"Some."
"Family?"
Irish's jaw tightened. "There wasn't much family left to go through anything."
Silence settled over the table.
I wanted to touch him, but I didn't, not with the entire team watching him try to keep something deeply personal from becoming operational evidence.
Trigger straightened.
"Then we don't assume anything is there. Hawkeye and I can check Saint Brigid's perimeter while Raze, Storm, and Maverick work ownership and transport. Irish, you decide whether your house gets searched."
Irish looked at him.
Trigger held the gaze without flinching.