Saints & Suspects

by Jordan McCollum

  Molly laughed, and Zach stopped for a second to listen. He still loved that sound.

  She moved on, oblivious, as always. “What’re you plannin’ to wear with that pin money?”

  “I dunno. A tux, I guess?”

  Silence on the line. Silence that meant something. “Remember the Kennedy Center?”

  “And the concert? Just thinking about it yesterday.”

  Again, a pause. “You were?”

  She didn’t believe him? “Yeah. You wore that white dress.” Maybe she’d believe him now, but that was as far as he could go with the memory. “It was a great night.” A great night that had led to a lot of pain.

  “And a great day,” Molly said softly. “Anyway, Grace and I decided Jason isn’t the tux type.”

  “Grace and you, or just Grace?”

  “You’ve caught the gist of how the day went. Knowin’ Grace, this Friday could be a marathon appointment, too.”

  Lucy had set up his blind date for Friday. “’Kay. I’ll clear my schedule for that evening.” He slipped into his cover’s drawl to add, “Anythang for you. Even weddin’ plannin’.”

  “You liar.” She bid him goodbye with an undercurrent of teasing. Zach stared at his phone. He’d actually joked with Molly again — and she didn’t sound angry. Almost like . . .

  It was nice. Civil. That was all. He wasn’t interested in treading water in the dating pool anymore, and she wasn’t interested in getting married, so he didn’t have much choice.

  He left the shadowed chapel to find his sister in the foyer again, but he definitely didn’t want to discuss who he’d been talking with. “Hey, Luce, can your friend reschedule? Something came up. Work.”

  Lucy’s shrug held no suspicion, but she was probably too wrapped up in her problems to care about his call. “I’ll see.”

  “Here’s my mom,” Parker piped up. “See you later.” The fourteen-year-old jogged out of the foyer. Zach and Lucy pulled their jackets tighter and followed into the snow.

  “What’s wrong, Lucy?”

  “Paul.” Had any syllable sounded so sad ever?

  Lucy climbed in Zach’s Subaru and waited until Zach got in to continue. “We’re at a place in our relationship where we’re ready to . . . go on, but we both feel really strongly that we can’t marry outside our churches — and obviously we can’t just change.” She sighed a cloud of condensation. “Feels like the end, and the death throes are painful.”

  “Yeah, the quick death’s easier. You know, so you can run into him at work six months later.” He started the car.

  Lucy snorted. “Thanks for all two-point-four seconds of your sympathy.” Silence settled for a beat. “Are you really working with Molly?”

  “Yep. Have you known she was in town this whole time?”

  She tugged at her blonde ponytail. “It’s only been a few weeks.”

  He groaned and finally started the heater. “Lucy.”

  “I promised not to tell. I kept the same promise to you, remember? Twice, actually.”

  “I remember — but that was an issue of national security.”

  “The first time.” Lucy rolled her eyes, then looked out the window. “Still don’t understand why you broke up.”

  “She’s got too much to accomplish before she wants to get married.” He glanced at Lucy, AKA Molly’s BFF. “Right?”

  Lucy’s gaze fell, and she nodded.

  No point torturing himself. “So, you and Paul?”

  She was silent a long time, and finally moaned. “We’ve seen this coming — sometimes it feels like our whole relationship has built to this. Or maybe dissolved into this. We’ve ignored all the issues so long, but any of them’ is enough to kill the relationship.”

  “The elephants in the room.”

  Lucy laughed bitterly. “Elephants just waiting to stampede.”

  “Have you two talked about this?”

  “Duh. We both know we’re grinding the relationship into dust, but we just don’t want to let go. Friday night we went out with . . . some friends, and Paul’s always really nice about the Word of Wisdom thing in front of other members. But not this time, and the other guy made it this big issue, so then Paul and I fought, but he said it didn’t make a difference anymore.”

  Zach accelerated to merge onto the freeway, chewing his lip. He wasn’t totally following, but how could he solve this problem?

  No — living near Lucy had trained him on one thing: she wanted someone to listen, not fix her life. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t make a difference — maybe it never did. But I never asked him to do that. He just did it. I loved that he respected my beliefs so much, that he wouldn’t even let it be an issue. We love each other too much to ask the other to give up God.” She fidgeted with her fingernails. “But maybe we were only fooling ourselves, ever thinking it could work out.”

  His sister’s thoughts were beginning to sound too familiar.

  Lucy hugged her arms around herself. “Guess it all works out according to God’s plan.”

  Had God led him back to Molly — and if so, why? To prove he needed to move on?

  “Why do these ‘learning experiences’ have to be so painful?” Lucy murmured, her voice thick like she was about to cry.

  “Aw, Lucy.” Zach slid his arm around her shoulders and gave her the best side hug he could while driving. “Wish there was something I could do.”

  But he couldn’t help thinking Lucy wasn’t the only one in for a painful learning experience.

  Tuesday night’s dance classes were a first for Molly — someone she knew showed up for the last session, Irish dance aerobics. Lucy kept to the back, but managed to pick up everything but the sevens step. Molly spared her learning leap-two-threes her first time.

  The other students bid her goodbye and filed out, but Lucy approached Molly packing up at the mirror. “Hey,” Lucy puffed.

  “Have fun?”

  “Oh yeah.” Lucy’s smile dimmed a watt after a second. “Got a minute?”

  Molly stuffed her dance trainers into her bag and stood. “Sure now.”

  Lucy tugged at her T-shirt’s hem, her gaze level with Molly’s shoulder. “It’s about Zach.”

  Molly drew in a silent breath. Lucy couldn’t know Molly still had feelings for Zach. Molly had barely acknowledged it herself. And she was working on them.

  “He said he ran into you at work,” Lucy finished.

  “Oh.” She’d hoped to avoid this conversation. She didn’t want to face Zach, but even more, she couldn’t put her best friend in the middle of their fake engagement. Molly tried for a reassuring grin. “We’re workin’ a case together.”

  Lucy grimaced. “I didn’t say anything. I mean, about you being town.”

  That’d been obvious.

  “Or about Nate.”

  “Ah.” Molly nodded. “Probably for the best.”

  “But, um, I think you need to tell him.”

  Although her body language had been evasive, now Lucy held her gaze. The pain in her eyes seemed to say this was something Lucy didn’t want to say, something Molly didn’t want to hear, something that needed to be said. “You didn’t see him after you broke up. Believe it or not, it was rough on him, too, and none of us want a repeat.”

  Had he told her about their cover? Wait — dumping her was rough on him? “Did he say somethin’?”

  “Nothing specific, but he thinks you hate him.”

  Molly searched for the words. “I don’t hate him. I . . .” Part of her hated that she still cared. But she couldn’t say that aloud. “I don’t know.”

  Lucy waved her off. “It’s okay; I’m not playing telephone for you guys. I just can’t watch that again. I mean, my personal life is imploding enough as it is, and one of us needs to be emotionally stable.” Her laugh segued into a sigh. Molly could’ve asked a dozen questions now that the subject they couldn’t talk about was before them, but not while Lucy was hurting.

 
Molly hugged her. “You’ll make it. I did.”

  Lucy pulled back, blinking away tears. “Now you’ve got Nate. And that’s . . . great.”

  Better than great. Nearly perfect. Suddenly sour, Molly focused on her stocking feet in the mirror.

  “Molly?” her da called from the front of the studio.

  “I better go.” Lucy waved goodbye and headed for the door, and Molly walked to where her parents were packing up.

  Mum watched Lucy leave, then stuck her bow her violin case. “We’re worried about you,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “We understand that you’re doin’ this for your job — we’ve been there. But do you understand who you’re dealin’ with?”

  What would they do, give her a copy of The Blood-Dimmed Tide? She’d studied the Troubles; she had the basics.

  “They go beyond bein’ only trigger happy.” Da clipped the case of his uilleann pipes shut. “When they were at their peak, they were . . . bloodthirsty.”

  “Da.” Molly gave him a stern look. “Thirty-five hundred people died in the Troubles.”

  “You sound like that’s nothin’.” He straightened, folding his arms as though about to lay out the law to teenage Molly. “Percentage-wise, that’d be like killin’ half a million Americans.”

  “That’s not my point. I’m tryin’ to ask what made the Canavans unique.”

  Mum accepted the challenge. “The IRA and its splinter groups were violent, sure, but their goal was to bring attention to the cause, not just murder civilians. Bad enough to make a statement with a bomb. Another thing entirely to make a statement with someone else’s blood.”

  Da took the next volley. “Remember Omagh?”

  “Of course.” Even after nearly two decades, who could forget the deadliest incident of the Troubles, one that took place after the IRA’s cease-fire?

  Mum shut her violin case and pulled a music folder from the outside pocket. She handed it to Molly. Molly opened the folder to a school portrait of a teenage boy with a quiet smile.

  “Alan Radford, sixteen. He was Mormon. The IRA tried to murder his father years before.” Her mum flipped to the next picture, another stranger. “His uncle was murdered by the IRA in the eighties.” She turned to another picture, a woman with straight blonde hair and glasses.

  “I went to primary school with her fiancé,” Da said.

  Another picture, and another, and another. Grandmothers, school children, teenagers. “They killed twenty-nine people that day.”

  “Thirty-one if you count Avril Monaghan’s unborn twins,” Da added.

  Mum opened to the last page. A toddler with a shock of black curls stared at the camera. “Maura was their sister. She was eighteen months old.”

  The chill creeping down Molly’s arms wasn’t just because of the little girl’s tragic end. That chubby-cheeked child looked exactly like Molly at that age. Mum flipped to the next photo, a devastated street with survivors staggering off. “Two hundred others were injured,” Da said.

  “The IRA usually called in bomb threats to minimize the civilian toll, but this time, the threats actually herded people toward the bombs.” Mum shut the folder. “Bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed.”

  She let her words echo through the empty studio.

  Molly rolled the facts over in her mind. “If you had any evidence, you should’ve —”

  “We hadn’t,” her da cut her off. “Nothin’ concrete. But we thought Omagh had their names all over it. No one else was ever convicted.”

  “And it’d been so long since we’d got out of the country,” Mum added. “We really didn’t know. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for Omagh, and I think the Canavans ended up with that splinter group, but who knows now? They might be RIRA, or maybe they’ve gone off on their own.”

  No one could accuse anarchists of marching in lockstep with their leaders. “Are you tellin’ me I shouldn’t be doin’ this?” Molly asked. She’d had about enough of that.

  “Not at all, love,” Mum said. “We don’t want you to stop you. We want you to stop them.”

  Da patted her shoulder. “You’ve got to keep your country safe. Just make sure you stay that way, too — change your routines every day.”

  Tension started to turn in her stomach, but her da wasn’t done.

  “Never take the same route to work. Don’t let them see your car, if you can avoid it.”

  She frowned. She’d driven Grace to the book shop over the weekend.

  Da mirrored her frown. “Always check your car before gettin’ in.”

  “I’ll be careful, Da.”

  He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his narrow nose and leaned forward to lock onto her eyes. “Be careful or be killed. Remember.”

  “I will.” Though she’d known the Canavans had been involved in violence during the Troubles, seeing people whose lives they’d taken — putting a face to the abstraction — that little girl . . . She’d been upset the Canavans had effectively exiled her from Ireland, but obviously they could do far worse.

  Molly walked to her car and stooped to scan the undercarriage. Be careful or be killed. A standard every day for an FBI agent — but this case suddenly felt different, as though a sharp electric current flowed around her, and any wrong step could kill.

  She was not looking forward to Friday. With them.

  Grace barely looked up from her pot when Pearse bounded through the door — until he proclaimed, “Got it, Mam!”

  He’d got it? Grace dropped her spoon, and Ed abandoned his newspaper to gather around their son. Had the gowl actually done it?

  Beaming, Pearse produced a golf ball–sized lump of off-white putty from one pocket and from the other, a thin silver cylinder with wires dangling from the end. Semtex and a blasting cap.

  Grace basked in the victory. One step closer.

  “Fair play, son.” Ed cracked a smile. “I’ll get on the electronics end.” They both pivoted to Grace. “Have you found work at the parade float place?”

  She turned on him. “That was your responsibility, ya skiver.”

  Ed scowled back. “I’ve been lookin’, and I haven’t seen anythin’. They must’ve already hired their extra help.”

  The surprise complication doused her enthusiasm. DontRain wasn’t hiring? They had to get in there. What else could she do? Grace paced back to the stove and stirred the stew. How could they get in?

  “Maybe somethin’ll happen to one of their valuable employees,” Grace said. “Give it a few more days. I’ll see to the other components, if you can look after the trigger, Pearse.”

  He saluted.

  “And get more as soon as possible.”

  “Sure, Mam. No one saw me. I should be able to manage.”

  She clapped his shoulder. Maybe she’d sold him short. With one last obstacle and just under three weeks to go, things were on the cusp of falling into place.

  By six fifteen Wednesday evening, Molly had almost finished plowing through the paperwork Kent had begged her to help with. Surely it was time to take the stabilizers off the bicycle for the poor man. But with her best friend in the midst of an excruciating breakup, and her boyfriend working in Hawaii — Hawaii, the lucky fella — Molly didn’t have much else to do.

  Molly stretched her neck. Across the room, she caught a glimpse of a very tall, very attractive man coming her direction. She knew him — obviously she did — and yet her fingers and mind stopped working at the sight. Between his slicked back hair and a suit that was clearly expensive, Zach appeared different enough to remind her just how handsome he was.

  “Giving up on me, Malone?” Uncertainty drew the end of Kent’s question up even more. “I really need your help.”

  Zach eyed Kent as he reached their desks. “How’s it going?”

  “Grand. Why else would I be here at this hour?” She made sure not to glance at Kent. Not that staring at Zach was much safer.

  After all, they’d fallen in love while he visited her desk dai
ly.

  “Where’s that file on Claes?” Kent muttered half to himself. He looked to Molly. “Hey, should we follow up with him?”

  “Yes, you should.” Molly hoped he’d take the hint. She stood and pointed to his desk. “Your file’s probably there.”

  “Right, yeah.” He wandered away to check.

  Molly turned back to Zach. “All set for Friday, meetin’ downtown at one. Lunch first.”

  “Great.” A slow smile spread across his face.

  Did he have to look so good in a suit?

  “Wait,” Kent interrupted. Molly realized she’d started leaning into Zach and jerked back.

  “You won’t be here Friday?” Kent’s eyes grew round like a child realizing he was lost.

  Through great force of will, she did not groan aloud. “I have to do my job, too, Kent.”

  Zach scrutinized Kent, who seemed to be collecting his thoughts. “Okay. Yeah.” Kent’s gaze focused on something between them.

  “Anyway,” Zach said, “I was thinking you might want to practice your cover.”

  Molly pulled back a bit further. “I think I have it.”

  “Malone?” Kent said, and she turned to him, but he was addressing Zach. “Did you just ask Special Agent Malone if she needed practice?” He laughed, a high double-step of incredulousness. “Obviously she’s good.”

  A flash of satisfaction splashed in her chest, and Molly found herself sitting up a centimeter straighter.

  “Yeah.” Zach trailed off, absolutely unconvinced. He looked in the direction he’d come — the elevators, and Xavier waiting there.

  “Oh, hey,” Kent began again. This time he was talking to Molly. She flinched at the phrase she’d heard too many times, always prefacing a favor, or an obvious question. So much for satisfaction.

  “Can you help me with —”

  “Can I walk you out?” Zach cut him off.

  Not likely. Obviously she shouldn’t trust herself to walk out with him — but moreover, she didn’t need his rescuing with Kent any more than she did with Grace.

  She gestured to Kent. “Thank you, but I’m needed here.”

  Zach looked from Kent back to her again. “Obviously.” His lips scrunched together as though he had a lot to ponder, then pivoted to walk out.