Page 6 of A Trap So Flawless

I’m not sure if I answer Rowan or not. By the time I turn around, he’s gone. I move to follow him, grabbing a bottle of whiskey from an office shelf as I go.

I don’t even know why I bother. I don’t drink from it as Rowan drives us to the church. I just hold it, like the weight of the glass with the liquid inside actually means something.

We’re early, but there are already vehicles in the lot and little groups of people beneath umbrellas waiting to be let in for the service. I ignore them all, and not one of them attempts to speak to me as I walk by with Rowan. In fact, most of them recoil.

Despite the clean suit, I must be quite a fucking sight. Tall and tattooed. Bloodshot eyes and blood-stained throat. Carrying a bottle of booze like I’m about to club somebody with it.

If anyone gets too close to me right now, I probably will.

It’s a short walk from the car to the big, wooden door of the building, but Rowan and I are soaked by the time we step inside. My hair is plastered to my skull. I scrape it back from my face with my free hand.

“Darragh?”

Ahead, a short man wearing glasses and a brown suit is standing beside a priest. I recognize him at once, even though I haven’t seen him in years. He was Grandda’s lawyer, and was one of the only people in this world Grandda trusted. He’s the one who called Rowan with the news, and who put this funeral together.

“Murphy,” I grunt.

James Murphy says something quiet to the priest, who nods and then departs.

“Come on, then,” Murphy says, sighing and adjusting his glasses. “He’s in the other room.”

Not sleeping has turned my brain into fucking soup, because I almost ask him, “Who is?”

But all at once, I know exactly what he means.

My grandda’s corpse is waiting for me.

Murphy eyes the bottle in my hand. He looks like he might say something about it, but holds his tongue and leads the way. Our wet shoes pad damply over old, burgundy carpet towards a large set of closed doors. Rowan goes ahead of both of us, yanking them open and checking to make sure nobody’s hiding behind the casket with a gun ready to blow my head off.

He turns and nods back at me, and we all head into the main area of the church.

It’s old. Musty. The pews are worn. The casket is straight ahead.

I’m not afraid. Wouldn’t last long in my line of work if I were scared shitless of a lifeless corpse. Usually, I feel some sort of satisfaction when presented with the dead. A soothing of the soul – if I’ve got one, that is.

And it’s usually because I’ve killed them.

I walk down the aisle between the pews, and in that moment I swear to myself that I’m not marrying Valentina in a fucking church. In a hotel, in a garden, standing in my own fucking grave, I don’t give a shit. But not in a place like this.

The aisle seems to stretch on forever, and yet suddenly, I’m with him. The casket is open, ready for viewing. I refused to hold a wake at his townhouse, so they’ve put him on display here.

I stare down at his greyish face, barely warmed with what has got to be a layer of makeup meant to imitate life.

I don’t even realize I’m speaking until I hear my own rasped words in the room.

“When I’m dead, don’t put me on display in a fucking box.”

I blink, and suddenly I’m the one in the casket.

I wonder what Valentina would do.

Would she cry over my corpse?

Or fucking spit on it?

I blink again, taking a moment to scrunch my eyes shut. When I re-open them, it’s Callum Gowan lying there once more. Not me.

He looks older than when I last saw him. Smaller. Or maybe I’m just bigger. He’s dressed in a suit not unlike my own. His hands are peacefully folded, one over the other, on top of his stocky chest. They’re hands I’m much more used to seeing curved into fists.

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