“No, it’s not. Private airfield. We have a car waiting to take you back to the house.”
“Oh,” I mumbled.
He only laughed, and I felt drunk as I was hustled off the plane, past a small hangar that only had one lonely light near a door on one end, and directly into the back seat of a fancy white car with doors that opened the wrong direction.
“What is this?” I asked slowly. A young man with carrot-red hair and big, curious eyes looked in the rearview mirror, then turned around to grin at me. His thin face was nearly pinched, but he seemed happy enough. He touched his hand to the bill of the blue baseball cap he wore.
“Mickey McCorkell, sir. I’m driving a Rolls Royce Phantom. I love this car. It’s practically a classic now, but the boss drags it out of the garage occasionally because it can take bullets like nobody’s business. Jamie says I’m—”
“Ye’re not paid to feckin’ talk to him,” Cillian snarled at the poor driver, who sank down in his seat and turned around fast. Fallon slid in beside me with Rowen’s help and that was that. No one else got in. I was confused as the car pulled away, and my consternation quickly morphed to anger.
“Aren’t they coming with us?” I asked our driver.
He glanced up into the rearview mirror again. “No? They said there’d be two to take to the Shaughnessy house.”
“Thank you.”
He nodded, looked like he wanted to say more but fixed his attention on the road. They’d sent me home with Fallon to keep me out of danger, after everything that had happened tonight. I turned and slapped my hand to the back of the seat, glaring at my men standing in a huddle together in the parking lot without me. Only Rowen had the decency to appear guilty. I glanced at Fallon and his head was lolling against the window, so I put a light hand on his shoulder to steady him in his seat.
“So, we’re back to telling me what to do and not talking to me about it, are we?” Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept much, but during the ride back to the house I got furious. I couldn’t calm down. I wanted to text something completely terrible to everyone who wasn’t in the car with me but stopped myself every time I reached for my phone.
When we arrived at the house a redheaded man waited near the front door in spotless white scrubs with a forced smile and tired eyes. I was happy to allow him to help me get Fallon inside. We didn’t try to move him upstairs, only took him in and laid him on the couch, where he was more than content to flop. He was so worn down he didn’t even talk, just moaned and patted my hand.
“Who are you?” I asked, bewildered that Cillian and Rowen had managed to call someone so soon.
“I work for Mr. Killough” was all the gentleman in the scrubs said—every single time I asked.
“In what capacity?” I finally asked in frustration after my fourth attempt to get a straight answer from him. “Either you tell me or go.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Name’s Rory. I’m a doctor. Basically this. I’ll get Fallon checked over, see if he needs more care than I can provide.”
So, Fallon was looked at again, which was good, but I paced the house. After a while I showered and that didn’t help. A war was breaking out in New York City. Part of me was in a freefall because I wished I could document every second of this, and the rest of me was terrified someone would think I was doing exactly that. I’d never beenafraidbefore, not really, but I had four men I didn’t want to lose, and I’d seen firsthand the consequences of taking all this violence lightly. I finished up, dried myself off, and then went out into Rowen’s bedroom, where most of my clothing had found a new home, and stared at his closet.
I didn’t like being scared.
But my father was dead.
And I’d been avoiding talking about it, but Fallon had brought it up again. I’d managed to shove my misery out of my mind for a while. Maybe I hadn’t been doing a very good job. I leaned heavily against the wall and studied my suits next to Rowen’s. I glanced around the room and felt like I’d never been here before in my life.
“What am I doing?” I stared at my right hand and the bruise on my knuckles. I was changing. I didn’t mind, but I wasn’t the same man who’d come to this house a few months ago. I let out a long breath. My phone rang and I chased the noise to where my dirty clothes were in a pile on the floor near the bed. I fished the phone out of the pocket of the pants.Lorcan O’Guinnflashed on the screen.
I called him back, and when he picked up, I said, “Yes?”
“Dr. Mifflin?”
“What can I do for you, Lor?”
He laughed and it sounded strained, which was bad. Immediately anxiety rolled through me, twice as much as when I’d heard there was a war breaking out. I was messing something up, I could tell by his tone.
“What did I do this time?”
“Well, do you happen to remember you were supposed to be a guest speaker at the Historical Society ice-cream social they’re holding on campus in the formal dining room at Briar Hall?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” I ran a hand through my wet hair. “No, I don’t recall that at all.”
“Great. Just great. Can you get here sometime in the next hour and a half? We can put them off by having someone else go on before you, but Dr. Atmeyer is mad. Scratch that. He’s two steps away from a stroke. I put this in your online calendar and your phone. How did you miss it?”
“Why are they having ice cream at half past eight on a Sunday morning?” I glanced at the window where the sun was struggling to peek out through gray clouds.
