Chapter 3

Nell’s POV

“Question one,” I said. “What’s my middle name?”

“Patrick,” said Cal.

“That’s Roisin’s brother’s middle name.”

“It’s a strong guess.”

“It’s wrong. It’s Marie.”

“Nuala Marie Gallagher.” He said it slowly. Tested it, like a man tasting soup. “Got it.”

We sat on opposite sides of my desk on Wednesday night, in the cramped office of Gallagher and Company, under a flickering fluorescent light and a corkboard covered in fabric swatches. A takeout bag from Lou’s Diner sat between us. Two cheeseburgers. One order of onion rings. He’d brought it without being asked. I hadn’t decided what that meant.

The door to the supply closet was open a crack. I knew Roisin was behind it. I could hear her not breathing.

“Question two,” I said. “Where did we meet?”

“The funeral.”

“Whose funeral?”

“A man named Gus.”

“Gus what?”

“Gus Malloy. He owned a hardware store on Halsted. He was ninety-one. He liked bowling.”

“You made that up in ten seconds.”

“I made it up in the elevator.”

“Why bowling?”

“Everyone likes a man who bowls.” He dipped an onion ring in ketchup. “You can’t say a bad thing about him.”

I put my pen down.

I’d planned to be angry. I had spent two days planning it. Standing in my kitchen at midnight, I’d told myself that some stranger in a ball cap had walked into the worst hour of my life and made it worse. I’d told myself I could not afford a hundred and fifty dollars an hour, let alone two hundred. I’d told myself to fire him before he started.

Then he showed up with onion rings.

“Question three,” I said. My voice came out too high. I cleared my throat. “How long have we been together?”

“Fourteen months.”

“Why fourteen?”

“Brendan and you were fifteen. It’s better if we beat him by a month.”

I stared at him.

“Is that a problem?”

“No,” I said. “It’s a very good idea. That’s the problem.”

He smiled. It changed his whole face. Up close he was younger than I’d thought, thirty or a little more, and the tired lines around his eyes made him look like a man who slept four hours a night and didn’t complain. His hands were big, with a white scar across one knuckle. He kept rubbing his left wrist with his right thumb. Over and over. Like a watch was still there.

“What?” he said.

“You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Rubbing your wrist. There’s nothing there.”

“Habit.” He tugged his sleeve down. “Old watch. I lost it.”

“That’s sad.”

“It was cheap.”

“You’re a very odd bartender.”

“You’re a very odd client.”

“I haven’t paid you yet.”

“You will.”

The way he said it, low and sure, made my stomach flip.

I picked up a burger and bit into it so I wouldn’t have to say anything.

“Question four,” I said, around the burger. “Did I say yes, or did you ask twice?”

“You said no the first time.”

“Did I?”

“You said you weren’t the marrying type. I said neither was I. We went out for two months and said it every week.”

“And then?”

“And then I stopped saying it.” He leaned back in his chair. “You didn’t notice for a while.”

The room went very quiet.

It was a story he’d made up. A fake. A line on an index card. But the way he said it, his eyes steady on my face, made it sound like a thing that had happened to us. Like a memory.

My ears went hot.

“That’s good,” I managed. “That’s very good. Have you done this before?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“A little.”

“How many times?”

“Enough to know it’s better if you touch.”

“If I what?”

He stood. He came around the desk. I watched him do it, and I couldn’t stop my pulse from doing what it did. He stopped an arm’s length away and held out his hand, palm up.

“Stand up, Nell.”

I stood.

“People in love touch each other without thinking. Small things. Your hand on my sleeve. Mine on your back. If we stand there like two strangers at a bus stop, Brendan will smell it in two minutes.”

“So we practice.”

“We practice.”

“Fine.”

“Give me your hand.”

I gave it to him.

His palm closed over mine. It was warm and rough, and I felt it all the way up my arm. He turned my hand over and ran his thumb along the inside of my wrist, slowly, as if he was reading a message written there.

“Too stiff,” he said quietly.

“I’m not stiff.”

“You’re holding your breath.”

I was.

I let it out. It shook.

His other hand came to rest at the small of my back. Not hard. Just there. Just enough to draw me half a step closer, until my knuckles brushed his chest and I could smell soap and cedar and the cold October night on his jacket.

“Better,” he murmured.

“Stop talking.”

“Why?”

“Because it works.”

His eyes darkened. Very slightly. A muscle moved in his jaw.

The supply closet door creaked.

We sprang apart. I knocked into the desk. He caught my elbow before I could fall.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m fine. Roisin, come out. I know you’re in there.”

She emerged with a stack of tablecloth samples and a face like an angel’s. “I was looking for the linen.”

“In the dark?”

“It’s a very dedicated linen.”

I glared at her. She glared back with enormous innocence.

Cal was laughing without making a sound. His shoulders shook.

“Go home, Roisin.”

“Fine. But for the record, I would like to say...”

“Home.”

She went. The office door shut behind her.

In the silence, I found I couldn’t look at him. So I looked at my burger.

“That was a good practice,” he said.

“It was fine.”

“You blushed.”

“It’s hot in here.”

“It’s forty-one degrees.”

I opened my mouth to argue, and someone knocked on the door.

Three hard raps. The kind that say they’re not asking.

Cal’s face changed. Not much. A flicker. His hand went to his wrist again.

“Are you expecting someone?” he said.

“No.”

I opened the door.

Brendan stood on the landing in a black overcoat, hands in his pockets. Snow was starting to fall behind him. He looked at me, then over my shoulder at Cal, then back at me.

“Sorry to drop in,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“You’re never in this neighborhood.”

“Well, I am tonight.” He stepped inside without being asked. His eyes traveled around the cramped little room, the swatches, the burger wrappers, the two paper cups. “Cozy.”

“What do you want, Brendan?”

“I brought you a present. As a friend.”

“We’re not friends.”

“Nell.” He sighed. He took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket, and his face turned quiet and cold. “I did a little checking. I know, I know. It’s my job to look after Aoife’s family. I’m about to be part of it.”

“You had him investigated?”

“There’s no Cal Dunne in the state of Illinois. Not with a license, a lease, a tax return, or a parking ticket.” He held out the paper. “But there’s this.”

It was a photograph. Grainy, black and white, taken from across a street.

A man in a gray sweater and a ball cap stood at a steel door marked Employees Only. He held a white plastic card to a reader. The door was open. Behind him, a hallway of polished marble ran back toward an elevator with a gold plate.

I knew the elevator. I’d stood in front of it that morning.

It was the one marked Private. Executive Floor.

I looked up.

Cal didn’t move. His face had gone smooth and empty. He was rubbing his wrist so hard, the skin had gone red.

“That’s a keycard,” Brendan said softly. “For the owner’s floor of the Hotel Doyle Grand. So tell me, Nell.” He smiled. “What kind of bartender has one of those?”