Eternal by V. Forrest (new reading TXT) 📗

Glad you came, I am, Fee. Uncle Sean’s thoughts drifted across the room. We need ye. The family needs ye.

Of course I came, she thought.

Sorry about him. Double sorry, I am. What are the chances the FBI could have sent a man who looked so much like—

Uncle Sean, don’t worry about it. We’ll talk tomorrow. Try to enjoy your pint.

Enjoy his pint? How can anyone enjoy a pint after something like this? It was Sean’s brother, Mungo, sitting on the barstool next to him.

Ordinarily, it was considered rude to listen in on thoughts not directed toward you, but in these circumstances it was understandable. From Mungo, she caught a flash of memory of the bloody scene that night back in Ireland. The screams of the horses, the terror of the women as they scattered into dark fields outside the village. The blood and flames that stained the grass black.

“Her name is Stacy. She’s a dental hygienist.”

Fia was jerked back into the present. “I’m sorry?” She glanced up at Glen and then back at her pint as she reached for it.

“My fiancée.” He sipped his beer, watching her carefully. “You?”

She shook her head. Against her better judgment, half smiling. “No. Never been married.” Fifteen hundred years. An old maid by any standard.

“Two fish and chips,” Shannon declared cheerfully, swaying in the direction of their table, both hands high in the air, balancing two small plastic trays. “For you.” She plopped a tray down in front of Fia so hard that it rattled. “And you, Sugar.”

Each tray held a cone-shaped roll of old-fashioned checkerboard butcher paper, overflowing with battered whitefish and finger-sized russet potatoes deep-fried to a golden brown. Glen smiled up at her as she slid his tray squarely in front of him, brushing her bare forearm against his. “Malt vinegar,” Shannon sang as she plucked a bottle from her tiny apron. “Another Houndstooth?”

“Please.”

She glanced disdainfully at Fia and turned on the balls of her feet. She knew better than to ask. Fia never drank more than one a night. “Be right back.”

“Don’t bother asking for ketchup, cocktail sauce or tartar sauce. You can have it ‘old style’—plain—or ‘new style’—with vinegar,” Fia instructed.

Glen shrugged, dribbled vinegar over everything. He slid the bottle towards her, but she shook her head. “You want to talk about the case?” he asked. Just then, his phone, attached to his belt, vibrated. He unclipped it, looked at the screen, and set it on the table, face down.

She stuffed a chip in her mouth. Tavia always made them herself, from real potatoes, never served the frozen kind from a plastic bag. They were the best she’d ever eaten, anywhere, any time. “Maybe we should let the details stew. Not discuss anything until tomorrow.”

He nodded, chewing thoughtfully, and a silence fell between them. Fia wasn’t particularly hungry, but she ate anyway, knowing she should. Shannon brought Glen another beer, flirted for a minute beside the table, and then headed off to the kitchen from where Tavia’s impatient voice could be heard, beckoning her.

The two ate in silence. Glen was halfway through the second pint before he looked up at her across the table. “Look, I don’t like this any better than you do. You think it’s your case. I know it’s mine”—he didn’t pause long enough for her to answer—“but my SAC says we’re in it together. We might as well make the best of it.”

He was right. She knew he was right. Her little silent temper tantrum was unprofessional. It wasn’t his fault he looked like Ian. Wasn’t his fault the FBI had drawn these particular jurisdictional lines. She needed to be civil, at least until she could figure out how to get him out of Clare Point and off the case. She was already planning on making a call to Malley’s office in the morning.

He was still waiting.

She sighed and sat back in her chair. He was offering a truce, and it was up to her to accept it.

“I don’t mean to seem bitchy. I’m just preoccupied. Bobby McCathal—”

“You don’t need to apologize. I’ve never investigated the murder of someone I knew, but I can imagine it would be difficult.”

His phone vibrated again. Again, he looked at it and then laid it screen down. She guessed it was the fiancée again. The woman was persistent. Twice in half an hour.

“Frankly,” he said, pushing his empty tray away, “I suppose that was why I was surprised when the chief said you’d been called in. Guess you know someone in Senator Malley’s office, or someone knows you.”

She didn’t answer that. Instead, she asked him how long he’d been at the Baltimore Field Office, why he was an FBI agent, where he went to college. Fortunately, he picked up the ball and began to tell her about how he’d come to be sitting in this pub with her, investigating a murder on just another Wednesday night.

She smiled inside. He didn’t realize how high the alcohol content was in the stout, and she sure wasn’t going to tell him. Alcohol always made humans talk. Fia thought about saying something, but decided against it. It wasn’t her problem if he had a headache in the morning.

The pub began to fill up with those who had eaten at home and were just coming in for a pint and to see what news there was of Bobby. Shannon brought Glen a third pint. All around her, the voices seemed to swell, growing louder in Fia’s head, then quiet, then building, then quiet, again and again, almost in a rhythm. Some people were angry she’d brought the FBI agent into the family pub. Everyone wanted to know how he’d ended up in Clare Point and the explanation, apparently supplied by the chief of police, had to be repeated over and over, until everyone was in the know.

When Glen finished his stout, he rose, excusing himself to go to the men’s room. While he was gone, Fia took the opportunity to ask if