“What is it?” Julie asked.
“My flat,” Mary Kathleen said. “I’m never there.” She glanced over at Kieran, blushing, a pretty sight given the fairness of her skin. “I’m with Declan all the time. Me toothbrush is there, you know? My place allows dogs. There’s a wee bedroom and a parlor, and a nice big kitchen. You and the pups would be gloriously happy there.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” Julie said.
“You could,” Kieran told her. “It’s perfect for you. It’s right by the fire station on Reed Street, a great neighborhood, very safe.”
“I can help you get your things in the morning, if you can take a few hours off work,” Mary Kathleen said. “In fact, you can come home with me tonight and we’ll get started packing up me things.”
“Won’t Declan be upset you’re not going home with him tonight?” Julie asked.
“He’ll be thrilled—he was the one who came up with this idea,” Mary Kathleen said.
“Where are you living now?” Craig asked.
“At the apartment Gary and I still share,” Julie said. “We avoid each other as much as we can. He ignores me and the dogs, I ignore him. We try to come and go at different times. I wanted to move in with my parents temporarily, but their building doesn’t allow dogs. I haven’t found anything else I can afford, and Gary refuses to leave.”
“And you’re not afraid Gary will...try something?” Craig asked.
“Oh, Gary is hateful, but he’s not violent,” Julie said. “He says things, but he’s never touched me or hurt me physically in any way.”
That could change in a split second, Craig knew.
“Go home with Mary Kathleen tonight,” he said. “Please.”
“But the dogs...” Julie said.
“We’ll go get the dogs right now,” Kieran said, rising. “I’ll borrow Declan’s car.”
Julie paled. “What if he’s there tonight—after this?”
“I’ll take you,” Craig said decisively as he stood.
What the hell was he doing? He was getting far more involved than he’d intended. He’d meant to keep watch over Kieran. He hadn’t meant to become a member of the damned extended family.
“Oh, no, we can’t ask you to do that,” Kieran protested.
Her protest suddenly solidified his determination to help when only a moment ago he’d been wishing he’d never spoken.
“Let’s go,” he said.
A few minutes later he was driving down Broadway to Canal and planning to cut over to the West Village.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
IT WASN’T A long drive at all, but the whole time Craig kept wondering what the hell he was doing.
He wasn’t a by-the-book guy in the sense that Marty was; he was by nature careful and thoughtful. He made sure he knew what he was doing, and when he chose a direction and moved forward, he always had a reason.
This was crazy.
He wasn’t a therapist.
Or a bodyguard.
And yet he had wedged himself into the middle of a nasty divorce.
But what the hell else could he have done? As Kieran had said, any decent person would lend a hand.
He was glad that she was along for the ride, too. He was still inexplicably on edge about her after watching the surveillance tapes from the subway.
As he drove, he couldn’t stop keeping an eye out for people in hoodies. Unsurprisingly, there were lots of them.
Julie’s apartment wasn’t too far over from Kieran’s place. She and Gary had the basement of a beautiful old brownstone. Craig remembered reading that the basements of the nineteenth-century row houses had originally been servants’ quarters.
The apartment might once have been the servants’ quarters, but the servants had been given plenty of space. And Julie Benton had a flair for decoration. The walls held animation stills from her work, charming dragons and medieval fantasy sorcerers, knights in battle and more. There were collectible superhero action figures here and there, and plenty of twenty-first-century comforts. The television screen looked to be a good seventy inches; the cabinets surrounding it were filled with high-end sound equipment, controllers, remotes and more. Modernist lamps and mirrors completed the decor.
“My place is nothing like this,” Mary Kathleen said.
“Most of this is mine, but I’m not allowed to touch it. Everything is part of the divorce now,” Julie told her. “I don’t care about any of it, though, just my babies!”
Her babies, of course, were the dogs, Benji and Sally. Benji was a brindle male, Sally a cream-colored female.
Craig waited by the door while Kieran and Julie took them down the street for a walk, then accompanied them back inside so Julie could pack.
In the end, other than dog supplies, her packing consisted of nothing but a small bag of toiletries and a change of clothing. She was clearly anxious to leave.