Irish Lady Read Free Page A

instead the elegant Culloden Hotel, five miles east of the city in County Down. No one would question her for vacationing in its luxurious surroundings.
    Her call to Cecil had been easier than expected. He had been delighted with her decision, agreeing to oversee her clients and postpone any hearings until her return. Now, all there was left to do was write a note to Mrs. Hartwell and wait until eight the next morning, when her taxi would arrive to take her to the airport.
    The flight and the drive north were too short. The breath-stealing beauty of dark turf, marsh grass, and boiling clouds stained pink with sunlight, churning and twisting their way across a soft spring sky, filled her senses. Unable to bear the all-consuming beauty of her homeland, Meghann pulled off the road to catch her breath. It was all so achingly familiar, the long-haired sheep blocking the roads, the golden igloo-shaped haystacks, the green hills and jutting peaks of the Cliffs of Mourne, the white Queen Anne’s lace, the blood-colored fuchsia bells, the purple foxglove and the golden wild mustard. Fifteen years. Fifteen years since she had seen an Irish spring. Meghann leaned her head against the steering wheel and watched as a single curlew rested momentarily on an updraft, its wings splayed and turned down to follow the wind current. Ireland.
    She turned the key and the engine zoomed to life. Maneuvering the finely tuned compact back onto the left side of the road, Meghann turned on the radio. It was early, not even ten. Reaching for the radio dial, she found the news station she wanted. Nigel Wentworth was as straightforward as he was factual. No editorializing for this morning anchor. Meghann preferred her news that way. She resented people who tried to sway her opinion using inconclusive evidence.
    At first the words did nothing more than soothe her battered nerves, until a single name jarred her into acute, undivided attention. “ James Killingsworth. James Killingsworth ,” the anchor repeated, “ was murdered last night while entering a taxi after a Labour Party fund-raising event at West Belfast’s Europa Hotel. With him were his wife, Pamela, and their ten-year-old daughter, Susan. Susan remains in critical condition at Royal Victoria Hospital .”
    Good Lord. James Killingsworth, rising star of the Labour Party and most likely to have been England’s next prime minister. Meghann admired him. He was a charismatic and popular liberal who cut through the red tape of politics, disregarded tradition, and did what needed to be done. Against the wishes of his wife, who came from a staunch Unionist family, James had agreed to speak with Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams on the subject of the Nationalist Party’s participation in the Irish Peace Initiative. Who would have wanted him dead?
    Wentworth’s voice carried a thread of excitement, most unusual for the stoic reporter. “ Evidence suggests that the attack was perpetrated in the name of the Irish Republican Army. Michael Devlin of Andersonstown is being held for interrogation at the headquarters of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Belfast. ”
    Blood pounded in Meghann’s temples and her hands tightened on the wheel until the knuckles showed bone-white through her stretched skin. Somehow she managed to avoid the car coming toward her from the opposite direction. Slowing to a crawl, she forced herself to concentrate on the curves in the road, the construction ahead, the cramp in the arch of her foot resting against the gas pedal, anything but the words spewing from the speaker on the rental car radio.
    Years later, when she stopped to recollect this moment, she would wonder why she didn’t turn off the radio or pull over and listen until the broadcast was finished. Everything was always so logical in retrospect, when the mind is settled and the heart calm, but when it happens, at the crucial moment, it is all one can do to hold on and pray for an