Page 6 of The Irish Redemption

I remain stationary on top of the steps, staring out at the busy streets still heaving with life despite the late hour. It’s surreal to see people going on with their lives as if there hasn’t been a murder.

And yet, I understand it. I can’t count how often I’ve seen a death on the news and brushed it off as nothing. Only this time, it’s tangled up in my life and I saw something I will never forget.

I start walking, loosely planning my route home as my thoughts turn back to the body despite my best efforts. His face is still a blur to me, and that wound is as clear as ever. It’s seared into my mind as if my thoughts fell victim to the same blade that cut his throat.

Digging in my pockets, I retrieve my phone and Google the motel. The murder has hit the news already. I scan articles as I walk, but there’s no mention of me, thank God. Is that a good sign? Maybe the cops don’t see me as the culprit if it’s not in the news.

I hope so.

Next, I search how to deal with seeing a dead body, searching to see if my growing numbness and lack of memory of his face are common reactions, but I don’t get my answer.

Two steps down the next street and suddenly, someone slams into me so hard that all air is forced from my lungs in a rapid grasp. The impact sends my phone flying from my fingers and I stumble sharply, rolling over my ankle while I fight to regain balance.

I don’t stand a chance. Before I can suck in a breath, arms lock around my body and lift me upward as a black car screeches to a stop at the roadside. The door swings open.

Terror grips me like a vise and I can’t scream. I have no air in my lungs, and the tight grip across my body prevents me from gaining the space to breathe. I kick my legs and another set of hands grabs them.

“No!” tears from me in a hoarse, weak gargle as I’m dragged into the darkness of the car and the door slams heavily behind me.

3

CORMAC

“Please! No, no, please!”

The woman gasps haggardly, choking on her own air as she fights against the man holding her down in the seat. Her eyes are so wide in terror, reminding me of a dog fighting on its last legs. She throws out her arms, desperately trying to reach the door handle, but she is missing by an inch. Still she begs, still she screams and gasps like a yapping puppy unable to understand the will of its master.

“Shut her up,” I order quietly.

Hank, the burly man holding the woman down, obeys in an instant. One well-aimed hit to the back of the head, and she slumps forward like a rag doll, unconscious and silent.

I breathe slowly and focus on the gold lighter between my fingers. Flipping it back and forth is the only thing that grants me momentary peace. The car sways back and forth as we weave through traffic. Hank, my bodyguard, eases the woman back against the chair and sets about wrapping a seatbelt around her body.

“So this is her.”

“Aye.” Hank nods once.

Her olive skin flares briefly under each passing streetlight. Dark lashes rest against tear-stained cheeks where her makeup streaks near her chin just under her full red lips, likely from crying. Black hair frames her sleeping face, and Hank smooths out a few strands after untangling them from the seatbelt.

I rotate the lighter and slide my thumb over the seam between body and lid. I didn’t know what to expect when I heard that there was a witness, someone the cops were overly interested in. She looks nothing like I expected, and yet I’m not sure what I did expect.

“Search her pockets. I want to know who she is.”

As Hank obeys, vibrations against my thigh pull my attention. I pull out my phone, and my heart immediately sinks to the dark depths of my gut when I see who is calling. It’s a call I have to take but one I absolutely do not want to.

The lighter rotates faster in my fingers as I answer. “Ma.”

“Is it true?” My mother’s agonized tone floods my ear. “Tell me it isn’t true, Cormac. Please, for the love of God, tell me it isn’t true.”

My throat is dry, my tongue is fat and useless in my mouth, and I search the passing world through the tinted windows for any kind of distraction. I’d take a pocket of no cell service, a cop car stopping us, or even a car crash. Anything to stop me from saying what I have to say.

My ribs become barbed wire, painfully closing around my pounding heart as my lips part and I speak the dreaded words.

“It’s true, Ma. Brenden is dead.”

The agonizing wail of pain that comes from my mother is enough tobring burning tears to my eyes, and I swallow thickly to keep the terrible grief at bay.

“No!” she wails. “Not Brenden. Not my baby! No!”

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