Chapter Ten
“I’ll have a two-hour layover at Dulles International, if you want to come hang out with me,” Marissa was sipping her latte at River City International Airport. Her flight would begin loading in a half hour.
“What time does your flight get in?” Fred asked, excited about the spur of the moment European trip.
“I land at Dulles at six,” she said, “And then the connecting flight leaves Dulles at eight.”
“Cool. I will be there. We can have an early dinner. I wish you would postpone this trip for two weeks so I can go with you. Spring break is coming up, ya know.”
“I can’t, Fred. I have to go now, before I lose my nerve. If I wait even a day, I will talk myself out of it.”
“I know. You don’t need me hanging around anyway. I just hate to think of you wandering around Ireland alone.”
“Hopefully I won’t be alone for too long,” she said.
She hung up the phone and checked her purse again to make sure she had her ticket and passport. She and Fred had been saving up their frequent flyer miles for years so that they could take a trip to Italy, so she was glad he wasn’t too upset that she had spent hers on this trip. It had all happened rather quickly. Once the idea struck last night, she started scouring travel sites looking for the best deals, and was delighted when she found a plane leaving the next afternoon that would allow her to use her miles. And so what if she used up all of her savings on food and hotels? This was the rest of her life she was gambling on. She had taken it as fate, and booked the seat right away before she could chicken out.
“Delta flight 8421 to Dulles International now boarding at Gate Seven,” the loudspeaker announced.
“Well, here goes everything,” Marissa said as she gathered her things and headed to Gate Seven.
* * *
Marissa’s feet first touched Irish soil at eight thirty-two am local time. If you counted the baggage claim at Dublin International Airport as Irish soil. She cleared customs in less than thirty minutes and with her passport officially stamped, she headed to the rental car counter.
“Good morning, welcome to Ireland,” the perky girl behind the counter chirped.
“Good morning,” Marissa replied, pulling her suitcase behind her. “I have a car reserved. I am Marissa Byrne.”
“Yes, Mrs. Byrne, let me see,” the girl was typing on her keyboard, “Ah, yes. Here we are. Now, I’ll just need to see your driver’s license and your signature on these forms.”
Marissa signed all the paperwork, making sure that she had every kind of extra insurance they had to offer. Before long, she was following a young man outside to the parking lot, with a set of keys in her hand.
“Here ya are, Ms. Byrne! This one is all yours for the week.” He stopped in front of a pretty blue car.
“Well, this is nice,” she said, walking around it.
“Yes ma’am, it is one of our newest models. A two-thousand-nineteen Ford Mondeo. Here, let me help you with your bags.” He wheeled her suitcase to the back of the car and showed her the button to press on the keyring to open the hatchback, and then placed her suitcase inside. When the hatchback opened, she immediately realized the problem.
“Oh,” she said.
“Is there a problem?” he asked her.
“Um. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car,” she said.
He laughed. “You mean it is on the right side!”
“Yes. Um, that is what I mean. I forgot that in Ireland you drive on the opposite side of the road.”
“Oh yes, I hear that a lot from Americans. No worries, though. You’ll get the hang of it very quickly,” he assured her.
Marissa wasn’t so sure. She got behind the wheel and shut the door, and the rental car attendant sat in the passenger side.
“Now, this has a push-button ignition, right here,” he pointed to a button that said ‘Engine Start Stop’, “But it won’t start until the key is in place. This is your display. It is your radio, and your navigation system, it also allows you to control the climate control system.” He continued pressing buttons on the large screen, and explaining all the controls on the steering wheel, he showed her how to adjust her driver’s seat and how to roll down the windows. He even helped her to pair her phone to the car’s SYNC system so she could use it hands-free. He showed her everything except how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Just when Marissa began to wonder how much longer the lesson would continue, he said “So I think that about covers it. Do you have any questions?”
“No, thank you. You’ve been very thorough,” she said.
As soon as he exited the car, she pressed the ignition button. “Okay, car,” she said to the steering wheel, “You and I are going to be great friends. I am going to be nice to you, and you are going to keep me alive on the streets while you help me find my true love. I am going to name you Monte. Monte the Mondeo. Okay?” She laughed at herself as she entered Finn’s address into the navigation system. Monte announced it was a thirty-minute drive, with normal traffic. The time was close to ten a.m. “He’s probably at work now,” she rationalized.
She was beginning to feel the jet lag set in, realizing it was still five am back home. Directly in front of her was the Radisson Blu Hotel. It looked inviting. She slowly pulled the car out of the parking space and managed to navigate herself onto the one-way street that took her to the hotel parking lot, driving five miles per hour (eight kilometers per hour, according to Monte) the entire time.
* * *
Her room was small, but the bed was huge, and at the moment that was what was most important to her. She laid across the covers, fully dressed, and closed her eyes.
“I cannot believe I am actually here,” she whispered, her eyes feeling heavy. “I am in Ireland!” She rolled over and hugged a pillow. “I am coming for you, Finn McKenna,” she mumbled her last words before she surrendered to jet lag.
When she woke, the room was dark. It took her a few seconds to realize where she was.
“Damn!” she said, sitting up. She rubbed her eyes. The small digital clock by the bed read six twenty-four pm. She was starving!
Outside the one large window in her room, the lights of the airport were bright. She walked over and looked out. There was an airplane landing, and another taking off in the opposite direction. For the first time, she looked around the room, lit only by the airport lights.
The room was tiny by American standards, but it was very clean. There was a desk with a twenty-five-inch flat screen TV and a small round table with two chairs. The carpet was plush and thick with a subtle design embossed within it which matched the bedspread. The walls were painted a quiet beige color. It was a relaxing room.
She made her way to the bathroom and discovered a large shower with glass walls and door, very upscale, and European-looking. She realized that she really needed a shower. She had been wearing the same clothes for probably thirty-six hours now, and they were rumpled and wrinkled. Catching her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she saw that her hair and make-up were a mess. “I can’t go to Finn looking like this,” she said. So it was decided. She would stay the night in Dublin, and drive to Dún Laoghaire tomorrow morning, early. “Very early,” she promised herself.
* * *
She woke the next morning at five, refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to get started on her mission. It had been a solid month since the day she had broken Finn’s heart on the pier at River City Beach. Today was the day she would finally set that right. No matter what, she would tell him the truth about her feelings, and why she did what she did, and she would beg him to give her another chance.
Dressed for success, she checked out of her room. Obviously accustomed to dealing with travelers, the helpful desk clerk reminded her that the most travelled motorways in Ireland were toll roads, and that she should probably avail herself of the ATM and get plenty of change.
With a wallet stuffed with Euros, both notes and coins, she loaded her suitcase and carry-on bag into Monte’s rear compartment and climbed behind the cursed right-sided steering wheel. Monte chimed to life as she started the engine. She put Callie, her small stuffed owl, next to the gear shift for good luck. She pulled up Monte’s navigation app and looked at the map. According to the directions, she would take the M1 to the M50 and drive straight to Dún Laoghaire. She assumed the “M” stood for motorway. At six am, the sky was just beginning to turn pink in the east. The sun would be rising soon. She gingerly made her way out of the parking lot and onto the surface streets of Ireland. On the right side.
By the time she was headed south on the M50, Marissa felt very cosmopolitan. There she was, all alone, cruising down an Irish motorway at eighty-eight kilometers per hour (which was well below the limit of one hundred twenty, she wasn’t ready yet to go that fast), the sun was rising, and it was going to be a glorious day. The landscape sped past her. She passed by lots of green fields and buildings, much like she would have seen on the expressway in Florida. The main difference she noticed was the information signs along the motorway, which showed information in both English and Gaelic, and some of the symbols were unfamiliar, but they were easy enough to interpret.
Traffic began to build as she got closer to Dublin proper, and she was (gratefully) forced to slow down a bit. That gave her an opportunity to look around a little more at the city itself. She was still on the outskirts of the city, but to her right was a group of about a dozen large square brick buildings that appeared to be apartment houses, and on her left was a large city park. As traffic moved, she found herself back on the surface street for while, which was odd, but she went along for the ride. The park on her left gave way to a wide pedestrian sidewalk, and small shops and businesses. She checked the time: six-thirty. She had no idea what time Finn would be waking up and leaving for work, but at this rate, she wouldn’t make it to his neighborhood before seven.
“Monte, you told me it was a thirty-minute drive,” she admonished the car. Monte had no response. As traffic began to pick up again, she felt the old familiar butterflies take flight in her stomach. She knew she was getting closer and closer.
She made it through yet another tunnel and another toll booth. There was a toll booth after every tunnel, and she had been through four so far. If she came upon another one, she was going to have to abandon the automated stalls and hope for one with an attendant because she was almost out of coins. Older brick apartments had given way to taller glass business buildings, then she saw the large blue gates at the entrance to the Dublin docks. For one heart-jarring moment, the road became a small two-lane bridge as she crossed the River Liffey, but then it widened again on the other side. Monte announced that she was no longer on the M50, but the R131 (whatever that meant), but as she had taken no turns nor any exits, she assumed that it would right itself out. R131 turned out to be a beautiful little two-lane (narrow) road, with the ocean on her left side and a medium height concrete wall on her right. Above the wall was an embankment with bushes and trees. R131 turned into R118, and Monte explained that it was also known as “Merrion Road.” He also told her she was now entering Booterstown, County Dublin. She saw a Texaco up ahead and was tempted to stop and buy a good old-fashioned paper map, but decided against it. She had never heard of Booterstown, but she knew that Dún Laoghaire was on the coast, so she had to be on the right road.
Merrion Road became Rock Road and she drove on. The traffic was getting heavier now and she was in the center of a busy town. The road had given up any semblance of a motorway a long time ago, and Marissa was forced to deal with traffic lights, intersections, roundabouts, and pedestrian crossings. She passed a shopping mall and what looked to be a grocery store.
Booterstown became Monkstown. Another harrowing moment at a five-way intersection, with a beautiful grey-stoned gothic cathedral in the center, but Monte assured her to “remain in the second left lane” which was R118, also known as “Monkstown Cres.” She followed his instructions. The streets were lined with shops. She passed Coyle’s Garage, and Texture, which looked like a really interesting clothing boutique.
Things began to happen quickly from there. Monte instructed her to “Turn left on to Longford Terrace,” and then in one hundred meters to “Turn right onto Old Dunleary Road.”
Her heart skipped. Old Dunleary Road? She was in Finn’s town! Was he close? Was he driving on one of these streets right now? Then, with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever, she saw a sign with an arrow pointing straight up that read “Dún Laoghaire Town Centre.”
She had made it. All the way from River City, Florida to the Dún Laoghaire Town Centre, County Dublin, Ireland. She passed St. Michaels Hospital. Had Finn ever been there?
“Turn right onto Marine Road in twenty meters.”
Marine Road was short two-lane road that split at the end. She had to turn either left or right, and she followed Monte’s advice and turned left. On to Georges Street Upper. She was on the street where he lived. Seven-fifteen a.m. She knew he had mentioned that he often went to the coffee shop across the street from his house in the mornings before work. She started looking for coffee shops. She passed a Burger King, and a McDonalds. A pizza place, clothing shops…
Monte interrupted her reverie, “You have reached your destination.” As soon as she heard it, she saw a large orange banner on the side of a building that read “Leonardo Coffee.”
On the left, she saw his house. It was a beautiful pale yellow with white accents, and had four large bay windows on the second and third floors. The stone staircase leading to the front door (which was actually on the second level) was extra wide, with a landing at the top, and two topiary trees sat on either side of the door, which stood in front of clear beveled glass panels that lined the sides and top of the sturdy looking dark wooden door. A short wrought-iron fence with cement bastions lined his entry, separating it from the public sidewalk.
A dozen or so other townhouses lined the left side of the street, but the one at 369 Georges Street Upper was special. Beautiful. Distinctive.
Marissa desperately wanted inside that house. She looked around for a place to park the car. Other cars were parked at the curb, and she didn’t see any markings that indicated they were reserved for residents, so she pulled in behind a red Peugeot.
Seven-seventeen. She took a deep breath and turned to look at his house. She was about two houses down. She picked up Callie-the-owl for support, she could feel her nerves getting geared up for a major panic attack. She closed her eyes and took another slow, deep breath. She was not going to let her nerves stop her from doing what she flew five thousand miles to do.
She checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror and did a quick touch-up. She got out of the car and wondered if it might be best to go wait for him in the coffee shop. Finn had always been an early riser in America. It would be practical to assume he was awake at seven in the morning. What time did he have to be at work?
She slowly climbed the steps to his residence, her knees slightly trembling. How would he react to seeing her here? Would he slam the door in her face? A vision of him appeared before her, “I can’t stand the sight of ye,” he had said. She remembered his eyes flat, wet with unshed tears, full of anger and hurt. She shook her head to dispel the memories and continued to climb the steps.
She rang the doorbell before she lost her nerve. She waited. And waited. After two minutes, she rang again. Still nothing. Maybe he was in the shower, and couldn’t hear the bell? “Oh God, please let him be alone,” she begged. From the landing, she could see inside the glass panels into Finn’s foyer. She couldn’t see any lights on inside, but she could see the marble floor, and what looked like a small Chippendale side-table on the left wall with a small plant. There was a large mirror with a matching frame that hung above it, and just beyond the table, a door leading to another room. On the right side of the door was a staircase that led both up and down. What was on the different floors? On the ceiling of the foyer was a large glass chandelier. But she couldn’t see any activity going on inside the house.
After another three minutes with no response, she started to feel very exposed out on the landing. She looked up and saw a small security camera mounted above the door frame. Was he watching her on some screen, waiting for her to leave? She looked around, and saw a dozen people through the glass front of the coffee shop across the street. Were they watching her, laughing because she was being denied? “Stop being ridiculous, Mars,” she admonished herself.
One thing was certain: Finn was not coming to the door. She quickly weighed her options and decided that she would go across the street, have a coffee, and wait.
* * *
Leonardo Coffee was a small but stylish cafe. Next to the counter was a glass display of dozens of different pastries and breakfast sandwiches, and there was a chalkboard on the wall listing the offerings of the day. Marissa had picked up a newspaper on her way in so that she could look busy. She sat at a small table by the window with her large coffee and scone.
She watched people hurrying past the massive storefront window, going on about their lives. So many people coming and going, but not the slightest movement at house three-sixty-nine. The coffee shop itself was a hub of activity as well. People stopped in for a quick cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich to go. Some stayed and grabbed a table. There was an older man at another window table who seemed to be settled in for the long haul. He had a full breakfast plate, and at least two different newspapers in front of him to read. A young-looking girl was at a table near her with her laptop open, and she was rapidly tapping the keys, taking breaks every minute to sip her coffee. The staccato tap-tap-tap of her keyboard was somehow soothing, as it blended in with the low hum of many simultaneous conversations, but Marissa’s body was a tribute to tension. She had to be ready to jump up when she saw Finn walk out his front door.
She sat by the window until past ten-thirty. Finn never appeared. If he had left his house, he had to have done it by some other door. She tried calling his cell phone again, but received the same message, that the number was no longer in service.
Feeling very disappointed, Marissa left the coffee shop and drove over to the public pier.
The Dún Laoghaire pier was a major tourist attraction, and even at this time of the morning it was already buzzing with people. Marissa walked out on the East Pier and sat beneath the beautiful Victorian gazebo. The water was a myrtle green, and a stiff wind was blowing off the sea creating a choppy surface on the water. A half-dozen sailboats sat anchored to the pier, happily bobbing up and down. They made her think of the Marcaí Tonn, and the glorious weekend she and Finn had spent on the boat, when they made love for the first time. She could smell the salt of the ocean and imagined that it held a hint of violets.
In the midst of all this beauty, Marissa’s chest was heavy. How was she going to find Finn? She tried calling directory assistance but was told there was no listing for a Finnian McKenna anywhere in Dublin. The operator surmised that either his number was unpublished, or he didn’t have home phone service.
She knew Finn’s sister’s name was Fiona, and that she lived in Killgobbin Woods, but she had no idea what her last name was. She could drive around the entire city looking for him, which was pointless. She didn’t even know what kind of car he drove, so she couldn’t look for that either. The only other connection she knew was that he worked for a software design firm called Sat Com. Should she try to ambush him at his job? She wanted to save that as a last resort, but it seemed like she was burning through all of her other options with no luck.
She wanted to talk to Fred.
It looked like her search for Finn was going to take longer than she expected, reality was not living up to her fairy tale. She needed to regroup. She needed to find a base where she could think.
She walked back to the car and pulled up Monte’s navigation system to look for local hotels.
* * *
The Royal Marine Hotel was a four-star resort on Marine Road, a five-minute walk from Finn’s house. When Marissa arrived, she was a little in awe. Built in 1848, it was a statement in grandeur. The lobby was marble and ivory, with ornate ceiling cornices and an intricately designed crystal chandelier. There was a grand piano on a raised dais and sumptuous velvet chairs.
She was told that check-in time was three pm, but she went ahead and booked a junior suite, so the receptionist agreed to bend the rules. Since they had a suite already prepared and sitting empty due to a last-minute cancellation, she would be allowed to go ahead and claim the room.
She thanked the receptionist profusely, and the bellhop took her luggage and escorted her toward the elevator.
The room itself was sumptuous by any standard. It boasted a king-sized bed and a large, overstuffed chenille sofa. The two arched windows with heavy gold velvet drapes and silk ties showed views of the harbor and the maritime museum. The museum was a converted cathedral made of beautiful beige stone, and complete with spires and a bell tower, and it matched the golden decor of her room. On any other day, in any other circumstance, the room and the view would have taken her breath away. But not today. Today she stood looking out over the Dún Laoghaire harbor with only one thing on her mind: How was she going to connect with Finn McKenna? She was on the verge of walking up to random people in the street and asking if they knew him. “Have you seen this man?” she would ask them in a worried tone.
She dialed Fred’s number. He should be on his way to work by now.
“Hello?” A sleepy voice answered the phone.
“Fred? Were you still sleeping? It has to be after seven your time,” she said.
“Mars!” the sound of her voice brought him out of his groggy state. “No, freak snowstorm closed all the schools today. Where are you? What's going on?”
“A snowstorm in mid-April?” she asked. That was weird.
“Never mind that, tell me what is going on with you!”
“Well. Nothing is going on. That's the problem,” she said. She dropped down into the cozy sofa and hugged a pillow. “I went to his house this morning. I rang the bell several times but there was no answer. I sat in the coffee shop across the street for over three hours, but I never saw him.”
“Are you sure it was his house?”
“Yes. I am absolutely sure.”
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“I booked a room at a hotel like two minutes from his house.”
“What about yesterday? What did you do?”
“Yesterday when I got in, I got a room at the airport. I passed out from jet lag. I drove to Dún Laoghaire this morning.” Geez, was that only yesterday? It already felt like weeks ago.
“What time is it there now?”
“A little past one p.m. It’s like a needle in a haystack, Fred. Dublin is a huge place! I am never gonna be able to find Finn!”
He laughed. “Mars, you’ve only been there a few hours. It is way too early to give up! So maybe he had already left for work this morning. You know sometimes people go in really early. All you have to do is go back tonight.”
“I felt like an idiot standing there. I rang the doorbell over and over and nobody answered.”
Fred sighed. “Well, Mars,” he said, “That may not be the last time you feel like an idiot on this trip. You have to be prepared to make a fool of yourself. Do you want me to come? I’ll take some sick days and get a plane tonight…”
“No. No, you don’t have to come here. I think I just need a pep talk. I haven’t had a real conversation since I left you at the airport in D.C.”
“Well, you are in luck then, because pep talks are my strong suit,” he tried to sound chipper for her. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.
“Well, first I am going to go get some lunch downstairs,” she said.
“And then?”
“And then… I don’t know. I guess I’ll go do some shopping for a while. I have no idea what time he might come home from work.”
“Good! Go shopping. Tonight, go have dinner at a nice restaurant on his street, and then stop by his house on the way back to the hotel.” Fred planned the rest of her day for her.
“What if he is not there again?” she asked.
“He’ll be there. But if not, then tomorrow you are going to Sat Com.”
* * *
He wasn’t there.
Marissa spent the day shopping as promised. She bought several cool outfits that she would never see in Florida, and some souvenirs for everyone back home. She found one shop that she especially loved, that sold jewelry handmade by local artists. She bought her mom a necklace, and she bought herself some earrings and a beautiful hair barrette. It was made of hammered copper, and decorated with quartz crystals, aquamarine, and peridot. She wasted the entire afternoon in every tiny shop on Marine and Georges Streets, Upper and Lower.
McLoughlin’s Bar was as close as you could get to the American vision of an Irish pub. Situated on the Corner of Georges Street Upper and Stoneview Place, it was a dark red building with its name proudly displayed in bright gold letters across a black band along the top of the building. The interior was cozy, with a wooden parquet floor, a long bar, and a small stage at one end of the room. There were no booths, but rather small bar-height tables. Liquor bottles lined the walls, peppered with paintings by local artists, and several flat-screen televisions for the viewing of sports. Tonight was a rugby game between the Greystones (the local favorite) and Portlaoise (the hated rivals). It was a warm atmosphere, raucous, crowded, and loud.
Marissa sat at one of the small tables in the corner. The menu offered all types of traditional Irish bar food, and she ordered a cheeseburger with sweet potato chips. When it was served, the burger was dripping with a creamy sauce made with Jameson’s Irish whiskey. She hated dining alone, but the food was delicious.
After dinner, she walked the two blocks to Finn’s house and tried the doorbell again, to no avail. There were still no lights on in the house. Dejected but not surprised, she made her way back to the hotel room, and numbly fell asleep. She had an early morning planned.
* * *
At five a.m., Georges Street Upper was shrouded in darkness. Everything was quiet as the locals and tourists alike still snuggled in their warm beds.
Marissa sat in her car, parked strategically on a side street with a perfect view of 369 Georges Street Upper. She was determined that today she would not miss Finn before he left for work. She was prepared to go to his front door as soon as she saw a light in the window. This time she wouldn’t leave until he spoke to her. If she had to bang on the door, yelling his name, she would. If she had to make an emotional plea to the security camera, she would. Even if all of his neighbors came out to gawk and laugh at her. Even if the Garda came and threatened to arrest her for disturbing the peace: she would do whatever she had to do to bring this situation to a head. Today.
She wanted a cup of coffee, but she knew the basic rules of a stakeout. No available bathroom meant no drinking allowed. No music, because she would get distracted. No closing her eyes and resting her head on the headrest. She had been up since four, after having gone to sleep just a little past eleven last night.
The sun rose behind her at six eighteen a.m. Still no sign of life at three-sixty-nine.
By seven-thirty, there were people on the streets, the same hustle and bustle she had watched yesterday morning from the window at Leonardo.
Traffic began building by eight, and around nine there was a bonafide traffic jam.
Marissa had moved past nervous, and she was even beyond disappointed. She was pissed. There were no lights on, no movement whatsoever ever that could be seen through the windows at Finn’s place. “Where the hell is he?” she said out loud.
She was prepared. She reached in her bag and fished out a stationery pad she had taken from the nightstand in her hotel room. It was embossed with the logo of the Royal Marine Hotel. She found a pen.
Finn,
I have come all the way from the United States to find you. Where are you? Please give me a chance to explain. I will be at the Royal Marine Hotel until Sunday.
Marissa.
She added her cell number to the bottom, just in case he had wiped it from his memory, then folded up the note, gave it a spritz from her travel size bottle of perfume, and placed it in an envelope, scrawling “Finn” across the front.
She exited the car and stalked up to his front door, ringing the bell. She knocked loudly. Still nothing. With a deep breath, she slid the note through the post slot in the middle of his door. She looked through the glass on the side just to convince herself that the envelope had indeed landed there, and not fallen into some other dimension. She wanted to be sure that he would see it, and that her brain couldn’t make up some excuse as to why he may not have found the note. That was when she saw the mountain of mail piled by the door.
That sight set her back a little. He had mentioned to her once that his sister was picking up all of his mail once a week while he was in America. The amount of mail on the floor looked like it had been accumulating for at least a week.
“What the hell?” she asked herself. Had Finn been home since he left the U.S? Had he gone somewhere else instead of home? And what happened to Jack? Maybe Jack was staying at Fiona’s house. So where did that leave Finn? What was going on?
She considered calling Phil and forcing him to give her all the details. He had said that Finn and Jack had left for Ireland a week ago (which would be two weeks ago, now) and that they weren’t coming back.
She went back to the car and Monte navigated her through the streets to Kilgobbin Woods. She had no idea what she was looking for, she just hoped maybe Jack would be walking down the street, or standing outside in the front yard. She could have run right over Fiona and never known who she was. She had never seen a picture. Maybe she would get lucky and recognize Jack riding in a car as she passed it in the street? She was desperate.
* * *
Kilgobbin Woods was a housing development located in the Sandyford neighborhood of Greater Dublin. It was a suburban sprawl. A labyrinth of terraced houses, each identical to the one before it, wrapped around a winding, sometimes seemingly spiral-shaped road. It reminded Marissa of the beginning of the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz, when it was just a spiral in the middle of Munchkin-land. She half expected some kids to run in the street singing “We are from the Lollipop Guild.” So then, that being the case, which way to Emerald City?
There was a petrol station at the entrance/exit of the development, so she stopped for a large cup of coffee and a box of powdered donuts. She called Fred.
“Oh my god, Mars. You have got to respect the time difference.” He answered the phone with a voice thick from sleep.
“Sorry. Is it still snowing?” She ignored his complaints. He could go back to sleep later. Right now she needed advice.
“The roads were still iced over last night. I need to check the news and see if they want us to come in today. What’s going on across the pond?” His mood improved once he woke up, as she knew it would.
She told him about the pile of mail inside his door, and the note she left. “…So, I don’t even know if he ever came back to Dublin. I have no idea what to do now. Should I go home? Should I call Phil?”
“Don’t call Phil just yet, but you may end up having to. You are definitely not getting back on a plane until after you call him and find out where everybody is. But first, give me a minute. Let me throw a Hail Mary. What time is it there?”
“It’s almost eleven. Why? What kind of Hail Mary?”
“Trust me. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
“Fred, what are you gonna do?”
“Can’t hear you, Mars, you’re breaking up. Stay by the phone. Love you!” And the line went dead.
“Oh God,” Marissa said to Monte. “Fred has no boundaries. What crap is he going to pull?”
* * *
“Good morning, thank you for calling SatCom. This is Caitlyn. How may I help you?” The cheery voice on the phone sounded young, early twenties. Fred imagined her sitting at her desk wearing a headset, staring at a large computer screen.
“Ja, hallo. Zis ist Heinrich von Müller. I must speak wit Finnian McKenna, bitte.” Fred pulled out his heaviest German accent from his repertoire, honed by watching hours of Hogan’s Heroes on TV.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Herr von Müller. Mr. McKenna is not available at the moment. May I direct you to someone else?”
Herr von Müller? Oh god, I hope she doesn’t start speaking German! Fred thought.
“Nein! I vill only speak to Finnian. He ist die only one who can help me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Caitlyn said. “But Mr. McKenna is not in the office today. Connor Murray is very familiar with all of Mr. McKenna’s projects. Would you like to speak to Mr. Murray?”
“Nein! I vill not speak to anyone but Finnian. Wo ist er? Vere ist Finnian McKenna?”
“As I said before, Mr. McKenna is not in the office. Maybe you would like to speak to his project manager, Mr. Donnelly?” Fred could tell that Caitlin was trying to maintain her composure with the rude German.
“Nein! Do not transfer this call! Nicht! Tell me vere ist Finnian McKenna? Why is he not in the office today? He knew I vould be calling him.” Caitlyn was a tough nut to crack, so Fred raised his voice a little.
“He went to Knockferry to visit his grandmother!” Caitlyn blurted out.
“Danke, Fräulein,” Fred said sweetly and hung up the phone.
He immediately dialed Marissa, who answered in half a ring.
“Yes?” she said expectantly.
“He’s in Knotsberry or whatever, visiting his grandmother.” Fred delivered the information.
“Knockferry. How do you know?” Marissa asked.
“Caitlyn told me,” he said coyly.
“Who the hell is Caitlyn?” she asked.
Fred started laughing. “The receptionist at SatCom!” He relayed the conversation to her.
They laughed together and then Marissa said, “I hope this doesn’t get traced back to me somehow. Do you think Finn will get in trouble?”
“Why would Finn get in trouble? Don’t worry about it. Now you know what you need to do.”
“Knockferry?” she asked.
“You got it, sister.”