Page 24

Chapter fourteen

Make It Something Decent

Kira

H e told me we were going back to the Green Mansion, and we went. We had a full convoy.

He didn’t say much more than that. When I tried to speak to him, he ignored me. He just stared out the window, his clothes reeking of cigarette smoke, as his fingers twitched, tapping at his knee. He was like a coiled spring ready to snap.

“Eoghan, what is going on?” I asked, but he didn’t hear me at all. “What are we doing?”

I reached out and touched him, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t lean in or hold my hand. It was like he was in a trance, watching the landscape pass by.

When we got to the house, it was unusually dark. Almost everyone else was still at the Vasiliev’s.

He didn’t open my door for me, but walked right up to the porch and inside, not closing it behind him.

Kieran O’Malley had rushed to open my door, but I was already halfway out, almost slamming the door in the poor man’s face.

I followed, stumbling up the cobblestones, into the Tudor house. He hadn’t turned on any of the lights.

The foyer was eerily still in the darkness, the blood painting more menacing now that I knew its real origin. I shuddered but heard a rustling from inside Eoghan’s office. I went to the open door. I could see his shadow moving about, opening a drawer, then closing it again.

“Eoghan, what are you doing?” I pleaded as I flicked the light on. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He did nothing, but instead muttered something to himself as he uncorked a fancy-looking bottle of red wine.

Next, he took a vial of powdered something from somewhere on the shelves and poured it in.

He put the cork back on, and shook the bottle, and I gritted my teeth, agitated that I was still being treated like a ghost.

“Eoghan!” I yelled.

But still, nothing.

Kieran, the driver, must have handed the keys over to someone else, because he walked in and stood at the door, his hands clasped behind his back; a silent sentry.

“What’s happening?” I asked him instead, because clearly my husband would give me no answers tonight.

Kieran’s lips pressed into a tight line, and he looked away from me, pretending he couldn’t see me.

For fuck’s sake.

Eoghan tossed the vial into a trash receptacle in a low drawer. The glass smashed inside it.

He forcefully slammed the drawer shut, but it stopped right before it could slam.

“Bloody Hell!” Eoghan yelled, tilting his head back, staring at the ceiling in aggravation.

He opened the door again, and I followed his gaze to a small, gray, little fuzzy thing.

“Fuck!” Eoghan’s shoulders drooped as he bent, pulling a napkin out of his pocket.

“It’s alright, lad,” he said to the red-eyed field mouse as it struggled for air. “It’s alright.”

I grimaced, stepping back, confused at what the hell I was seeing.

What the fuck was going on?

I looked at Kieran, who also looked sad. I couldn’t figure out why!

What the hell was going on? It was a mouse!

“I’m sorry, boy,” Eoghan crooned. The mouse’s neck was at an odd angle,itss feet twitching, its breathing hard and ragged.

Was it strange that the mouse seemed to calm at Eoghan’s touch? Was it weird that Eoghan’s comforting was working on the wild little thing?

Eoghan took the mouse outside into the frosty air, and I followed, mesmerized by the perplexing theater that I was watching.

“It’s all going to be alright now.” Eoghan put the napkin over the top of it, blocking its view from the world and gently laid it on the ground. Then in one determined movement, he stomped down hard, his heel landing on the little lump in the napkin.

I yelped at the sound of flesh and bone crunching, covering my mouth as I flinched away.

What the fuck is going on?

The once white napkin was stained with the print of the bottom of Eoghan’s shoe, and the red of the mouse inside.

“O’Malley,” Eoghan called, waving him over. “Put him in a box or something. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. Make sure Morelli doesn’t see him.”

Morelli? Did he just say Morelli? Giovanni Morelli?

“Yes, sir.” Kieran nodded, going inside to presumably get the aforementioned box.

Why were they acting like any of this was normal?

“Eoghan, what is going on?” I asked, my voice almost whining.

Still, he said nothing to me. Instead, he snapped his fingers and called out, “Make it something I can bury him in.”

He looked down at the bloody napkin, shaking his head.

“Don’t make it into some delivery box, or take-out container, or something. I… I…” Eoghan ran his hand down his face again, then shook his head. “Just make it something decent.”