Til Death Undo Us. Morgan Q O'Reilly

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      That day, which had the magic to feel like yesterday and a lifetime ago in the same breath, Brennan had caught the moment we collided and looked into each other’s eyes. In fact, he had taken a series of a dozen photos we made into a collage that hung on our bedroom wall. We called it the moment we fell in love, but really, we both knew it was hours after the fact. Cupid had nailed us both the very first time our eyes met over that horrid vanilla latte. How many people are lucky enough to have their moment preserved on film? We had many photos, both sillier and far more intimate. However, I considered that photo my greatest possession. It was also one of Ryan’s greatest comforts in his final days.

      Thinking about Ryan and the hollow spot left by his death was just another way to avoid thinking about the events of my lunch hour. I rocked in my chair, feeling his touch via the piercing I’d gotten for our third anniversary. Lately I’d been noticing it more and more and, at times like this, the pressure of the steel ball positioned over my clit provided stimulation that both distracted and soothed me as I stared at the picture on my desk. That picture had become the source of my calm as well as the focus of a million unanswered questions.

      My life since Ryan’s death had been a series of small goals. Goal one: wake up each morning, dress, and pretend I still had a life worth living. Goal two: go to work and immerse myself in the impersonal numbers of other people’s lives. Their bookkeeping, payroll, financial reports and taxes.

      I worked for a firm of accountants and tax attorneys. We had a steady business of keeping other businesses on firm financial footing. I was merely a cog in the works, a worker-bee hired by Jacob Levin, the senior partner. Ostensibly I was the quasi office manager. In reality I was pretty much devoted full-time to his cases and clients, even more so since Ryan’s death. It was Jacob’s way of keeping a paternal eye on me.

      At one o’clock on a Friday afternoon in the middle of a scorching July, I sat at my desk chilled far more than warranted by air conditioning, staring at the photo, hoping for something to pop up and explain the menacing man who’d cornered me at my house only an hour before during my lunch break. Despite his expensive suit–easily something Italian made and worth more than two months of my salary–he’d had the appearance of a barely civilized mobster. One with red hair and a Boston accent, albeit one affiliated with the Irish gangs of legend rather than Beacon Hill. Ryan had been born in Boston, though raised in a suburb, and had once explained the differences to me. He’d also been quick to point out his parents were fine professional people with no old gang ties from a century before.

      Until then, I’d never given his family history a second thought. His parents were lovely people and had used the services of a surrogate, since his mother couldn’t carry to term. He’d had a normal childhood and maintained close ties with his parents. Not for one moment had I ever associated him with what I’d heard during my mid-day break.

      What the man had said made no sense whatsoever.

      I’d gone home for lunch and found a stranger sitting as calmly as could be in the living room of my restored bungalow. Immediately, I’d turned around, thinking to grab my cellphone from my purse and call the police, but two more men had materialized from near the door. How had I not noticed them? That terrified me as much as the man sitting on my sofa.

      “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mrs. Malone,” he said. A nod to one of his overdressed goons had me relieved of my purse. The second escorted me to a chair across from where the boss sat.

      “I’m Patrick Shaughnessy. No relation as far as I can tell,” he added at my startled hum. “Of course it’s always possible, but I’m not interested enough to dig that deep.”

      All right. Not long lost family. “What do you want?”

      “Your husband.”

      I stared at him. “That’s not funny.”

      “I’m not joking. The–” A flash of anger darkened his blue eyes before he cleared his expression in an obvious effort appear cool and unruffled. Though meant to appear friendly, his smile fell far short as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, big hands loosely clasped between his widespread knees, and started again. “Your husband took my money, but hasn’t delivered the goods. I merely want to see what the delay is.” He made it sound so reasonable, sitting there on my doily-covered furniture as if he’d come for tea. I didn’t buy it for a minute. Probably the malicious glint in his eye, and the way he pointedly looked at my lap and breasts, had something to do with it.

      I couldn’t stop the recoil that pressed my back into the chair. “That’s impossible.”

      “Nothing’s impossible.”

      Sickness roiled in my stomach, but I did my best to hide it. In other words, not all that well. “I don’t know who put you up to this, but it’s cruel and sick. Stop this prank, or punk, or whatever it is you’re trying to do, this instant.” I tried to use the Mom-Voice I’d cultivated with my younger brothers, but a quaver stole most of my authority.

      “I assure you, madam, this is no prank. Ryan Malone took a briefcase full of my hard earned cash, a down payment, and promised to return a week later with the goods in exchange for the rest of the money. That was two weeks ago.”

      “No.” I gasped for air through a dry throat. “Impossible!”

      Shaughnessy spread his hands wide, imploring me to come clean. “Tell me where to find him, Mrs. Malone, and I’ll go away and never cross your shadow again. It’s that simple.” Straightening, he leaned back on my loveseat, arms draped across the back. As if he had nothing to hide and I could trust him completely.

      Simple, my ass, but if there was a chance of making him go away, I’d take it. “I’ll tell you exactly where he is.” I gave him an address. A number. Glared at him, daring him to verify it.

      Which, of course they could do without ever leaving my house. Goon One whipped out his iPhone, input the address and zoomed in for the benefit of his boss. Patrick took the device, stared at the screen, then scowled at me, all pretense of genial civility forgotten. “Not funny, Mrs. Malone.”

      “As I said earlier.”

      “This is the address for Oak Knoll Cemetery.”

      “That, Mr. Shaughnessy, is the final resting place of my husband, Ryan Malone, who died September eighteenth, two years ago. He’s been buried for twenty-two months, to be precise. I don’t know who you were doing business with, but I can assure you it wasn’t my husband.”

      In return, he rattled off a few numbers himself. Birth date, parents, social security number, schools, dates attended and degrees earned. Our wedding date and the location. All of which were accurate. Hell, he even had my birth date and the names of my father, mother, and all my brothers, and an accurate description of Ryan before he became ill.

      What he knew absolutely petrified me.

      “How do you know all this?”

      “I do background checks on everyone I do business with, Mrs. Malone. If I wanted, I could find out what they ate for dinner and exactly when they crapped it out.”

      I flinched at the crudeness, which I knew was designed specifically to frighten me. It worked. The fingers clasped in my lap were attached to a body that trembled.

      “Then СКАЧАТЬ