A Night Of Passion

4

The guy isn’t in his eighties. He must be in his thirties and, unless the photos are filtered, cream-your-pants gorgeous. Dark hair. Arctic-blue eyes. Perhaps I would allow him to suckle on my breast.

But Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was an attractive guy, too. And I can’t find a single picture of Killian Quinn smiling. It only takes one wrong decision to end up in an attic.

“Is it him, his wife, and his daughter?” I ask.

“No, he’s a single father. Teagan’s mom died when she was only two. She’s twelve now, going on thirteen.”

A new teenager. That makes things interesting. Teenagers are terrifying people.

No mother. That’s sad. I wonder whether it was always just her and her father.

“It’s an opportunity.” Marcus breaks my thoughts. “Take it or leave it, Clodagh.”

Take it or leave the country, more like.

But if they vet me, I’ll fail, so what do I have to lose?

Right now, it’s the only option I have.

Marcus knows it too, judging by the smirk on his face. He taps his fingers against the numbers on the pad.

This must be how people end up working for the Irish Mafia.

THREE

Clodagh

I can’t believe I paid forty dollars to go up the Empire State Building. Now I’m staring straight at it from the fiftieth floor of Quinn & Wolfe headquarters while they complete my vetting.

I remember looking over at this building from the viewing platform. With its two spiked towers like horns, it looked more evil than the other skyscrapers. I think I’m in the right horn.

After my weird encounter with fairy godfather Marcus, I spent all last night researching Killian Quinn online.

At thirty-six, he’s one of the wealthiest men in the United States. Self-made, too—the sexiest kind of money. He owns a chain of hotels and casinos across America with his brother and another business partner, ranging from upmarket hostels to luxurious seven-star hotels.

Yes.

Seven.

Doesn’t that mean he wants a seven-star nanny maid? My idea of cleaning is to move things to less obvious places.

Which is why the whole scenario stinks of something fishy. I’m likely about to be flogged on some billionaire black market. Why else would they need so many samples of body parts and fluids?

Blood. Hair. Pee. I half expected them to ask for a poo sample.

After much anxiety, I handed it all over, along with a signed twenty-page NDA.

I filled out a questionnaire so detailed I didn’t know some of the answers about myself.

Blood type? I don’t know my blood type.

Feeling self-conscious, I flick at invisible specks on my skirt. The HR lady left me in the waiting area for thirty minutes this time.

If buildings had personalities, this one would be a sociopath—cold and sterile, with monochrome walls and sharp edges. Negative energy swirls in the air every time someone strides by, talking into their wireless earbuds.

Like building, like owner.

“Clodagh.” The HR lady pops her head out of the door and beckons me to follow. “One more form and you’re free to go.”

My heart thuds. Talking to the beautiful HR lady makes me nervous. Compared to her, I feel like a country mouse. I love New York, but sometimes it’s so overwhelming.

I shuffle into the room and settle back in the same seat I’ve been in and out of all day.

Ugly words in a big black font stare up at me, and my stomach drops out of my ass and down all fifty floors.

Criminal record check

Looks like I’m getting on that flight back to Belfast.

***

“Let’s get married!” Orla beams, taking a large gulp of her Manhattan. Since I’m leaving New York in six days, four hours and—whatever, I’m too tipsy to figure out the rest—I figured Manhattans would be a good choice.

Orla came to town from Queens to help me drown my sorrows. Now I’m treating us to expensive cocktails near Quinn’s headquarters at three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon like we have money to burn. I thought it fitting to choose a Quinn Brother hotel bar.

Red velvet padding lines the walls, maybe to keep you from getting hurt if you get too drunk, like an adult playpen. Dim lights and fancy lampshades make it feel like eleven o’clock. Dangerous.

“I have an American passport, so we can get married,” Orla suggests. She swings happily on her barstool as if she’s figured out a solution to climate change.

“Shush.” I nudge her knee. She’s too loud for a bar like this.

After this drink, I’ll take her home. For an Irish woman, she’s a lightweight with alcohol.

Though she has a point... marrying Orla doesn’t seem so absurd anymore. We would be a married couple minus the s*x, and there are plenty of those out there.

Jesus, I’m desperate.

“No.” I sigh mournfully into my Manhattan, swirling the straw around the ice. “It’s hardly a long-term solution. What happens when one of us meets a man?”

“They’d probably want a threesome.”

The sophisticated older lady sitting a few feet away gives us a disapproving side-eye.

“I’m going to have to accept it, Orla,” I murmur, staring into the V-shaped glass filled with red liquor. “I’m leaving. I tried, but let’s face it…” My voice cracks. I can’t cry in this fancy bar.

“No.” She grabs both my hands, lifting them in the air like she’s performing some ritual. “There must be a way. Maybe they won’t find anything on your criminal record. Does it get wiped after a while?”

I give her a weak smile. “Not this soon, no. It’ll still be a big dirty mark against my name.”

She hums and squeezes my hands tighter. “Maybe they’ll miss it?”

“They won’t miss it.”

“The au pair agency did.”

“The agency are cowboys. They also tweaked my résumé so much I sounded like Nanny McPhee. Quinn took blood from me. He means business.”

Her hands release mine as she sinks back into her seat. We both go silent.

“Maybe they won’t care what’s on your record? You didn’t go on a murder spree. It was just a… series of unfortunate events.”

I smile to humor her. That’s not how the police saw it and that’s not what’s on my record.

Drawing a slow breath through her nose, she places her fingertips over her eyelids. “Deep breaths. Positive thoughts. We have to have faith. One year from now, we’ll be celebrating in this bar as legal citizens of New York. I’ll be working for the NYPD, probably having earned a medal of honor, and you’ll be a carpenter winning… Carpenter of the Year!”

She still has her eyes closed, so she can’t see mine rolling. “Have you been reading The Secret again?”

She opens her eyes and grins. “If you believe it will happen, it will happen.”

I exhale heavily and take a large gulp of my Manhattan, welcoming the burn on its way down. If my last hope is wishful thinking, it’s a sad state of affairs.

“I’ll be right back.” Orla slides off her stool, causing her skirt to ride up. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll be here,” I say cheerfully, swirling the last of my cocktail. “For now,” I add quietly to myself.

I watch Orla walk away. My heart twinges. Soon, we won’t be doing this together. We’ve been best friends since we were kids. We were neighbors, we went to school together, and we bunked off school together. The only time we spent apart was when she’d go on holiday to the United States to visit her relatives, and I was so jealous.

Now these past few months, we’ve living in each other’s pockets, in the loft of Uncle Sean’s house in Queens.

“He’s here,” the woman behind me says, interrupting my private pity party. Her excited tone makes me want to eavesdrop on their conversation. “I saw him coming out of the restrooms.”

“You’re kidding me,” whoever is with her replies. “We have to find a way to bump into him accidentally.”

I scan the bar, looking for signs of someone famous, mildly curious. Who’s here? The guy in the corner looks vaguely like Al Pacino.

The woman says something in a lower voice to her friend, which is inaudible to me. Her friend laughs. I wish I could catch more of their chat.

I lean back slightly on my stool. This isn’t a good plan, considering I’m a bit wobbly from the cocktails.

Bad timing.

The bartender zooms past me. I barely catch his arm as he reaches for my glass.

“Hang on!” I lunge forward and snatch it up, my fingers gripping the stem firmly. “I’m not finished.”

He looks at the nearly empty glass and then at me, barely suppressing an eye roll.

I scowl in return. Waste not, want not. It’s no more than a dribble, but I’m not wasting a drop.

I tilt the glass back, making sure I don’t miss a single drop, then place the empty glass in front of him.

“I’ve been thinking in the bathroom,” Orla announces as she returns.

I wait for the grand revelation.

“We should have one more,” she says, smiling at me with glazed eyes. “One more, and then we’ll head home.”