Page 18 of The Shadows We Keep

Moving on to Claire Fitzpatrick. The small, dark stone has a border with moss. It’s not as nice as Sean’s, or as detailed. The only information it bores is born January 14, 1982, died July 04, 2005. All that tells me is she died young. Local burial, possible local obituary. But that’s not what comes up in a google search with just her name and the date of death.

Something I never expected pushes through the search results to the top of the google page. A dreadfully outdated web page that doubles as a transcription for the local police scanner. That’s not what catches my eye. The black and white photo shows windows busted and shattered to the ground, police tape blocks the public from entering from either side of the street.

Officers mill about, frozen in movement, while one crouches at the entrance. A white sheet lays over a dead body, only a glimpse available from his viewpoint, not mine. The title of the article to the right reads:Tragedy Strikes at Willie’s’in big, bold lettering.It skims over the incident, nothing of importance noted. It’s the website creator’s follow up entry that has exactly what I need.

Our beloved local diner Willie’s was shot to pieces last week.

Closing the only place to get great pancakes in the neighborhood.

But the true loss was the young life of Claire Fitzpatrick,

a 23-year-old single mom.

Our sources tell us her eight-year-old daughter was present.

Her mother selflessly saved her life by stopping two bullets as she fell to the ground.

They transported the young girl to the local hospital and treated her for minor cuts and scrapes.

There’sno mention of who did it. Only a theory of a gang getting even with a drive by, but that was never confirmed. A twenty-three-year-old single mom with an eight-year-old daughter, dead. If Claire died in 2005 and her daughter was eight, that’d make the daughter twenty-three-ish now. The timelines match up. This has to be who Keira is visiting at the cemetery today. My body sags into the hard kitchen chair.

Jesus, my poor girl.

I slam the computer shut with a thud. The kitchen chair clangs against the hardwood floors in my escape to the gym. The glass knife case clatters open as I violently pull free my throwing knifes to let out the aggression rising in me.

It’s too much. Too close to the anniversary. Too much death. The cold metal calms my racing heart slightly as a trickle of sweat runs down my temple. Throw after throw, the sharpened metal glides from my fingers to meet their marks against the wall until my hands are empty. The whomping in my ears matches the quickness of my heartbeat as my chest heaves. My mouth runs dry from exertion.

I pick them out one by one as the last blade stacks in my hand. The heaviness breaks my illusion of calm, and my mind wanders back to what this week brings.

Fuck this, I need a drink.

The bell above the door dings as I push it open. Music from the speakers drum in the background as conversations drown it out. The dark bar top hides the metal stools lined neatly underneath, few people choosing to sit there during dinner when a full dining room is available.

The stool’s feet scrape against the stone floor as I drop onto it and wave down the bartender.

“Double, Jack. And keep them coming.” I drop a hundred on the counter and he nods his understanding. Three rounds down and the conversations around me have dulled. The drum solo of a 90s rock song moves my toes on their own as I keep time with the beat of the music.

Doing my best to numb my mind, another glass filled with amber liquid sloshes down in front of me.

“I can’t believe you won that giveaway. I didn’t get an email from work. God, I wish I had a personal car to drive me around the city whenever I needed.” The whinny voice behind me is annoying as hell.

But it’s the response that freezes me in place while I strain my ears.

“Do you really read your emails, or do you just select all and delete them?” Her muffled laughter has me sliding my gaze to the mirror behind the bar, giving me a perfect view of the two of them.

“Ugh, that’s not the point. If they wanted us to read a company email, they should have sent it to my work email. It’s not fair.” Her friend from the club pouts.

Her eyes light at her friend’s misfortune. “Life’s not fair, girl. Maybe it’ll be you next time?” She laughs.

I sit for hours, eyes glued to the reflections in front of me, zoning out completely to my surroundings, except for their conversation, that is easy enough to hear with how loud they are. A quick tap on the bar drops my gaze. “You want anything else? I’m closing out my shift.”

I shake my head and slide him a twenty. All thoughts of wasting away the night belligerently drunk lost the moment I heard her voice. He shakes his head slightly, untying the black apron around his waist.

“They’re drinking mules,” he shoots my way as he pockets the twenty.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Only to me, you haven’t moved since they sat down a couple of hours ago. Your eyes haven’t left the mirror, and you didn’t finish your last drink after downing three earlier back-to-back.”

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