The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller by L.D. Beyer Read Free Book Online

suspected. Maybe more. Still, I continued to send letters each week, anxiously hoping that each new day would bring her response.
    It was eight long weeks before her first letter arrived. It was a Saturday evening, and I had just returned from the day’s work anxious to clean the blood and grime from the slaughterhouse off my hands and face. I got the fire going in the stove and set the water on top, waiting for it to heat up for my bath. I sat in front of the stove and shivered, the fire not yet hot enough to drive the cold and damp from the room. There was a slam in the hall and, a moment later, a sharp knocking on my door. I flinched.
    “Mr. O’Sullivan?”
    I recognized the voice and let out a breath. My fear of both the IRA and the British had followed me all the way to New York. I opened the door to a short, thin woman, an apron poking out below the heavy black sweater she kept wrapped around herself to ward off the chill.
    “Good evening, Mrs. Hirsch.” I did my best to smile. I had never seen her smile back, and tonight was no different.
    I had met Mrs. Hirsch shortly after I moved into the apartment. I shivered involuntarily, but it wasn’t from the cold. Mrs. Hirsch’s cheeks were sunken and her eyes seemed almost too large for her face. Like many, she carried pains from the past, and her eyes betrayed the sorrow that had followed her. She reminded me of my mother.
    “I found this in my box,” Mrs. Hirsch said, pulling an envelope from inside her sweater. I felt my heart skip a beat.
    “A letter from home, it would seem,” she said as she handed it to me.
    I resisted the urge to grab it and tear it open.
    “Thank you, Mrs. Hirsch.” I smiled again then stared down at the letter in my hand. I ran my hand across the return address, touching Kathleen’s name, feeling her writing. I coughed and turned my head, not wanting Mrs. Hirsch to see the tear in my eye.
    “The soup will be ready in thirty minutes,” she said, apparently oblivious to my reaction or more likely choosing to ignore it. She continued standing in my doorway and it took me a second or two to remember why.
    “A moment, Mrs. Hirsch,” I said as I retrieved the package from the table.
    Wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, the package would last her for several days.
    She nodded once—silently—as she took the beef shank. She pulled the sweater around her once more and turned away.
    We had an arrangement, Mrs. Hirsch and I. I brought her meat—stolen from the slaughter house—several times a week. In exchange she made me supper and washed my clothes and linens.
    I closed the door and, forgetting about the chill and the bath water warming on the stove, carefully opened Kathleen’s letter. I unfolded the single page and held it to my nose, hoping to find something—the sweet scent of Kathleen, the earthy, damp smell of Ireland. Maybe it was the day’s soil still on my hands and in my clothes, but I found nothing, at least nothing that I had been hoping for. I stared at the pages. The curls and loops of Kathleen’s writing flowed across the paper, and I ran my fingers across the words. On the bottom, I saw where Kathleen had signed her name and sighed when I touched it. I pulled a chair over, sat by the fire and began reading.
    From the very first line I could see that Kathleen had been cautious, careful with her words so as not to put either of us in jeopardy.
     
    Dear Cousin,
    I received your letter of 24 February and it gave me great pleasure to hear from you and learn that you are well. I thank God that you arrived safely and am pleased to hear that you have been getting on. America sounds like a dream, but sadly it’s one that I will have to content myself to experience only through your letters.
    There has been much rain here but Mary and I have managed to survive. I left the Cavanagh’s and Mary and I are getting on, mending and doing laundry and with the little we manage to get from our farm, it’s enough.
    I now