Kate Hoffmann - The Mighty Quinns - Dex

The young lady seemed quite invested in this project. And she was a fan, so Aileen could count on the film being complimentary. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Conal. He was the only one still missing.

“Lovely,” Aileen said. “And how quickly will your documentary be finished?”

1

HE WOKE in a cold sweat, the darkness in the room swallowing him like a giant black vortex. Dex Kennedy gasped for breath, sitting up and throwing aside the covers on the bed.

His bare chest was damp with perspiration, yet the room had a chill. Where was he? What time was it? He drew a deep breath, searching for a scent that might give him a clue. He wasn’t in the desert; he wasn’t in the jungle. The smell of lavender clung to the sheets, and he realized he was in Ireland, in his sister’s flat in Killarney. There was no danger. He was safe.

Dex turned on the bedside lamp, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When would the nightmares end? he wondered. It had been nearly a year now, and though his body had healed from the two gunshot wounds, his mind was still back on that landing strip cut out of the jungle in Colombia.

He and his filmmaking partner, writer and director, Matt Crenshaw, had gone there to get footage for a documentary about the drug wars that had plagued the country. With help from some locals, they had managed to film damning footage of one of the most powerful cartels. They were almost to the plane and to safety when the cartel’s thugs had pinned them down with automatic weapons fire from the surrounding bush.

Matt had been hit in the leg before they were able to get on the plane and make their escape. Hit in the femoral artery, Matt had bled out in front of Dex, a couple thousand feet above the jungles of southern Colombia.

It had all happened so fast. Matt had been alive and cracking jokes one moment and gone the next.

Dex drew another ragged breath and ran his fingers through his hair. A bottle of sleeping pills sat unopened on the bedside table. Maybe he ought to give in and take a few. The prospect of sleeping an entire night was almost too much to resist. He wanted to lose himself in that feeling of utter exhaustion again, to finally let his mind rest.

Dex reached for the bottle. Twisting open the cap, he dumped the pills into his hand and stared down at them. He could understand why someone might just toss back the whole lot of them. Sleep deprivation could do queer things to the mind, make you take desperate measures for just a few moments of peace.

Cursing beneath his breath, he hurled the pills at the wall and they scattered around the room.

“Dex?” The muffled sound of his sister’s voice came through the door. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah,” he called.

“Are...are you all right, then?”

“Fine,” Dex said. He swung his legs off the bed and stood up, searching for the battered trousers he’d discarded earlier. The bloodstains were still there, but they had faded over the past months. Dex pulled them on, leaving the top button undone.

He ought to have thrown the trousers out. They were a constant reminder of what had happened. But Dex wanted to be reminded. Matt had been his best friend and the only partner he ever wanted to work with. Running his palm over the stain, Dex felt emotion tighten his chest. He wasn’t going to forget.

His twin sister, Claire, was standing outside the bedroom door, a worried expression on her face. Her cropped dark hair was standing up in unruly spikes and her face, usually made up with red lips and dark eyeliner, was freshly scrubbed.

“You look feckin’ awful,” she murmured as he walked past her. “Really, Dex. How long are you going to carry on like this before you get some help?”

“I went round to the chemist and picked up some sleeping pills,” Dex muttered, heading for the kitchen.

“Didn’t they work?” Claire asked.

“I didn’t take them.”

She threw up her hands. “Well, that’s probably why they didn’t work, then. You just have to get back into a routine and a few good nights’ sleep.”

Dex grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and returned to the living room, snatching up the remote for the telly and switching on the twenty-four-hour sports station.

Claire plopped down beside him on the sofa, her hands folded on her lap. She stared at him silently, and when he glanced over at her, he saw tears of frustration in her eyes and a tremble in her bottom lip. “Don’t,” he murmured. “I’ll be all right. It’s just going to take some time.”

“Maybe you should find something to do with yourself,” Claire suggested. “Hanging around my flat like some out-of-work bowsie isn’t doing you any good.”

“What do you propose I do? I’ve been a filmmaker since I was fourteen. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I’m not sure I’m suited to sell cars or work the bar in a pub.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve peeked at your mobile. Your agent has all sorts of projects he’s been texting you about. I’ve been taking calls, too. Why don’t you just talk to these people? See what they have for you? It couldn’t hurt.”

Dex took another swig of his beer. He shouldn’t be surprised by her snooping. There had never been any secrets between them. “It wouldn’t be the same. I was a decent cameraman, but Matt was the one who made the stories work. I can tell a story with pictures, but I can’t do it with words. He had all the talent in the partnership.”

Claire grabbed a scrap of paper from a nearby table and held it out to him. “Ian Stephens. I’ve taken three messages from him. A lovely man, by the way, with a very sexy English accent. He sounds like James frickin’ Bond. His number is right there, along with the number of the woman he’s working with, Marlena Jenner. She’s the producer on the project.”

He stared at the two numbers. “What is the project? Did you ask?”

“It’s a film about Aileen Quinn.”

“The writer?”

Clare nodded. “My favorite writer. Ireland’s favorite writer.”

“That’s not the kind of work I do.”

“That might be a good thing. At least no one would be shooting at you.”

“I’m not ready to go back to work,” he said.

“But you just said it, Dex. It’s who you are.”

“Hell, I’m not sure who I am anymore,” Dex whispered, his voice filling with emotion. “I—I just don’t know what I want.” He shook his head. “Wait, I do know. I know exactly what I want—to sleep through the night. That’s my fondest wish.”

Claire put her arm around his shoulders and they sat next to each other for a long while. This was the way it had always been between them. They had weathered tough times in the past, but they’d always had each other to lean on.

Their parents had lived a gypsy life, both of them actors who’d garnered a fair bit of success in Ireland’s small film industry. As a family, they’d lived in London, New York City, Toronto and then Dublin again. But when his father had been cast in an American television series, they’d all moved to California, an Irish family living amongst the movie stars and palm trees and the constant sunny weather.

It had been a difficult transition for Dex and Claire, at that point already in junior high, and they hadn’t made friends easily, preferring to spend time with each other. So when the series had been picked up for its fourth season and Claire and Dex were ready to enter high school, they decided to return to County Kerry and live with their father’s mother, a woman they affectionately called Nana Dee.

Dierdre O’Meara Kennedy had seen them through their teenage years, then sent them off to university—Dex to film school at UCLA and Claire to read history at Trinity in Dublin. Nana Dee had provided the only stable home they’d ever really had, and her little cottage on the Iveragh Peninsula was the place they’d always called home. Nana had passed away three years ago, and had left them her cottage filled with memories of her life.