Her phone pinged a notification right as she reached the store’s front entrance.
Jonathan: Will you meet me today?
Christ Almighty, he’d been asking that same question since the day after the charity event.
Mags: I’m working all day, and Mirren is coming into town tonight. I don’t know if you’re in some type of therapy that encourages apologies all around, but let me assure you, yet again. We have been friends since we were children, and we’re friends now. Nothing has changed.
Jonathan: Everything has changed.
Mags: Whatever epiphany you’ve had, keep it to yourself. We’ll meet up when all of our friends get together again.
Jonathan: Please, Mags.
She gritted her teeth and breathed deeply, trying for calm. Whatever his angle was, she wanted no part.
Jonathan: Tomorrow?
Mags: I’m working all day.
Jonathan: Tomorrow night?
Mags: I bartend Friday and Saturday until the wee hours of the morning.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Why did she tell him that? Too much information for a nosy O’Faolain.
Mags: Leave me alone, Jon. Honestly, this is getting old. I’m sure you have a Rolodex full of willing women to live in your self-important bubble with you. Don’t text me again about this, or I will block you. We are friends. We have only ever been friends. Perhaps you should review the lessons you’ve been dishing out to me for years. The rules have been crystal clear since that New Years.
Mags turned her phone off and shoved it into her tote, vowing to herself to put Jonathan O’Faolain’s bullshit behind her.
An hour later, she and Nasir were entering the gallery’s back entrance, silently, of course, since Nasir refused to engage in so much as a comment about the weather.
Before she’d taken four steps, Nasir’s strong arm had wrapped around her waist and swung her behind him. And then she saw what he had. “Damn it.” It was a dead cat broken on the top step and partially lying over the top landing outside her door.
The hair on her body stood like frozen soldiers, and her breathing became choppy the longer her eyes raked over the poor, black-haired creature.
Mags laid her hand on Nasir’s forearm. “It’s okay. This type of thing has happened a few times since I’ve worked here. I let the gallery manager know that there must be a structural issue allowing all the animals in.
“This poor girl must have fallen or something,” she added, while looking up at the high wooden beams. Even though a cat falling to its death did seem highly unlikely. Still…
“Let’s get you and your packages inside, Miss Morrow, then I will dispose of the carcass.”
“Oh, you don’t have to, Nasir. Let me drop my bags off upstairs, and then I’ll do it. I’m sure you’ve had enough of babysitting me.”
He only watched her, expressionlessly. She sighed at his continued silence. He was taller than Mags, but not as tall as Eze or Jonathan. Still, he appeared lean and strong, with a strong face and lovely high cheekbones. His complexion was paler than most Nigerians she’d encountered, and his eyes were a lovely greenish brown.
He waited until she entered the attic before he bent to pick up the poor cat. Christ, Mags shuddered, the amount of death on her stairs was becoming creepy as hell.
eighteen
JONATHAN
Jonathan openedthe heavy wooden door to Triskelion Territory Design that sat next door to the O’Faolain’s four-story family home. He was out of breath from jogging the three blocks from the restaurant where he’d been eating lunch with one of his colleagues from the architecture firm where he worked.
His mom had texted him that his dad was in an important meeting and she hated to interrupt him, and that she had an emergency with the office’s kitchen plumbing. However, Jonathan would have sworn that his dad and uncle Bran met Ciaran and Cormac Murphy for lunch at their pub. He decided not to mention that she had interrupted his lunch meeting.
The moment his body crossed the threshold, his forward momentum came to a grinding halt. His mother and her two lookalike sisters were at their desks, watching the door with wide eyes.
Triskelion was the Byrne sisters’ interior design business, with the office's stunning interior paying homage to their Irish and Native American heritage. His eyes darted around the space, seeing nothing out of place. No river of water flowing overthe office’s hardwood floors. He glanced at his phone’s screen, where he’d pulled up how to shut off the water supply, and shook his head. Obviously, the YouTube tutorial wasn’t needed.
