Chapter 2: Siobhan

I had arranged for what needed to be done. The recordings ready, drones were set up, and I had people that I trusted from Finn and Jennifer’s security staff scoping out the area around the home. I had no idea how good these murderous thugs were, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. If they had people in-place watching the house before they were going to arrive, I wanted to know about it.

My husband, Tommy, was going to be royally pissed-off. I sent him a long text explaining what was happening, but we had almost lost our marriage over something similar years ago. Factor in that Jennifer wanted to be a part of this just made things more complicated.

So, I sat in my niece’s bedroom with her and my daughter’s and we spoke about whatever took their fancy. My eldest was boy crazy, and I had no idea where that came from. She was too young to be interested in boys with anything more than idle curiosity. Cynthia was the eldest of the three, and she was barely interested. So, our conversations as I tried to distract myself went from boys, to bands, to silly videos, and to how annoying William was. In actuality, the girls all adored him and were mostly upset that he was dating and had less time for his sister and his cousins.

“Mom, how come Yekong always uses your name.? Not your name, you know what I mean, why does she always use the name of the person she’s talking to? Like, five times in a row. I mean, if it’s just the two of us talking, I’ll know she’s talking to me. Who else would you be talking to? So, what does she keep using my name? It just seems weird.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t grow up around here. Maybe it’s different where she comes from. I do know that she loves you. Maybe she just likes saying your name.”

My youngest had a plush Hershey’s Kiss with eyes, arms and legs in her hand. We had gotten it for Cynthia when we went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania. Maybe just to be contradictory, she spoke up. “I like it. I like Yekong.”

I rolled my eyes. “We all do. It’s just one of those things.”

We heard a stomp in the hallway, a pause, and then another stomp. The pattern repeated twice again before Yekong stepped stiff-legged into the bedroom, her hands extended in front of her.

“I say the names, so I remember the little girls that I eat up.”

Yekong pounced on my elder daughter and pretended to eat her head. I sat back in wonderment, thinking of how much she had changed. We didn’t speak about it, but I had learned a bit of her history. She’d been raised as a slave, fighting for the amusement of others. When we first met, I thought there was an excellent chance that I was going to have to kill her. She was the most socially awkward human I had ever met, and she was obsessed with my niece. Now, years later, she was playing with my daughter, pretending to be a witch or something.

Glad that she hadn’t been offended, I snatched this joyful moment and stored it in my heart. It fueled me and reminded me of why I did the things I did.

Originally, her brother Robert had been her caretaker, protecting her from herself when interacting with others. Socially, she had surpassed him long ago. He remained the loner, the outsider, the jackass who insisted that he didn’t care if you lived or died, while Yekong worked her ass off to be a part of our family, after a lifetime of being alone.

After stepping away from my daughter, Yekong turned to me. “May we talk?”

Time to get back to work. Sighing, I nodded and stood. After kissing each of the girls on their head, I followed Yekong out into the hallway and to Finn’s office.

“What are we going to do about Jennifer?”

That was an excellent question, and I only had a rough sketch of an idea. “I’m going to lie to her.” Yekong raised an eyebrow, and I continued. “I’m going to tell her that we figured out which room the little boy and his mother were staying in at that house. We’re going to put her in there, because that’s where she’ll be most needed. That they’ll definitely head to that room first.”

“And you don’t actually know this? The room where the boy and mother stayed?”

I smirked. “Heck no. I just want to get her secured and into a room where she’ll be safe.”

She shook her head. “Do you remember when we were in Hong Kong? When Robert decided that he was going to kill the people that had taken me as a child and were trying to take me back? He thought it best to do that to me. He lied to me. He locked me in a room. It was nice, this room. It was pretty. It was comfortable. But it was a cage. After being a slave for so long, my brother, the first person I had trusted since I was four years old, locked me up just like they had. I will not do that to Jennifer.”

I felt some rage pushing past the dulling effect of my meds. My grandmother had been ... unbalanced. It had gotten worse as she grew older. The agoraphobia that she easily conquered as a young woman in Manhattan eventually drove her to be housebound in Montauk. She had been babysitting me when she made the decision to take her own life. I was a child when I found her. She wouldn’t answer when I banged on her door and somehow, I knew something horrible it happened. Using a butter knife, I popped the lock to her bedroom door, let it swing open, and saw her hanging from the rope.

How old had I been? Eight? Nine?

It had been my fault, because of course it had. I was a kid. I knew in my bones that I should’ve done something. I had always wanted to be a cop like my grandfather, but that’s when my entire life solidified. I would never, ever fail my family again. I would never again let them die on my watch. As I grew older, anger towards my grandmother grew exponentially until I started to experience what she had gone through; panic attacks, growing paranoia, and mentally disappearing for hours on end.

Thankfully, I had resources that she never had. I quietly sought out specialists, took my meds religiously, and lived my life. Those pills numbed me a bit, taking the edges off the strongest of emotions. I felt sharper, more like myself when I was off them, but I knew the price that might be paid for that freedom.

Yekong’s reticence to do what was needed to keep Jen alive was reaching the old me, the true me.

“I’m not locking her in the room. It’s not going to be a prison. I’m just keeping her out of the way while you and I do what we need to do. If you have an issue with that, find a way to deal with it. If I need to lie to keep my sister-in-law safe, I’m going to do it. We all have things we need to deal with, Yekong. I have my issues. I don’t talk about them, but they are there. Jennifer has hers, and one of them is that once she makes up her mind, it’s done. Nobody’s going to dissuade her. So, yeah. She’s going to go. The least I can do is increase the odds of her survival.”

My phone beeped, and I checked the message. Tommy was on his way over. It needed to be done, but I was terrified of speaking to my husband. Years of therapy had gotten us past his feelings of betrayal when I risked myself to seek out the pornographers that had driven his niece to suicide. We were in a better place, but the echoes of that horrible time still haunted me. Yekong said that she would think over what I had said, and I walked back downstairs and out the back door to stare at the ocean while I made my next phone call.

He picked up on the second ring, his voice as warm and rich as always. He had a voice made to speak from a pulpit.

“Hello, Daisy.”

There were few people in this world that I allowed to call me Daisy. He was one of them.

“Hello Father. You have a minute?”

“Of course. How are Tommy and the girls?”

“They’re good. The girls asked about you. You need to start coming for dinner again.”

“I do. Stepping up at the orphanage has taken a lot of my time, but I’ll work something out. Maybe you and Tommy can bring the girls to see me there. We could do something together, like grill up dinner for the children.”

“I’d like that. I really would. Father, I need a favor. I need to ... I need to do what I do best. Have you heard about the attack on the house in Riverhead?”

“With the women and children? I did. It’s horrible. Are you involved with that somehow?”

He obviously couldn’t see me, but I shook my head. “Not really. Not yet. It was one of a number of homes that Jennifer and Finn pay for. It was a refuge, Father. For abused women and their kids. You know I’m not really fully back, right? To where I was with God and the church, before what happened to my grandmother? But I’m trying. Some things are going down tonight, and if you could pray for me, it would mean a lot.”

He was silent for a moment before responding. “Of course. I’m heading back to the rectory in about twenty minutes. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Not really. I need to concentrate, and I did need to get my head in the right place. Just ... just pray and maybe let me know that you’ll be there for Tommy and my girls if anything goes wrong.”

His voice was quiet as he responded. “I’ll be praying for you all night, and so will others. And if it reassures you to hear me say that I will be there for Tommy and your daughters, then I’m happy to say it, but you already know that’s going to happen. Until I go to my final reward, I’ll always be there for you.”

My voice was now as soft as his. “I know, Father. Sometimes I just ... I just need to hear it. Thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Siobhan. You know what you mean to me.”

I’d had mentors in my life, more than one. Men and some women who had taught me to become the best protector I could be for my family, biological and adopted. But Father Chakowski had taught me how to be human, how to listen to my conscience and be a better person.

“I know, Father.”

He took a beat before replying. “Siobhan, here’s something else that you need to hear. You always have a choice. Always. Don’t let yourself get locked into doing something you don’t want to do just because it fits a role you think you have to fulfill. The best part of you is your love and your compassion. Not your considerable skills. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“You’re not being overly subtle, so yeah, I get it. If I don’t have to, don’t kill them.”

“Don’t be flippant, Daisy. You’re better than that.”

I had to get off the phone. His words had a way of wriggling into my brain, and it would put me off my game.

“We’ll talk soon, okay?”

“We love you. I’ll be praying.”

Sighing, I went back to watching the ocean and noticed the shadows starting to grow longer. Resigned to the inevitable march of time, I went back into the house and awaited my husband.

When Tommy stepped through the front door, he nodded towards the stairs. “Cynthia’s room?”

When I nodded, he jogged upstairs to see our daughters. He was back downstairs in a few minutes, and I silently got up so we could step out for some privacy. In one way or another, we had been together since I was thirteen years old. It made communication easier. There was a lot that didn’t need verbalizing. It was manipulative as hell, but I led him around back and over towards Finn’s shed. Yeah, it provided great privacy, but that wasn’t why I chose that area, and my husband knew it.