EXECUTION IN E Page 3

  “Flea bag, itinerant freak show is more what I had in mind.”

  The offense transformed from mock to real. Ty narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any idea how much these glad rags cost?”

  “I do. My grandfather was a high-end tailor. I learned enough about men’s fashion by watching him in his shop to realize your fiancée spent a significant chunk of her money to outfit you.”

  Ty relaxed and shrugged. “The life of an influencer is tougher than you think.”

  Gooseflesh broke out on Gethsemane’s arms in response to his cynical chuckle. “My answer is still no.”

  Ty looked blank. “Oh, the wedding music.” He dragged on his cigarette as realization dawned. “We’ll get someone else. Andrea Boccelli, you suggested?” He waved the hand holding the cigarette, sending smoke into Gethsemane’s face. “May I use your facilities? Your jacks?” He took a drag on the cigarette. “What is it you Americans call it? Your bathroom? There’s none up at the lighthouse.”

  “What are you doing up at the lighthouse? Not taking more pictures. Don’t you have enough?”

  Ty dragged on his cigarette again. “As my sweet sunshine says, you can never take too many pictures. Your bathroom?”

  “Not with that you can’t.” Gethsemane nodded at the cigarette. “No smoking.”

  Ty dropped the cigarette on the porch and crushed it under his heel.

  Gethsemane, rooted in the doorway, looked from Ty, to the cigarette, to Ty.

  Ty coughed, then picked up the cigarette and put it in his pocket.

  “Upstairs.” Gethsemane stood aside to let him pass. She waited in the entryway for him to return.

  He bounded down the stairs a few moments later. He ignored the open door and sat on the entryway bench. “You’re friends with Vern?”

  “Is that any of your business?”

  “Verna and I used to be close.”

  “An impressive gift for understatement. You left her at the altar.”

  “She told you about me.”

  “No,” Gethsemane said, “her sister did. I get the idea Verna would rather talk about boils and toenail fungus than about you.”

  Ty flashed a smile full of superficial charm. “No need for hostility, is there? I’m just asking about someone who once played an important role in my life.”

  Gethsemane said nothing.

  Ty continued. “The fella she was with at the pub? The ginger. Are they serious?”

  “That’s even less of your business than whether or not she and I are friends.”

  “Vern and I go way back. I still care about her and want her to be happy.”

  “She wants you to be dead. So does her sister.”

  “Ouch. I’m not going to get much from you, am I?”

  “Not this week. So…” She gestured toward the open door.

  “You’re not easy, are you?” Ty launched into a coughing fit.

  She waited until it passed. “Ever think of quitting? Before you cough up a lung?”

  Ty waved her question away, a sardonic grin on his lips. “Got it under control. Unlike this situation.”

  “You cop on fast, Mr. Lismore. Let’s hope your darling bride-to-be doesn’t cop on to the fact that you’re still interested in the well-being of your ex.” She opened the door wider. “Better hurry. Your sweet sunshine is probably standing up on Carrick Point, arms crossed, foot tapping, fuming about the Insta-perfect moments you’re missing. And you really should do something about that nasty cough. She wouldn’t appreciate it if you caught pneumonia and died. You’d cost her a sponsorship.”

  Ty’s smile disappeared. He rose, in no hurry, and ambled toward the door. He paused at the threshold and looked down at Gethsemane, as if he meant to say something. He seemed to reconsider and, instead, smiled again, gave a slight nod of his head, and walked toward the lighthouse.

  Gethsemane waited until he reached the end of the drive then called after him. “Why did you abandon her?”

  Ty turned.

  “Why did you leave Verna at the altar? No one deserves that.”

  Ty’s face remained neutral but his eyes held pure menace. “Blondie-blonde isn’t as innocent as she makes out. The poor-me-helpless-female routine’s just that, an act. At least with Sunny, I know exactly what I’m getting.” He spat the words. “Better warn your red-headed friend to watch his back.”

  Gethsemane shuddered. Ty reminded her of the husband in one of those twisted domestic suspense novels with “Girl” in the title. He and Sunny were perfect for each other.

  As she closed the door, she heard him say, “Give the Cunningham sisters my best. And tell them to be careful who they wish dead.”

  Five

  “I’m telling you, Eamon, it was creepy. Ty Lismore is evil personified.” Gethsemane paced the music room.

  “You called me by my given name instead of ‘Irish.’ You must be serious.” Eamon’s green aura showed that he, on the other hand, was not. He played Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” on the piano. His fingers disappeared into the keys as he played.

  Gethsemane paused her pacing long enough to glare at him. “Not funny.”

  “You’re overreacting,” Eamon said. “Lismore and Miss Cunningham had a bad breakup. I’m sure feelings were hurt on both sides.”

  “Why should Ty care if Verna is serious about Frankie?”

  “Some men are that way—possessive wankers whose egos can’t handle their exes moving on, even when they were the ones who ended the relationship.”

  “He threatened her. ‘Be careful who you wish dead.’ Sounded like a threat to me.”

  Eamon stopped playing. “Did your warning bells go off?”

  “Well, no.” Whenever danger loomed, Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique” played in her head, her internal early warning system. She seldom heeded the warning, but it always sounded. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Then it was just talk. A gorilla pounding his chest.” He played “Carnival of the Animals.”

  Gethsemane sat next to him on the piano bench. “I guess. Maybe. What do you think he meant by Verna not being innocent?”

  “More ego salvage. Accuse her of being the bad actor, shift the blame to her.”

  “What if Verna really did something? Cheated on him, maybe.”

  “Would it matter?”

  “No, not really. Unless…” She resumed pacing. “What if she’s a habitual cheater? Frankie doesn’t deserve that. Yseult put him through enough heartbreak.”

  “You’re letting Lismore get to you.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s not only what he said, it’s the way he said it. It sounded like more than just talk. Substance lay behind his words.”

  “Admit it, you smell a mystery and you can’t resist it, can you?” Saint-Saens gave way to “Yoda and the Force.” “The urge to snoop is strong in this one.”

  “The urge to protect my friend is strong. Frankie is my friend.”

  “Yoda and the Force” melted into “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio.

  Gethsemane stuck her tongue out at him. “Okay, okay. I do want to protect Frankie, but I admit I kind of enjoy sleuthing. I seem to have a knack for it. At least this mystery doesn’t involve any dead bodies.”

  “Maybe a skeleton or two.” The eerie tones of “La Danse Macabre” replaced the bathetic Pinocchio theme.

  “Would you stop it with the soundtrack and help me think of a way to find out what really went on between Verna and Ty?”

  “Why don’t you ask Ty?”

  “Even if I trusted him to tell me the truth, which I don’t, the thought of having to be civil to him nauseates me. I suppose I could ask Verna. Sometimes you’ll tell a gal pal something you wouldn’t tell a boyfriend.”

  “Do you talk about your ex? To anyone?”

  “No, but only
because there’s not much to tell. He wanted an adoring, stay-at-home wife content to live in his shadow. I’d never be that wife, so…” She shrugged.

  “Does Grennan talk about Yseult except when he’s being questioned as part of a criminal investigation?”

  “Point taken.”

  “How about the sister, Vivian? Orla’s sister could never resist gossiping about Orla. She’d have tattled if the devil himself had threatened to nail her tongue to the floor.”

  “You might be on to something, Irish. No love’s lost between Vivian and Ty. Every time she sees him she tries to lay hands on him.” Gethsemane walked to the case where she kept her violin, a nineteenth-century antique. “Vivian’s a flutist. Think she’d be interested in a close-up look at Vuillaume copy of a Stradivari ‘Messiah’ violin?”

  “Aye, that and a glass or two of Waddell and Dobb Double-Oaked. She’ll sing like Kathleen Battle.”

  Gethsemane rejected the idea of calling Vivian to invite her to Carraigfaire Cottage. She’d have to get her number from Verna, who’d wonder why she wanted it. She’d see Vivian in person.

  She rode her bike into the village. Vivian had booked a room at Sweeney’s Inn while visiting her sister, claiming she kept odd hours and didn’t want to disturb Verna with her coming and going. She also spent time doing research in the Dunmullach library’s music collection. Gethsemane had run into her there a few times while doing her own research for the upcoming term’s lesson plans. She glanced at her watch. The library closed soon. She’d try the inn.

  She parked her bike in front of the Tudor-style structure and entered the lobby. She greeted the clerk at the registration desk.

  “I’m here to see Vivian Cunningham, would you call her room to see if she’s in, please?”

  “She’s not in.” The clerk nodded toward the lounge. “Ms. Cunningham’s in there.”

  Gethsemane thanked the clerk and headed for the cozy room just off the lobby. Vivian sat with her back to the door, engrossed in conversation with Theophilus Derringer. She didn’t notice Gethsemane.

  “He’s sick. He has to be. No normal person would behave this way. Doesn’t he know what he’s doing to her?”

  “I don’t think he sees it that way—”

  “What way does he see it? As a couple of old mates reuniting for a walk down memory lane? This is killing my sister.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean to cause her pain.”

  Vivian’s harsh laugh turned the heads of other guests in the lounge. “Why did that cow of his choose Dunmullach to get married in? A million bloody lighthouses in the world and she can afford all of ’em. Why here?”

  “She didn’t—” Theo noticed Gethsemane and broke off. “Hello.”

  Vivian turned. Her cheeks were damp. “Gethsemane, hello. Sorry, I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “Are you all right?” Gethsemane asked. She glanced at Theophilus.

  “I’m fine. I was just, uh—”

  “Viv—Ms. Cunningham was hoping I could convince Ty and Sunny to find a different location for their destination wedding. I was explaining that they’re both determined people, once they make up their minds, they’re not likely to change them.”

  Gethsemane raised an eyebrow. Vivian must be pretty determined—or desperate—herself to corral a groomsman she hardly knew and try to get him to persuade someone to change their wedding plans.

  Theophilus rose, his gaze fixed over Gethsemane’s shoulder. “I have to go now.”

  She and Vivian followed his gaze. Ty, Sunny, Brian, and Sunny’s attendants walked into the hotel lobby.

  Vivian swore.

  Ty smiled, not kindly. “Viv, how are you?”

  “Nauseated,” she said.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk, to catch up on old times.”

  “I’d rather stick forks in my eyes.” She tried to leave the lounge, but Ty blocked her path. “Move.”

  “Ty,” Sunny said in her little-girl voice, with a very adult look of ice-cold threat in her eyes. “Come over here, sweetie. We have an appointment with the director of catering. We mustn’t keep them waiting. That would be so rude.”

  Ty stepped aside and Vivian rushed past. Gethsemane followed her. She caught up to her in the inn’s courtyard.

  Vivian sank onto a bench. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m not the full shilling.”

  “I think something terrible happened between Ty and your sister, something worse than leaving her at the altar.

  Vivian buried her face in her hands.

  Gethsemane sat next to her. “What happened?”

  Vivian didn’t answer. Her shoulders shook with near-silent sobs.

  Gethsemane placed a hand on her shoulder and waited for the crying to stop. “Vivian, what happened?”

  Vivian shook her head.

  “If it’s something Frankie needs to know about, something that could hurt him—”

  “No, no,” Vivian lowered her hands, “it’s nothing like that. Vern would never do anything to hurt Frankie, I swear. He’s the first man since—” Vivian took a deep breath. “Ty Lismore murdered our brother.”

  Didn’t see that coming. “Murdered your brother?”

  Vivian nodded. “Patrick. They were mates, he and Ty. They both worked at Berridge Lodge up in Connemara, Ty as estate manager and Patrick as gamekeeper. They went out shooting one day, hunting for hare. Only Ty came back.”

  “I’m so sorry. I…” What more could she say? No wonder the Cunningham sisters reacted so violently when Ty walked into a room. How would she react if someone murdered one of her brothers and she ran into the murderer in town? “Why isn’t Ty in prison?”

  “Because the state concluded ‘accidental shooting.’” Vivian filled the words with acid. “No motive for intentional homicide they said. Never even went to trial. An accident. Hah! It was daddy’s connections and an expensive solicitor is what it was. That bastard got away with murder as sure as I’m sitting here.”

  “All things considered, you’ve modeled restraint. What keeps you from jumping over a table and ripping his throat out?”

  “Don’t think I haven’t considered it. Vern’s the only one who keeps me from doing to him what he did to Patrick. She blames herself. She brought Ty into our lives. She introduced him to Patrick.”

  “She couldn’t have predicted her fiancé would shoot her brother.”

  “She stuck by him after it happened, at least for a while. She chose to believe him, right up to the day she found herself standing alone at the altar. She believed him when he told her it was an accident. Most of the family never forgave her. Ma and Da disowned her. They haven’t spoken to her since Patrick’s funeral.”

  Worse and worse. “I can’t fathom why Ty would want to get married in the village where the sisters of the man he killed lived, even if he honestly believed the shooting was accidental.”

  “I’m sure he’s enjoying it. He’s cruel. Evil. I’m sure he gets off on the thought that he’s torturing us.”

  “I wish I could say something to make you feel better.”

  “You can. You can tell me you found his lifeless corpse at the foot of a cliff,” Vivian said. She gasped and swore as the object of her hatred appeared in the courtyard entrance.

  “Speak of the devil,” Gethsemane muttered.

  “I have nothin’ to say to ya, Ty.” Vivian spat the words. “At least nothin’ I’d say in front of a witness. Why don’t you go back to hell and leave us in peace?”

  “Relax, Vivian.” Ty stepped into the courtyard and looked around, his gaze at ground level instead of on the two women. “Unlike so many of the men in your orbit, I’m not after you.” He bent to peer under a bench.

  “Lose something?” Gethsemane asked.

  “My flask. You haven’t seen it around anywhere, have you?” He peered behind a
flowerpot. “I don’t know where it’s got to.”

  “If I find it, I’ll be sure to return it filled with poison,” Vivian said.

  “In that case,” Ty straightened up, “I’d better find it before you do. No worries, I’m sure it’ll turn up.” He smiled but made no move to leave the courtyard.

  Gethsemane pointed toward the entrance. “You can get out the same way you came in. Or was there something else you needed help with?”

  Ty’s smile tightened, giving him the appearance of a venomous reptile. “Why do you dislike me? Viv and I have history, sure, but you and I have only just met.”

  “Why do I dislike you?” Gethsemane shrugged. “General principle? Because to know you is to loathe you? Maybe it’s because even a few minutes spent in your company is long enough to know that you don’t fall into the category of ‘decent guy.’ You are not a good person.”

  “But I’m a gas at parties.” Ty winked.

  “If I gave you the eye roll that remark deserved, I might sprain an eye muscle. Shouldn’t you scurry along to find your keeper? She probably has another photoshoot planned. Gotta keep the sponsors happy.”

  “Anything for the sponsors. You have to give it to my sunshine. She’s a marketing genius. The wedding of her dreams on someone else’s dime.” He bowed his head to Gethsemane and Vivian. “Ladies.”

  They watched as he disappeared back into the inn.

  Vivian closed her eyes and spoke through clenched teeth. “I hate him so much. Lord forgive me, I wish Ty Lismore nothing more than a slow lonely death.” She grabbed Gethsemane’s arm so hard, Gethsemane almost didn’t notice “Pathetique” playing in her head.

  She pried Vivian’s fingers from her arm. “You wouldn’t act on your feelings for Ty, would you? He’s not worth going to prison for.”

  Tears pooled in Vivian’s eyes. “I don’t know. Heaven help me, I really don’t know.” She choked back a sob and ran for the inn.

  Six

  Gethsemane left Vivian in the inn’s bar with a bottle of Bushmills and a promise from staff to see that she got back to her room. She toyed with her phone as she exited the inn. Should she call Frankie and tell him that his girlfriend’s ex-fiancé killed her brother? Was that the kind of thing you tell a friend? Should she call Verna and tell her she knew what happened and encourage her to tell Frankie? Did Frankie wonder why his girlfriend lost it every time her ex walked into the same room? Or did he just assume her ex was as twisted as his and satisfy himself, leaving it at that? Yseult hadn’t killed anyone. Probably.