In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4)

by Cindy Brandner

  The oak grew up through the center of the room, its large trunk twisted and curved, boughs stretching out to the corners, two resting on the floor, like ancient arms that had tired of their burdens and had lain down for a rest. The light in the room was like that of sunlight under water, restless and green, flimmering and flickering in the corners. In a fairy tale house, this was the core. Conor’s eyes were wide, and Pat wondered how long it would take before he asked his mother if they could grow a tree in their own home.

  She walked into the room, the pale green light washing over her skin, lending her an otherworldly aspect as if she moved over the floor of the sea.

  “A mermaid,” Tomas said, with some satisfaction. “That’s what she puts me in mind of, a mermaid cast out from the sea with her babies.”

  As a metaphor it was apt, Pat thought, because she was like a mermaid cast out from the sea, only the sea had been his brother; which was a rather ironic metaphor considering Casey’s views on the ocean.

  Just then something moved, a flutter of white in one of the dark corners of the room. It drifted out, a phantasm of floating alabaster. Pamela jumped back, startled, automatically clutching Isabelle to her chest, and cradling the back of her head. Pat automatically stood in front of them, Conor peering out from around his uncle’s long legs, more curious than afraid.

  It was a white bird, more particularly an owl, flapping its wings in a panic and then rising up through the branches of the tree, like a ghost in the mottled green light. The owl settled up near the ceiling, peering down at them with great eyes that were a deep gold tourmaline in the strange light.

  “Sorry about that,” Tomas said, “she usually sleeps up high in the branches, not down near the floor.”

  “They say owls are messengers to the underworld,” Pamela said, voice quiet. “They would guide souls through the transition from this world to the next.” There was a look of longing on her face that Pat had to turn away from.

  “They are also the carriers of wisdom and have the ability to see in the dark. I would imagine that means spiritual darkness as well,” Tomas added, his tone gentle.

  Pamela smiled. “Forgive me; I tend to look for portents even in my morning cup of tea these days.”

  “There’s naught wrong with that,” Tomas said and Pat wondered if he had walked through to another dimension, what with Tomas’ gentlemanly behavior and the scent of cleaning fluid all about the house.

  “She did just about cause a fainting fit, I have to admit. I didn’t expect an owl in an upstairs bedroom.”

  “Aye, she’s just the bit spooky, but ‘tis her room, well her tree to be more accurate. She likes the quiet of it, I think. She’s the only one brave enough to share the room with the badger.”

  “The badger?” Pamela echoed, turning to Pat with a look of bemusement.

  “Aye, Basil, he’s my most constant lodger, we rub along together rather well.”

  “It’s because the beast is likely yer spirit animal,” Pat observed drily.

  Tomas snorted, which was the man’s version of a laugh. Considering that he was usually about as socially malleable as a badger that had been poked with a stick one time too often, he might well laugh. Pamela had clearly worked no small magic with her presence.

  “Shall we go downstairs where it’s warm, an’ ye can tell me what it is ye’ve come here to discuss?”

  “That would be grand,” Pamela said and smiled again. Pat felt a profound gratitude to the deities that he had thought to bring her here. Though in truth, it was a bit more of an earthly deity as Muck, now running with the story of wee Jane had put the thought in his head.

  The old buzzard was actually possessed of a great deal of charm, Pat thought, following Pamela down the stairs with Conor in his arms. Apparently all he needed to display it was the company of a beautiful woman.

  There was a roaring fire in the study, which was slightly less shambolic than was its norm. Apparently Tomas had made some effort at tidying up. The room actually looked welcoming rather than appearing like Miss Havisham’s study, which Pat had taken to calling it privately.

  Isabelle was deposited onto the floor on a clean quilt, several small, brightly colored toys arrayed around her. Pamela had come prepared to make an afternoon of it clearly. Good thing too, because it might take that long to convince the old man to even consider the madness they were about to propose. Conor had his own set of toys, mostly things Casey had made for him. Today he had brought a small train with him, as well as his bag of treasures from which he was never too far. Pat was always just a little trepidatious when Conor offered him a peek inside the bag—there had been a live frog in it once, which had almost given him a heart attack when it leaped out of the bag, narrowly missing his nose.

  Tomas presented each of the adults with slightly smudgy tumblers of whiskey and Pat saw Pamela sigh a little. The woman did not have the palate for whiskey, despite her long association with one of the best whiskey makers in the world. She made a slight face as the smell hit her nose, but gamely sipped it when Tomas turned around and looked at her.

  He noted how she was dressed. He had gotten so used to seeing her in jeans and his brother’s old shirts that the transformation was startling. She wore a pale pink blouse paired with a light grey skirt. It was business-like but also decidedly feminine and designed, he thought, to display her charms to best advantage. She had disarmed Tomas from the minute he had opened the door, but she had come here planning, he thought, to do just that. She sat back, crossing one long leg over the other, and took a swallow of the whiskey, green eyes leveled over the top of the tumbler at the old man, who was eyeing her back with undisguised admiration.

  “So, Mr. Egan, shall we get down to business?”

  “Aye, hit me with it, girl. Clearly the lad has brought you here to see if he can’t stun me into agreeing to whatever madness he’s got in mind.”

  “How does taking the police force to court strike you?” she asked sweetly and took another sip of her whiskey.

  Tomas laughed and sat back in his big chair, shaking his head. “Oh Lord, I might have known it was goin’ to be this. On what charge exactly?”

  “Murder,” she said.

  Pat leaned back into his chair, and smiled to himself. He might not even need to talk; he could just watch the show. He had not seen this side of Pamela before, though his brother had told him of it.

  “All right ye’ve got my attention young lady, but ye’d better have a damn good story to tell me.”

  “Patrick did bring me here to tell you about it. I know the details best, after all.”

  “Aye, an’ the boy well knows that a man is not as likely to say no to a lovely face like yours, as he is to an ugly mug like his own.”

  She smiled and it was such a thing of lovely innocence that Pat almost believed she had no knowledge of exactly what she was up to.

  Pamela took a second, smoothing the line of her skirt down and taking another sip of her whiskey. “First, I think it’s important that you know that it was William Bright who brought this story to me.”

  “An’ why is the likes of William Bright talkin’ to you?”

  She eyed the old man steadily over the rim of her tumbler, the whiskey glowing gold in its belly and casting a pale flickering light over her face. “Because he knows me from a prior meeting. And I know Patrick and Patrick knows Muck. It’s that simple.”

  She sketched in the story of Jane, and the suspicious circumstances surrounding the girl’s alleged suicide. It was bald in the telling, and Patrick marveled that the woman knew to keep emotion from the tale, and only give the old lawyer what was necessary. But then he remembered the tales his brother had told him of her handling of politicians in Boston, and thought it was a natural gift for her, this—knowing how to gauge what each situation required. There were a number of reasons that Jamie had chosen her to run his companies in his absence, and her deft handling of people wasn’t the least of them.

  When she finished, Tomas s
at silent for a moment, a gleam in the blue eyes and one finger tapping his upper lip thoughtfully. Tomas had the face of a great poker player—entirely unreadable. Pat felt his pulse pick up a little as the silence stretched out. Pamela, on the other hand, still looked cool and completely unruffled.

  “So, Pamela, are ye like yer madman over here thinkin’ we should go after the RUC for this?”

  “Just the guilty party,” she said, not so much as blinking under the beetling gaze of the old solicitor.

  Tomas laughed, long and loudly. “Just the guilty party is it? Well, that’s no problem then, is it? As a point of interest, does madness run in the family, did ye catch it from his brother?”

  “Shouldn’t the supposed law keepers be subject to the law?”

  “In another country, Miss Pamela, I’d agree, but in this one that doesn’t work. The kill rate for justice reformers in this country bein’ rather high last time I checked.”

  “So we all stop expecting or hoping for justice? That seems an odd attitude for a lawyer, if I may say so.”

  Tomas smiled. “Miss Pamela, I expect that ye don’t ask anyone for permission to speak yer mind. But I’ll tell ye this for free—lawyers are some of the most cynical bastards about. Young Patrick hasn’t had the idealism beaten from him yet, but a few years of this work will do the job to him.”

  Pamela arched one sooty brow at him. “I don’t think so. Riordans are some of the most stubborn people you’re likely to come across and my husband always said his brother was the most stubborn of the lot.”

  “Aye, well,” Tomas cast a look in Pat’s direction, “clearly yer husband was a shrewd judge of character.”

  “He knew his brother well, I daresay.”

  “An’ how exactly do ye think we’re to go about doin’ this?”

  “Wrongful death,” she said, cool as a lemon ice. “If it’s a civil case directed at one man, the police are less likely to see it as a direct attack on them. Not to mention it will be easier to win.”

  They had discussed this before, after Pat had taken the time to mull the whole situation over in his mind, as well as having a rather spirited talk with Muck about it. Approaching the situation in this manner wouldn’t eradicate the risk but it would lessen it substantially.

  “I need to change the baby,” Pamela said, bending down to pick up Isabelle who had begun to fuss. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to confer upon the matter.”

  Tomas watched her leave the room with a bemused expression. He was anything but bemused when he turned his regard back to Pat though.

  “That was a bit of a dirty play on yer part, man.”

  “How so?” Pat replied with the innocence of a lamb.

  Tomas snorted. “Has anyone ever said no to that woman in her life? If so, I’d like to meet the man with the fortitude for it.”

  “There’s a cardinal in Boston who would likely agree with ye,” Pat said. “Ye’ll do it then, ye’ll take the case?”

  Tomas gave him a hard look. “No, son, we’ll take the case. Ye’re not sidesteppin’ this. Ye brought it to me, ye’re goin’ to help me see if it’s got merit. I tell ye it will be a trial by fire, no less. The feckin’ RUC are goin’ to see this as a direct attack on them. But if Miss Pamela there can keep such as William Bright sweet, we’ll maybe have a whisper of a prayer.”

  They spent a few moments then talking over what would need to be done simply to get the unwieldy gears of the law in motion.

  Pamela returned with a freshly-changed and fed Isabelle, who gave one of her completely infectious grins to Tomas. He grinned back, scaring the baby who put her head to her mother’s shoulder, peeking out now and again at the white-haired man. Conor walked over to Tomas, completely unafraid of him despite his rather gruff manner and handed him one of his little cars.

  Tomas looked up from where Conor was now making tracks in the dust on his desk. “Stay to dinner, Miss Pamela. I think ye owe me the pleasure of yer company considerin’ what ye’ve just talked me into.”

  “All right,” she said gamely. Pat thought that she was either brave or mad; being that the thought of any food Tomas might conjure up in that cavernous old kitchen was likely to be, at best, inedible and at worst poisonous.

  “Ye needn’t fear, Patrick,” Tomas said, “I’m goin’ to run to the local chipper to get dinner. I wouldn’t inflict what passes for cookin’ in this house on this lovely woman an’ her children.”

  It was a very pleasant evening in the end, and Patrick was glad for more than one reason that he had brought Pamela here to present their case. She smiled and even laughed at one point, and he thought for perhaps a moment or two she managed to put thoughts of his brother to the side.

  Tomas saw them out when they took their leave. He bent over Pamela’s hand with a flourish and kissed it. “It has been a pleasure, be sure to come back as often as ye please an’ bring yer wee ones with ye, it’s lovely to hear the noise of children in this old house.”

  “We will come again,” Pamela said, and Pat saw that she meant it. She had thoroughly enjoyed the company of the old curmudgeon.

  Tomas stood watching them until he was a tiny figure in the rear view mirror. As soon as they cleared the drive, Pamela collapsed against the seat and let out a long breath. Pat looked over at her and smiled.

  “Well done, you. Though I’m not sure I should be thankin’ ye all things considered.”

  “Probably not,” she laughed, but it was a hollow sound.

  “Are ye all right?”

  “I’m fine, just tired. It’s been a long day and Isabelle was up at five this morning.”

  “Are ye sleepin’ any better at night?”

  She shrugged. “A bit here and there. I sleep with Conor in his bed, or I sleep on the couch downstairs. I manage in bits and pieces. That applies to sleep and life,” she said, voice as insubstantial as an abandoned moth’s wing. “I’m trying to live a normal life, however much that is possible in this country. For their sake,” she nodded toward the back seat, where both children were already fast asleep.

  “Ye have to do it for yer own sake too, Pamela.”

  “I know, Pat. Right now that seems like a very tall order, but some day I’m sure I’ll feel like it matters again.”

  She neatly changed the subject then, as she often did when the topic of moving on with her life came up.

  “Are you certain about this, Pat? What you’re embarking on if charges are brought against this man?”

  It was a question he had asked himself more than once since Pamela had told the story to him. He had spent several restless nights thinking it over. Kate, being Kate, had said he must follow what his heart felt was right.

  His heart said that a man had to believe in something larger than himself and in this case whatever small comfort justice could bring to the girl and her family. His head said he was a mad man for even considering tangling with the forces of law and order, such as they were, in the Six Counties. But then what was a life lived without conviction, without passion for a cause greater than oneself?

  “Aye, Pamela, I have thought it through. It’s a rock an’ a hard place, isn’t it? I need somethin’ bigger than my own well-bein’ in order to really be alive. Do ye understand?”

  She turned toward him, her expression unreadable in the dim of the car. “I understand, but I am afraid too, Pat. I don’t want to lose you because of some nebulous idea of a larger purpose, which may not amount to anything in the courts, and could get you killed.”

  “Aye, I know that, Pamela. I promise to take as many precautions as I can. Life is a chancy thing under the best of circumstances, but I’ll try to keep away from the razor’s edge as best as I’m able. Bringin’ it as a civil suit makes it less risky.”

  She nodded, the sparkling and witty woman of an hour ago now gone. At times like this, when her defenses were low, her grief was palpable. He had known she loved his brother a very great deal. He thought perhaps he had not really understood just how much until these las
t few months.

  Pat helped her take the children in and settle them in their beds and then checked that all the doors and windows were battened down tight for the night. For a few minutes he stood in the kitchen with her. It struck him how tired and thin she was looking, concerns that Jamie had voiced the week before. His worry must have shown in his expression because she looked at him and said, “I’m fine, Pat. Kate will be worried, it’s getting very late.”

  He gave her a quick hug, shocked by how insubstantial she felt in his arms. At least she had eaten her dinner tonight. He left then, feeling helpless and inadequate to the task of caring for his brother’s family.

  He halted in the yard, the night cold around him. He worried for her, in more ways than just the obvious. For one there was her association with Noah. He knew why she had gone to the man, but he wished the woman had the sense to be afraid. Damned if he knew what to do about any of it. He knew had the shoe been on the other foot, Casey would have felt the same. He wished someone were here to give him advice and guide him in what was best for Pamela and the children.

  He spoke then to his brother, here in the yard of his home, spoke with frustration and fear, and with the worry that he might always be speaking to a ghost. “Ye promised me, man, ye promised me ye’d always have my back, don’t ye remember that?”

  He looked up at the sky, Orion setting in the west, with all its frosted glitter. It recalled the night they had picked out their stars—him, his father and Casey. His daddy had told them each to pick a star.

  “Pick one, pick a star from the sky an’ it will be yours, all yer life.”

  “Ye can’t keep a star for yerself,” Casey said, sounding rather dubious about the idea.

  “An’ who is to say ye can’t, boyo?”

  “I don’t know, but I think the priests might have somethin’ to say about it.”

  “Well, we just won’t tell them, ‘twill be a secret between the three of us. Now pick a star.”