vise of desperation that spoke of his turmoil. For a moment more, I embraced him; then I let my arms fall as I pulled back. But Thomas didn’t release me, not completely.
“It’ll be Mick. Inside. He’s going to demand answers, Anne,” Thomas warned, his voice weary. “What do you want to do?”
“If I answer every one of your questions, will you promise to believe me?” I begged, looking up at him through my tears.
“I don’t know,” Thomas confessed, and I watched his frustration disintegrate, washed away in the downpour, leaving resignation in its wake. “But I can promise you this. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do my best to protect you. And I won’t turn you away.”
“Liam was the one who shot me on the lough,” I blurted. It was the truth I was most afraid of, the truth that pertained to this time and place, and the truth Thomas might be able to explain, even understand.
Thomas froze. Then his hands rose from my arms to cradle my face as if he needed to keep me still while he examined my eyes for veracity. He must have been satisfied with what he saw because he nodded slowly, his mouth grim. He didn’t ask why or how or when. He didn’t seek clarification at all.
“You’ll tell me everything? Mick too?” he asked.
“Yes,” I breathed, surrendering. “But it’s a long . . . impossible . . . story, and it will take me a while to tell it.”
“Then let’s get out of this rain.” He tucked me against his body, and we moved toward his house, toward the soft light that glimmered in the windows.
“Wait,” he commanded and climbed the stairs to the front stoop without me. He knocked on his own door, rapping a rhythm that was clearly preestablished, and the door swung open.
Michael Collins took one look at the two of us and pointed to the stairs.
“We’ll talk when you’re dry. Joe made a fire. Mrs. Cleary left bread and meat pies in the larder. Joe and I helped ourselves, but there’s plenty left. Go. It’s been a helluva night.”
Mrs. Cleary was Thomas’s Dublin housekeeper. Joe O’Reilly, Mick’s righthand man, looked on sheepishly. The fact that it was Thomas’s home and Michael Collins was giving orders was clearly not lost on him, but I didn’t need any further encouragement. I climbed the stairs, my shoes squelching and my teeth chattering, and stumbled into the room Thomas had assigned to me, peeling off his suit coat and my red dress, hoping Mrs. O’Toole could rehabilitate the clothing like she’d saved my bloodstained blue robe. Our clothes were covered in a layer of soot, and they reeked of smoke, just like my hair and skin. I wrapped my robe around me, gathered my things, and took a hot bath. If Michael Collins objected to the time I was taking, too bad. I scrubbed my hair and skin, rinsed it, and scrubbed it all once more. When I finally made my way downstairs, my hair was still wet, but the rest of me was clean and dry. The three men were huddled around the kitchen table, speaking in voices that quieted when they heard my footfalls.
Thomas stood, his face scrubbed free of the grime but not the concern. He wore clean, dry trousers and a white shirt. He hadn’t bothered to button on a collar, and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing the wiry strength of his forearms and the tension in his shoulders.
“Have a seat, Anne. Right here.” Michael Collins patted the empty place beside him. The kitchen table was perfectly square, with a chair on each side. “Can I call you Anne?” he asked. He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets and sat down again, agitated.
I sat next to him obediently, the sense of an ending all around, like I was caught in a dream I was about to wake from. Joe O’Reilly sat on my right. Collins sat on my left. Thomas sat directly across from me, his blue eyes troubled and oddly tender, his teeth clenched against the realization that he could not save me from what was about to go down. I wanted to reassure him and tried to smile. He swallowed and shook his head once, as if apologizing for his failure to return my offering.
“Tell me something, Anne,” Michael Collins said. “How did you know what was going to happen tonight at the Gresham? Tommy here tried to pretend it wasn’t you who tipped him