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“Whoever is holding her isn’t her grandfather,” Liam sneered. “He’s just wearing his face.”
Bridget snorted. “That’s not creepy.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.” He gave her a pointed look. “The man may look like Seamus McDonough, but he isn’t.”
“Then what happened to the real Seamus McDonough?” Mark’s brow furrowed. “If this man has been parading around as him, he would have had to get rid of him, right?”
Liam nodded. “Ava suspected that whoever this guy is, he’s been playing at being Seamus for a while now.”
“How long?” I wondered. “Someone would have had to notice at some point that he wasn’t really Seamus. Mannerisms. Vocal pitch. The way he drank his coffee. Unless he’d been studying Seamus for years and practicing each and every little thing, someone would have picked up on the fact that he wasn’t who he appeared to be.”
“Someone like Katherine McDonough.” Vas spoke up from behind me. He was leaning against the wooden table situated in the middle of the room.
Liam turned to mySovietnik. “Why do you say that?” he demanded roughly.
Vas smirked, his eyes lighting up with a challenge. He knew something that Liam didn’t or something Liam already knew but refused to acknowledge.
“You should really listen when your daughter tries to talk to you about her,” he reprimanded.
“Katherine ran away,” Liam snarled. “There was nothing to talk about.”
“We all know that isn’t true,” Vas barked. “The proof was in Portland. You’re just refusing to accept it because you know what it means.”
“It doesn’t mean anything!” Liam roared. The Irish leader took a heavy step in Vas’s direction. I was tempted to intercede, but something told me a few fists might need to fly in order for Liam to see some sense. “Katherine McDonough ran because she was scared. She didn’t want to commit. She didn’t want the pressure. She caved, and she told me as much.”
Vas snorted. “A letter told you as much,” he pointed out.
“A letter in her handwriting.” His words dripped venom.
“And someone’s handwriting can’t be replicated?” I asked, tilting my head at him. “Like two people can’t be in one place or share the same face?”
“That’s not the point…” He trailed off.
“Think, Kavanaugh,” Vas hissed at him. “Think about everything Ava has told you. About how her mother first disappeared. It was the day after Seamus sent you to Portland, right?”
Liam paused for a moment, his eyes raising up and to the left.
“She went missing the day after you left,” Vas told him. “Katherine didn’t show up for class that day. Another student went to check on her because they were supposed to meet for lunch. That student found her apartment door open and the room trashed.”
“That wasn’t in the report.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” Vas sniffed. “Whoever took her wanted it to seem like she disappeared. You know this. Neil Romano told you this. His parents died saving her the first time.”
“Just because he said it—”
“Why would he lie?” I questioned Liam. “Stop blinding yourself to the truth, Kavanaugh, when it’s written in blood right before your eyes.”
“There is something big going on here,” Vas continued. “It’s been going on longer than any of us could imagine, and if we don’t get to the bottom of this, none of us will survive this war.”
Liam hung his head. His shoulders were stiff, fists clenched at his sides as he warred with himself. Everything he had known was being obliterated, piece by piece. Katherine being abducted meant he had failed to protect her. To believe her. The man he looked up to wasn’t who he appeared to be, and if I was right, reality was about to get even harder for him and his family.
But that wasn’t my story to tell.
“What do you want to do?” He raised his head and stared at me. “My men will follow your lead.”
I nodded at him graciously and turned to the hackers. “Get me a layout of the house and the surrounding terrain. See if we can get our security satellite in place. I want infrared alerts.”
“Got it,” the two acknowledged in unison.
