Chapter 16 Declan
DECLAN
I spend the rest of the day in my study.
Avoiding Amelia.
Because I can’t bear to see the pain in her eyes whenever she looks at me.
I could stop it. I know I’m the only one who can make all this hurt go away, but something inside me is too fucking stubborn to back down, too stuck inside my own head with images of the woman I love and my son. Together.
When I finally emerge from the room like a mole venturing above ground, the foyer is in shadowy darkness. I flick the light switch and peer upstairs, instinctively listening for movement from the guest room.
Nothing.
I can’t smell anything from the kitchen. The house feels deserted, unloved, weary of this business arrangement masquerading as a marriage.
The kitchen is normally warm and welcoming this time of the day when the evening meal is being prepared, music is drifting from the sound system, and Orla and Amelia are chatting.
But today it is empty.
I find Orla in the unlit conservatory, doors wide open, with her bag of knitting on her lap. I switch on the overhead lamp and shiver at the chill in the room. I close the doors and turn around to face my mother-in-law.
“Are you alright? Did you ask Amelia to prepare dinner?”
She squints at me from behind her glasses. “Did you ask her to go choose a Christmas tree with you?”
“I haven’t had a chance yet. I’ve not seen her all day.”
“Have you been up to her room?” The accusation in the question is unmistakable.
Her room.
She has noticed the distance between me and my wife, and she doesn’t approve. Of course, she doesn’t. I married a woman young enough to be my daughter, and now I’m treating her like the housekeeper again.
I don’t wait around.
There’s nothing I can say to justify my actions. Orla will listen to both versions of events and tell us to work things out like mature adults instead of skulking around one another like aimless shadows.
I knock on the guest room door. No answer. There are no lights framing the door like a halo, and no sounds on the other side either.
Earlier in the day, when I thought that Amelia had gone, I barged into the room like a boisterous child playing hide-and-seek. But it feels different now. The panic this morning was fabricated, something else to beat myself up with.
Now it feels real.
I open the door, knowing that Amelia isn’t here.
The closet doors are open. Her wedding dress is still neatly draped over a hanger along with the black dress that she wore to the restaurant. The rest of her clothes are gone.
As I turn to leave, I spot the rings on the nightstand, and my heart almost lunges out of my chest.
“No.” My voice cracks. “Amelia?”
I try calling her from my cell, but it doesn’t connect. A second time. A third.
I run downstairs calling out her name, knowing that she won’t hear me.
Orla is still in the conservatory, but now she is on her feet, both hands clasped to her chest. “What did you do to her, Declan?”
“Not now, Orla. I have to find her.”
Because the thought of her walking out of this house, taking only the clothes that she arrived with, has sliced open my chest and stuck the knife in as deep as it could go.
She’s pregnant. She’s pregnant, and she chose to leave with nothing, rather than stay with me.
She weighed up her options and bringing up a child alone won.
What kind of fucking asshole am I?
How could I do this to the woman I love?
I can see it clearly now. In the stables, she told me that she didn’t want to hurt me, and I believe her. She didn’t tell me about Ruairi, because she didn’t know how. She was as blindsided by the truth as I was, only she handled it with more fucking maturity than I will ever have.
And what’s worse, she handled it alone.
“She’ll be on her way home.” Orla’s low voice settles on my shoulders like a film of dust. “She’ll want to be with her mom.”
I unlock my phone and check the departure schedule from Dublin Airport to New York.
An American Airline flight left at 17:30.
I call the airline and pace the room while I wait for them to confirm that Amelia York was booked onto the flight.
She checked in online but never collected her boarding pass.
“She didn’t board,” I say dully.
The accusation in Orla’s eyes has gone. We’re on the same team now; we both want to find Amelia and bring her back here. Where she belongs.
“Perhaps she changed her mind.” Orla is thinking out loud. “She’s pregnant. Hormonal. Confused. Perhaps she thought it better to find somewhere to stay.”
“No.” That doesn’t feel right. “You said that she needs her mom. The first thing she did was buy a ticket home, so why would she change her mind?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Declan? Because of you.” Her voice has softened enough to make my breath hitch in my throat. “She loves you, Declan, any fool could see that.”
Any fool but me apparently.
My fingers stumble through my contacts. I locate the number of the woman who arranged Amelia’s contract and hit the green button.
“Mr. Byrne, how can I help you?” She’s all breezy efficiency, and it rattles through my nerves.
“Have you heard from Amelia?”
“No.” Cautious now. Worried. “Why, is something wrong?”
“Can you give me her mom’s telephone number?”
“Mr. Byrne, if there’s a problem, let me help you—”
“You can help me right now by giving me her mom’s number.”
I don’t have time for pleasantries and politeness. Amelia didn’t board that flight, she’s been gone for hours, and taking care of her is my responsibility. I’ve let her down enough. It’s time to put things right.
She must hear the panic in my voice because there’s a moment’s silence before she reads the number out to me. I repeat it for Orla, who writes it down in her address book that must be nearly as old as me.
I thank her and end the call before tapping the new number onto the keypad.
“Hello?” Amelia’s mom sounds like her daughter on the phone, and it takes all my willpower not to blurt out her name.
“Ms. York? This is Declan Byrne, your daughter’s hu-employer.” I stop myself in time. Amelia didn’t want to invite her mom to our wedding, rejecting my offer to send the private jet to New York. “Have you spoken to Amelia today?”
Pause. “She called me this morning to tell me that she was coming home.”
Suspicion snakes through the handset and raises my hackles. I’ve a lot of accountability to settle but now is not the time.
“What exactly is going on, Mr. Byrne? Where is my daughter?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. She checked onto the 17:30 flight from Dublin but she didn’t board. She didn’t tell you where else she might’ve gone?”
“No. You’re scaring me now. Let me call her.”
The line goes dead, and I’m left staring at a dark screen.
“Declan, you don’t think that Amelia contacted her father?” The color has drained from Orla’s face.
It’s been there, hovering just beneath the surface and waiting for me to acknowledge it. Now that Orla has said it out loud, I realize that this is why too much adrenaline is pumping through my body.
Amelia called her mom and said that she was going home. Why else would she not get on that flight when she knew that her mom was waiting for her?
My phone vibrates with an incoming call. I raise it to my ear. “Ms. York?”
A different voice answers. Female. Younger than Amelia’s mom but with the same accent. “No, this is Carol, Amelia’s friend.”
“Carol, have you heard from Amelia?” Please say yes, I repeat in my head. Please say yes…
“Not for a while. She stopped calling me right after she told me that she was having your baby.” She waits for me to catch up.
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but that can wait.
All I care about right now is making sure that my friend is safe and well, and it sounds to me like you can’t vouch for either of these counts. ”
Ouch. “I deserve that, and you’re right. But while I’m talking to you, I’m not out there looking for Amelia.”
“Lucky for you, I know where she is then.”
My heart performs a somersault. “Where is she?”
“Somewhere outside of Dublin. She hasn’t moved in a while, so either her phone lost signal or she’s still at the same location.”
“You track your friend’s phone?”
“Snap Maps, Mr. Byrne. Someone has to keep an eye on her. You should try it sometime. I’ll send you the location now.”
When my phone buzzes, I open the message, expecting it to be from Carol.
The world comes to a grinding standstill when I open the image on my screen.
It’s Amelia. She’s lying on the floor, wrists tied behind her back, eyes closed. But it’s the blood and bruising on her swollen jaw that rips the feral howl from my chest.
My men surround the warehouse from the location that Carol gave me.
Michael Morran sent a message with the brutal image of my wife.
What is a grandson worth?
Amelia must’ve told him that she’s pregnant, and he saw an easy way to make some money. I don’t care that she told him she’s carrying my grandchild. I only care about getting her out of this building alive.
Then I’ll make the fucker who touched her wish he’d never been born.
My nephew Liam downloaded the layout of the warehouse. From the image that Morran sent, it looks as if Amelia is being held in a room adjacent to the reception, which makes my life a whole lot easier.
The plan—get Amelia out, make sure the perp understands where he went wrong, and torch the place with his body in it.
He won’t be expecting me. The demand that he attached to the image of my wife was for me to transfer 10 million Irish pounds into an offshore account and wait for him to send me an address with Amelia’s whereabouts.
I’m trusting the power of Snap Maps and Amelia’s friend Carol to be right.
I give the signal for my team to move in.
They approach the building like ants swarming a jelly sandwich. We have every exit point covered, men on the roof preparing to enter via the skylights, and our own leverage.