When I looked up again a few minutes later, I saw an older man rest a bouquet of flowers near a stone a few graves over.
“Sorry to disturb, lass,” he said.
“You’re not.” I got up, brushed off my backside, and walked over to him. “Was she your wife?” I asked.
“Aye. Some sixty years.”
I noticed the date of her death was only a little over a year ago. “You must miss her terribly.”
“Aye,” he repeated, looking down at the etched stone like I had at my mother’s. “You’re Siobhan,” he said.
“I am. Do I know you?”
“It hasn’t been that many years, lass.”
“You’re probably not going to believe this, but I have amnesia.”
“You remember your name. That’s a good sign.”
I laughed. “It is that.”
“You and your dear mother lived just down the road from my Janie and me.”
“Did we? My apologies, Mr. O’Brien,” I said, glancing at the gravestone.
He shook his head. “I’ve always been Uncle Gene to you.”
“Now I feel really terrible.”
He smiled and patted my hand when I rested it on his arm. “Don’t you dare, my girl.”
I pointed toward my mother’s grave. “I’ll just leave you to your privacy, then.”
“On my way home now, anyway. How long are you in town?”
“That’s a bit up in the air at the moment.”
“I hope to run into you again. Are you staying in the neighborhood?”
“At the Tower Inn.”
He raised a brow.
“I know, it’s a bit swanky.”
“I heard you did well for yourself. Followed in your father’s footsteps. He’d be proud.”
I felt dizzy and reached out to steady myself. The man caught my arm. “You okay, lass?”
“Did you say, my father?”
“Aye.” He led me over to a bench. “You best sit. You look as though you’ve seen the ghost of my sweet Janie.”
“What do you know about my father?”
“I knew him all his life.”
I wrapped my arms around my body when I began to shake. Between the memory of my mother dying in her bed and meeting someone who knew not just me but my father too, who I didn’t recognize, it was all a bit much. Making it worse was how much I wished Smoke was here with me right now, that having him here would give me comfort.
* * *
Mr. O’Brien—Uncle Gene—walked with me back to the Tower Inn. When we stopped out front, he took a deep breath. “Something smells heavenly,” he murmured.
I took a deep breath too. “Smells like Irish Stew to me.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had stew that smelled as good as my Janie’s.”
“Would you like to join me for dinner?”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother. I’d enjoy the company.”
A grin split his face. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”
* * *
Over a pint, Uncle Gene told me that he and “his Janie” never had children of their own, so they “adopted” the kids in the neighborhood. Kids like my mother, father, and me.
“This may sound terrible to you, but I don’t remember anything about my father.”
He rested his head in his hand, and his eyes hooded. “You wouldn’t, lass. You never knew him.”
“Why not?” I asked, my voice shaky and thick with the threat of tears.
“He died before you were born.”
“H-h-h-ow?”
“I told you earlier you’d followed in his footsteps.”
I nodded and brushed a tear from the corner of my eye.
“You’ve heard of Veronica Guerin?”
“The journalist murdered by John Gilligan’s drug gang.”
“That’s right. Your da was one of the men that tracked Traynor, Gilligan’s second-in-command as well as the one said to have ordered Guerin’s hit, to Portugal. He died in a gunfight with Traynor.”
I sat back in my chair, wondering if I’d known any of this. “What was his name?” I whispered.
“Brendan O’Connor.”
“My name is Gallagher.”
“Aye. Your mother’s name.”
“Were they married?”
“They’d planned to be. Everything changed after Guerin’s death. Not just in Dublin, in all of Ireland. The entire country became enraged by her killing. Then, after he died, your mother hid the fact you were his child for fear of Gilligan’s gang coming after her or you.”
“You knew, though.”
“Those who knew wouldn’t have dared to utter a word.”
“It’s so sad.”
“There were many happy times that came before.”
“Yeah?”
* * *
Uncle Gene spent the next two hours telling me stories about my mother and father as children and teenagers. “They went from hating each other to loving each other in the snap of a finger,” he said, laughing about how all the neighbors had predicted it would happen. “You could tell that, deep down, they carried a torch for one another. That kind of passion burns in both directions. They say it’s a fine line between love and hate.”
I thought about the conversation I’d overheard between Smoke and Decker. He’d said that there were times he hated me enough to walk out on the mission. He also said I hated him as much, if not more.
Was that why I woke after my surgery believing I’d loved him? Because of that fine line?
“You’re lost in thought.”
“There’s someone…” I shook my head.
“Who you feel the same way about?”
I shrugged. “I told you about the amnesia.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t really know. He and I were on a mission, and I was shot.” I pointed to the knit hat I wore whenever I was out in public. “Here,” I added, resting my hand on the incision behind my ear. “When I came to in the hospital, I couldn’t remember anything. Except him, and by that, I mean I remembered being in love with him and he with me. Turns out that wasn’t the case.”
“Are you sure?”
I bit my bottom lip. “About me or him?”
Uncle Gene smiled. “You.”
“I overheard him say he was just waiting for me to get my memory back. After that happened, he’d make sure we never worked together again.”
“Eavesdropping?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Yes.”
“Is there a chance, then, that what you heard was taken out of context?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you aren’t certain.”
I sighed and took another sip from the pint that never seemed to empty. “I’m not certain of anything right now, Uncle Gene.”
* * *
It was late, so rather than let him walk home alone in the dark, I drove him back to my old neighborhood.
“That one is mine,” he said, pointing to a house a few doors down from the one I grew up in.
“This might be a long shot, but do you know of a James Mallory?”
“Jimmy Mallory?”
“I suppose so. I’ve been trying to locate him.”
“Here?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been looking in the wrong place, then. Jimmy Mallory is in Kinsale.”
“Did you say Kinsale?” Wasn’t that where Smoke had said his mother’s family was from?
“Aye. Just so you know, lass, his father was good friends with yours. Best of friends, in fact.”
23
Smoke
I took Casper with me when I went to interview the older of the two girls whose mother and father had been killed in La Chapelle-Saint-Maurice. I was an intimidating motherfucker, and that was by design. It wouldn’t serve me well, though, in trying to get a kid to talk about the death of her parents ten years ago.
Casper could be pretty damn intimidating herself when she wa
nted to be, but she also had a soft side.
“What’s the girl’s name?” she asked on the ninety-minute drive from Lyon to Lac du Bourget, where the young woman lived.
“Colette. Her younger sister is Emelie.”
“Will she be there?”
“I’m not sure.”
Casper nodded and looked out the window. “I love this part of France,” she murmured. “Beau did too.”
“You honeymooned in Paris, right?”
She laughed. “We spent one night there. Beau hated it. I mean, he was impressed by the Eiffel Tower, but otherwise—nope.”
I reached over and took her hand in mine. “You doin’ okay, kiddo?”
“Better than you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Smoke, you’re miserable. Admit it.”
I shrugged my shoulder. “Pretty much always have been, I guess.”
“Now you’re just full of shit.”
“Don’t hold back, Casper.”
She laughed. “Everyone saw it. There wasn’t a person on that op either on Mallorca or in the Seychelles who didn’t know that the minute you and Siren stopped arguing, you’d be all over each other.”
“She hates me.”
“Right.”
“The minute her memory came back, she took off. Didn’t even say goodbye.”
Casper turned in her seat to face me. “Here’s the thing, I know the two of you wanted to tear each other’s eyes out as much as your clothes off, but Siren isn’t like that. I don’t see her as the kind of person who would just up and leave.”
“Don’t know what to tell you since that’s exactly what she did.”
“Why, though? It seems like there had to be more to it than that.”
I had to admit that Siren’s abrupt departure stung. And truthfully, now that Casper mentioned it, I didn’t see her as someone who did what she did, either. It would’ve made more sense for her to get in my face about not being honest with her. But to just leave the way she had, maybe there was something I was missing.
“I bet you haven’t even tried to contact her.”
“Here we are,” I said, thankful to end our conversation when I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant where Colette Martin had agreed to meet us.
* * *
Casper and I walked inside and saw only one person in the place.
“Torcher?” asked the heavily made-up woman who had more tattoos than Casper and I combined, plus a greater number of body piercings. She was clad from head to toe in black leather, including her black military-style boots. The only colorful thing I could see on her, other than her ink, was the nail on the little finger of her right hand. It was painted bright orange and was an inch long.
“That’s me.”
Casper bumped my body with hers when the other woman walked in our direction. “Good thing you brought me along so she wouldn’t be intimidated.”
While Casper turned her full badassness on, I sat back and listened. Colette remembered some things she said she’d told the police at the time, none of which were in the brief I’d read.
“You said the two other men who were shot that day were friends of your father’s?” Casper asked.
“Not just friends, best friends. I told the police that. I followed the reports in the newspapers. They said it was random. It wasn’t random.”
No one thought the shootings were, probably not even the French police, but that was the standard line when an investigation was taking place and there were no obvious suspects. Let the real killers believe there were no leads, and maybe they’d get sloppy. Only, in this case, it was likely that those carrying out the hit—which is precisely what the CIA, Casper, and I believed it was—were savvy enough to know exactly what the newspaper reports meant.
“Who are you?” Colette asked. “Who do you work for?”
“Interpol,” I answered.
She smirked. “Who do you really work for?”
“The same people your father worked for.”
She nodded. “Does anyone even care who killed them?”
“Yes,” said Casper. “Someone cares very much who killed them.”
In the same way there were people who cared about who’d killed Beau. It wasn’t just his widow. I cared, and so did every agent who’d ever worked with the man. My gaze met Casper’s, and while I didn’t speak, I hoped she knew her husband’s death was another “cold case” I intended to pursue.
* * *
Casper’s phone vibrated while we were on our way back to Lyon.
“What’s up?” I asked when I looked over and saw her studying it.
“Siren is in Kinsale.”
“Kinsale?”
“That’s right.”
I remembered telling her that was where my mother’s family was from. Did she? Even if she did, why would she go there? It certainly wouldn’t be to find out more about me. She didn’t care enough to do that. Right?
* * *
“What are you thinking?” Casper asked after several minutes had passed without me saying anything.
“I’m not sure what to think.”
“Do you want my advice?”
“You’re going to give it to me no matter what I say, so why ask?”
“Get in touch with her. Jesus, Smoke, go to Kinsale. See her. Talk to her. Do something. Don’t just let her walk out of your life for good.” With every word, Casper’s voice got louder.
“You finished?”
“Nope. You’re a fucking asshole if you let Siren go. A fucking, goddamn asshole.”
“Nice language for someone who doesn’t like swearing.”
“I don’t like it when other people swear.”
I laughed, but then stopped when I saw the look on her face.
“Do you know how hard it is to find love in our line of work? Do you?”
Casper’s eyes filled with tears, and she turned her head from me. “Not just in our line of work, Smoke. In life.”
“She doesn’t love me.”
The last thing I expected was for Casper to hit me, but that’s what she did. She pulled back and slugged my arm. “Ouch!”
“Like that hurt.” She shook her head. “You’re such a jerk.”
Neither of us spoke again until we were back in Lyon and I pulled up in front of the place where she was renting an apartment.
“Look, Casper, I appreciate everything you said, but I’m here to do a job. I’m not in Europe to track Siren down. If she has anything to say to me, she knows how to reach me. The same can’t be said for me knowing how to reach her. Before she left the States, she dismantled her cell phone. In part, so I couldn’t track her, but also so I couldn’t get in touch with her.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Smoke. Give yourself every out you can find, and years from now, when you’re sitting in that fancy-as-fuck house of yours on top of a mountain and you’re all alone, I want you to think back on this moment and know that it was your choice to be miserable. Some of us have the choice made for us, and some of us are too fucking stubborn and stupid to change things before it’s too late.” She got out and slammed the car door behind her.
As I told her, I appreciated everything she said, but it wasn’t anywhere near as simple as she was making it out to be.
Siren and I were different people than Casper and Beau. We hadn’t fallen in love. We hadn’t made a decision to spend our lives together. It was the opposite. If the mission she and I were on had ended before she got shot, I would’ve walked away without a second thought. Siren would’ve been just another operative I worked a mission with. She wouldn’t be someone I dreamed about every fucking night. She wouldn’t be someone I missed every fucking minute of the day. Would she?
24
Siren
I stood in front of the antique shop that looked as though no one had set foot in it in fifty years or more, and double-checked the address. Part of me wished I had it wrong, but I was in the right place. According to
Uncle Gene, Jimmy Mallory was in Kinsale, dealing with property he’d inherited when his father, James Mallory Jr., died suddenly a few weeks ago.
According to the records I was able to have pulled when I arrived in town, Junior had inherited it from James Mallory, Sr., the man who, on his deathbed, confessed to hiding the jewels in the Waterford Clock Tower.
I reached out, surprised to find the door unlocked.
“We’re closed,” someone hollered from the back when a bell affixed to the door rang.
“Jimmy?”
“Who are you?” asked the man, peeking his head around another doorway.
“Siobhan Gallagher.”
“Gallagher?” He walked closer to where I was standing, and I could see he was close to my age.
“Gene O’Brien said I could find you here. I understand your father and mine were good friends.”
“What do you want?”
“I wanted to ask a few questions about your grandfather.”
His shoulders slouched forward, and he rested his hand on a dusty table. “What about him?”
Before I could answer, a sneezing fit came over me. “Sorry,” I said when it finally stopped.
“Come in the back. It isn’t quite as bad.” He motioned with his hand.
“I was sorry to hear your father passed.”
“Thanks. Have a seat,” he pointed to a chair and then walked over and shut a door. Before he did, I saw an ancient-looking safe in what appeared to be a small storage room. “What do you want to know?”
“I understand your grandfather confessed to transporting the Irish Crown Jewels to the Waterford Clock Tower?”
Jimmy nodded with hooded eyes.
“The authorities searched the tower but found nothing.”
“So the story goes.”
“Are you suggesting they may have lied?” I asked.
“There are many clock towers in Ireland.”
“I’m going to ask you outright, Mr. Mallory. Do you know where the Irish Crown Jewels are?”
“No.” While his answer was emphatic, his body language and eye movement were clear indicators he was lying. “Is there anything else?”
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