“Yes?”
He grinned.
“Ye were blushing. Hard.”
“The room was hot, Deck.”
“Aye, it was. About four hundred degrees and wearin’ a three-piece suit.”
“And if that lad Calloway looks at a jury the way he just looked at you, he’ll be winnin’ every case by sheer indecency. I thought he was goin’ to eat ye right there in front of the Sheriff.”
“Deck, stop.”
“Aye,” he grinned, completely unbothered. “Stop I will. But I’d keep a fire extinguisher in your briefcase from now on, Nell. Just in case.”
Deck chuckled.
She tried not to smile.
But she failed.
And under the warmth of it, the weight of what Burke had told her pressed in—Mercer, Caroline, the podcasts circling like vultures.
Whatever this thing with Reid was, it was about to collide with something bigger than both of them?—
a missing woman, a grieving town,
and the man she’d agreed to defend.
Eleanor’s thumb traced the edge of the folder in her hands, the paper sharp against her skin.For the first time since David Mercer had sat across from her conference table, she felt the uneasy sense that the ground beneath his story was beginning to shift.
32
Sullivan’s Irish Pub — Sylva
Sullivan’s Irish Pub sat halfway along a narrow back street off Main.
Inside, hops and fried potatoes filled the air, and an old folk song hummed from the speakers, weaving through the creak of stools and the clink of glasses.
Declan O’Rourke sat at the end of the bar with a pint of Guinness in front of him, one boot hooked over the rung of the stool.
Behind the bar, Patrick Sullivan—Sully to everyone who mattered—wiped down a glass with slow, deliberate strokes.
Sully had the kind of beard that made him look like he’d stepped straight off a fishing boat in Galway, and his accent was still thick enough that some of the locals nodded politely even when they hadn’t understood a word he’d said.
“Another, Deck?” Sully asked.
Deck lifted his glass and examined the foam line.
“Ye poured it right the first time, lad. No need t’rush perfection.”
Sully snorted.
“Careful now. Keep talkin’ like that and I’ll start chargin’ ye double.”
Two women at a nearby table laughed. One of them, a brunette, turned toward Deck.
“Don’t let him fool you,” she said. “Sully’s already charging everyone double.”
