Chasing River (Burying Water #3)(79)

“Like I could sleep now.” With a groan, he pours himself another shot of whiskey. “This was the last bottle.”

“Whatever. We don’t go through much.” I jut my chin toward Ivy. “Unless she’s there, of course.”

She merely glares at me in response. Everything about her drips with suspicion. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Amber had told her.

“Right. You want more?” Rowen doesn’t wait for her answer, climbing out of his seat to top her glass up.

“Don’t think I’m getting drunk again,” she mutters, but she accepts the drink. She has yet to ask what’s going on, why Rowen is here and wired. Why he pushed through the door like a man being chased. He’s not, of course. If Beznick put a call out for Aengus’s head, it’s for Aengus’s head. Even murderers don’t like to add unnecessary body counts to their résumé. Not because they’re particularly moral; it just makes things worse for them if they ever get caught.

But that doesn’t mean Rowen or I wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. That happens often enough. A guy with a target on him, taking a walk down a street in midday with his buddies, starts taking gunfire from somewhere unseen. His friends are as likely to get hit by a stray bullet as the ones intended for their mark.

As long as we stay the hell away from Aengus—and don’t get mistaken for him—we should be fine.

I think.

My gaze drifts to the stairs. Amber has been up there for a while now. Hiding. Talking to “home.” What does “home” mean? Her parents? I’ve put her through a lot. Is it more than she can handle?

I can only imagine what this sheriff father of hers could convince her to do.

“Where are you going?” Ivy’s sharp tone snaps me out of my thoughts, and I suddenly find myself standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m just going to check on—”

“No you’re not. She’s talking to her sister-in-law, who has her own pile of shit to deal with. Leave them alone.” She says it so simply. As if she could stop me from climbing those stairs if she had to. “Amber will be down when she’s ready to come down. Don’t be that guy.”

“Ouch,” Rowen mutters, but excitement dances in his eyes. He likes the sharp-tongued birds.

I didn’t even know Amber had a sister-in-law, which I guess just proves that I should listen to Ivy. With another glance upstairs, I wander back to stare at the telly.

“You still want that ink?” She stares at me with her eyebrows raised in question.

“What. Now? Here?”

She shrugs. “I have my kit in the car.”

Seriously? “You always travel with it?”

She darts past me, throwing an “of course I do, you idiot” look on her way by and out the door, before I can tell her no. I don’t even have the sketch with me.

“Have you called Fern yet?” I ask.

Fern MacGrath is an eighty-nine-year-old woman and the resident neighborhood watch. She was our nanny’s best friend. She despises Aengus, avoids me, and adores Rowen. The woman will sit in her front room with her knitting needles and her glasses on until after midnight each night, spying on all the comings and goings on the street.

“I tried once, but she didn’t answer,” Rowen murmurs, peeking past the curtain to watch Ivy. “You going to call Aengus?”

I thumb my phone in my hand, considering it. “Not yet. Hopefully the gardai do something useful.” They should have been there by now. I’m halfway tempted to jump in the car and drive down the street, only for all I know these guys are waiting for a green MINI to show up. Aengus has borrowed it enough times. “I mean, if they see gardai round the corner and they take off, they’ll just be back later, in a different car. Knowing Aengus, he’ll camp out at our house, waiting to ambush them. And then he’s got blood on his hands.” I shouldn’t have to spell it out. “We’re protecting him by not telling him right away. If he doesn’t know where the threat’s coming from, he’ll lay low. If we tell him, there are going to be two bodies outside our house.” I shake my head. “Ma would collapse with that news.”

He opens his mouth, but Ivy pushes through the door with a silver briefcase in her hand.

“You weren’t kidding.”

She sets it down on the coffee table, dialing the lock combination and popping it open. “Do I look like a kidder?”

“No, you don’t,” I mutter through a sigh. The girl’s face might splinter with too wide a smile.

“Are we actually doing this, here?” Rowen reaches for the tattoo gun but she swats his hand away before he actually makes contact, earning his grin.

“If you stop drinking, I’ll do you after I do him.” I don’t know if she meant it to sound like it does but there’s usually only one way that Rowen will take something like that. Especially after Sunday night.

I roll my eyes. At least my little brother’s easily distracted from more serious problems with her around. “Thanks for the offer, but don’t you need to make a transfer of the sketch?” That’s what they did for my other one.

“All I need is this.” She jabs Rowen’s chest with her finger, right over the stag on his pub shirt.

“Freehand?”