Bitter Burn novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: February

I had made pancakes the morning of the twelfth.

I had stood in my kitchen with the radio on and a husband who ate nothing and watched me flip them.

I stood in the cellar now, with the phone in my fist, and the date lay between us.

Finbar was watching my face.

"You read it," he said.

"Both files."

"Then you know why."

"I know what you signed," I said.

"I want to hear why."

He stood up.

He swayed once, and I caught his elbow, and then I let go before I could stop myself.

"I'm not telling you in this room," he said.

"Walk me out the back."

We went up the service stairs in the dark.

The house was asleep, or pretending to be.

Tyson had been right about the back door, and I hated him for it.

It opened on the kitchen garden, where my car sat under the wet trees.

I drove to Curtis Bay with Finbar folded into the passenger seat and my eyes on the mirror.

Nobody followed.

That told me everything about what Tyson wanted.

Bridie's lamp was dark.

I took Finbar into the boathouse and shut the door and lit the stove.

He sat on the camp bed with his hands between his knees, and told me in the plainest voice I had ever heard from him.

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