Page 3 of The Thief
"I found what you were looking for," he says. "Though you're not going to like it."
I've been paying this bastard for three weeks. Three weeks since Ava died, a bullet to her chest. She was dead before she even hit the ground.
I open the folder.
Inside is a marriage certificate. Two years old. Ava O'Sullivan to Trace Harrington. Boston address. My hands don't shake, but they should.
Two fucking years.
"She was living a double life," the PI says, lighting a cigarette like he's delivering weather reports. "Married to Harrington but kept the Dublin flat for when she was in town on business."
Business. Right. What kind of business requires lying to everyone you know?
There are more documents beneath the certificate. Bank statements showing regular transfers from Boston. Plane tickets; Dublin to Boston, Boston to Dublin, over and over for four years. A life I never knew existed.
Then the death certificate.
My breath catches when I see the report. She was pregnant when she died.
Fuck.
I stare at the dates. Four years she’s been going back and forth from Dublin to Boston. Four fucking years, and she’s been married to Trace for two of them. Christ. Ava was a fucking bitch, playing the both of us. Trying to keep me on the hook all while she’s got a husband across the fucking world. What the hell was she playing at?
"The husband's been asking questions too," the PI continues. "He hired his own people to look into her Dublin connections. You might want to keep your head down for a while."
I'm not listening anymore. He’s been looking at her connections with us? Does that mean she’s the fucking reason this shit has happened? Is she the reason why so many people have fucking died and everyone I care about is on edge, on alert? Because Ava was playing some twisted game?
Did I even know the woman? That’s the question that keeps spinning around my head. Many fucking times I saw different sides to her, but I always pushed it aside, thinking it was me fucking her around. Now I’m doubting what I know. Did she play me from the start?
"You alright?" the PI asks.
I close the folder, pay him what I owe, and walk out into Boston rain that feels like needles.
She was never mine. Never even close to mine. The question is: if she was married to that cunt, Trace, why did he kill her?
My phone buzzes. Henry Gallagher's details. Belfast. Some girl named Alastríona.
Maybe a job—any job—is better than drowning in London's gutters, waiting for the past to finally kill me.
I push off from the railing and start walking back toward my hotel. Time to pack. Time to remember what it feels like to be the Thief again.
Time to steal something other than moments I can't get back.
CHAPTER TWO
alastríona
Vittoria's parents have decided it’s time for her to get married.
Not to someone she loves. Not to someone she's chosen. To someone her family will pick out like they're ordering dinner. Within a year she'll be walking down an aisle to meet a stranger, and I'll lose the only person in Belfast who gives a damn whether I live or die.
"I’ve still got a year," she says over the phone, but her voice cracks on the words. "Maybe they’ll change their minds."
I'm lying on my bed in the flat above Murphy's, staring at water stains on the ceiling that look like faces in the dark. We both know her parents won’t change their minds. They’ll choose some Italian man who’s far too old for her.
"Maybe they will," I lie back. “You never know; stranger things have happened.”
She laughs but there's no humor in it. "Mam says whoever they choose will have a good family—like that matters when you've never laid eyes on the man."
