Free Falling
Book 1 in the Irish End Games Trilogy
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
SAN MARCO PRESS
San Marco Press
Copyright 2012 by San Marco Press. All rights reserved.
Also by Susan Kiernan-Lewis:
Going Gone
Heading Home (Dec 2013)
Murder in the South of France
Murder à la Carte
Murder in Provence
Murder in Paris
Murder in Aix
Air Force Brat
A Grave Mistake
The French Women’s Diet
Finding Infinity
The Heidelberg Effect
The Cairo Effect
The Tortuga Effect (March 2014)
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any type of retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording without permission of the publisher.
Copyright 2012 by San Marco Press. All rights reserved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I want to thank my developmental editor, Alison Dasho, for her sharp insight and stellar advice on the structure and plot of Fear of Falling. She used encouragement and skill to show what the manuscript needed while keeping its tender author from throwing herself off a cliff at first sight of the sheer breadth of the rewrite—not an easy feat to pull off.
Thanks, also, to my wonderful husband, Del Kiernan-Lewis, who copyedited the manuscript with an impatient wife breathing down his neck. Any remaining gaffes in style or grammar are evidence of my perverse resistance to accepting perfectly logical input.
I also want to thank my brother, Terry Kiernan, who first inspired me to think about what my daily round might be like without all the conveniences of modern life when I spent a weekend with him many years ago in his hand-built Tennessee mountain home in an area inaccessible by road and untouched by electricity. Thanks also to Terry, Frank Cullen, and my son, John Kiernan-Lewis, who enlightened me about the effects of EMPs.
Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit
makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before
—William Butler Yeats
You can’t fall if you don’t climb.
—Anonymous
To Del and John Patrick,
who were both born with the right spirit.
CHAPTER ONE
The bad thing happened on the second day of their vacation.
Although they would end up calling it many things in the coming years—the crisis, the blackout, the incident—the event would always be defined by one important feature: In a flash, it changed everyone’s lives forever.
The trip itself began with anticipation and expectation like every other vacation they had ever taken as a family. The Boeing 757 touched down at Shannon Airport outside of Limerick in early September 2011. Sarah could feel her ten year-old son’s excitement in the seat next to hers even when she wasn’t looking at him.
“And you’re positive I’ll be able to recharge my iPhone?” he said, as he stared out the airplane window.
“Ireland is not a third world country,” his father said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “In fact, they lead the world in computer technology or something, I read.” He stood to pull down the carry-on luggage from the overhead compartment, then handed Sarah’s battered Vuitton to her.
“But consider giving the iPhone a break,” Sarah said. “We’re here to see Ireland. It’s a very rural country with—”
“You told me, Mom,” her son interrupted. “I get it. Rural, beautiful, lots of history and stuff. I just don’t want to be bored out of my mind, okay? I mean, while you and Dad are drinking wine at cafés and stuff and visiting museums, I need my stuff, too.”
Sarah frowned and caught her husband’s eye.
He shook his head. Plenty of time to fight this old battle later, his expression said.
“Let’s find some authentic Irish food,” he said with a smile. “And a lager.”
“Cool. They have logging in Ireland? Like in Seattle, and stuff?”
Sarah laughed. “Let’s go find those loggers,” she said.
That first night they stayed in a traditional Irish hotel and ate a simple meat stew. They spent three hours in the corner pub singing with the locals and washing away their jet lag with the local brew. They tucked John into a cot in the small hotel room. They kissed briefly before falling into bed early themselves.
The next morning it was raining.
“It’s freezing outside,” John said as he entered the hotel dining room. “And it’s only September.”
“Come get warm by the fire and eat something,” Sarah said. “Dad’s out renting the car for our drive to the village we’ll be staying in.”
John settled into a chair next to his mother and examined his breakfast plate.
“They cooked the tomatoes,” he said.
“They do, over here.”
“And I ordered bacon but they gave me ham.”
“This is what their bacon looks like.”
“It’s ham.”
“Well, so is bacon, really.”
“No, bacon and ham both come from a pig but bacon is not ham.”
“Okay. But this is as close to bacon as you get for the next ten days, okay?”
“The toast is weird.”
“John, everything is weird when you’re in a foreign country, okay? It’s part of the reason one travels. To have things not the same as where you live.”
John cut a piece of ham and ate it. “It’s not terrible,” he said.
“Good boy.”
The door swung open and an icy blast of air invaded the room. David strode in, gave her a quick kiss and sat down.
“It’s really cold out there,” he said, pouring himself a cup of tea. “Oh, crap. Don’t they have coffee?”
“It’s in the other carafe. How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Balinagh?”
David tousled his son’s hair. “Eating an authentic Irish breakfast, are you?”
“It sucks.”
“John.” His mother frowned at him.
“Just kidding,” he said, grinning sheepishly.
“About half a day, I think,” David said, pouring his coffee. “You got all the directions to the rental cottage?”
“There’ll be someone there to show us where everything is,” Sarah said. “And to change the linens every few days, but for the most part, we’ll be on our own.”
“Mom? Did you ask someone about the iPhone charger?”
As they drove through the countryside, David decided Ireland was green and largely wet in order to stay that way. The road divided undulating hocks and hills crisscrossed by ancient stone walls. With so few trees, the green horizon seemed to stretch on indefinitely, one verdant field after another.
“Hey, there’s sheep up ahead.” John tossed aside his Game Boy and pointed over his mother’s shoulder. “Don’t run over ‘em, Dad.”
“I won’t,” David said, slowing down. “But I have to admit to not knowing who has the right of way, here.”
“Give it to the sheep, dear,” Sarah said.
They braked to a halt.
John rolled down his window and stuck his head out.
“There’s, like, a real shepherd with them and everything,” he said. “And man, those sheep are dirty.”
“Lots of mud in Ireland,” Sarah murmured. “Rain makes Ireland emerald. Rain makes Ireland muddy.”
“Are you losing your grip, honey?” David grinned at her.
She laughed. “Just trying to adjust to is
land time, you know.”
“Maybe we should throw our watches away.”
“Or at least pack them away until it’s time to go home.”
They sat in silence as the sheep and their shepherd moved slowly across the road.
As he watched the sheep, David realized that Sarah’s idea to visit a remote part of Ireland was a good one. They had all gotten stretched thin with their schedules back in Jacksonville. She was probably right, too, about John’s obsession with his electronics, although David had been pretty addicted to television when he was his son’s age. Even so, just being some place so foreign—and rural—felt like it was already doing them a world of good. He glanced at his wife who was frowning at the way the shepherd was handling things—as if she could will him to move his flock faster.
It was all very well for her to orchestrate this vacation in order to amend what she saw as a deficit or undesirable feature in the family (and the marriage?) but he would be interested to see how she managed the next ten days without her smartphone, iPad and movies-on-demand.
The shepherd waved to them as he led his flock up the hill into a pasture enclosed by a dilapidated fieldstone wall.
John pulled his head into the car. “I’m starving, Mom. What’s there to eat?”
Sarah dug into her purse and handed her son a biscuit wrapped in a paper napkin.
“Here, I saved it from your breakfast.”
“Oh, great. Now we’re in an episode of Survivor Man.”
“We’ll stop for lunch in a bit,” David said to his son. “Want your first beer?”
“David,” Sarah said, admonishingly.
John took the biscuit and bit into it. “I’m dying of thirst,” he said.
By the time David stopped the car in front of the little cottage, Sarah was tired and her back ached. They had stocked up on groceries in Balinagh, the nearest town to the cottage. Because of the condition of the poor country roads, the drive had been longer than she expected.
The cottage was more like a one-level carriage house. It had a steep roof of shingles and a chimney between two large windows in the front. Grass lined both sides of the long drive that led from the main road to the front yard of the house. Flowering vines crawled up the window framework and around the door which had a small porch with three flat wooden steps. A back door from the kitchen led to a courtyard of stone flanked on one side by the entrance to a small paddock with broken fence slats, a very old barn, and a vegetable garden that looked like it hadn’t been tended in years.
It was clear that no one had lived in the place for a long time. The house was what the Irish called “self catering.” Sarah didn’t think it looked like it had been self-catered in a long time either.
“Wow! There’s horses here. Mom, did you know there would be horses here?” John leaped out of the car and ran to the barn.
David looked at the piece of paper Sarah held in her hand.
“Are you positive this is it?” he asked.
“David, yes.” She looked at him fiercely. “Can we, at least, look inside before you decide I’ve made a big mistake?”
“Did it look like this on the Internet?” David asked, his eyes still taking in the small stone cottage.
“No, this isn’t…” Sarah took a breath as she felt the anxiety climbing higher into her chest. “This isn’t the one I saw online, remember? I got the e-mail at the airport saying that one had burned down and that we were to go to this one, that it was comparable.”
David stepped out of the rental car. “Did the other one have horses?”
“Of course not,” she said, still seated. “There were no horses.”
“Dad! Mom! You gotta see this!” John ran back to the car. “There are three horses in there!”
“Are we supposed to take care of the horses?” David asked.
“Can we, Dad?” John literally jumped in delight. “Can the small one be mine?”
David looked at Sarah.
“Let’s look in the house first, son,” he said.
Please let it have indoor plumbing, Sarah thought as she climbed out of the car.
John ran to the front door and pushed it open. “It’s not locked,” he said before darting inside.
“I’m sorry, David,” she said. “The one I booked on the Internet was much bigger.”
John met them on the porch. “It’s just got one room,” he said. “And only one bed. I don’t get my own bed?”
Sarah and David went inside.
“Well,” David said with a sigh. “To quote my son, this sucks.”
A large king-sized bed was pushed up against the far wall. Next to it was a door, which Sarah hoped was to an indoor bathroom. A giant stone fireplace anchored the front wall of the house and faced the kitchen and dining area on the opposite wall. The floor was polished wood and several thick rugs covered most of it. Two easy chairs faced the fireplace.
“It’s actually very cozy,” David said. “Very comfy—except for the one bed thing.”
“Hey! There’s a TV!” John called out. “On the table next to the bed.” He began to fiddle with its dials.
“I wonder if they get Conan here,” David said, sitting down on the bed. “It’s a nice bed.”
“Look, David, I’m sorry, okay?” Sarah said. “I booked a two-bedroom cottage.”
“Why don’t we unpack our groceries and get settled in a little?” David said, clapping his hands together.
“Really?” Sarah looked at him. “You’re okay with this?”
“Do we have an option?”
“I don’t really know. I have a phone number.”
He got up and took her in his arms. “Don’t bother,” he said. “I say we make the most of what we’ve got.”
She put her head on his shoulder and felt some of the tension drain from her body.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
He kissed her then called to John: “Come on, John. Let’s unload the groceries and the bags and Mom and I can start getting supper on the table.”
“You gonna come out and see the horses?”
David turned to look at Sarah, who shrugged.
“Right. The horses. Okay. Show me the horses,” he said. The two walked out the door and headed for the barn.
Sarah buttoned her sweater and rubbed her hands together. It was cold in the little cottage. She began looking for the thermostat she would never find.