“I am,” she said. “My husband and son and I are renting the McGutherie place.” She cleared her throat. “We’re on vacation here in Ireland.” The words felt absurd coming out of her mouth but she forced a smile to accompany them.
“The McGutheries,” he said, a moue of distaste forming on his lips. “Liam McGutherie is an idiot. I taught him for six years, you know.” He looked out the window. “Did well in London, I’m told. Bugger me. I never would’ve predicted it.”
Sarah stood up.
She didn’t know how long this new Seamus would last but in case this was a one-off, she really wanted to get him to Dierdre as soon as possible.
“What do you want to bring with you, Seamus?” she asked looking around the room. “Can you get yourself up while I look for a few things in the kitchen? Dierdre asked me to bring her pie pan especially.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, pulling back the bed covers. He stopped and looked up at her: “Who are you again?”
Thirty minutes later, Sarah had the pony trap packed and the cow tethered to a lead off the back. Seamus, although dressed, was still pottering about the house and Sarah began to feel the anxiety of wanting to be gone and on their way back to Dierdre and John. Although the thought crossed her mind that she could still make it to Balinagh today after she dropped Seamus off —on horseback this time—she knew that the fading light and quickly dropping temperatures made the idea a folly.
She waited for a moment by Little Ned’s head, holding him by his cavesson and willing herself to be patient—even got a comical image of herself waiting for David in their SUV while he did one last pass on checking the house—until she finally let her frustration get the better of her. She pulled the handgun out of her pocket, tossed it in the floor of the cart, and bounded up the porch steps.
“Come on, Seamus,” she called. “Let’s go. Lunch is on the table only it’s not this table.”
He walked toward her uncertainly, his gaze foggy and unsure.
“I’ve already put your valise in the cart,” she said, smiling and trying to make her voice sound reassuring and cheerful. A part of her wanted to grab him and physically propel him down the steps to the cart.
“Dierdre?”
“…is waiting for you at my place, remember? Have you got everything?” She touched his elbow and he moved toward the porch.
Chatting and smiling and gently nudging, Sarah got him off the porch and into the cart. She ran around the other side of it, jumped in and collected the reins.
“Off we go,” she said. Finally.
“Wait! Wait,” he said, grabbing the side of the cart.
“What is it?” She took a breath. “Can we talk about it on the road?”
“I left my glasses.” He touched his breast pocket where he’d tucked a slim book of poetry. “I can’t read without my glasses.”
This new clear-headed reading Seamus was kind of a pain in the ass, Sarah found herself thinking as she laid the reins back down.
“Right, yes, okay,” she said. “Where did you have them? In your bedroom?” She was already out of the cart and back up the porch steps, not waiting for an answer.
While she figured it was likely he’d go back to being catatonic before they even arrived at the cottage today, on the slim possibility he did remain clear and with it, she didn’t want to be the reason he spent the entire winter not being able to read. She ran to the bedroom and jerked open the nightstand. Nothing. She looked on the dresser tops, then on the floor in case they accidentally had fallen during his attempts to pack his valise. In exasperation, she was on her hands and knees looking under the bed, spending more time there than she’s planned, pushing past dust bunnies and old books, when she heard the sound of the gunshot.
It had come from where the cart was parked in front of the house.
Sarah froze.
Dear God, had Seamus found the gun? Her first instinct was to rush out onto the porch. Instead, she stood up, held her breath, and listened. If he’d shot himself, fifteen seconds more would not make the difference in the outcome of whatever makeshift first-aid she would be able to offer him.
Voices.
She heard voices coming from the front. Silently, she moved to the bedroom wall away from the window. Dierdre and Seamus’s bedroom faced the back garden with a view of the well and the back pasture, but she’d left the front door open in her hurry and the voices carried easily to her.
There were at least two, maybe more, male voices. Her hand went to her jacket pocket but she knew, before she even felt inside, that the gun would not be there.
Shit!
She took a breath and edged herself across the room to try to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside the front door. The last time she heard voices outside a cottage door, they had been friendly ones. Just because she was terrified didn’t mean these men were necessarily a threat to her.
The first thing she saw was the immediate absence of something that should have been there but wasn’t. The cow, tied to the back of the cart, sagged against the cart in a brown mountainous carcass. The results of the gunshot, she thought, her stomach roiling.
Not friends.
She pressed herself against the wall again and tried to think of what to do. She looked around the room for a weapon. The voices were louder now.
“We know you’re in there. Come out or we shoot the old man.”
Sarah saw a shadow cross the back window. She crouched down and duck- walked out of the room just as a man stuck his head in the bedroom window. She crawled into the kitchen and wrenched a drawer open. Dierdre had already taken most of the knives and what she hadn’t packed last week, were now sitting on the pony cart outside.
“She’s in there!” the voice called from the back of the house. “I just saw her.” The sounds of splintering wood indicated that the man was not bothering to walk around to the front to gain entrance.
Sarah grabbed the only thing she could find—a small rolling pin—and scrambled up onto the kitchen counter by the bedroom door.
“Behind you, Sean!” A voice from outside screamed. “She’s behind you!”
Too late for Sean, he turned to her as he entered the kitchen and caught the force of the bat full in the face. He reached up and wrenched the rolling pin away from her as Sarah vaulted across the counter for the living room. She didn’t know if there was any kind of a weapon there but all other avenues were blocked. In the back of her mind, as she ran, she heard the sound of another gun shot and this time she felt a sudden and final pressure between her shoulder blades that knocked the wind out of her. She lay, gasping, on Dierde’s living room rag rug, all audio turned off and the world reduced to a swirling maelstrom of color and motion.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They were arguing.
Three men, all of them seemingly talking at once. Sarah felt herself slide in and out of consciousness as she listened to the harsh voices. She was tied up and lying in the back of the pony cart. They had thrown most of the cart contents she had packed into the dirt. Seamus sat in front where she’d left him. The men had obviously assessed, correctly, that it would be more trouble to move him and that he posed no threat to them.
“Finn wants her alive, I tell you.”
“How do you even know she’s the one?”
“She’s American, you daft bugger. How many Yanks you think there are out here?” That brought about some sniggering. Sarah licked her lips. Her face felt bruised and swollen; her shoulder felt broken. The fact that they’d tied her up made her believe—hope—that she hadn’t been shot.