Now You See Her

TWENTY-TWO


IT WAS ALMOST ELEVEN o’clock by the time Marcy made it back to the flat of the city. She was exhausted; her clothes reeked of her spilt beer; there was a bloodstain on her sleeve she doubted would wash out; her feet ached; her head ached more. What the hell is the matter with me? She berated herself, picking an errant chip of broken beer bottle from the silver threads of her sweater and flicking it to the road. Had the garda seen it? she wondered. Probably not, she decided in the next breath. If he had, he never would have let her go. “When did I get this stupid?” she asked out loud.

You were always naive, she heard Judith say.

“I’m not the one who got married five times,” Marcy reminded her. Then, “Great. Now I’m talking to myself.” She shook her head. Beats talking to the police, she thought, grateful to be out of the officer’s car, more grateful he hadn’t hauled her off to the station for further questioning. What was it with the Irish police force anyway? Did they have nothing better to do with their time than harass innocent tourists?

Okay, maybe not so innocent. And the young garda had seemed genuinely concerned with her welfare. Was there a problem? he’d asked solicitously. Was she hurt? Had she been accosted? What was she doing wandering the streets of Cork alone, in the dark, in the rain? Just how much alcohol had she consumed?

He’d made her sit in the front seat of his car for the better part of an hour, making small talk as the rain continued to pour down, asking politely whether he could see her passport, examining it closely as he talked about having a cousin in Hamilton named Dalton O’Malley, and did she know him, by any chance?

Marcy had explained that Hamilton was approximately an hour’s drive from Toronto and no, she didn’t know his cousin, although she was sure he was a very nice man, and could she please go now? The rain was tapering off, she’d sobered up, and she was anxious to get back to her hotel.

“What hotel?” he’d inquired.

“Hayfield Manor.”

“Nice hotel,” he’d remarked, obviously impressed. “I’ll take you there.” Except within seconds after he started his engine, a call had come in about a suspected break-in in the area.

“You go,” she’d told him, as if he required her permission. “I’ll be fine.”

Still he’d hesitated. “You’ll go straight back to your hotel?”

“I swear,” she said, then as soon as he was gone, “Goddamn it.” She shrugged. “Well, I swore,” she said, watching him drive away. Then, taking tiny baby steps, her weight on her heels, she approached the steep incline of St. Patrick’s Hill, feeling the strain on the back of her calves as she made her descent and recalling the words of her former tour guide: “Americans say it rivals the notorious streets of San Francisco.”

“They’re right,” she said now, skidding across a damp patch of concrete and pitching forward, her hands instinctively lifting into the air to prevent her from falling on her face. She continued in that posture for the rest of the way, her hands raised and wobbling at her sides, as if she were walking a tightrope. Which maybe I am, she thought, seeing St. Patrick’s Bridge in the near distance and continuing purposefully toward it, thinking she’d never been so happy to see a damn bridge in her entire life.

Judith used to be afraid of bridges, she suddenly remembered. For years her sister had refused to drive across them, which made getting places occasionally awkward and time-consuming. She couldn’t remember when this had ceased to be an issue, if indeed it had. Luckily for Judith, Toronto didn’t have that many bridges.

Grogan’s House was only blocks away and Marcy fought the almost unbearable urge to head toward it, continuing down St. Patrick’s Street toward Corn Market instead. What am I doing now? she wondered. I really am crazy.

Crazy bitch, she heard Kieran shout from somewhere behind her.

This is crazy, Judith said after him. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You have to accept reality.

“It’s your reality, not mine,” Marcy told her.

The reality is that Devon is dead.

“We don’t know that for a fact.”

Yes, Judith insisted. “We do.”

Judith had always been so sure Devon had killed herself. Was that why Marcy had never shown her Devon’s letter?

“Studies have shown that suicide frequently runs in families, that one suicide validates another,” Peter had pronounced, echoing the opinion of the psychiatrist he’d insisted she see.

“You think that just because my mother killed herself, that means our daughter did, too?”

“She paddled her canoe into the middle of the damn bay in the middle of bloody October. She wasn’t wearing a life jacket. She was depressed.…”

“She was happier than she’d been in months. You even commented that she seemed calmer, more peaceful.…”

“Studies have shown that people who have decided to kill themselves are often happier in the days leading up to their suicide,” he’d insisted.

“Have you always been such a pompous ass?” had been Marcy’s blistering retort.

Why hadn’t she shown Peter the letter?

She’d told herself that it had been addressed to her and her alone. “MOMMY,” Devon had written across its clean surface. But she’d always known such rationalizations were a lie. Peter was her husband. He’d deserved to see what Devon had written. Not sharing Devon’s letter with him had been the final nail in the coffin their marriage had become.

“It’s my fault he ran off with the stupid golf pro,” she said now, the sudden realization stopping her in her tracks.

Don’t be ridiculous, she heard her sister say, her voice emanating from a naked mannequin in the window of a nearby dress shop. Nobody forced him to have an affair.

“I shut him out.”

Big deal. Stop making excuses. You were right the first time—he’s a pompous ass.

“Which doesn’t make it any less my fault.”

Oh, please. Everything’s always your fault. Excuse me, but I think I prefer the crazy lady to the martyr.

“Excuse me,” the voice said again.

“What?” Marcy turned to see a couple of teenagers dressed entirely in black, tattoos covering the boy’s neck and creeping up into his tall mohawk, assorted piercings disturbing his girlfriend’s powdery complexion, both sets of lips working furiously, chewing gum as if their lives depended on it.

“Are you goin’ in or what?” the girl asked, transferring her weight from one foot to the other. Marcy noted her black fishnet stockings had holes in both knees.

“What?”

“You’re blockin’ the stairway,” the boy said.

“Oh, sorry.” Marcy stepped aside. It was only then she noticed the metal, hand-painted sign that said MULCAHY’S, its black arrow pointing toward the ground.

The basement door opened to admit the young couple and a jolt of loud rap music shot toward the street, causing Marcy to take a step back, as if she’d been pushed. Cigarette smoke blasted from the room as if from a furnace, the distinctive smell of marijuana racing up the steps to tease at Marcy’s nostrils. How many nights had Devon come home, that same sickly-sweet smell clinging to her clothes?

Was she here? Marcy wondered. Was her daughter somewhere in that dark, smoky basement right now, taking hits off clumsily hand-rolled cigarettes and gyrating to the murderously relentless hip-hop beat, her voice raised in unmelodious song, shouting hostile lyrics toward the dank, indifferent walls? Was she locked in a new lover’s arms, her hips grinding suggestively against his, her eyes glued to the door, waiting … watching …?

Well, hello there, Mommy. What took you so long?

It was just the sort of place Devon would be drawn to, Marcy was thinking as the door opened again and another wave of noisy exuberance rushed toward her on a cloying cloud of odoriferous smoke. So what am I waiting for? she wondered, starting down the steps and almost colliding with a blue-haired young woman who was staggering up, the girl’s heavily shadowed eyes frantically searching for a place to be sick.

The heavy steel door opened just as Marcy was reaching for it, dispensing two skinny young toughs whose long hair was plastered to their scalps with perspiration. “Tessa, you cow,” one of them shouted, “you’re not throwin’ up again, are you?”

“Excuse me,” Marcy said to the accompaniment of Tessa’s violent retching. She quickly pushed past the boys into the dark, pulsating room.

It took a few seconds for Marcy’s eyes to adjust to the almost total blackness, even longer before her lungs stopped stinging and she was able to breathe. There had to be at least a hundred people crowded into a space that comfortably held maybe forty at best. In the far corner of the room, a ghoulish-looking DJ was spinning records, combining rock and hip-hop, rap and the Rolling Stones. Everywhere people were dancing to the merciless beat. Others were merely jumping up and down in place, as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. There was a smattering of girls dancing with other girls, their boyfriends encouraging them from the sidelines while they swayed spastically and passed joints between them, everyone laughing and letting off steam, the steam rising and forming poisonous clouds around Marcy’s head, threatening to cut off her supply of air.

And then she saw them. They were standing against the back wall, their faces only intermittently visible above the wildly bobbing heads, their bodies so close together their flesh seemed to be joined. The boy was whispering something in the girl’s ear, and she was giggling, bringing the back of her hand to her mouth in an effort to contain her laughter, her eyes lifting coyly toward his and then quickly returning to the floor.

Marcy felt her heartbeat quicken as she skirted the wall, feeling like a sand crab as she sidled closer, her head down, trying not to draw any unwarranted attention to herself. She was almost beside them when she felt a hand clamp down on her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” a man said rudely, “but where do you think you’re goin’?”

Marcy reluctantly turned toward the powerful voice, praying it wasn’t another garda. She was careful to keep her chin low, her eyes downcast, her voice soft. Even from this submissive position she could see the man was massive, his chest muscular and expansive inside his black T-shirt, his biceps the size of boulders. “I’m sorry, I—”

“There’s a ten-euro cover charge,” the man said, holding out his large, sweaty palm.

Marcy quickly reached inside her purse and dropped ten euros into his hand. He promptly stamped the back of her hand and disappeared into the crowd. Marcy glanced around the room self-consciously, wondering if anyone had been watching their exchange and noting that she was at least two decades older than everyone else in the room. Had anyone noticed?

Pretending to be smoothing down her hair while covering her face with her fingers, Marcy raised her eyes and held her breath. Please let them still be here, she prayed, almost afraid to look. If the commotion had alerted them to her presence, if they’d recognized her and immediately taken off … “Please,” she whispered, the word escaping her lips and free-falling toward the floor.

They hadn’t moved.

Thank God, Marcy thought, drawing closer.

“I said, what do you think of all this?” she heard the boy shout toward his companion.

Marcy was suddenly grateful for the noisy crowd because it meant the boy had to yell to be heard. She just had to get close enough to eavesdrop without being detected.

“Never seen anything like it,” the girl shouted back.

“They don’t have places like this in Glengariff?”

“They don’t have much of anything in Glengariff.”

The boy continued after several seconds had elapsed. “So, Shannon, are you glad you came?”

“You know I am.”

“I know I’m glad,” Jax said.

Shannon lowered her head, her long, strawberry-blond hair falling across her thin nose. Jax’s hand immediately moved to tuck the hair behind her ear. Marcy’s gold earring glinted at her through the darkness.

Marcy gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth to block the sound. So it had been Jax, after all, who’d broken into her hotel room. Why? Stealing her earrings could only have been an afterthought, an opportunity he chose not to waste. What else had he been hoping to find? The photos? Devon’s letter? Or had the trashing of her room been a warning, a way of telling her to back off, leave town, leave her daughter alone?

“I thought Audrey was supposed to be joinin’ us,” she heard Shannon say.

“Guess she changed her mind. Are you disappointed?”

Shannon giggled. “No. Are you?”

“Nah. Kinda glad, actually.”

Marcy felt her eyes sting with tears. Audrey was supposed to he here, but she’d changed her mind. Once again she’d come so close, only to fall short.

Was there any chance her daughter might still show up?

“Do you think she’s got a fella?” Shannon asked.

“Audrey’s always got a fella,” was Jax’s terse reply.

“Do you know who he is?”

“Nah. She don’t say much about him. I think he’s older.”

“Older? Mr. O’Connor’s age, you mean?”

“Don’t know. She keeps talkin’ about how mature he is, that sort of shit. Anyway, who gives a f*ck? You’re here. That’s all I care about.”

Even in the dark, Marcy could see Shannon blush.

“It was a lucky thing you called when you did,” Shannon said.

“Yeah, I’m a lucky bugger all right.”

“I mean it was lucky you called today. Tomorrow, you’da missed me.”

“Are you goin’ somewhere then?”

“Over to Kinsale for a few days. Mrs. O’Connor’s got an aunt who’s not well.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

“Cancer.”

“My granddad died of cancer.”

“Mine, too. It’s so sad really.”

“So when will you be back?”

“Sunday night.”

“Oh, not so long then.”

“No. Only three days.”

“Still, I’ll miss you.”

“You will not. You’re just sayin’ that.”

“It’s the God’s honest truth. I like you a lot. What—you don’t believe me?”

Shannon giggled. “I don’t know.”

“You think I’d have given you those earrings if I didn’t?” Jax asked.

Another involuntary cry escaped Marcy’s lips. Jax’s head immediately twisted in her direction. Was it possible he’d heard her, despite all the noise? Marcy quickly turned away, brought her hand up to hide her face.

“Hold on a minute,” Jax said.

“What is it?”

Oh, shit, thought Marcy, feeling him advance. Had he seen her? What was he going to do? She had to get out of there, get out now.

Except she couldn’t move. She was trapped, as if she were mired in quicksand, squeezed between dozens of sweating, undulating bodies, unable to feel her feet or even wiggle her toes. She felt a scream rise in her throat as Jax began shouldering his way through the throng.

It took Marcy a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t moving toward her, that he was, in fact, taking off in the opposite direction.

“Jax, wait. Where you goin’?” Shannon called after him.

“Be right back,” he yelled, fighting his way toward the door.

Marcy immediately began worming her way through the stubborn wall of revelers after him, elbowing past groups of teenage girls, stepping on their boyfriends’ boots—“Hey, watch it!” “What’s yer hurry, granny?”—till she reached the door and escaped into the cold night air, her ears ringing, her eyes shooting up and down the street.

Where did he go? she wondered, running up the steps and stopping suddenly, realizing how exposed she was. Had that been his plan all along? Had he known she was watching and bided his time, baited his trap, knowing she’d follow him? No way he could confront her in a room full of people. No, if he’d been smart enough to break into her hotel room without anyone noticing, he was smart enough to realize he had to wait until he had her alone.

She heard him before she saw him, his voice coming at her in waves from around the side of the building. “I’m tellin’ you,” he was saying, “that’s what she just said.”

Who’s he talking to? Marcy wondered, tiptoeing closer, head down, shoulders slumped forward, body hugging the brick wall as she strained to make out his words. Who else was there?

“Okay, I’ll go over the whole thing from the beginnin’,” he said, and Marcy realized he was talking on his cell phone. “We’re at Mulcahy’s. She’s like a bleedin’ alien, all googly eyed and full of wonder, never seen anythin’ like it in her life. You’d think she was from bloody Mars, for f*ck’s sake. Yes, I gave her the earrings. Yes, she loved ’em. Just like you said she would. So I got the stupid girl eatin’ out of the palm of me hand. Everything’s movin’ accordin’ to plan. I’m startin’ to feel like f*ckin’ James Bond. Hey, we should call this ‘Operation Babycakes.’ ” He laughed. “Anyway, that’s when the dumb twat lowers the boom. Says she’s goin’ away for a few days. Tomorrow. ’Til bloody Sunday. To f*ckin’ Kinsale. The whole bleedin’ family’s goin’. Apparently, Mrs. O’Connor’s got a sick aunt. F*ckin’ cancer,” he sneered.

He paused to catch his breath, allowing Marcy a few seconds to try to make sense of what she’d just heard. Yes, I gave her the earrings. Judith had given her those earrings for her fiftieth birthday. Yes, she loved ’em. Just like you said she would. Just like who said she would? I’m startin’ to feel like f*ckin’ James Bond. Hey, we should call this “Operation Babycakes.” What were they planning? Who else was involved? She’s goin’ away for a few days.… The whole bleedin’ family’s goin’. What did it mean? Was Devon somehow involved? Involved in what exactly?

Good God. What had her daughter gotten herself into now?

“Yeah, I know it’s only three days, but I can already taste that money.…”

Marcy’s cell phone suddenly began ringing in her purse. Shit, she thought, frantically trying to muzzle the sound by stuffing her purse under her sweater and pressing down on it with her arms. Had Jax heard it?

“Hold on a sec,” he said, the heels of his boots clicking against the cobblestone. “Thought I heard somethin’.”

Marcy immediately ducked inside the doorway of a nearby store, almost overwhelmed by the smell of nearby vomit. Tessa, you cow, she thought, recalling the laughter of Tessa’s friends. Her phone continued to ring, the sound mercifully fainter now. Would Jax still be able to hear it? Would he find her? What would he do when he did?

A sudden burst of noise, the angry sound of Mick Jagger directing someone to get off his cloud, laughter, coughing, a girl’s voice rising above everything else: “Jax, are you out here?”

“Comin’, luv,” he answered immediately.

Marcy heard heavy footsteps descending the steps.

“I was worried about you. Is everything all right?” Shannon asked as the door closed behind them.

Marcy immediately extricated her purse from her sweater and her cell phone from her purse. But it had stopped ringing. She tossed the phone back into her purse, deciding it had likely been Liam calling to check up on her. Should she call him back? And tell him what? That instead of staying put and ordering room service as he’d wisely suggested, she’d spent the night going from one disaster to another? That her amateur sleuthing had almost gotten her raped? That she’d come this close to spending another night in a garda station? That she’d stumbled upon Jax with Shannon in a notorious after-hours club? That she may or may not have uncovered some possibly nefarious plot that may or may not involve her daughter?

Shielding her head from a fresh onslaught of raindrops, she began the long walk back to her hotel.