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Ryan walks to the front window, which displays several pieces. An oil painting of a green river viewed through green leaves of a forest. A sculpture of a primitive woman. A ceramic bowl. But it’s the sketch—in pencil and in a familiar style—that lodges a lump in his throat. It’s of a couple, young lovers, running to a parked car on a secluded knoll, laughing to escape a heavy rain.
He braces himself to go in. But then thinks maybe he should wait until the customer leaves. Ryan’s arrival might cause a scene.
He lingers outside, debating what to do. Then something unsettling happens. A hand, one covered with tattoos, appears through the blinds covering the small window on the gallery’s door. It turns a sign from open to closed. He stares at the sign: FERME.
Ryan thinks about the man he saw enter the gallery. He walked in with purpose. There was something familiar about the gait. Ryan’s mind flashes to the image of the man on the English CCTV. The one carrying an axe.
Without hesitation, he charges inside. The door isn’t locked. It’s one of those locks that requires a key even from the inside.
A bell jangles when it opens. A small hallway leads to the main area of the gallery.
There, his heart free-falls. It isn’t a grisly scene with the man with the axe. She’s standing behind a counter. Looking radiant.
She’s frozen staring back at him.
The silence holds for what feels like a lifetime.
“Dodge?” Her tone is threaded with hope and disbelief. And something else, he realizes: fear.
That’s confirmed when a tear rolls down her cheek and she mouths a single word to him.
Run.
63
A knock at the front door rattles Michael’s nerves. He’s not expecting anyone.
He moves stealthily to the entryway. There’s no peephole in the old wooden door, but maybe he can see who it is through the side window.
Before he can look, the door bursts open, the frame splintering. The man standing there is large, beefy, like a boxer past his prime. He holds a handgun at his side. Michael has a vague recollection of the man sitting in the back of O’Leary’s Tavern.
Michael turns, dashes to his bedroom to retrieve his own handgun. He hears the man say, “Jesus Christ,” as he follows after him. There’s no urgency to it. He doesn’t take a shot.
In the bedroom, they each aim a gun at the other. The guy shakes his head, exasperated.
The man then does something unexpected: He lowers his gun, places it on the dresser. He reaches to his front pocket until Michael says, “Don’t do it.”
The man shakes his head again. “It’s my phone. I need to show you something.”
“Who are you?” Michael keeps his weapon trained at center mass.
“My name’s Brian O’Leary,” he says calmly. “May I?” He gestures to his pocket.
Michael thinks about this. Brian O’Leary. Deadly Shane O’Leary’s brother. The man’s gun is on the dresser. He didn’t need to surrender it. Michael nods for Brian to pull out his phone.
“Slow.”
Brian takes his time, makes a show of removing the phone from his pocket. He seeks approval with his eyes to pull up something on the device and Michael nods again. Then Brian flips around the screen to show him.
Michael nearly vomits from the shock. The photo is of his daughter. She’s wearing the clothes she had on this morning. There’s an arm wrapped around her neck, a gun with a long barrel pressed to her temple.
“Put the gun down,” Brian O’Leary says.
“Your brother sent you?”
“Ya think?”
“Do what you need to do with me, but leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with any of this.”