Page 68 of Christmas with the Irish Devil
“She didn’t need force,” I say. “She waited until Aoife drank what she was given, then told anyone who asked that she was taking her outside for air. And she walked her straight to the van.”
Outside, Evan crouches by the curb. “Two sets of tire marks,” he says. “One peeled out fast.” He holds up a pouch with a scrap inside—red torn on the bias, metallic thread in the hem. “Caught here.”
I take it between finger and thumb and the last month stands up in the light. Siobhan in crimson at the Conservatory. The left-knee hitch. The old burns on her arms. The laugh that was too bright. The cemetery visits on Thursdays when her rota said Wednesday.
“Confirm,” I tell him, though I already have. “Pull her bag. She would not keep everything in her pockets.”
Within the hour it comes back—a canvas satchel with a garment bag torn at the hem, a tin that smells of sugar and pennies, red ribbons cut to length, and silver tokens that shine in the bad light—wrens, small bells, a harp, a thimble, a decorative coin.
“She killed them,” I say. “And she took Aoife.”
The hotel security chief looks at the little harp and crosses himself because a man will reach for whatever he has when a pattern finally says its name.
I call the detail lead and he answers on the first vibrate. Liam is home, the fox lamp is on, the shark blanket is up to his chin, the nanny sits with a book and a man sits with a radio and the songs are working better than any sermon. Two more men havetaken the garden below the nursery window and two have taken the hall and there are cars at the gate and at the back lane and a quiet in the house that is approval rather than fear. I breathe once and put the phone away.
“Traffic grid,” I tell Evan. “All reds in a radius. The van has to stop somewhere that has a camera and a bored cruiser.”
The city map flowers in squares. We follow the van like a story told out of order. It moves south and west, cuts across a blind block where cameras are only signs, reappears three streets over where the asphalt shines under a floodlight, hesitates, continues, then nothing.
“Drop a net,” I say. “Every bridge, every underpass, every lane with a toll. Wake the man who moves trash at midnight. Wake the clerk who rents vans for cash with a photocopy and a shrug. Pull every contract from the last six hours that matches a white panel with a logo that is trying too hard.”
The hotel sends a still from B2. The security jacket figure turns the head just enough for a profile and the braid that fits under a cap if you are patient. The braid swings with the weight of a bell rope. I have seen it every morning service of every busy week.
“Siobhan,” I say, and the room hears the sentence.
A staff runner finds me in the service hall, eyes nervous because he knows he has held something too long. “Sir—I saw her earlier. The one in the red dress. She was speaking with another woman in the lobby before the guests came up.”
“What woman?” I ask.
He hesitates, then describes her. Tall, hair swept back in a way that belongs to another decade, voice measured, the kind that makes you stand straighter without knowing why.
“Show me,” I say.
Security scrolls the feeds. The grainy camera catches it clean enough—Siobhan leaning close to a woman in a dark coat withher hair in a knot, pale cheekbones sharp in the winter light. My mother’s profile, unmistakable even in poor resolution.
Seamus’s message lands on my screen minutes later, carrying the weight of confirmation. Two items. First, a florist ledger on Dorchester Avenue, a cash order thirty-one days ago for silver tokens markedSt Stephen set—wrens, bells, harps—collected under the name Kelleher. Second, the receipt number duplicated in a parish donation book at St Aidan’s, listed as part of my mother’s giving for an altar arrangement.
She is not here. She does not have to be. Her shadow is enough.
She is not in this room. She will never be seen in this kind of room. Her hand loves distance. Her money prefers to wear church clothes.
I keep my hands from shaking by making a promise to every bone I own. I will find Aoife. I will bring her home. I will burn whatever road lies between those two sentences until the ash blows out to sea.
29
AOIFE
Light comes back like a mistake. My head pounds in slow, ugly waves. My mouth tastes of citrus and something bitter that pretends to be clean. I try to lift my right hand and rope bites my skin. The chair under me is wooden and mean, the legs uneven on stone. The air is cold and damp and smudged with wax.
When I open my eyes, the ceiling isn’t a ceiling. It’s a ribbed arch, shallow and old, the kind churches hide in their basements when they forget what to do with the dead. The walls are stone that sweats. Candles sit in a sloppy army along a ledge, their light jumping around the room like a fever. On a table in the corner, a bowl of melted wax shines like skin. Beside it, a knife rests on a folded linen napkin. The blade is narrow, old-fashioned. The handle looks like something an aunt kept in a drawer and never used.
“Good,” a voice says. “You’re awake.”
Siobhan steps out from behind a pillar like a ghost that knows it looks good in low light. Her hair is slicked back, pinned in place with silver combs that catch the candle and throw it. She wears a dress that used to be crimson and is now the color of anargument. Her heels click once against the wet stone and then she kicks them off with a little sigh, like this is a sleepover and we’re about to paint each other’s nails.
“Head hurts?” she asks, almost tender.
“You drugged me at my own party,” I say, voice raw around the edges. “So yes.”
