No Safe Place(Detective Lottie Parker #4)(74)

‘If it’s nothing to do with you, then it’s because someone thinks I saw something at the graveyard. The night that poor girl was murdered.’

He handed the baby over to her and stood up. ‘You leave it to me. I’ve got two of my cousins keeping an eye on this place, and you’re not to go anywhere without bringing one or both of them with you.’

‘But I did nothing wrong. It’s not fair.’

‘Listen here, this town is a very dangerous place at the minute, so I don’t want you wandering around on your own. I can’t afford to lose you too.’ He pressed the code on the microwave and watched the plate turn under the light.

‘How is your mother?’ he asked. He had to change the subject.

‘What do you mean, you too?’ she said from behind him.

He could smell the expensive perfume he’d bought for her. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay. But he didn’t know how to, and anyway, he couldn’t tell her something he didn’t believe himself.



* * *



They sat in a corner in Cafferty’s, nursing pints of Guinness and suffering each other.

‘The old man is losing it,’ Cillian said.

‘I reckon you’re losing it,’ Finn said.

‘You can talk. I think I’ve just gone off my pint. Don’t know why I even agreed to come here with you.’

‘You know why. You wanted to escape the old man’s trip into madness with Lynn’s anniversary coming up.’

‘He was always mad. Lynn vanishing didn’t make him any worse.’

‘Maybe not, but Mother did.’

‘Don’t mention her.’ Cillian sipped his pint. The bile rising from his stomach soured the taste in his mouth.

‘She adored Lynn.’

‘We all did. Me more than anyone.’ Cillian shrugged his chin down to his chest. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. Least of all with a brother he despised.

‘You’re the lucky one in all of this. You have Keelan and Saoirse.’

Cillian shot his brother a look that he knew could make milk turn. ‘Never, ever talk about my wife and daughter. You made your own bed. Go home and lie in it.’

Finn’s jaw crunched up and down as if he was trying to speak but the words were locked in his throat.

After downing his pint in two swallows, Cillian made for the door. ‘I don’t know how you do it, but every time I have to spend even a minute in your company, I get the urge to kill someone.’

Outside, he stood for a full three minutes in the cold before he could put one foot in front of the other. The collision course that had been mapped out in black and white for them since the day they were born was now flashing in front of his eyes in high definition.

As the chilly air cut through his sweater, he cursed the stubbornness that had made him leave home without his jacket. He didn’t want to return to Keelan. Not just yet. There was someone he would much rather be with.

He made his decision and headed for his car.





Sixty-Three





‘I remember the last time we were in that restaurant.’ Boyd sipped a glass of red wine.

They’d had an exquisite Indian meal and had returned to Boyd’s apartment. Lottie didn’t need any coercion to come in for a nightcap. Three glasses of wine in the restaurant had done nothing to assuage her thirst. She craved a bottle.

She smiled. ‘It was snowing so hard it was a virtual whiteout.’

‘And you had to pour me into my car and drive me home. Father Joe was sniffing around you back then.’

‘That is such a vulgar comment, Boyd. He was just being a friend.’

‘There are friends and … there are friends.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t have a second bottle of wine while I was eating?’

‘Just the one.’

‘Liar,’ she laughed, feeling more relaxed than she should. ‘Do you miss having Grace’s company?’

‘Nope. What’s it like at yours without Katie and Louis?’

‘Quiet.’

‘And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘I miss them already. I know, I know. But Chloe’s being a drama queen. She wants us to go away for a few days next week because she and Sean have a mid-term break. And I put my big foot in it by using work as an excuse.’

‘Knowing you as well as I do, I’d have thought you’d use lack of finance as an excuse.’

Lottie sighed. ‘I couldn’t play that card. Katie gave me some money before she left.’

‘Katie? Where did she get it?’ Boyd paused, and opened his mouth in shock. ‘Tom Rickard?’

‘Yes, and I’m not spending any of his dirty money.’

‘I’d spend it.’

‘I didn’t think you’d be like that.’ She sipped her wine, trying to make it last a bit longer, while eyeing the bottle on the table.

‘Then again, maybe I’d just burn it,’ he said.

‘No you wouldn’t, and I won’t either. Katie will need it when she gets home.’

‘How is she getting on?’ Boyd rose from the couch and poured himself another glass. She held out her glass and he got the bottle of white for her.