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Chapter 3
The next daywe were at Dublin Airport, waiting for our Aer Lingus flight to New York. I flinched slightly as I leaned down to pick up my carry-on bag.
Mary Catherine patted me on the butt. She laughed and said, “Looks like someone suffered some injuries last night.”
“Just a sore back. I might be able to attribute it to the small bed.”
“Or you might attribute it to a new wife.”
“That’s more likely, but I was trying to be polite.” It was all I could do not to groan. I needed to hang from a chin-up bar for about three hours to decompress my spine.
It was late in the evening and I figured it to be about four o’clock on the East Coast of the US. We called the kids for a quick chat and to tell them we’d be home at midnight. The time change confused everyone. I’d learned, after eighteen years of being a father, it was much better to warn them exactly when we were coming than it was to surprise them.
Each of the kids home at this hour filed past the phone for a quick hello. Trent was the outlier. He was bursting with some big news and couldn’t wait to tell us. He wouldn’t even give us a hint now. The call eased my back pain and put me in a good mood.
I had made a call that morning to Emily Parker. It had gone straight to voicemail. I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t mind calling Emily during my vacation. Even if it was related to a case. She was my friend first. We worked well together. Never mind that the New York FBI assistant special agent in charge, Robert Lincoln, was still pissed off they’d been frozen out of a serial killer case just before I got married.
Mary Catherine had said earlier, “Maybe she’s sleeping in.”
I knew Emily Parker better than that. The FBI agent rarely sat still, let alone slept in. I tried her once more before our flight took off, but I assumed she would’ve already reached out again if it was urgent.
Aside from having to put a pillow and a blanket on my seat to ease the aching in my back, the flight was remarkably uneventful. Even the ride from JFK to the Upper West Side was smooth. My excitement was building at seeing the kids. This was by far the longest I had ever been away from them. Even though we had spoken every day, I missed each kid in a different way. I needed a hug from Chrissy, and insight into basketball from Brian, and a decent meal from Ricky.
We were lucky to have my grandfather, Seamus, gladly take time out from his work at the parish and supervise in our absence. The three oldest kids, Juliana, Jane, and Brian, were expected to do their part as well, though Juliana was always excused if she had an audition for an acting role. We’d been gone so long I didn’t know exactly what to expect: the city a nuclear wasteland, our building a shell, or a regime change in which my twins, Fiona and Bridget, were now in charge.
As we pulled up to the building on West End Avenue at close to midnight, everything seemed fine. I let out a breath I’d inadvertently been holding. Maybe I was more concerned about Seamus supervising the kids than I should have been. All was normal.
Until I opened the front door of the building and saw a body lying on the floor of the lobby.
