Page 64 of Corrupted Union

“Caitlin, can you hear me?” Oran asked.

“Yes.” The single word was eerily toneless.

“Did you tell someone where Brody Byrne would be on the night of his death?”

None of us took a breath as we waited for her response.

“Yesss,” she slurred. “It was too perfect to pass up. Flynn was so excited when I called.” Pride lit her face.

A muscle twitched in Oran’s jaw—the only sign he gave that what she’d said had bothered him. “Why did Flynn want Brody dead?”

“He killed Daddy, of course.” Her voice grew disturbingly childlike. “And to weaken the Byrnes. If the Byrnes are weak, the Donovans can rise.” Her arms floated upward.

Oran slowly shook his head. “And the guns? Did Flynn take the guns?”

“He needed them.”

“Why?”

“For the scarred man.” She now had every ounce of my attention. This confirmed that Flynn was a link to Damyon.

“What was his name?” Oran continued, likely wanting to confirm we were talking about the same scarred man.

Caitlin shrugged. “Don’t know. Flynn never said and wouldn’t let me join him at the meetings.”

Before Oran could continue, I held up my hand. “How did you know he had a scar, Caitlin?”

Her lips quirked up in the corners. “Because I snuck a peek once. Flynn wouldn’t tell me anything, and I was curious.” Her eyes remained shut, but her hand lifted as though touching something before her. “He was unlike anyone I’d ever seen. Like Jack Frost had come to life, carved from pure ice.”

“Do you know anything else about him like where to find him?” I pushed.

Caitlin shook her head. “He’s no one. Just a shadow, and shadows can’t be found.”

I sat back against the couch cushion, disappointment a boulder on my chest.

“What about Darina, the young server at Moxy?” Oran continued the interrogation. “Did you have something to do with her disappearance?”

“Your slut girlfriend?” She scoffed. “I got rid of her.”

“Why? What did it matter to you?”

“You had no right,” she said, a sneer teasing at her lips.

“To cheat? That’s rather hypocritical coming from a traitor.”

“No.” Her dilated eyes slowly opened and met his. “No right to happiness.” The emptiness in her voice made my blood run cold.

Oran, however, was somewhere beyond reach. As though nothing she said could touch him. “All you did was damn yourself,” he responded in an equally hollow tone. “Because I never touched that girl.”

Caitlin gave a limp shrug and closed her eyes again.

Oran peered around the room for a second, then walked to the kitchen and returned with a phone in his hand. “Is this your only phone, Caitlin?”

A devious grin slithered across her face. “No.”

“Where do you keep the other?”

“Inside my box of tampons.” She half chuckled, entertained by her own cleverness.

---