Free Alert: (Michael Bennett 8) by James Patterson Page A

it well enough, or at least they enjoyed my wise heavy-handedness with the confectioners’ sugar.
    I was relishing my French cuisine with a bottle of Guinness, the only adult beverage left in the house. Like the laundry, the whole grocery thing was something I had to work out, since Mary Catherine was still away.
    Speaking of Mary Catherine, I’d been jazzed to find a letter—an actual paper snail-mail letter—from her on the hall table when I’d come in. The good news was that there was a new lead on a buyer for the hotel. No definite offer as of yet, but things were looking good.
    The bad news was that though she had asked about the kids, there was really nothing about us or our fabulous romantic week together on the windswept Cliffs of Moher. Or about her heart-wrenching note, which I had read on the plane.
    What could that mean? I wondered. Cold feet? Buyer’s remorse? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I wanted her back here with me so hard it was starting to hurt.
    But like I said, at least I was home. Finally clean and warm and home, though I wasn’t in a real talkative mood after my truly insane day. I was more than content to just listen to the dull roar of the kids all around the table, talking and giggling. Even their teasing was comforting. Their normalcy, their obliviousness to the horror of today’s events, was just what the doctor ordered.
    I was still sitting in my family’s warm chaos, mopping up the stout and syrup, when Seamus came in at speed through the apartment’s front door.
    “Long day, eh, Mick?” said Seamus, looking a little flustered when he spotted me.
    “About a week long, Father,” I said. “Make that a month, but I can’t talk about it. I refuse to, in fact. Pull up a chair and a plate. How’s the nanny hunt going?”
    After Seamus’s health scare, and down one Mary Catherine, I thought it best to look for some temporary help.
    “Been on it since this morning,” Seamus said. “That’s why I’m here. I think I might have found someone. He was recommended quite highly by a friend down at the archdiocese office.”
    “He?”
I said.
    “Yeah. He’s a bit…well, unconventional, you might say.”
    “Unconventional? How so?” I asked as the doorbell rang.
    “See for yourself,” Seamus said, blinking at me. “That’s him now.”

CHAPTER 24
     
    OH, I SEE, I thought when I went out into the hall and opened the door.
    The young man was tall and Colin Farrell handsome, with spiky black hair and black Clark Kent glasses. Nineteen, maybe twenty. He was wearing a white-and-green tracksuit.
    “Hello, there,” he said with an infectious smile and an Irish accent. “I’m Martin Gilroy. Father Romans sent me here about a job?”
    “This way,” Seamus said, ushering him in before I could open my mouth.
    The ruckus in the dining room ceased immediately as Seamus and I brought him into the living room. The kids stared at him in dead silence as we walked past.
    “Hello, guys,” Martin said, smiling.
    If he was fazed by the ten sets of wide eyes on him, he hid it well. He actually stopped and craned his neck to look in the doorway.
    “Hey, what are ya having in there? French toast, is it? Breakfast for dinner?”
    He crouched down next to Shawna and made a funny face. “Then what’s for breakfast, I wonder? Let me guess. Steak and green beans and mashed potatoes?”
    I smiled along with the kids. This guy was pretty good. I was starting to like him already.
    “So tell us a little something about yourself, Martin,” I said as we sat on the couch.
    “Not much to tell, really,” he said, crossing a big neon-green Nike on his thigh. “Me home is a little town in County Cavan, Ireland, called Kilnaleck. Eight of us in the family, not including Mom and Da. Got out of farm chores by playing football, or soccer, as you lot call it, for what reason I’ll never know.
    “Anyway, I got good enough at it to get a scholarship to Manhattan College. I’m also on the track team.