“We didn’t have anything to do with him getting set free! Keely, you have to believe me. My father didn’t even associate with him after he was arrested!”
Those words seemed trapped in a tunnel, and like the day I’d passed out in that two-way observation-mirror room, the further I got from the memory, the less my hands trembled.
Either way, the man who had killed my sister and grandparents had been a close family friend of the Stone’s, and it was something Scott had neglected to tell me. After he found out who I was, it was the first thing he should’ve admitted to me.
Maybe his family had something to do with the man walking free. Maybe they didn’t. But I had deserved to know, especially given the fact that my mother and father would’ve recognized his name as soon as I’d introduced them.
My mother and father knew exactly who Cash Kelly was when I’d introducedhim. I should’ve told her about my wedding, but she definitely should’ve told me about our history with the Kelly family.
After setting down my lipstick on the bathroom counter, I slipped my feet into a pair of gold heels. Kelly and I had another fancy event to attend, and I chose another green dress to wear. It was my signature color.
The color of his eyes.
Instead of waiting for him at home, though, I decided to meet him at Sullivan’s. It wasn’t a far walk, and the weather had been nice all day. And I wanted to talk to him in a more private setting. After Scott had insinuated that Kelly’s mother was still alive, he had been quiet, and I assumed he was thinking over the possibility.
Why would anyone lie about that, though? His own father? Father Flanagan, too? What did his twin have to say about all of this?
I followed the sound of voices down to the kitchen. Maureen and the kids had been staying with us since the day of the bullshit warrant. She came that night with just two bags between all three of them.
Right before my arrest, I had been outside getting another paint can out of my car when I’d seen her walking. She told me she was going to pick up Ryan, and I suggested that she and the kids come to stay with us for a while, just until Ryan was completely out of the woods.
Maureen seemed like a woman who refused to ask for help, because she was always strong enough to do it on her own, but I worried about how tired she looked. And I loved having the children around. So I was glad when she gave in.
Cash and I were leaving the next day for Mari and Mac’s wedding in Italy. I was going to miss the three of them something fierce. Even in such a short time, they filled the house with something that felt warm. When I thought about being separated from them, something in me went cold.
For the first time since I came to live with Kelly, the house was starting to feel like mine, too.
Maureen stood at the stove, stirring something that smelled like cabbage, and when she saw me, she whistled. “Fox!”
“You’re Jessica Rabbit in green,” Raff said. He sat at the table with CeeCee, coloring.
CeeCee giggled, and the three of us, in our own ways, acknowledged it without trying to shine a huge light on it. It was the same reaction she had when she first saw her room—it didn’t take long for the shock to turn into pure happiness. The kind all kids should have.
I went to check on Ryan, who was asleep in the bassinet we kept in the kitchen. I’d taken one look at him when Maureen brought him home and my heart seemed to grow.
All was okay in our home, so I told them I’d see them later and went to leave. Raff stopped me. “Where’s Cash?”
“I told him I’d meet him at Sullivan’s. Why?”
“I’ll walk you,” he said. He turned to CeeCee. “Don’t color her hair. That’s my favorite part!”
She took out a dark purple color and put it between the pages of his book, knowing that he gave the princesses cool hair colors.
We talked books the entire way to the restaurant, and once there, he watched me go inside and then turned back toward our place. I took a seat at the bar and ordered two whiskeys neat.
“Would you like something to eat, Mrs. Kelly?” the old barman asked me.
“No,” I said. “Not yet. I’m waiting on Cash. We’ll order together.”
He nodded and went to check on a guy sitting two seats down from me.
Sullivan’s had been in the neighborhood for years and years. It was a place that still held on to its old-world charm. I remembered seeing a picture of my Mam and Da sitting at the bar with a bunch of friends. Mentally, I went through all of the faces, and a few seconds later, it dawned on me—one of them was Ronan Kelly.
The thought of Cash’s old man made me look to my left. Molly, Ronan's widow, and Brian Grady, who I'd heard was Lee's uncle, were sitting at a table together. They were a couple, which kind of surprised me, because from what I understood, the feud between the Kellys and the Gradys was the stuff legends are made of.
I was never curious enough about Molly to make an effort to get to know her, but Brian was...different. For instance, he was holding a dart, and instead of throwing it, he was trying to get the sharp part underneath the first layer of skin on his pointer finger. Like the dart was a needle.
He was also missing the middle digit of his right hand.
