He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: Cumberland Street
Aisling's POV
I went home to Cumberland Street that afternoon, and Cathal let me.
He carried my canvas bag to the bottom step of my mother's stoop and put it down.
He did not climb the steps.
"I'm sending the Buick away," he said.
"Phelim's men will still be on the corner, but you've a deadbolt, and I'm not asking to come in."
"Good," I said.
"I'll be around."
"Don't be."
He nodded as though I had said something reasonable, and walked back to his car.
My mother's kitchen smelled of dust and cold tea.
Her apron still hung on the hook by the stove, and the afghan she had crocheted lay folded on the arm of her chair.
I sat down in the dark with my coat on and did not cry, because I had made that promise at her funeral.
At eight o'clock somebody knocked.
I opened the door on a woman in green scrubs with an auburn ponytail and a Temple University lanyard.
"I took the bus," said Bridie Hurley.
"He's on your steps, and he didn't say a word when I went past him."
"Why did you come?" I asked.
"Because you looked at me in that diner the way I looked at the first nurse who came into my room," she said.
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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