Free Now You See Her by Joy Fielding Page B

said encouragingly.
    “Do you know her?”
    “She looks a bit like Audrey, don’t she?” she said to the bartender.
    “Audrey?” Marcy and Liam asked together.
    “Yeah. You know, the girl we see hanging around with that other one, what’s her name? The quiet one who works for the O’Connor family.”
    “I’m not sure I know who you’re talkin’ about,” Liam said.
    “Of course you do. The nanny. What’s her name? Shannon, I think.”
    “Oh, yeah. Now I know who you mean.” Liam took another look at the photograph, gazing at it for ten long seconds before shaking his head a second time. “Nah, no way that’s Audrey.”
    “Well, I give you she’s a little younger than Audrey and not so tough lookin’.…”
    “This picture was taken a few years ago,” Marcy explained.
    “Well, there you go,” the waitress said.
    “So you think this could be Audrey?” Marcy asked, trying to fit her tongue around the new name. Devon had always loved Audrey Hepburn, she reminded herself.
    “Well, I can’t be sure, of course. But it could be.”
    Marcy stuffed the picture back inside her purse, her heart threatening to leap from her chest. “Do you know where I can find her?”
    “Sorry. No idea,” Liam said, turning his attention to a man at the far end of the bar.
    “You might try the O’Connors,” the waitress volunteered. “Shannon’s their nanny. She could probably tell you where to find Audrey.”
    “Hey, Kelly,” a customer called from his table against the wall. “How are you coming with those refills?”
    “Be right there.”
    “Where do I find the O’Connors?” Marcy called after her.
    “They live over on Adelaide Road. Don’t know the exact address. But it’s the biggest house on the street. You can’t miss it.”
    Marcy walked quickly to the door. “Thank you,” she called back as she stepped outside, but both Kelly and Liam were busy with customers and neither was listening.

SEVEN
    A DELAIDE ROAD WAS LOCATED in the southeastern section of the city about two miles from its center. It was a surprisingly wide, winding street built up the side of a steep hill. The houses were all two stories and relatively new, making up for in square footage what they lacked in design integrity. The majority of them were painted either white or gray, with black shutters framing the front windows. Occasionally a lavender house popped up, or a set of shutters in bold fire-engine red, to relieve the monotony, bringing a small smile to Marcy’s lips as she walked by. Kelly had said to look for the biggest house on the street, but so far, all the homes looked roughly the same size, the only difference being whether they had a one- or two-car garage.
    A strong wind had started blowing, bringing with it the pungent scent of the harbor. Cork had the world’s second-largestnatural harbor after Sydney Harbor in Australia. Before coming to Cork, Marcy hadn’t realized the city was a major seaport, but then she really hadn’t known very much about Ireland at all.
    “Ireland’s the most beautiful country in the world,” she heard Devon pronounce as she followed another bend in the road. “Daddy’s been telling me all about it. He says we’re going to go there as soon as he can get some time off.”
    “That’s nice.” Marcy decided not to tell her fourteen-year-old daughter that Peter had been making the same promise ever since they’d met and that any free time he had these days was pretty much spent on the golf course.
    “He says it’s got everything: mountain ranges and tall cliffs and wooded river valleys and beaches,” she rattled off, as if reading from a brochure, “and that the cities are modern but the villages are quaint, and that there are huge castles and causeways made out of volcanic rock and monasteries that go all the way back to the sixth century.”
    “Sounds wonderful.”
    “He says we’re going to go there real soon. Maybe even this summer.”
    “Don’t get your hopes up,