Today was going to be epic, one way or the other.
It started ordinarily enough.
I went into the pub, had Ronan's full Irish, and watched Dee argue with a delivery driver about the provenance of some smoked salmon that she'd apparently seen through immediately.
She was magnificent. The produce man left looking like he needed a lie-down.
"Morning." She dropped into the stool across from me.
"You're frightening," I told her.
"Thank you." She poured herself a coffee. "Brad texted me. Three news outlets?"
"Your call," I said. I meant it.
She looked at me steadily for a moment—that way she had, like she was taking a measurement she'd take several times before trusting. Then she nodded. "Local first. Irish independent. No tabloids." She pulled her laptop toward her. "I'll handle it."
I watched her start typing and thought, not for the first time, that Dee Gallagher was going to handle it all just fine.
The call came at half eleven. My phone, not the pub's.
I didn't recognize the number, but the voice on the other end was smooth in the way that expensive lawyers are smooth—practiced, frictionless, designed to make you feel like this was all very reasonable.
"Mr. Caldwell. My name is Fergus Hartley. I'm calling on behalf of Shamrock Global Ventures. We understand you've been making some rather significant property purchases in the Ballybeg area."
"I have," I agreed pleasantly.
"We'd very much like to discuss the situation inperson. I happen to be in the area. I believe you're familiar with The Banshee's Rest?"
Behind the bar, Dee was watching me. She'd figured out, from the way I'd gone still, that this was not a social call.
"I know it," I said. "Come on in."
Hartley arrived thirty minutes later with Cillian O'Farrell at his shoulder like an expensive shadow.
Cillian, to his credit, walked into the pub with the confidence of a man who hadn't been ejected from it multiple times. To his detriment, everyone in the pub clocked him immediately, and the temperature in the room went down several degrees.
"Dee," Cillian said, smooth as ever.
Dee looked through him.
I stood and extended a hand to Hartley. "Jax Caldwell." I pointed to Dee, who was behind the bar. “And that is my girlfriend, Deirdre Gallagher, also the owner of this fine establishment.”
“Girlfriend?” Cillian demanded, going pale.
The Shamrock Ventures man spoke over Cillian. "Fergus Hartley." His handshake was the kind you practiced. "Thank you for seeing us."
"Let's get on with it." I gestured to the table in the corner.
Dee stayed behind the bar. I winked at her. She shook her head, smiling.
We all sat down. Me on one side. Fergus and the gobshite on the other.
The pub had gone quiet. It didn't look like it had gone quiet—people were still drinking, Saoirse was still moving between tables—but every person in The Banshee's Rest was now paying close attention to the table in the corner.
This was the thing about Ballybeg. It had the best-camouflaged collective attention of any group of people I'd ever encountered.
Fergus laid it out efficiently. They'd noted my property acquisitions. They'd run the numbers. I'd purchased enough land and helped enough local owners hold their ground that the resort project was now, in their assessment, "significantly complicated." He used that phrase twice.Significantly complicated.
