Carla Neggers - The Mist

Fiona always said “ensemble,” Bob thought, never band.

Simon winked at her. “We can dance an Irish jig, too.”

“That’s right, yes! I had no idea until this summer. Dad kept his talents bottled up inside him for years.” She turned to Bob, strands of blond hair stuck to her pallid cheeks. “Because of Deirdre McCarthy and what happened to her.”

Bob grimaced at the mention of the girl who’d lived on his street when he was growing up and was brutally murdered at nineteen, changing his life forever. He said, “Deirdre had the voice of an angel. Mine’s nothing in comparison.”

“I keep thinking about her,” Fiona said. “I never knew her. She died-she was murdered-long before I was born, but it’s like her spirit’s been a part of our lives and I didn’t even know it.”

Bob didn’t want her thinking about Deirdre, but what could he do? By not talking about Deirdre McCarthy for thirty years, he’d kept the tragedy and horror of her death out of his daughters’ minds, out of their consciousness, and yet her long-ago murder had inspired the devil-obsessed serial killer who’d come after Keira in June.

Would his daughters and niece have been more prepared if they’d known about Deirdre, if he hadn’t tried to protect them?

He jerked himself back to the matter at hand.

Simon opened the back door of the SUV and tossed in the empty water bottle, then shut the door again, hard-just, Bob knew, to break some of the tension and refocus Fiona. He returned to his position against the SUV. “You said earlier you heard Abigail scream after the explosion.”

“I know that’s what I told you.” Fiona stared again at her hands. “But I didn’t hear her scream. I thought I did, but I didn’t. I don’t know what I heard. Everything really didn’t happen all at once. It was the phone ringing and then Dad yelling and then Scoop grabbing me and then the explosion. In that order. It was all so fast. I know people say that, but it was.”

“You’ve done well to break it down for us,” Simon said.

But she looked up at her father. “Did you see something, Dad? How did you know to warn us?”

He hadn’t told her about the call from Ireland. About Keira. The other woman on the line. He hadn’t told Lucas Jones or Tom Yarborough, either. They hadn’t asked him the question Fiona had just asked. They weren’t being patient or negligent. They were just taking things in order.

Simon knew, but he said nothing.

“Dad,” Fiona said, “if you warned us, someone must have warned you, right? Who?”

“You and your dad can talk in a bit,” Simon said. “Let’s go back to your practicing this morning at the Garrison house. Did you notice anyone there-”

“Who could have planted the bomb in Owen’s car? I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She was clearly fading, getting impatient, frazzled. “I can’t…I don’t know.”

“I have just a few more questions, okay? We’ll go through them without your dad.”

Bob didn’t protest. He kissed his daughter on the head and started back toward Theresa, but the ATF and FBI and state detectives and the whole damn lot pounced and dragged him down the street for another briefing.

The ATF guy, who was Bob’s age, was pontificating. “It was C4,” he said. “It’s ideal for this kind of bomb. Just a quarter pound will destroy a propane tank and the surrounding structure.”

The BPD bomb squad guy agreed. The fire department’s arson squad guy threw in his opinion.

Bob chewed a fresh piece of gum. “The bombs didn’t place themselves under Abigail’s grill or in Owen’s car, and she didn’t just evaporate.” He worked the gum harder. “Someone grabbed her and stuffed her into some kind of vehicle and got her out of here. Under my damn nose.”

No one said anything.

He continued, all eyes on him. “The phone call got her inside off the porch. These bastards didn’t want to kill her. Scoop, Fiona-didn’t matter if they died. Me. Who cares? The blast could have thrown Abigail off her feet. Stunned her, knocked her out. Whatever, the bad guys were ready and hauled her out to a waiting vehicle.” Bob nodded to the spot on the sidewalk on the other side of the crime scene tape where he’d noticed the blood earlier. “She got a piece of one of them.”

He paused, but still no one spoke. He knew what they were thinking. With one colleague in serious condition and another missing, he was slipping into posttraumatic stress syndrome.

He could feel his pulse tripping along. “I was focused on the blast. The diversion worked. I didn’t see a thing. The vehicle-nothing.”

“How’d they get to her porch and plant the bomb?” the ATF guy asked.

Bob wanted to strangle him. “Gee. I guess I probably let them in and showed them Abigail’s grill and said, Hey, there’s a good spot. No one’ll notice a bomb there.”

“Any telephone repairs, cable repairs, electricians, carpenters-”

“I gave my statement. Scoop’d give his, except he’s unconscious. And Abigail’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The ATF guy winced. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

The arson investigator said, “Anything we can do for you, Bob? For your family?”

Bob had a half-dozen retorts ready, none of them nice, but he saw the earnest look on the guy’s face. Everyone wanted to help. Everyone felt lousy for him.

He had to get out of there.

He found refuge in the passenger seat of his heap of a car and scraped gunk off his cell phone, then dialed Eddie O’Shea at his little village pub on the southwest Irish coast. Bob had already talked to Keira and an Irish detective about the attack on her. Now he wanted to talk to the bartender. They’d met earlier in August, when Bob had ventured to the land of his ancestors for the first time. He went with his sister in the days after she’d finally given up on her solitary life in the woods and rejoined civilization, such as it was. Keira had already fallen for Simon.

Bob hoped Simon would be on the trip to Ireland at Christmas with Keira, his daughters and his sister. They could sneak off for a beer or two. Christmas seemed far away now. Out of reach and impossible.

O’Shea answered after a couple of rings.

“Irish cops still there?” Bob asked.

“They’ve gone. They searched my pub for bombs, Bobby.”

O’Shea insisted on calling him Bobby. Drove him nuts. “Find any?”

“Just Patrick’s cooking.”

It was a valiant attempt at humor. Eddie O’Shea had lived a quiet life before June when Keira had wandered into his pretty village on Kenmare Bay. “Trust no one,” Bob said. “The guards. Your Irish fairies. No one, O’Shea. Do you hear me?”

“Are you well, Bobby?”

“Burned off my eyebrows.”

“Simon?”

“A man with a mission.” Bob felt his throat constrict. He’d developed a liking for Simon Cahill, and no question Simon believed he’d brought Norman Estabrook down on them all. Bob wasn’t so sure. It was like Estabrook was a deadly virus lying dormant in their lives, just waiting for a chance to spread and do its damage. “I want to hear about this Irishman who tried to kill my niece.”

“He knew about the bomb.”

“The one in my house. There was another one in a car.”

“Ah. He didn’t mention that one. He’s a hired man.”

“Why did he tell Keira?”

“He didn’t. He told that black-haired firebrand.”

Keira had described her to Bob. “Any word on who she is?”

“Not that anyone’s told me. She knows what she’s doing, Bobby, I’ll say that.”

“But she’s not law enforcement?”

“Ah, Bobby…I don’t want to think about who she might be.”

“Like what? A spy?” Bob’s head pounded. “Never mind. You’re a bartender. You love conspiracies. Was she alone?”