"American." He closed his eyes in pleasure as Roarke lighted it for him. "We still have a hard time getting these here."
"I'll send you a case to make up for the hundred."
"I can sell off a case of Yanks for ten times that." Brian grinned. "So I'll take it. What brings you to the Penny Pig? I he
ar you come to Dublin now and again on your rich man's business, but you don't wander our way."
"No, I haven't." Roarke met his eyes. "Ghosts."
"Aye." Brian nodded, understanding perfectly. "They're thick in the streets and alleys. But you've come now, with your pretty wife."
"I have. You'd have heard about Tommy Brennen and the others."
"Murdered." Brian poured from the bottle of whiskey he'd taken from beneath the bar. "Tommy would come in now and again over the years. Not often, but now and again, and we'd have a song out of him. I saw him and his wife once, and his children, strolling on Grafton Street. He saw me as well, but it wasn't the time to speak to the likes of me. Tommy, well, he preferred keeping certain parts of what had been from his family."
He lifted his glass more in resignation than toast. "Shawn now, he was a rare one. He'd send word back from New York, always claiming he was making a fortune, and when he'd finished counting all his money, back he'd be. A fine liar was Shawn," he said and drank to him.
"I've brought Jennie's body back with me."
"Have you?'' His wide and ruddy face sober, Brian nodded. "That's the right thing. She'd have wanted that. She had a sweet heart, did Jennie. I hope they catch the bloody bastard who did her."
"That's one of the reasons we're here, hoping you can help."
"Now how could I do that, being an ocean away from where the deed was done?"
"Because it all started here, with Marlena." Roarke took Eve's hand. "I didn't properly introduce you to my wife, Brian. This is Eve. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, New York City Police and Security."
Brian choked on his whiskey, thumped his chest to help the air into his lungs. His eyes watered. "A cop? You married a bloody cop?"
"I married a bloody criminal," Eve muttered, "but nobody ever thinks of that."
"I do, darling." Amused, Roarke kissed her hand. "Constantly."
Brian let go another of his rollicking laughs and poured another shot. "Here's to the pair of you. And to the icicles that are forming in Hell."
• • •
He'd have to postpone the next.
He prayed for patience. After all, he'd waited so long already. But it was a sign from God, he understood that. He had veered from the path, acted on his own desires, when he had planted the bomb in her car.
He had sinned, and so prayed for forgiveness as well as patience. He had only to listen to the guiding force. He knew that, and was repentant. Tears blurred his vision as he knelt, accepting his penance, his punishment for his conceit and arrogance.
Like Moses, he had faltered in his mission and tested God.
The rosaries clinked musically in his hands as he moved from bead to bead, from decade to decade with a practiced ease and a deep devotion.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
He used no cushion for his knees, for he'd been taught that forgiveness demanded pain. Without it, he would have felt himself uncleansed. Votive candles, white for purity, flickered and carried the faint smell of wax pooling on wax.
Between them, the image of the Virgin watched him silently. Forgivingly.
His face was shadowed by the candlelight, and aglow with the visions of his own salvation.
Blessed art thou among women.
The anthem to the Virgin Mother was his favorite prayer, and no penance at all. It was comfort. As he completed the fifth of the nine rosaries he'd been given as penance, he pondered the Sorrowful Mysteries. He cleared his mind of worldly cares and carnal thoughts.