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I kept telling myself that his refusal to believe what was happening was about him, not me, but when I’d spent most of my life being told that I was crazy, that I should doubt what my heart knew to be true, that my delusions were nothing more than coping mechanisms created by a traumatized child with an overactive imagination … that was easier said than done.
I needed more proof. I needed answers. And I needed them before Damien woke up and carried me, kicking and screaming, back to Glenshire Station.
I couldn’t have found my way back to the church before my encounter with Saoirse, but now, I knew exactly how to get there. I just knew.
With one last glance at the mountain, an aching in my heart, and a certainty in my soul, I turned to head toward the driveway …
And found myself face-to-face with a woman staring at me from the other side of the fence.
Clutching my chest with a yelp, I took a deep breath and released it on an embarrassed laugh.
“Sorry,” I said, walking toward her through the knee-high weeds with a polite smile plastered on my face. “You scared me. For a second there, I thought you were a ghost.”
The woman’s laser-focused eyes narrowed with every step I took toward her.
“I could say the same about you, love.” A touch of shakiness in her voice betrayed her defensive posture. She appeared to be in her sixties but had the sharpness of someone much younger. A mostly gray braid hung over her shoulder, and her freckled skin was weather-beaten, probably from years spent tending to the sheep grazing in her pasture.
“Ya seem lost.” She tilted her head, analyzing me in a way that made me feel like I must have sprouted horns in my sleep. “Do ya need help … findin’ yer way?”
Her tone was cryptic, her face guarded, but there was a familiarity about her, a warmth, that I chose to trust.
“No, miss. I know where I am. I’m here to investigate the murders of Darby and Kellen Donovan.”
She scoffed. “Bit late for that, don’t ya think?”
I smiled weakly and nodded, stopping a few meters away from the fence. “Better late than never.
“I’m Clover,” I added, lifting a hand in an awkward, unnecessary wave. “Darby Donovan was … is my favorite author. I just … want to find out what happened to her.”
“What else is she to ya?” she asked, boldly lifting her chin.
My palms began to sweat. “I … I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Ya look just like her, child. So much that I thought you were her ghost. She your kin or somethin’?”
I released a breath and responded with a relieved smile. “Or something.”
Nodding slowly, she gratefully didn’t press me for more information. “I see. We all have our secrets, don’t we?”
“And your name is?”
“Nora. Been living here since the place belonged to Darby’s granda. She gave me his flock when he died. Sweet girl, that one. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss seein’ her.”
“Do you know what happened to her? All it says online is that she and her husband were killed during a home invasion.”
“That’s what they say, isn’t it?” Nora sighed.
“Is that not what happened?”
Glancing over my shoulder, Nora flicked her chin in the direction of the barn. “Not unless you consider a woodshop a home.”
I turned and looked at the renovated structure. It was definitely in disrepair, but appeared to be far newer than the farmhouse. “That’s a woodshop?”
“Aye. Kellen was a gifted woodworker. There was evil in him though. You could see it in his eyes. And rumor had it that he killed the village priest when he was just a lad, but he wouldn’t have hurt a hair on Miss Darby’s head. He loved that girl somethin’ fierce.”
“Do you have any idea who did it?”
“None. Nobody does, except for maybe … Darby’s uncle. Eamonn O’Toole. He was some big-shot detective up in Dublin. He came by and spoke to the local guards as soon as it happened, and it was as if the whole thing got swept under the rug. No investigation. No crime scene tape. He just … locked the doors and put a For Sale sign in the yard.”
