Smoked

Tower Inn.”
He raised a brow.
“I know, it’s a bit swanky.”
“I heard you did well for yourself. Followed in your father’s footsteps. He’d be proud.”
I felt dizzy and reached out to steady myself. The man caught my arm. “You okay, lass?”
“Did you say, my father?”
“Aye.” He led me over to a bench. “You best sit. You look as though you’ve seen the ghost of my sweet Janie.”
“What do you know about my father?”
“I knew him all his life.”
I wrapped my arms around my body when I began to shake. Between the memory of my mother dying in her bed and meeting someone who knew not just me but my father too, who I didn’t recognize, it was all a bit much. Making it worse was how much I wished Smoke was here with me right now, that having him here would give me comfort.
Mr. O’Brien—Uncle Gene—walked with me back to the Tower Inn. When we stopped out front, he took a deep breath. “Something smells heavenly,” he murmured.
I took a deep breath too. “Smells like Irish Stew to me.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had stew that smelled as good as my Janie’s.”
“Would you like to join me for dinner?”
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother. I’d enjoy the company.”
A grin split his face. “Don’t have to ask me twice.”
Over a pint, Uncle Gene told me that he and “his Janie” never had children of their own, so they “adopted” the kids in the neighborhood. Kids like my mother, father, and me.
“This may sound terrible to you, but I don’t remember anything about my father.”
He rested his head in his hand, and his eyes hooded. “You wouldn’t, lass. You never knew him.”
“Why not?” I asked, my voice shaky and thick with the threat of tears.
“He died before you were born.”
“H-h-h-ow?”
“I told you earlier you’d followed in his footsteps.”
I nodded and brushed a tear from the corner of my eye.
“You’ve heard of Veronica Guerin?”
“The journalist murdered by John Gilligan’s drug gang.”
“That’s right. Your da was one of the men that tracked Traynor, Gilligan’s second-in-command as well as the one said to have ordered Guerin’s hit, to Portugal. He died in a gunfight with Traynor.”
I sat back in my chair, wondering if I’d known any of this. “What was his name?” I whispered.
“Brendan O’Connor.”
“My name is Gallagher.”
“Aye. Your mother’s name.”
“Were they married?”
“They’d planned to be. Everything changed after Guerin’s death. Not just in Dublin, in all of Ireland. The entire country became enraged by her killing. Then, after he died, your mother hid the fact you were his child for fear of Gilligan’s gang coming after her or you.”
“You knew, though.”
“Those who knew wouldn’t have dared to utter a word.”
“It’s so sad.”
“There were many happy times that came before.”
“Yeah?”
Uncle Gene spent the next two hours telling me stories about my mother and father as children and teenagers. “They went from hating each other to loving each other in the snap of a finger,” he said, laughing about how all the neighbors had predicted it would happen. “You could tell that, deep down, they carried a torch for one another. That kind of passion burns in both directions. They say it’s a fine line between love and hate.”
I thought about the conversation I’d overheard between Smoke and Decker. He’d said that there were times he hated me enough to walk out on the mission. He also said I hated him as much, if not more.
Was that why I woke after my surgery believing I’d loved him? Because of that fine line?
“You’re lost in thought.”
“There’s someone…” I shook my head.
“Who you feel the same way about?”
I shrugged. “I told you about the amnesia.”
“Go on.”
“I don’t really know. He and I were on a mission, and I was shot.” I pointed to the knit hat I wore whenever I was out in public. “Here,” I added, resting my hand on the incision behind my ear. “When I came to in the hospital, I couldn’t remember anything. Except him, and by that, I mean I remembered being in love with him and he with me. Turns out that wasn’t the case.”
“Are you sure?”
I bit my bottom lip. “About me or him?”
Uncle Gene smiled. “You.”
“I overheard him say he was just waiting for me to get my memory back. After that happened, he’d make sure we never worked together again.”
“Eavesdropping?” he asked with a raised brow.
“Yes.”
“Is there a chance, then, that what you heard was taken out of context?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you aren’t certain.”
I sighed and took another sip from the pint that never seemed to empty. “I’m not certain of anything right now, Uncle Gene.”
It was late, so rather than let him walk home alone in the dark, I drove him back to my old neighborhood.
“That one is mine,” he said, pointing to a house a few doors down from the one I grew up in.
“This might be a long shot, but do you know of a James Mallory?”
“Jimmy Mallory?”
“I suppose so. I’ve been trying to locate him.”
“Here?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been looking in the wrong place, then. Jimmy Mallory is in Kinsale.”
“Did you say Kinsale?” Wasn’t that where Smoke had said his mother’s family was from?
“Aye. Just so you know, lass, his father was good friends with yours. Best of friends, in fact.”

23
Smoke
I took Casper with me when I went to interview the older of the two girls whose mother and father had been killed in La Chapelle-Saint-Maurice. I was an intimidating motherfucker, and that was by design. It wouldn’t serve me well, though, in trying to get a kid to talk about the death of her parents ten years ago.
Casper could be pretty damn intimidating herself when she wanted to be, but she also had a soft side.
“What’s the girl’s name?” she asked on the ninety-minute drive from Lyon to Lac du Bourget, where the young woman lived.
“Colette. Her younger sister is Emelie.”
“Will she be there?”
“I’m not sure.”
Casper nodded and looked out the window. “I love this part of