I got in my car and drove off, flying down the gravel road as fast as the rental could go, looking up into my rearview mirror. I couldn’t see anyone else following me. But because I couldn’t see them didn’t mean a thing.
I put a battery back into my mobile phone. I waited a few seconds for it to boot up, then I called Dave Collins and said, “I need you to upload the video confession in the river.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the only way I can return massive fire.” I told Dave what happened and said, “They’re following me, somehow. The video, if it goes viral, will keep them in crisis control up until the election. Since my voice is on the video asking questions, if I wind up dead, if my body is recoverable, maybe a good prosecutor can indict Logan for murder.”
“And if you could find Courtney Burke, all of this could be moot when you prove she’s not the daughter of you and Andrea Logan.”
“I think I’m getting closer.”
“In Ireland?”
“No, in the states. The priest left a mocking, sardonic clue.” I told Dave what he said and added, “Try to research Poe’s poem, The Raven, and let me know if you can find a physical location to the translation of Aideen in The Raven—I know it means east of Eden … maybe there’s a connection to a location in the states. That’s where I think I’ll locate my brother Dillon, and if I can get there in time — maybe I’ll find Courtney.”
91
It wasn’t an island. Not by the real definition of the word. I reached for the bottle of Jameson’s that Cormac Moore had given me, rolled my pants up to my knees, and walked from the shore of Derrynane Beach through ankle-deep water to Abbey Island. The pristine spot was about fifty miles south of Puffin Island on the western coast of County Kerry. Within five minutes of walking and climbing, I could see the ruins of an ancient stone abbey and the nearby cemetery. My heart pumped.
The wind blew across the Atlantic, gulls chortling and riding the air currents off the cliffs. Cotton-white cumulus clouds floated like small nations across a cobalt blue backdrop of the universe. I scaled to what I knew was a sacred place in the history and hearts of Ireland. Suspended on what felt like the skybox of the Atlantic, on a high cliff overlooking the sea near the ruins of the old monastery, were dozens of graves marked with iron crosses, Celtic crosses, gravestones worn thin from time and the sea. It was the Abbey Island Cemetery, a place filled with the remains of Irish sailors, farmers, and their families. All of the headstones overlooked a horseshoe-shaped deserted beach that reflected the ice blue sky.
I walked slowly through the cemetery, the smell of the sea mixed with damp moss and aged limestone. I saw the gravestone of Mary O’Connell. The inscription read that she was the wife of Daniel O’Connell, known as The Liberator — a man who fought for Catholic Emancipation in Westminster Parliament.
I continued walking, carefully scanning each headstone for the name I’d come to find. Why? Why walk through an ancient cemetery off the Coast of County Kerry Ireland searching for the name of a person I never knew … would never know? What was the connection beyond the fact that my mother had told me about him. In the four hours I had with her, she painted a picture of a caring and kind man, a man who lived for his family, a man who eventually died for his family. I was only a baby when he was killed. I had no conscious memory of him. But my subconscious may have his whisper concealed. That was all the connection, all the bridge to the past that I needed. He was my father.
And I was his son.
I looked to my right, and there it was. A Celtic cross. For more than four decades it faced the Atlantic, faced the winds, sun and salt air. The old weathered cross was very much an old rugged cross, as was, I felt, the man buried beneath the cross — rugged and tough on the exterior, tender as a spring night on the inside. My mother had told me stories of his physical and internal strengths. How he could build a house from the ground up with plans he’d drawn and the expertise he had with his hands. And how inside his heart was at peace, and how he was her rock, her guiding light into an often too-dark world.
The inscription read:
Peter Flanagan
1946 — 1970
He trusted in our Lord
He soared on the wings of eagles
There was an old and faded embossed photograph of a man, and it was bolted to the lower part of the Celtic cross. I couldn’t take my eyes off the picture, almost as if it had a magnetic pull to it. He was dressed in a tweed sports coat, wide smile, angular face, thick dark hair and eyebrows. I felt as if I’d seen him before, dressed in the exact same clothes. But where? I looked at the old photo, the dark hair, the eyes, and I saw a little of myself.
And then I remembered.
It was at my mother’s funeral. Across the cemetery, after the others had left, the man appeared, fog swirling around his legs. He seemed to have worn the same style — the same cut of suit, same dark hair and rawboned face. Impossible. I felt fatigue build behind my eyes, my shoulder burning. Move on.
I blew out a breath and poured a shot of Jameson in the plastic cup that Cormac had given me. I raised my cup and said, “Hello, Dad. It’s been a long time coming. I want you to know that the man who put you here is no more. I didn’t kill him, his evil did. Maybe it was time to collect … I don’t know. You probably already know that Mom’s gone, at least she’s not in this world anymore. I bet she’s in yours, maybe right beside you. I hope so. You have a granddaughter. Her name is Courtney … she’s Sarah’s only child. And right now, she’s in trouble, some serious trouble. I’ll do everything I can to help her, because I’m about all the family she has left on earth … and she’s about all I have, too. Mom told me you enjoyed a shot of Irish whiskey. I’m going to leave this bottle next to your picture. Maybe you can sip and enjoy here overlooking the sea.”
I knocked the shot back and swallowed the whiskey, the breeze kicking up over the Atlantic, the smell of shellfish in the air, gulls calling out across the cliffs. I set the bottle of Jameson down at the base of the cross, just beneath my father’s picture and said, “I wish I could have known you.” Then I turned and walked away, walked barefooted down the hill and across the tidal pool, the sound of shrieking cormorants over Abbey Island, waves breaking against the rocks, and the undertow of my father’s voice pulling at the edge of my conscious mind.
I stopped and glanced back at the island and somewhere under the breeze, I thought I heard or maybe recalled the murmur of his voice, like the whisper from the bottom of a well. “He doesn’t resemble his brother … Sean is different … different as the shamrock mark on his shoulder.”
When I opened the door to the rental car, my phone rang. It was Dave Collins. “Sean, Logan’s people are scrambling. Doing whatever damage control and denial they can. The river confession video is viral, getting a hundred thousand views an hour, globally. The news media have ID’d your voice on the video asking the questions of the guy in the river. All of it, the near attack by the big gator, the gunshots, your questions and his hysterical, but real answers are more than convincing. It’s reality TV at its finest. The media are hunting for the guy you pulled out of the river and you.”
“They won’t find him. And I’m sure there’s no public record of him in existence.”
“I’m not so sure the pressure is off you. If the media can’t find you, they can’t corroborate this, and the Logan camp will contend it’s all manufactured by democrats who are hell-bent on political chaos. So it’s in Logan’s best interest to make sure you never surface again, at least until he’s done with a second term. Where are you?”