Black Diamond by John F. Dobbyn Page A

thing.”
    The ground was shifting under me so fast I could hardly catchup. At that moment, I only knew I’d promise anything for a name that could lead me to Erin.
    â€œWhat do you want from me?”
    â€œThey say you’re an honorable man, lawyer. I’ve asked. I want your word that I’ll not be tarred with things I’ve never done.”
    My conception of Scully was rocked by his use of the word “honorable.” I knew there was something below the surface that hadn’t come out yet.
    â€œYou have my word in exactly those terms. If what you said about Erin is true, you’ll have nothing to fear from me.”
    â€œFair play. Then I’ll give you what I’ve got, little as it is, and remember I’ve done it.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    â€œShe’s not here. The day she was taken, they took her out of the country for safekeeping.”
    â€œWhere?”
    He leaned still closer. “I’m just sayin’ what I picked up from their talk. They took her to Ireland. Dublin.”
    That was a numbing blow to think of her that far away. “Who took her?”
    â€œI’ll give you a name. It’s all I have. I heard it last night. Seamus McGuiness. Killarney Street, somewhere in the north of Dublin.”
    â€œWho are these people?”
    I heard a stirring behind me as he stood.
    â€œI’ve said what I came to say. But I’ll give you this. You’d be better off against ten of me than any one of them.”
    I heard him move away. I spun around and grabbed the end of his coat.
    â€œWhat happened, Scully? Something happened to turn you around.”
    He looked back at me. “I’ll have no part of their doin’s. That little girl—”
    â€œWhat? What did you hear about Erin?”
    He jerked his coat out of my hand. He sidestepped to the end of the pew. I thought he was going to leave without a word. I pierced the silence with a whisper that must have been heard at the altar.
    â€œScully, if I find her, will I find her alive?”
    He turned around. He looked me in the eye, and he drove a dagger through my heart with one word.
    â€œNo.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    I got up Wednesday morning with a headache, a cold, and a decision. The cold was the result of walking through a drenching, chilling rain on nearly every paved street in Boston the night before until I could come to a decision. It came in two parts. The first part was that I clearly lacked the stone-cold callousness it would have required to take the last vestige of hope away from Colleen. Could I, on my worst day, summon the nerve to tell her that she would not even be able to kiss her baby one last time and lay her to rest with God? That she was just gone? I don’t think so. It may come to that, but not today.
    That led to the second part. If only to give her the chance for that last goodbye, I had to find what they’d done with Erin’s body. That meant that the decision to go to Dublin was a fait accompli.
    Since I was still awake at five thirty a.m., I substituted a shower and a breakfast of Motrin and black coffee for a night’s sleep. I knew that any flight to Dublin would leave in the evening. That gave me the day to pull together any leads I could squeeze out of my slim sources for cracking the shell in a foreign country. I was working around an appointment at eleven, and missing that one was out of the question. Colleen had arranged for a funeral service for Danny at their parish church—family only. That included me.
    By six a.m., I was at the backstretch at Suffolk Downs. I still could not shake the feeling that Black Diamond’s part in that race was linked to the kidnapping of Erin.
    I caught Rick McDonough right after his briefing of his exerciseriders. I held two cups of that good rich mud they serve for coffee at the backstretch shack. That was enough to sidetrack him to the rail for a couple of quiet words.
    â€œHow’s