“You didn’t even look,” she insisted.
I groaned assent and turned to give her more than just a cursory glance.
Her fiery spiral tresses billowed out softly to frame her smooth alabaster face. Falling in a silky flow across her shoulders, her hair disappeared in a cascade down her back that I knew reached almost to her waist. A pair of thin braids encircled her crown, neatly held in place by strategically placed, hidden hairpins, until they joined in the back and coalesced into a whirling eddy of loose curls.
She was looking back at me with her eyebrows arched questioningly over sparkling green eyes, and by the dim glow of the map light, I could see the narrow swath of freckles that rode faintly across the bridge of her nose. Her full, red lips were slightly parted, and the corners turned up in a girlish smile. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold.
The sight of her was enough to make me forget, if only for a moment, the horrors I had re-witnessed just hours before. I didn’t realize it until she spoke, but I was simply staring at her.
“What?” she asked and started to reach for the mirror once again. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth or something?”
“No.” I caught her hand before she could assault the device any more. “There’s nothing on your teeth. I was just noticing how gorgeous you are.”
“Oh stop it!” she insisted, throwing me an embarrassed glance as she reached over to straighten my tie. “You’re just saying that because you’re my husband and you have to.”
“If that’s what you want to believe, but it’s not true. You’re beautiful.”
She ignored my further comment. “There, that’s better.”
I reached up to loosen the knot she had just cinched around my throat, and she playfully slapped my hand away.
“Don’t. I just fixed that.”
“I hate ties, honey. They’re too constricting. That’s why I work at home, so I don’t have to wear them.”
“You want constricting? Try wearing pantyhose and a lace-up, metal-ribbed bodice. Aye, now there’s constricting for you. Besides, it’s only for a few hours, so deal with it,” she instructed.
“Okay. So long as I get to be the one who unlaces that bodice later.”
“Rowan!” she giggled then winked. “Keep that up and I think it can be arranged… Now, come on. Let’s go inside before we’re late.”
“Yeah, I suppose the sooner we get in there the sooner we can leave.”
“Aye, would you be showing disrespect to me family now?” she jibed with an overstated Irish brogue. Though she had purposely exaggerated the affectation, I knew I would need to get used to it because, after a scant few hours inside, her normal lilt was going to be embellished with the heavy accent for several days. It always was.
I just grinned back at her and unlatched my door.
“By the way, Rowan…” She looked back before stepping out of the Jeep.
“Yes?”
“Thanks. You look kind of sexy yourself.”
“Club soda, twist of lime,” I told the bartender and held up a pair of fingers. “Two, please.”
The family had pulled out all the stops for this affair. From renting a large banquet room at the Westview Regency, to the open bar and traditional Irish food catered specifically for the party. As I had told Ben there would be, plenty of colcannon was to be had, along with mutton stew, spiced beef, potato cakes, and countless other ethnic comestibles. I had no doubt that Felicity’s mother had been in charge of the menu as she was a phenomenal cook.
Both of Felicity’s parents were first generation Irish-American, born of immigrants. Her maternal grandparents were the ones celebrating the anniversary tonight; for her father’s parents had long since passed, well before she and I were married.
As her mother and father both came from large families, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relations were springing from every corner of the banquet hall; some had even come over directly from Ireland for the express purpose of attending this combination party/reunion. Many of them she hadn’t seen for ages. Many I had never even met. Be that as it may, there was definitely no shortage of red hair in the room.
After checking our coats, I was charged with the mission of obtaining drinks for the both of us while my wife skittered about squealing with glee as she and long missed relatives became re-acquainted. Having located one of the two bars and placing my order, I decided to try and make the best of it. Had present circumstances been different, I’m sure I would have been more in the mood for a party. But they weren’t, and I wasn’t.
I was still wrestling with the re-awakened visions of Kendra Miller burning to death in the middle of a public park. I fought, from one moment to the next, with bleak stabs of pain mirroring the emotions I experienced coming from the two young women this afternoon. I steeled myself against the fear I didn’t want to acknowledge. And all of this I did alone, for I hadn’t uttered a single word of today’s events to Felicity. She had been preoccupied with her preparations, and I felt that at least one of us should remain unburdened by thoughts of loathing and death during what was intended as a celebration of love and life. Of the surplus of mental trauma I was struggling to keep at bay, the worst was my own agonized speculation. I couldn’t stop worrying over when the killer would strike next.
How would he strike?
Who would be the victim?
A dull ache through my very being told me that it was going to be soon, and I wasn’t going to be able to stop the inevitable. All I would be able to do is sift through the aftermath for another misshapen piece of the puzzle and, if it was there, try desperately to fit it into place with the bleak handful we had thus far.
I reached up and worked the knot of my necktie back and forth to loosen it and leaned against the bar. My eyes darted through the crowd searching for where Felicity might have settled. She was clad in festive Celtic attire-much like most everyone else in the room-and with the abundance of auburn curls filling the hall, it took me a few moments to pick her out.
She was wearing, not unlike several of the other women, a slightly shortened version of a traditional chemise and Irish skirt. Her shapely torso was cinched into a low-cut bodice complete with boning and laces. On her feet, she had replaced her snow boots with flat, black slippers secured firmly to her ankles with a criss-crossing leather cord tied in a neat bow.
I finally located her on the far side of the room, arm in arm with two of her cousins, executing a short, quick series of lithe leaps, kicks and jumps. The three of them bobbed up and down in perfect unison as they spun about in mock rehearsal for the dancing yet to come and came to a halt, laughing wildly at a minor misstep. I felt like I had landed in the middle of an Irish dance troupe and was beginning to feel self-conscious and terribly out of place in my grey tweed sport coat and slacks.
“Aye, keeper! Why don’t you be givin’ ‘im a real man’s drink then!” The thick timbre met my ears and was coupled with a rough slap across my back.
A pair of meaty paws proceeded to manhandle my shoulders, and I broke from my glassy stare.
“Me Grandmother wouldn’t be drinkin’ that fizzly water now,” my brother-in-law’s voice boomed once again. “Whiskey man! We’ll start with two and ye keep it flowin’!”
Felicity’s older brother was hopelessly enamored with his ancestral roots and had spent a large amount of time in Ireland during his youth. To this day he spent as much time there as he could. Fortunately, his position with an overseas firm as a structural engineer allowed him great latitude in his choice of assignments, and he had been able to work there continuously for the past several years. Because of this, his brogue was unfaded by distance and time and was only slightly tarnished by his inherent Americanism.
Coming from the same stock as my wife, he bore the ruddy complexion and bright red mop of a classic Irishman, right down to his rust-colored beard. He was at once jovial, cantankerous, loud, obnoxious, loyal, hard- drinking, and if the stories I had heard of his youth were true, hard-fighting as well. Of all my in-laws, he and I got along the best. I was sorry we didn’t get to see each other more often.
“Austin!” I cheerfully yelped as he greeted me further with a brotherly bear hug. “When did you get in?”
