Blood of Cain

69

I remembered something Dave Collins said to me when Nick and I hooked an old German U-boat on our anchor rope while fishing in the Atlantic. Its cargo had been weapons-grade uranium. Dave had talked about a scene in a Hitchcock film, Spellbound, a dream sequence in which eyes were everywhere. The art director in the film had been Salvador Dali. Dave had said just because I couldn’t see their eyes didn’t mean I wasn’t being watched.

That’s what I felt like at the moment.

Watched. Followed by unseen eyes in a Stepford Wives illusion of idyllic calm that was a prelude to a storm. I stopped in front of a light brown mailbox, a small, hand painted image of a bird on it. I recognized the species — a puffin. It resembled a cousin to a penguin, black and white tuxedo-like feathers, yellow webbed feet, and an orange and black beak. Whoever had painted it on the mailbox was very talented.

I looked up the driveway, a trailer barely visible through the trees and low-hanging branches. As I backed up to turn into the drive, a man in a white pickup truck drove slowly by me. He braked to a crawl. Watched to see what I was doing, his eyes hard as lug nuts. Then he lifted his mobile phone and drove down the road.

I put the Jeep in gear, intuitively touching my Glock between the seat and console. After more than two-hundred feet, I came to a clearing, a trailer in the middle surrounded by trees. There were no cars. But there were signs of life. Red and white flowers filled clay pots, purple and yellow bougainvillea climbed terraces, and pink impatiens lined pine mulch beds tucked in deep shade from the trees. A bench swing sat motionless under the shade from a tall cottonwood tree. The warm air smelled of fresh-cut hay and heather. The breeze picked up and the tree released its seeds, floating through the air like white, down-feathered snowflakes.

I walked to the front door and knocked. Wind chimes tinkled and somewhere in the trees a mourning dove cooed a succession of somber cries. I could hear the subdued sounds of someone moving about the trailer, making an effort to be quiet.

I knocked again. Then I spoke up, loud enough to be heard but tactful enough to not sound threatening. “Miss O’Sullivan, my name is Sean O’Brien. The only reason I’m here, ma’am, is because of your granddaughter. Courtney’s in very serious trouble, and you may be the only person left on earth who can help her now.”

I waited. The mourning dove cooing, cottonwood snow falling on my shoulders. And then I heard a series of locks turning, finally the door opening a crack. Sunlight fell on the face of an old woman. She looked up at me. Her eyes reminded me of Courtney’s eyes, but paler, tired eyes. Her cheek bones were prominent, and I could tell she must have been striking as a younger woman. She coughed into a handkerchief, a deep raspy sound in her lungs. She glanced down at the handkerchief and said, “Sean O’Brien.” She spoke with an Irish accent.

“Yes.”

“That’s your name?

“Yes.”

“Where’s Courtney?”

“I’m not sure. She’s on the run. Her life’s in grave danger. Is she your biological granddaughter?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because if she is … it means she’s not the biological daughter of the woman who may be the next first lady in the White House. Have you been following the news?”

“Mr. O’Brien, I don’t have a TV, don’t take the paper anymore. I’m rather isolated. Friends here drive me to the doctor now and then, but I don’t get out much anymore.”

“May I come in?”

She looked over my shoulder, opened the door, and stepped back. Her eyes seemed to take all of me in at once. “Come in, please.”

I followed her inside the trailer. It was neat and clean, furniture at least twenty years old. Framed paintings hung on much of the wall space. There was no television in the living room, but lots of bookcases filled with books. The only photographs I could see were on an end table next to the couch. Courtney Burke, as a younger teenager, was in one picture. Next to it was a photograph of a middle-aged woman — a woman who resembled Courtney.

There were two pictures of babies, one older than the other. And there was a photograph of a man standing next to a woman. They stood by the sea, the wind in the woman’s hair, a wide smile on her face. The man had his arm around her waist. He was smiling, his hair dark, eyes piercing.

She said, “Please, sit down.” Then she simply stared at me, her thoughts someplace else.

“Miss O’Sullivan …”

“Yes.”

“Are you Courtney’s biological grandmother?”

“Yes.” She cut her eyes down to the photographs, and then looked back up at me.

“Is that her mother in the picture?”

“Yes, she was my only daughter, Sarah. She was murdered.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that. Where is Courtney’s father?”

“He was murdered alongside Sarah. I raised Courtney the last few years of her life.”

“Do you know where she is right now?”

“No.” Her eyes studied my face. She asked, “Are you hungry? I made meatloaf and seasoned potatoes.”

“No thank you.”

“Where’s your home?”

“Florida.”

“Is that where your parents live, too?”

“They were killed in a car crash when I was a teenager. Miss O’Sullivan … we need to find Courtney. You’ll have to let the police know her real identity.”

“Yes … of course … just tell me how I can help.” She looked at one of the babies in the pictures then slowly cut her eyes back up to me. Her face was suddenly reflective, private thoughts filling eyes that had grown softer. She fidgeted with a wedding ring on her left hand.

“Miss O’Sullivan, Courtney knew that I had a birthmark that resembled an Irish shamrock. How do you think she knew that?”

“Courtney has a gift. She can see things … things most others can’t. When she told me that you looked similar to my husband, told me your age, the fact you wore an ancient Irish triquetra pendent from a chain on your neck … I knew. I gave that triquetra to my cousin to give to you when you turned eighteen. My cousin and her husband were childless. They raised you as their own, and they swore absolute secrecy as a condition of the adoption. I insisted that it remain that way because I couldn’t have withstood the pain in my heart of seeing you and not taking you back. Courtney knew you had the birthmark because I told her.”

My heart hammered in my chest.

She spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s on your left shoulder. A perfect shamrock.”

“How did you know?”

“Because I am your mother, Sean.”