Free The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller by L.D. Beyer Page B

now, her eyes darting back and forth between us before settling on mine.
    “We may have a truce and a treaty, but that doesn’t mean we have peace.” She waited a moment to see if I would argue. When I nodded, she turned and took four cups off the shelf. Kathleen got up to help, but Mary put a hand on her shoulder and Kathleen sat again.
    “Things are calm now,” she continued as she looked over her shoulder at me, “but it wouldn’t take much.” Men who had fought together for the last two years, she explained as she prepared the tea, were now taking sides. Commanders were doing all they could to hold the companies together, in case the truce didn’t last.
    “Still,” Mary added. “Some are choosing to go with the new Free State Army that Michael Collins is forming, while others say we should keep fighting.”
    I didn’t need to ask which side Mary had chosen.
    “And as for you”—she pointed her finger and gave me a stern look—”you’ll do no such thing as choosing one side or the other, not with Kathleen to mind. So don’t go getting any wild notions in that head of yours.”
    I didn’t argue, not that it would have made a difference. After nineteen years of acting the mother, acting the mother-in-law came naturally to Mary. If she had her druthers, she and some of my old comrades would carry on the fight while Kathleen and I made our home as far away from Limerick as we could. I hadn’t thought about taking a side when we set sail ten days ago, but if I had to choose, I would keep fighting until all British forces, in the north as well as the south, were gone. I would keep fighting until all of Ireland was united in freedom. I nodded at Mary. For now, I would have to keep that to myself, lest I upset her any more than I already had.
    “You’ll be going to Abbeyfeale,” Mary announced. She went on to explain that she had arranged for Kathleen and I to stay on a small farm owned by the Maloneys, relatives of her dead husband John. The Maloneys’ farm was 40 miles from Limerick City and a world away. But even in New York, I remembered, thousands of miles from Limerick, the IRA had still managed to find me. If they found me there, they could find me in Abbeyfeale. It was a thought I kept to myself.
    “I know a priest who will wed you,” Mary continued, “but it can’t be here.” Kathleen and I had already discussed this, but I let Mary have her say. That we would be getting married was never a question, but Mary wanted to be certain that I knew my obligations.
    “I’ll need to get my money first,” I said when she was done. I had left so quickly the year before there had been no time to get my savings. I would have to visit the post office. I wondered again if the IRA still had men inside.
    “It’ll do you no good if you’re dead,” Mary snapped. She gave me another sharp look, making sure I understood. “For now, it’ll be safe where it is.”
    I nodded. Fierce when crossed, it wouldn’t do to question Mary, certainly not now. Besides, she was right; the money could wait until I understood just how much Ireland had changed since I’d left.
    I wondered about my things, but I didn’t ask. The IRA, I suspected, had taken everything. Coats and boots were in short supply, and the Volunteers commandeered whatever they could. Now that I was back, I realized I’d had left nothing of value when I’d fled. In my coat pocket, I wrapped my hand around my father’s watch, feeling the reassuring tick-tock of the gears. It was the only thing from my past that I still owned. The only thing that mattered.
    While Mary talked about Abbeyfeale and the wedding and her plans for us, one way or another, before we left Limerick, I had unsettled business to tend to. I had come back to Ireland for Kathleen and for the baby. But now that I was here, I knew it was more than that. Now that I was in Limerick, I couldn’t leave without facing my past. And the first thing I needed to do was to track down the