The flight attendant came on the P.A. to welcome them to Ireland. There was a jolt just as they landed, and Maeve, who still had his hand, grasped it tightly as her cheeks turned ashen.
“It was just a gust of wind as we came in,” he assured her.
She flashed him a smile. “Just felt a shade o’darkness there, that’s all, lad. A shadow on the heart.”
He squeezed her hand in return. “It was just the wind,” he repeated.
A shadow on the heart? he thought. Well, she was ninety-two, he reminded himself.
Odd turn of phrase, though, considering that he’d thought he’d seen a real shadow in the aisle.
Their flight had been an overnighter, and when he looked out the window again, the sun was coming up high.
A few seconds later, the sound of a hundred seatbelts unbuckling was like a strange, offbeat chorus. He stood and helped Maeve get her small bag from the compartment above her seat, then bade her goodbye and good luck, and went for his own suitcase. He strode off the plane, thinking he would head straight to the hospital and check in on Sean before doing anything else.
It had been several years since he’d been in Dublin, but the airport hadn’t changed. He headed for customs, and watched as Maeve made her way toward the line for nationals. He blinked, thinking that he saw a shadow hovering near her. A shadow? In the brightly lit airport?
Jet lag. Had to be jet lag.
He turned away, then turned back.
Odd, out of the corner of his eye, he’d thought that he’d seen something else. An impression. A woman’s face. Beautiful, with pitch-black hair and cobalt eyes, and features like Helen of Troy, pure perfection.
There were women all over the airport, he told himself dryly. A dark-haired woman rushing by Maeve, a young blonde excusing herself as she, too, moved quickly, and a fortyish matron who paused to speak. Zach couldn’t hear her from where he stood, but from the looks of things, he was pretty sure the woman had asked Maeve if she needed any help. He would have helped her himself, but he was a tourist and had to go through a different line.
Maeve accepted a hand from the woman, and Zach smiled. Every once in a while you saw something that restored your faith in humanity. His smile faded. He hadn’t seen it all that often lately, though maybe that was due to the work he’d chosen.
He’d worked forensics in Miami, and what he’d seen there hadn’t been good. But he’d put in his time, and he’d been damn good at his job. But when he’d heard his brothers’ proposal to open an agency, he’d been ready. He’d told Aidan he was ready to throw in with them the same day a crackhead had decided that microwaving his infant son would make him quit crying.
But there were decent people in the world, too, and he had to remember that. Like the woman who had helped Maeve. Like Sean O’Riley, who had been there after his parents had died, when Aidan was struggling to keep himself, Jeremy and Zach together as a family.
The woman was still there helping Maeve when he made his way to baggage claim. She was the one who cried out when Maeve suddenly fell.
There were no velvet ropes, gates or nationalities separating them then. Zach raced to Maeve’s side. She gripped his arm when he bent to help her, and he knelt by her side, his training kicking in as he loosened her collar, testing her pulse.
She smiled up at him. “I’m almost home,” she said. “And it’s all right. I can hear the music, and the banshee’s whispered in my ear. It’s time. The luck o’the Irish be with you, my fine, kind lad.” She reached up and trailed a finger over his face, then shuddered, and her eyes closed.
“Maeve?” He gently leaned his ear against her chest. She wasn’t breathing, and the quick pressure of his fingers against her throat told him that she had no pulse. He told the woman who had helped Maeve to call emergency services, then started counting, pinching Maeve’s nose shut and breathing into her mouth. He kept at it, but well before the emergency crew came to take over, he knew she was gone.
He stood there, watching the men work, watching as the sweet woman was declared dead at the scene. She’d wanted to come home, he told himself, and she had.
He had a sense of someone watching him, which was a little ridiculous. Half the people in the airport had been staring at him. But he turned and thought that he saw someone slipping around the corner.
Of course, he thought irritably. Lots of people were slipping around the corner. They were leaving the airport.
He spoke with the authorities about Maeve, and they thanked him for all that he had done, though he hadn’t really done anything, he thought in disgust. Maeve was dead.
He told himself that it had been her time. She had lived a long and good life.
Still, he couldn’t just shake off her death. He collected his luggage and headed around the corner himself, in hopes that the car he had reserved was waiting.
As he exited the building, he saw the sign in Gaelic and English.