Mrs. Gray's Secret
CHAPTER 1
The dawn’s soft light filtered through the window, and apart from the buzzing fluorescents and the hum from the copy machine outside Finley McCann’s office, the building was an early morning, empty, quiet. The usual hustle and bustle wouldn’t start for another hour. He finished his confession and resignation letter to Tessa Dante, slipping it into an envelope addressed to her home. Relieved, he reclined in his chair, laying calloused hands on his belly, breathing in the open tin of cherry and brandy tobacco.
“Are ya pleased ’tis done, Laddie?” Finley’s mother sat facing the desk, as she did every morning, in her best going-to-town dress, her all-purpose patterned kerchief, sturdy black shoes, and flat gray hair, braided and pinned.
“Aye, Ma.” Finn groaned and scooted his chair to the desk, resting a temple on his forearms, side-eyeing his beloved rack of pipes.
“Ya remember the Irish ditty yer Pa would sing? A Dublin pipe, a Dublin breeze, a fragrant smoke for ease—”
“I do, Ma, a favorite.” Finn reached a finger out, spinning the holder. A random pipe stopped at his outstretched digit. A game of roulette. He permitted a smile, clutching the winner to lightly pack the chamber with pinches of dried leaves. The flame from the match licked the tobacco, and with a skill for his vice, his lips and breath drew in the smoke to ignite his Mixture 79.
“Yer Pa’s brand.”
“Aye.” Finn loved his mother, simple in her talk, wise in her thoughts. He closed his eyelids, scratching the gray stubble on his cheeks while chewing the tip of his pipe. “Tell me, Ma, how at sixty-five, a gullible sort as me, be deceived by a twenty-three-year-old woman—”
“Sally Parker. She used ya, Laddie.”
“It’s not that simple. I’m a coward, should have told Tessa sooner.” Dishonest to Tessa Dante, his honorary daughter and friend, the woman who ran the operations for her father’s company, his regrets ran deep.
“It doesn’t matter, yer doin’ right now, Finley. Yer mind will have its peace.”
His shoulders heaved, and he placed a hand on his chest to calm the riotous beating inside. “Ma, I’ve tried fleeing from my nightmares. I learned the truth a week ago, of the duplicity and the extreme lengths my blackmailers used to crush me and Dante for their gain. But the thirsty bloodsuckers overplayed their hand.”
“’Twasn’t yer fault, ya know, but yer plan isn’t one of a coward, Finley.”
“No, but dangerous, Ma. I’m tired of dreaming and thinking.” Finn’s recurring dreams and memories of the accident were seen through his eyes, and his words, actions, and expressions, not Sally’s, to where he eventually accepted that’s how it happened, except it hadn’t.
“She dug her grave, Finley.”
“I remind myself daily, Ma.” Sally had signed on with the scum participating in his and Dante’s ruin. His palms covered his ears, but it didn’t block him from reliving the horror of two years ago.