Chapter 33
Skye
Morning arrived quietly enough that for several minutes I forgot there was an investigation waiting downstairs.
Rain had stopped sometime before dawn, leaving the farmhouse wrapped in the pale, washed light that followed a night of hard weather.
The window beside Irish's bed had fogged faintly along one corner, and through the clear glass beyond it I could see hedgerows dark with moisture, fields stretching toward the distant limestone hills, and a strip of sky beginning to lighten over County Clare.
Irish slept beside me with one arm across my waist and his face turned toward the pillow, his breathing deeper than I had ever heard it.
Considering the number of times I had watched him wake at the slightest sound, the fact that I had managed to climb carefully from beneath his arm, use the bathroom, and return without him opening his eyes felt less like good luck and more like exhaustion finally claiming what adrenaline had refused to surrender.
I stood near the window for a while and watched the countryside emerge from the dark.
Less than a week earlier, Ireland had been something Irish avoided discussing unless a piece of the investigation forced him to.
Now I knew the village where he had grown up, the pub where he had learned to lose at poker, the field where a ram had chased him into a ditch, the people who had loved him before grief convinced him love was another thing he needed to escape, and the farmhouse where his entire family had once filled every room with enough noise that silence had never belonged here until they died.
I knew Rory now too, though I was still careful with the name because understanding why someone buried a part of themselves did not automatically give me the right to dig whenever I pleased. Behind me, the mattress shifted.
"You planning an escape?" His voice was rough with sleep. I turned.
"Through the window?"
"You have experience."
"That was Daniel."
"You find hidden passages everywhere. I'm keeping possibilities open."
I smiled and crossed back toward the bed. "You slept."
"So did you."
"That's not what I meant." Irish opened one eye.
"You're analyzing me before coffee."
"Occupational hazard."
"Wrong occupation."
"Apparently I contain multitudes."
His expression changed when he recognized his own words from the night before, and despite the heaviness waiting for us downstairs, a quiet laugh escaped him.
He reached for my hand and tugged until I sat beside him, then rested his forehead briefly against my hip as though the small intimacy required less thought than anything else we had done since arriving in Clare.
"We open Finn's case today," he said. I threaded my fingers lightly through his hair.
"Only if you want to."
"I want to."
"All right."
"And Brennan's people are coming at ten."
"Cipher?"
"Already awake."
"Of course he is."
"Doesn't sleep."
"I thought that was your thing."
"Club requirement." I leaned down and kissed his temple.
"Coffee first."
"Aye."
Neither of us rushed downstairs. That mattered more than I would have expected.
The investigation had spent weeks training us to react to every vibration of a phone as though disaster might be waiting behind it, but this morning Irish showered before checking his messages, and I stood in front of the wardrobe trying to decide whether any of my clothes still qualified as clean after several days of dust, tunnels, smoke, and Irish weather.
By the time we reached the kitchen, the farmhouse had warmed enough that condensation no longer clouded the windows, and sunlight touched the old table where Finn's metal case had waited before Irish moved it into the study.
Irish made breakfast without hesitating over cupboards or drawers.
I noticed. This time I didn't pretend not to.
He caught me watching while reaching for a frying pan. "What?"
"Nothing."
"That's never true."
"You didn't stop." His hand paused.
"At what?"
"The drawer."
Understanding moved through his expression.
Yesterday he had remembered where things belonged and seemed startled by his own body knowing the house before his mind had decided whether remembering was safe.
This morning he reached instinctively for plates, cutlery, and the kettle without fighting any of it. Irish looked around the kitchen.
"No."
"No?"
"I didn't stop."
A faint smile touched my mouth. He returned to the stove without making the moment larger than it needed to be.
That was becoming something we were both learning.
We ate at the table while he checked the messages that had arrived overnight.
Croft remained in custody pending transfer and additional questioning.
Saint Brigid's survivors were secure, though several had chosen hospital care and others had requested to remain together rather than be separated into individual accommodation.
Harrow remained missing. Vale's last confirmed vehicle had been abandoned south of Galway, and Cipher had found three shell companies that appeared designed specifically to support clean transitions between identities, vehicles, and temporary properties. Then there was Brennan.
"Major investigations unit wants Da's archive preserved in place first," Irish said. "They're sending forensic document people and someone from Dublin who worked organized religious abuse cases."
"That sounds promising."
"Aye." His attention lingered on the phone.
"What?"
"They want my statement again." I understood immediately. Not the one he had given at twenty-three, but a new statement informed by everything Declan had hidden.
"Do you want me there?" Irish looked at me across the table.
"Would you?" The question softened something inside me.
"Of course."
He nodded without elaborate gratitude or any insistence that he could manage alone, simply accepting that I had offered and that he wanted me beside him.
Progress looked less dramatic in daylight.
After breakfast, we went into Declan's study.
The room had changed again since the first time Irish opened the door.
Dust no longer softened the furniture, several temporary evidence sleeves lay neatly across the desk, and the concealed archive behind the bookcase had become familiar enough that I no longer felt a jolt every time the hidden mechanism appeared.
Finn's case waited in the center of the desk exactly where Irish had placed it the night before.
He stood over it for nearly a minute. I stayed near the window. Eventually he looked toward me.
"If this turns out to be old football cards, I'm blaming Da."
"I would respect that immensely."
"He'd have thought it was funny."
"Would Finn?" Irish's expression softened.
"Absolutely." He put on gloves before touching the case. The rusted latch resisted. I stepped closer.
"Do you want me to—"
"No, I have it."
The answer wasn't sharp. He worked the latch carefully until it gave with a reluctant metallic click, then lifted the lid.
Inside were two oilskin packets, a small notebook, several photographs, and an envelope bearing Finn's handwriting.
Irish stared at it. I recognized the difference immediately.
Declan's handwriting had been blockier, controlled even when hurried.
Finn's was looser, younger, the letters leaning unevenly along the envelope.
For Rory, if he comes back. Irish sat down without any abrupt movement, simply as though his knees had decided standing was no longer useful.
I moved closer but stopped beside him. His gloved fingers touched the envelope without lifting it.
"He wrote that."
"Aye."
"He expected you to come back." Irish's jaw tightened.
"Maybe." I didn't correct him. He opened the envelope. The note inside was only one page. Irish read silently at first. Then something in his face made me sit beside him. He started again aloud.
"Da says I'm not meant to know what's in the case, which obviously means it's something important and also means he's forgotten who he's raised.
I didn't open it. Mostly because he threatened to make me help re-point the west wall if I did.
" Irish laughed unexpectedly. The sound broke halfway through. He kept reading.
"He told me if anything happens and he can't get these himself, I should bring the box from the cellar to Eamon.
He also said if Rory comes home before any of that happens, I'm supposed to tell him to stop being a stubborn bastard and talk to Da because the two of them are ruining everyone's week.
" Irish stopped. His eyes closed. I rested my hand on the table near his. He continued after a moment.
"If you're reading this because something did happen, I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
Da thinks you're angry because he won't tell you enough.
Mam thinks you're angry because you're exactly like him.
Maeve thinks you're both idiots. I think you always come back, even when you say you won't, so I'm leaving this where somebody will find it eventually.
" Irish swallowed hard. The final lines were shorter.
"Don't stay gone because of one fight. Mam would kill you. —Finn."
For several seconds, the only sound in the room came from the old clock in the hallway.
Irish lowered the page. I had watched him face photographs of Owen Vale, Harrow's threats, records proving his family had been surveilled, and a burning building filled with people the Order had intended to control.
None of those things had broken through him like a single page written by his nineteen-year-old brother before either of them knew they were running out of time.
"He knew me," Irish said quietly.
"Yes."
"He knew I'd come back."
"Yes."
"I didn't." The old guilt surfaced instantly. I saw it happen.
"He wasn't predicting how long." Irish looked toward me.
"He said I always came back."
"You did."
"Fifteen years later."