He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: The Roof
Aisling's POV
I walked the four blocks to St. Colman's in my mother's coat, and he was still at the payphone with the receiver in his hand.
He hung it up when he saw me.
"It's tomorrow," I said.
"You asked me yesterday what I want."
"I did," he said.
"Take me to your roof."
We drove to Almond Street without speaking, and he took the quilts from the guest room bed and the thick gray blanket off his own.
I carried a white paper bakery bag, folded over at the top, and I did not let him see inside.
He climbed the ladder first and held the hatch.
The sky over the river wards was clear and black, and the cold had teeth in it.
The pigeons shifted and cooed in their coop, and the spires of Port Richmond stood around us in the dark.
Cathal spread the quilts on the tar paper in the lee of the coop and laid the gray blanket over them.
"It's twenty degrees," he said.
"You'll freeze."
"Then keep me warm," I said.
I set the bakery bag on the quilts and took off my mother's coat.
Under it I wore my work sweater and a skirt and nothing else, and the wind went through me.
He took off his own overcoat and wrapped it around my shoulders.
Then he pulled me against him, and the heat of him made me shudder.
"What's in the bag?" he asked.
I took it up and opened it.
Inside lay a small smooth bullet of purple silicone, with a button on the base.
"I went to a shop on Frankford Avenue this morning," I said.
"The girl behind the counter asked if I wanted it wrapped, and I said no, and then I asked her for a bakery bag."
"She had one."
"Of course she did," said Cathal.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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