by Sienna Blake
I snatched the closest file from my desk. “Excuse me. Some of us have work to do. See yourself out.”
I strode away down the hall until I found an empty interrogation room, slamming the door behind me and leaning my forehead against the door.
The only thing that could calm me down was knowing that my woman—my selkie—was at home waiting for me. And there was nothing—nothing—Ava could do about it.
73
____________
Saoirse
I was making Dublin Cobble and apple pie for tonight’s dinner, a mirror of our last dinner together four years ago.
The pie was in the oven and the cobble was almost done. It just needed ten more minutes on the stove.
The doorbell rang.
I gasped as a thrill rushed through me, causing my heart to beat faster. Would it ever get old having Diarmuid come home to me?
Never.
I untied my apron and slid my feet into a pair of nude stilettos.
Here was the second part of my surprise for him.
Me.
Wrapped in sexy white lacy underwear and stockings underneath my silk gown. It was cold outside, so I had to turn up the heating in the house so as not to freeze my butt off.
The doorbell rang again.
“Coming, baby,” I yelled out as I tottered towards the door.
I felt so sexy, like a woman. I couldn’t wait for him to see me.
I flung open the door, already pouting.
It wasn’t Diarmuid at the door.
It was Ava.
Diarmuid’s wife.
As beautiful as the last time I saw her. Standing there in tight skinny jeans and a white jumper that showed off her boobs, boobs that were still bigger than mine.
Of course, why would Diarmuid ring the doorbell? He had a key. I was so stupid.
I stiffened as her eyes rolled over me.
“Can I help you?” I said, tucking my robe further across my body. I told myself it was against the chill coming in from outside, not from the chill that radiated off her.
“You must be Saoirse.” Her voice coiled around me like a snake. “You’ve certainly grown up since the last time we saw each other.”
“Again,” I said, through gritted teeth, “how can I help you?”
“We need to talk.”
She shoved her way inside before I could stop her.
“I hope you’re enjoying playing house,” she sniped. “It won’t last long.”
I slammed the door shut to keep out the cold and spun. “You are not wanted here. Leave before Diarmuid gets home. Or I’ll call the Garda.”
She placed her scarlet-painted fingernails on her wide hips. “If you don’t want Diarmuid to be arrested because of you, you’ll listen to me, you little homewrecker.”
Arrested?
“I know who you are. And what you’ve done.” Ava pulled out a slim black mobile and waved it. “I’ve read all your dirty little text messages, including the ones from when you were underage.”
Oh my God.
That was Diarmuid’s phone.
How the fuck did she get a hold of it?
“The truth is, Saoirse,” Ava strolled towards me, “Diarmuid is my husband. Mine. We deserve a chance to make it work.”
“Those text messages…” I didn’t think for a second they’d be used against him. “They’re just words. He never touched me until I was eighteen.”
I was lying.
He did touch me.
I let him.
Seventeen was legal in Ireland.
But what had Diarmuid said? I had to be eighteen to be legal for him because he was in a position of authority.
Ava put on a face of mock sympathy. “I don’t think the judge will see it that way, nor will his supervisor. The Garda can’t be seen to be employing pedophiles, can they?”
Pedophile?
I choked on the disgusting word.
Diarmuid wasn’t a pedophile. I was an adult. He loved me. He was the only person who truly cared about me. How could she taint the purity of what we had by even using that word?
But reality was a cold wind blowing through my heart. The sexy text messages on Diarmuid’s phone were enough to incriminate him. To mark him. Brand him. People already wanted to think the worst of the long-haired, inked-up, gruff Irish giant.
The truth didn’t matter.
“W-what do you want?” I asked, my chin still lifted as Ava came to stand right in front of me, so close I could smell the stench of her thick sickly-sweet perfume.
“Leave him.”
“What?”
“Leave my husband. Go far away if you have to.”
I shook my head. “He won’t let me go.”
She sneered. “Make up some excuse. You’re a clever girl, you’ll figure out what to say. Otherwise I take these messages to his boss. He’ll be fired and arrested for statutory rape of a minor.”
No!
Her words were like splinters digging into my skin. I could barely breathe, my chest was so tight.
Ava smiled, and it felt like poison. Then she drove the knife in deeper. “You don’t tell him where you’re going or give him any way to contact you. You leave Diarmuid and me to work things out. If you contact him, I’ll call the Gards. If you see him again, I’ll call the Gards. Understand?”
I was numb.
What choice did I have?
I would not be Diarmuid’s ruin.
I could not destroy him and everything he held dear.
Somehow, I managed to nod.
Ava grinned, a painted pink smear that split open her face. “Good girl.”
She patted my cheek and strode past me, bashing my shoulder as she went. I didn’t have the strength to cry out. I just swayed like a tree about to be toppled.
Only with the slamming of the door did I come back to life.
The first sob tore out of my lungs.
I clutched at the back of the armchair so that I didn’t fall. I wailed and cried like my world was ending. In some ways, it was. In other ways, it was already over.
I remembered the story of the selkie that Diarmuid told me when I was younger. How the selkie woman shifted to her seal form to save Kagan, her true love, but in doing so she could never return back to him.
This is what I had to do.
If I stayed, I’d ruin him.
And I couldn’t be his ruin. I loved him too much.
To save him, I had to give up my life with him.
74
____________
Diarmuid
“Selkie, I’m home.” I pushed open my front door, expecting a smiling bundle of joy to run into my arms.
The lights were off. I heard no movement. But I could smell something amazing coming from the kitchen.
Strange.
I walked through the silent living room and into the kitchen. There was a baked pie in the oven and what looked like Dublin Cobble in the pot, but all the appliances were off.
Even stranger.
“Saoirse?”
I walked into the bedroom next. Rose petals were strewn over the bed. On the back of a chair was a silk gown and an underwear set I’d not seen before.
Where was she?
I called out her name again as I entered the bathroom.
My eyes flashed to the sink.
Her toothbrush was gone.
Her toiletries in the shower…also gone.
I walked back into the bedroom and flung open the cupboard. The few clothes hanging on her side were gone. What the hell was going on?
Where was my damn phone?
Fuck. I must have left it at work.
I strode into the living room and grabbed my house phone off the kitchen bench, thankful that I still hadn’t gotten rid of this relic as did most of the people I knew. I punched in Saoirse’s number and ran my hands through my hair as the call tone sounded in my ear.
A shrill ringtone sounded out from the bedroom.
Holding the cordless ph
one in my hand, still ringing, I hurried back into the bedroom.
Saoirse’s phone was on the dresser.
“Fuck,” I yelled out and threw the cordless phone against the wall with a crash.
Where the hell was she? Why did she leave without her phone? Where did she go?
Relax, Diarmuid. She must have popped down the road to the shops.
Taking her toothbrush?
I spotted a piece of paper underneath her phone. I pushed the phone out of the way and grabbed the paper.
It was a letter, tear-stained and partly crumpled. I could almost see her writing it out, tears falling, her fingers clutching at the page.
I’m so sorry to have to tell you this… Believe me, I never wanted to cause you any pain. I hope one day you’ll forgive me.
You see, I’ve realised that you were right. I don’t want to be young and stuck in this shitty town with a boring old husband. I don’t want to be an eighteen-year-old wife.
I want more from this life.
I want more than…you.
I’m leaving. And I’m not coming back.
I’m sorry.
I am a selkie and you need to set me free.
Please don’t come looking for me.
Please be happy.
S
I dropped the letter, my head spinning.
This was not happening. This wasn’t real.
Saoirse loved me.
I didn’t fucking believe for a second she would come to this decision on her own.
Was this her father who had somehow managed to get one of his men on the outside to take her?
Did they threaten her? Was that why she fled?
I grabbed Saoirse’s cell phone, jammed it into my pocket and strode through the house to the front door, swiping my car keys as I went.
I would not stop looking until I found her.
I yanked open the door only to find someone standing on my step, hand lifted to knock.
“Not now, Ava,” I growled, pushing past her. Right now, you were either Saoirse or in my way of finding Saoirse.
“Diarmuid,” she chased me down the path as I aimed for my truck, “where are you going?”
“To find something I’ve lost,” I muttered.
“Stop. Will you just listen to me?” She grabbed my arm as I unlocked the driver’s door.
I spun, glaring at her. “You don’t fucking get it, do you? I don’t want you anymore. Not even if there was nobody else. Not even if you were the last fucking woman on this planet.”
She gasped.
I yanked my arm out of her grasp, slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door in her face.
That brought her back to life.
“You’re going to regret this, Diarmuid,” she yelled, her voice muffled through the door.
I rolled my eyes, reversing the truck onto the street.
I already regretted her. How could I possibly regret her any more? I shoved Ava out of my thoughts. The only thing I cared about right now was finding Saoirse.
On the way to Saoirse’s house, I rang Brian. He picked up on the third ring.
“Have you seen Saoirse this evening?” I demanded before he even got a word in.
“What? No. Why are you calling from her phone?”
Fuck.
“Ring me on this number if you see her. She’s missing. I think it might be her da.”
I caught the beginning of a curse before I hung up.
Minutes and several speeding limits broken later, I skidded up onto the sidewalk in front of Saoirse’s house. All the lights were off. I ran up to the door and banged on it anyway, calling out her name over and over.
“No one’s home, lad,” a male voice called to my left.
I turned my head to find the neighbour sticking his head out the next door.
“You sure?”
“Sure as night follows day.”
I nodded thanks to him and ran back to the truck. If she didn’t come home, where else would she go?
I thought over her note. The clothes and toiletries missing.
Fuck.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator and headed for the train station.
I parked illegally and ran into the station, my Garda badge out as well as a photo of Saoirse I’d found on her phone ready on the screen.
I ran up to the front of the queue at the nearest ticket booth. “Excuse me, Garda business,” I muttered, ignoring the muffled protests of the travelers waiting in line.
“Have you seen this girl tonight?”
The lady behind the counter shook her red hair, her eyes looking like owls from behind her thick frames.
“Look closer. Please. Did she come in, buy a ticket?”
The lady leaned in to the phone screen, then shook her head again.
I went to the next counter. Asked the same question. Got the same response.
I pushed to the front of the last counter.
“Please,” I begged, “tell me you’ve seen her.”
“Have, actually.”
My eyes snapped up. The man behind the counter was a latte-skinned gentleman, dark hair, Mediterranean I guessed, probably in his early twenties.
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“No, sir.” He grabbed the phone and moved it up to his face. “Yeah, I remember her ’cause she was crying, her eyes all red and puffy.” His eyes narrowed at me. “You ain’t the one who made her cry, no?”
“Fuck no,” I growled. “I’m trying to find her.”
“She in trouble?”
Truth was, I had no fucking clue what was going on.
I ignored his question. “Do you remember what ticket she bought?”
He nodded slowly, suspicion still clouding his eyes. “Can I see that badge again, please?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I pushed the badge at him; he peered at it. Then glanced at me. “How do I know it’s not fake?”
I was going to kill this man.
“It’s not fucking fake. Just tell me where the girl went.” I let out a long breath, trying to calm myself down. “Please,” I said in a softer voice. “She could be in danger.”
The ticket man slid my badge back towards me and sniffed. “She bought a one-way ticket to Dublin. Train she was on left about ten minutes ago.”
I sagged with relief. Finally, I knew where she was going.
“Just one more question, please? Did she come with anyone? Was anyone forcing her to go with him?”
“No, she looked alone.”
Alone?
Why would Saoirse flee to Dublin alone?
I would ask her. If I sped, then I could make it to Dublin Heuston Station before her train pulled in.
I ran back into my truck, calling my thanks to the ticket seller. I already had my foot on the accelerator before my door was shut properly. I headed towards the highway which would take me all the way across the country to Dublin.
Her train left about ten minutes ago which meant I had just over two hours to get from here to there.
I could make it. If I toed the speed limit all the way.
I yanked the wheel of the car onto the M7, gunning it into the fast lane, praying that there would be no roadworks or accidents along the way to slow me down.
Five minutes on the highway and the blue lights of the Garda flashed behind me.
Fuck. I checked my speedometer.
I had been going about ten kilometres over, but not too much that I couldn’t plead my case, flash my badge and be on my way in less than five minutes.
I flicked on my indicator and pulled over, the patrol car pulling up behind me.
The officer strolled up to my window that I’d opened.
I didn’t recognise him, a short, ruddy-faced man with sideburns. He leaned into my window.
“Do you know how fast you were going there?”
“Sorry, officer. Trust me when I say it’s an emergency.” I flashed him my badge which he squinted at.
“
A fellow Garda,” he said, his voice languid and slow. “You weren’t setting a right example there, lad. Licence and registration, please.”
I handed him my papers. He eyed over them as I fidgeted in my seat.
“We’re just going to run this through the system. Standard procedure. Sit tight now.”
I let out a long breath. So much for a quick getaway.
I drummed my fingers on the wheel, praying that they’d hurry the hell up. There’d be no problems with my papers. My registration was current, I had no outstanding fines or speeding tickets.
A few seconds later the officer returned to my window. I should have known something was wrong when I caught sight of the other officer behind him.
“Step out of the car.”
“What? Can you tell me what’s the problem, officer? I really have to be somewhere.”
“Step out of the car,” he simply repeated.
Fuck me.
Better get this over with.
I stepped out of the truck. In a flash the officer had spun me around, my arm around my back, and pushed me up against my truck.
What the fuck?
“Diarmuid Brennan, you’re under arrest for statutory rape of a minor.”
75
____________
Saoirse
Dublin.
A place I didn’t think I’d be returning to any time soon. It seemed to me a grotty hole, filled with every sad memory of mine.
Every time I’d arrived here I’d been crying. Where we moved after my da was arrested. When my ma died. When I left Diarmuid.
Moina nudged my cup of tea closer to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I’d just finished telling her all about what’d happened, tears spilling out from my lids like they were connected to my words.
“I’m sure you’ll figure out—”
“There was no other way, Moina. Ava is such a bitch. She would go straight to the Garda if she didn’t get her way. The only way I could save him was to leave him.” My voice cracked.
Not even Moina’s shushing or arms could comfort me. The only thing that could—that ever really could—was a certain pair of warm, strong arms covered in beautiful ink.
