were gone. She’d drawn the worst possible conclusion, and I didn’t know if anything I said would help my case.
“I’m not telling you! You’re not his mother, are you?”
I took a step toward her, hand outstretched, a plea for calm.
“I want you to leave,” she said, raising her voice. “I need you to go. Walk out of this house and never come back. I’m going to show this to Thomas. He’ll know what to do. But you have to leave.”
Liam motioned toward the front door. “Go,” he clipped. “Move.”
I walked on wooden legs, leaving my room and moving into the foyer. Brigid stood with her back against the wall, the papers clutched in her hands. I ignored Liam, directing my pleas to his mother.
“Let’s call the Dublin house. On the telephone. We’ll call Thomas, and you can tell him everything. All of it, right now,” I suggested.
“No! I want you to leave. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Eoin. He thought his mother had come home.” Brigid began to cry, her face crumpling like the pages she clutched in her fist. She dropped them to mop at her streaming eyes, and Liam stooped and picked them up, stuffing them into the waistband of his trousers.
“Is Eoin all right, Brigid? Is he safe?” I asked, my eyes clinging to the wide staircase that led to the second floor where I’d left Eoin a few hours earlier.
“What do you care?” she cried. “He’s not your son. He’s nothing to you.”
“I just need to know if he’s all right. I don’t want him to hear you crying. I don’t want him to see the gun.”
“I would never hurt Eoin! I would never lie to him, never pretend to be something I’m not!” she shrieked. “I’m protecting him from you. Like I should have done the moment you arrived.”
“All right. I’ll go. I’ll walk out of this house. Let me get my coat and my handbag—”
The outrage that bloomed in her eyes and cheeks was more frightening than her trembling and her tears.
“Your coat? Your handbag? Thomas bought those for you. He sheltered you. Cared for you. And you tricked him! You tricked that good, generous man,” she raged.
“Go,” Liam demanded, waving his rifle toward the door. I obeyed, abandoning every action except the one that got me out of the house uninjured. Liam followed me, the gun pointed at my back. I opened the door and walked down the front steps, Liam on my heels.
Brigid shut the door behind us. I heard the locks engage, the old-fashioned bolt sliding into place. My legs gave out beneath me, and I collapsed onto the grass in a quivering heap.
I didn’t cry. I was too stunned. I simply knelt, head to my chest, hands in the damp grass, trying to formulate a plan.
“You’re gonna wanna start walkin’,” Liam demanded. I wondered if Brigid was watching from behind the curtains. I prayed Eoin wasn’t. I rose slowly to my feet, my eyes on the gun Liam held with such ease. He had not hesitated to shoot me once, with two men looking on.
“Are you going to shoot me again?” I said, my voice loud and ringing. I hoped Robbie would hear and intervene. I felt a flash of shame and prayed Robbie would stay away. I didn’t want him to die.
Liam’s eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head, considering me, not lowering the rifle from the crook of his arm.
“I suppose I am. You just keep coming back. You have nine lives, Annie girl.”
“Annie? You told Brigid I was someone else. Did you tell her you tried to kill me too?” I challenged.
Fear flickered across his face, and his hands tightened on the gun. “I didn’t mean to shoot you. Not the first time. It was an accident.”
I stared, not understanding, not believing, and even more afraid than I’d been before. What was he talking about? The first time? How many times had he tried to kill Anne Gallagher?
“And on the lough? Was that an accident?” I asked, desperate to understand.
He approached me, nervous, his gaze sharp. “I thought it was the fog playin’ tricks on me. But you were real. Brody and Martin saw you too. And we got the hell outta there.”
“I would have died,” I said. “If Thomas hadn’t found me, I would have died.”
“You’re already dead!” he shouted, his temper flaring suddenly, and I flinched and stumbled back.
“Now I need you to walk down along the trees there,” he ordered. His