I grunted out a nod and looked at Henry one more time before leaving. I didn’t know how Maddie had done it all these years. How she walked away time and again.
It was time I sat down and had a long talk with my daughter about my grandson and how we were going to get him back.
Chapter Eleven
Cian
As I rode the train back to Boston, I pulled out my phone to check Caity’s cameras. I slipped my earbuds into my ears to drown out the background noise so I could concentrate on her.
I clicked through the cameras until I found her in Eamon’s office. I watched her brow furrow as she studied whatever she was looking at. She bit her lip and set the paper on the desk before dropping her head into her hands.
Sal hadn’t said anything about her being in Eamon’s office, which meant he still didn’t know. I should have told him, but I wanted to know what she’d found first.
The ringing of her phone made her head snap up. She shuffled the papers, looking for the source of the noise, and when she finally found it and looked at the number, her shoulders slumped.
“Hello?” she answered and then closed her eyes. “No.” She sat back in the chair with a look of defeat on her face. “I don’t know what you think I can tell you. I haven’t found anything about that.”
The way her eyes traveled to the filing cabinet told me she was lying to whomever she spoke to.
“I told you that if I found something, I would let you know.” Her frustration was rising, and despite promising not to dig into her phone, I didn’t have a choice. She was involved in something, and it was my job to protect her. The way I always had.
“Dinner? Why?” She listened as the caller gave her their reason for wanting to meet in person. “I told you; you can trust me. I won’t tell them.”
Fuck that. You will tell me everything, Caity.
I looked toward the front of the train, willing it to move faster along the track.
“Fine,” she relented. “Seven o’clock.” Caity disconnected the call and set the phone down with a heavy sigh. She stood up from her chair behind the desk and walked across the room. Standing in front of the filing cabinet, she hesitated.
She looked around the room, her eyes staring into mine for a brief moment before she shook her head and opened the drawer.
“I don’t know what you thought you were doing, Dad, but until I know, no one gets this information.”
Caity removed multiple file folders and left the office. I quickly clicked through each screen until I found her in the kitchen. She opened the pantry door and walked inside.
Eamon had never cooked a day in his life, but he enjoyed food, and he’d had a housekeeper who knew her way around the kitchen. He’d built this pantry for her. Not because she asked him to, but because he benefitted from it.
I’d almost neglected to put a camera in the pantry. The only reason I did was my need to see Caity anywhere. Any time of day. I watched as she pulled multiple plastic gallon-size bags from the shelf and rolled each folder, stuffing the information inside.
One file per bag.
She opened the large container of what I assumed was flour or sugar and shoved a bag deep inside, then did the same with another container. After leaving the pantry, she opened the freezer and pulled a frozen pizza out of it, carefully opening the box and shoving a bag inside.
She moved meticulously through the house, hiding each file in a different room. I wondered if she did this every time sheleft the house, or did she have a sense that her meeting was nefarious?
When there were no folders left, I clicked out of the camera app and called Liam.
“Hey, boss, what do you need?”
“Liam, I want you to sit on Caity’s house. Head over there now, and when she leaves, follow her. Don’t let her see you.”
“You want to know where she’s going?”
“I want to know where she’s going and who she’s meeting. And I want her to get home safely.”
“So if...” He let the question linger, and I smiled.
“If you have to interfere, then by all means do what needs to be done to protect Caity.”
