LITMIR.BIZ

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EPILOGUE

       EXTRACT

       COPYRIGHT

       CHAPTER ONE

      Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words.

      Arthur Brisbane

      LIAM DELANEY WAS an orphan. Again. He laced his hands together and waited for the priest to bury his godfather. A sigh whistled between his lips. At thirty, being alone shouldn’t matter. But it did. Was it wrong to want a home, a family? To belong?

      The wind caught the priest’s deep voice and swirled it round the cemetery. Latin. English. The languages blended in the breeze.

      Ignoring the words, Liam listened to the priest’s tone for any hint of sorrow at the passing of the man in the coffin. He heard none. No surprise that. He’d lived with the man for eleven long years.

      This day couldn’t end soon enough. He was ready to escape Kilkee for the final time. Leave this reminder of his childhood and catch a plane—anywhere. Just so he wasn’t in Clare, Ireland.

      As a distraction, he plotted how he would film Seamus FitzGerald’s funeral. With a wide angle, he’d pan from the crumbling dark stone wall through the gray-and-white crosses and sinking headstones. While the priest droned, he’d linger on the yellow warbler perched on a cherub statue and let its sweet, clear song play. The camera would swing to the Celtic cross marking his godparents’ graves. The towering cross lorded over the monuments of the other FitzGeralds buried near.

      Seamus’s wife had died twenty-five years ago. Liam had only known her through pictures he’d found in the manor. Photographic evidence Seamus had once been happy.

      When Seamus buried his wife, he’d buried his smile.

      After pausing the camera on the cross, he’d pan to the eight mourners gathered round the open grave. The priest. The housekeeper. The mortuary man. The groundskeeper. Three strangers, one young and two who must be Seamus’s chums. And him, the unloved godchild. Standing alone.

      Compared to memories of his parents’ funeral, this service was stark. For his da and mum there had been flowers, music, tears and hordes of people. Liam had stood next to his scowling godfather, grieving. He hadn’t realized he would never be hugged again. A lad of eight needed hugs.

      He’d learned to expect no affection from the man in the coffin.

      A gust of wind fluttered the flower petals in the arrangement straddling the yawning hole. A bee flitted from the single funereal wreath. His camera would follow the bee as it left the daisy to circle Father Patrick’s head.

      The priest intoned, “Because God has chosen to call our brother, Seamus James FitzGerald, from this life to himself, we commit his body to the earth, for we are dust and unto dust we shall return.”

      Liam would shift the camera frame to the housekeeper’s face. Wind tugged strands of gray hair free from her bun and ruffled her black skirt. He’d track the tear slipping down her lined cheek in a harsh unforgiving close-up.

      Why would anyone shed a tear for Seamus?

      Cut.

      This day was such an un-Irish, un-Seamus fall day. It was a chilly ten degrees for October, but sunlight lit the Kilkee countryside.

      The man he’d lived with from the time he was eight until he’d escaped with his cameras at nineteen had just been laid to rest. Instead of sorrow, he felt—empty.

      Here lies an unhappy man. Liam wanted to engrave the words on the cross.

      The graveside service concluded. The small group waited, the silence broken by the warbler’s joy-filled tune.

      Liam refused to add any bitter words to the priest’s platitudes, and the mourners eventually shuffled away from the yawning hole.

      A young stranger placed a meaty hand on Liam’s sleeve. He was large enough to play American football. How had he known his godfather?

      Squinting against the sun, the man said, “Mr. Delaney, I’m sorry for your loss.”

      “Thank you.” Liam turned to leave.

      The man’s hand tightened on his arm. “I’m Seamus’s solicitor, Ian Lachlan.”

      Liam shook Ian’s outstretched hand.

      “When you can make the time, I’d like to speak with you,” Ian said.

      Behind Ian, the housekeeper, Mrs. Needles, waited. Liam nodded in her direction.

      “Are you staying at the manor?” Ian asked.

      Absolutely not. He rolled his shoulders. “I’m at the inn.”

      Ian tugged out a card. “Please, call me at your earliest convenience.”

      Liam tucked the card in his pocket. “I planned to motor back to Galway today.” And find somewhere else to go. Somewhere he felt welcome.

      “But Seamus’s will?” The solicitor frowned. “Your godfather has specific requests for you. You must stay.”

      Requests? Why should he do anything for that curmudgeon?

      Ian glanced back at Mrs. Needles. The priest joined the housekeeper. “Could we meet this afternoon?”

      Reluctantly, Liam said, “Aye.”

      He accepted condolences and words of sorrow. He listened to a recounting of Seamus’s last days from Mrs. Needles. Apparently, he made the right noises because neither the priest nor the housekeeper looked appalled.

      What could his godfather want now?

      He wanted to be anywhere but Kilkee.

      * * *

      “I DON’T WANT IT.” Liam leaned forward in his chair and set his bitter coffee on Ian’s desk. “I don’t want anything from my godfather.”

      “But Seamus loved the house.” Mr. Lachlan’s chair squeaked as he leaned forward. “The will stipulates the manor passes to you.”

      “My life is no longer here in Clare. I’ve a flat in Galway.” He hadn’t set foot in Kilkee for almost five years.

      “But the house was built in 1785. It’s a treasure.”

      “The house is drafty and dismal. Unless Seamus loosened his pocketbook, it needs repairs that will cost more than I’ll earn in the next ten years. Sell the bloody place.”

      “Oh, no.” Ian’s thumb tapped the papers on the desk. “Why don’t you wait to make that decision? Recover from your grief.”

      Liam wasn’t grieving. The only grief remaining was the lingering wisps of sorrow for his parents.

      “Mrs. Needles has committed to stay through year end. My office handles Seamus’s financial affairs. We could continue that plan,” Ian added. “And there’s some money that goes along with the manor house.”

      “I’ll wait a while.” He didn’t want to deal with decisions on the manor. “But I doubt I’ll change my mind. Keep up his arrangements.”

      He could sell the mausoleum next year. Seamus couldn’t have left him enough money to keep him here. There wasn’t enough money in all of Kilkee to tie him to his childhood nightmares. “The only thing I’d like is my godfather’s cameras.”

      As a child he’d never been allowed to touch the Hasselblad or Rolleiflex.

      Ian shifted in his seat. “About the cameras.”

      Liam’s shoulders sank. Were they gone? Had Seamus been that spiteful? “What did he do?”

      “It’s

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