Page 22 of The Irish Redemption

There’s no body in there, not anymore. It’s okay. It’s okay.

Gripping the handle, I take a deep breath and hold it as I open the door.

No dead body. Thank God.

As I breathe out in a rush and step inside, the stink of copper and iron assaults my nose and I gasp painfully, then turn on the light.

In a second, the bathroom lights up and my heart breaks for the sight before me. When I discovered the body, I didn’t register much about the place other than the body, but now it’s hard to miss anything. Dried blood stains the tub, the floor, and the walls. There are splatters on the mirror and up the bowl of the toilet. It’s horrific for me, and I can’t imagine how painful it must be for Cormac.

He remains silent.

I want to turn the phone around and take a look at his face, but I can’t.

“He was there,” I say softly, and the urge to comfort him rises. “In the tub.” A tremor shoots down my hand, and I wrestle with my own thoughts as the memory of his rigid fingers and that gaping wound burst into my mind.

Cormac still doesn’t speak, and then Hank’s voice comes across the call. “Check the vent.”

I do as commanded, searching for the same clues that Cormac mentioned before, but again, there is nothing. With Hank’s guidance, I search the room from top to bottom. We check the lining of the wallpaper for any disturbances, check for loose ceiling or floor tiles, pull apart the pillowcases, and even unthread some of the towels, but there is nothing.

The place is empty.

“Alright,” Cormac says eventually, and my heart lifts unexpectedly to hear his voice again. “That’s enough. Get out of there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Meet us back at the car.”

The call ends before I can turn the camera back around, and I’m suddenly left in the silence of the room. I’d really hoped we would find something that would give Cormac answers or a direction on how to get them, but instead, all I’ve given him is a first-hand look at where his brother was murdered.

Maybe he’ll kill me just for that.

Defeat sits heavily on my shoulders as I slip out of the room and head down the corridor. It’s not until I get to the second stairwell that I realize I feel oddly calm. The fear from before has simply faded away, replaced with the heavy sensation that I’ve let Cormac down in some way.

Why? I barely know the guy, yet I want to help him so badly, and not just to secure my own freedom.

Is it because he’s attractive?

I immediately roll my eyes at the thought. It doesn’t matter that he’s attractive. What matters are his actions.

So caught up in my thoughts as I hurry through the motel, I don’tnotice that someone is standing in the side entrance to the parking lot until I hurry past them with my head down.

“Evelyn?”

I don’t hear him at first, making a beeline across the parking lot while mapping out in my mind how to get back to Cormac’s car. Suddenly, a hand grabs my arm and jerks me to a stop so sharply that a squeak of surprise escapes my throat.

“Evelyn!”

I spin around, trying to pull my arm free, and my eyes widen when I lock eyes with the culprit.

“Dillon?”

9

CORMAC

Nothing could have prepared me for the carnage in that bathroom. I knew the details of his death, to an extent, but seeing the blood stains in the bathroom and knowing my brother died there broke my heart. I couldn’t breathe and ended up passing the phone to Hank just to get the world around me to stop spinning.

I’d climbed out of the car and paced back and forth along the length of the vehicle, trying to get my thoughts in order. Of all the places to die, he had to choose this fucking shithole. And to die the way he did? The only thing that makes sense is that it was someone he knew, someone who was able to get close enough to him to slit his throat. My brother was one hell of a fighter, and I know deep down in my gut that it was either someone he knew or someone with a lot of backup.

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