St. Patty's Day Miracle

"I certainly do," he chuckled, as he pulled me up off the couch and we hustled toward his garage.

The very pleasant and fast sail on Sean's twenty four foot Corsair Mk. II trimaran lasted until about six after which Sean said "Let's get dinner -- there's a wonderful Irish pub with good food nearby."

"I'd like something aside from Irish," I laughed. "How about Italian?"

"Your wish is my command," he chuckled.

At dinner we learned lots about the other person -- even the things not pleasant were certainly interesting. We held hands most of the time like star-struck teenagers, which we had apparently reverted to.

When we got back to Sean's house he was as brazen as I had been the day that we met. "My dreams would come true if you would share my bed with me tonight Kate O'Keenan. I promise a feak that will top any other you've ever had!"

I didn't doubt the last statement, however I didn't positively reply. "Technically, you're still married, Sean O'Sullivan," I snickered.

"I'm not Sean O'Sullivan -- I'm Simon Hanratty, and Simon Hanratty is not married," he firmly replied while staring into my eyes -- in fact actually staring into my soul.

"How do I know that you didn't murder your brother to assume his identity?" I coyly asked.

"If I answer that question to your satisfaction can we enjoy each other tonight, and talk more fully tomorrow?" he asked with pleading eyes.

I shouldn't have stared at the bulge in his crotch. "Good chance," I squeaked out.

He had me sit across from his TV, retrieved a DVD from his den, put it in his Blu-Ray, and pushed "play."

***************

"Hi -- I'm Simon Hanratty," came a voice as soon as the visage of a man looking much like Sean appeared on the T V screen. As the voice continued it was clear that it was almost identical to Sean's in tone but with only a hint of an Irish accent, not a distinctive one like Sean had. After a minute or so Sean also appeared on the video next to Simon.

When Simon and Sean stood next to each other it was easy to see the physical differences between them. While their faces and hair were almost identical -- Simon's face was more drawn -- Simon was about three or four centimeters shorter than Sean, distinctly less muscular, and thinner. The words he spoke were more compelling than his stature however.

"Sean found me a little more than a year ago," Simon started out as he held up a copy of the Boston Globe with a date on it about two weeks before the fire in Sean's garage. "Until then I didn't know that he existed. We instantly bonded and had hoped to do many things together after he divorced his cheating wife Aelish, who was also intent on stealing as much money from Sean as she could. Unfortunately, shortly after we met I developed a cough and Sean insisted that I see a doctor about it."

Simon's shoulders notably slumped, and Sean compassionately ran his hand over Simon's back.

"I was diagnosed with a rare medical condition that would lead to a certain excruciating death in less than a year. This was especially painful to me because I not only had just connected with Sean, but I had reconnected with my seventeen year old daughter Sara from a failed marriage that terminated fifteen years ago. Here are my medical records," Simon continued, holding up a folder which Sean placed on the coffee table in front of me.

On the video Simon gulped, and there was a tear in his eye. "Sara now lives in New Zealand and is emancipated from my ex-wife, and was in the U. S. for only a couple of months when we reconnected. She expressed a desire to go to college in New Zealand, where she is a naturalized citizen, but couldn't afford it. Neither could I because I have undergone a number of financial reversals -- but Sean certainly could. That's when I came up with a plan."

The next forty five minutes was consumed by Simon -- occasionally with assistance, or comments, from Sean -- detailing his plan for committing suicide to end the excruciating pain that he was enduring in such a way that it would appear that Sean had been murdered by his wife and her lovers. Using Sean's expertise from his computer security business, bank accounts would be set up, and electronic transfers made, and texts and emails created, to set up a convincing digital trail that would implicate Aelish and her lovers in Sean's death. Sean had given Simon, who then gave it to Sara, enough money in a trust in a New Zealand bank to easily pay for her college tuition. "Since the DNA of identical twins is the same, no one will ever know that it is me who will die in Dublin, not Sean," was one of Simon's concluding remarks.

Of course the information was stunning -- but I was very pleased with myself that I had already figured out about half of it before it was confirmed by the video.

"Convincing?" Sean asked.

I thumbed through Simon's medical file before answering. "Yes -- very convincing," I finally replied.

"Will you spend the night?" was his next question -- I thought that maybe he had forgotten.

"Maybe in the future," I coyly replied. "I'm a bit shaken up by this; I need to get my thoughts in order. Are you available tomorrow to talk to provide me with answers to all of my questions?"

"I'll make myself available," he replied. "How about you come over at nine tomorrow morning."

"Deal," I smiled. He gave me another passionate kiss good-bye and then I hurried out of there before the leakage from my gee became obvious.

I tossed and turned in my hotel room bed until about two in the morning. I didn't really get any sleep. While sometimes my mind focused on the case and what I should do about it -- I knew that Aelish and her friends were slime but they didn't deserve to go to prison for murder -- yet I didn't want any adverse consequences for Sean. Much more prevailing in my thoughts, however, was that night more than fifteen years ago when I had had the experience of my life, and how Sean seemed to be even more sexy and desirable now than then. At 2:14 a. m. by my hotel room alarm clock I dragged my arse out of bed and drove back to Quincy Beach Drive.

Sean came to the door clothed only in his boxer shorts about five minutes after I started pounding on it. He peeked through the peep hole in the door and I can only assume broke into a grin when he saw me there, because he had a grin when he opened the door.

As I brushed past him I snickered "I couldn't sleep because all I could think about was fucking you, so I thought that I might as well actually do it so maybe I could get a little rest. Flatten me in your bedroom?"

It wasn't long before his oversized and impossibly hard shillelagh was sending me to nirvana as I bounced up and down on top of him as vigorously as I was capable of.

***************

After a beyond-exquisite morning feak during which Sean kneaded my arse like a starving man handling bread dough, we lay next to each other, sweating, with our noses almost touching.

"You're as phenomenal as I remember you, Kate O'Keenan; my all-time feak. I have no right to be as happy and fulfilled as I am right now."

"You certainly know how to please a woman, Sean O'Sullivan. Aelish must be brain dead to cheat on a God like you!"

"I agree that she's brain dead -- however, I must sheepishly admit that I never fucked her with the intensity you inspired me to. We were made for each other, Kate O'Keenan. We parted once -- we can't let it happen again."

"Things are really complicated Sean O'Sullivan," I mused aloud.

*****************

I moved out of the hotel room that morning, and in with Sean. Over the next ten days Sean and I spent virtually every minute together. While he still had business dealings (though not with his old clients, all of whom thought that he was dead, and even though he didn't really need to work since he had more than 4,000,000 U. S. dollars squirreled away in banks and brokerage accounts around the world), he was able to put them on hold for those ten days. During this time he described fully to me everything about Aelish's cheating, his attempts to win her back, how awful it made him feel, how he almost was driven to beat the hell out of Ramsey, Scully, and Cahill, and how he would never, ever, go back to Ireland.

I told him that I would never allow him to be arrested, but that we had to come up with a way to keep the slimy four -- as we called Aelish, Cahill, Ramsey and Scully -- out of prison once they had been confined for about a year -- which I considered suitable punishment for their transgressions.

What we did even more than talk during those ten days, however, was fuck. We fucked in every position and venue humanly possible that wouldn't get us arrested, with a passion that never waned and that was more intense by an order of magnitude than any other in our lives. Even more than the physical satisfaction, however, we were emotionally bonding with a strength that I didn't believe was humanly possible.

By the time that I flew back to Dublin, we had a plan -- one that would work if there was any justice in the world.

**************

Sean and I continued to communicate with each other using burner phones, newly set up email accounts, and other secure electronic mechanisms, for the next several months. We missed each other terribly, however a couple of times we were able to meet in person outside of Ireland without me having to travel all the way to America. Sean had completely assumed Simon's identity, and since Simon's passport photo had been taken before he became ill there was no one in the world that could tell that the photo on the U S passport was not Simon.

Also, Simon had provided Sean with a complete dossier of all of the information about his life, including photos, and Sean had committed it to memory. Sean even continued to communicate by email with Sara -- since she and Simon had no demonstrable history together and she was back in New Zealand, not likely to return to the U. S., she was none the wiser.

Just before the case of Aelish and her co-conspirators was to go to trial Sean and I met in the Canary Islands to record a DVD. Only Sean appeared on the DVD, not me. Sean stood in front of a green screen that had a fairly well known, though remote, image of a location in New Zealand on it. On the DVD he held up a recent issue of the Times of London, and talked about events that had occurred within the week before the recording; then he got into the meat of the presentation.

"My slimy wife Aelish O'Sullivan and her equally smarmy lovers not only showed me no respect but they conspired to steal my money. For all that I knew they were plotting to kill me too. I was not willing to wait to see if they would actually do that. Therefore I set up an elaborate plot to fake my death. I refuse to go into details as to how I was able to accomplish that, or to identify the individuals involved. All I will say is that a truly 'mad scientist' from an Eastern European country was able to replicate my DNA on a body from a morgue that was able to fool even the most skilled coroner. All that I am really guilty of is setting an already dead body on fire."

Sean smiled devilishly, and then continued.

"So Aelish, you rotten cheating cunt, while I hope that you and your lovers eventually rot in hell, there is no reason to have you spend the next 20 years in prison. Even though you committed many crimes against me, murder wasn't one of them, and I believe that the roughly twelve months that you have been incarcerated is enough to satisfy my need for revenge."

After a sip of wine of a brand normally available only in New Zealand, Sean concluded with:

"I now have a completely new identity and live in a country with no extradition treaty with Ireland, and will never set foot on her green shores again. Don't bother looking for me, and have fun getting anyone to trust you in the future given your history of cheating. Finally -- FUCK OFF!"

I anonymously hired an attorney in Ireland who didn't know who his client was, and paid him with cash given to me by Sean. Initially I also never gave the attorney any information about the DVD, just that there might be exculpatory information.

The attorney that I hired met privately with Aelish's attorney and made her an offer. "If your client signs a paper forgoing any legal action against Sean O'Sullivan including for anything having to do with a split of property or alimony, and agrees to a stipulated divorce, we might be able to provide her with exculpatory information. The only asset that she will be provided with is the equity in their residence, which I know has been pledged to cover her legal fees which are continuously increasing."

Aelish jumped at the offer. Once she signed the papers I gave the attorney I hired a copy of the DVD, devoid of all fingerprints, DNA, or any other identifiable material, which after copying Aelish's attorney turned over to the prosecutor.

The very next day the Detective Chief Superintendent, Malley, and me were called into the prosecutor's office. We reviewed the DVD together. I acted as shocked as the rest of them, and posed many questions that I knew no one would have any answers to. The four cheaters were released from prison before the end of the week, both pissed and relieved. The media got hold of the situation and it was big news in Dublin for the next week -- but then died down.

I crushed and disposed of the memory stick having all of the information about my hunt for Sean's twin brother, and all related data, on it, as well as the mangled birth certificate that led me to solving the "mystery" and the love of my life.

**************

So what's the St. Patrick's Day Miracle promised by the title?

I moved to Dorchester, and then on the morning of St. Patrick's Day I formally got an offer for a job in the homicide division of the Boston Police Department. That afternoon Sean/Simon and I got married and before midnight we boarded a plane for our honeymoon in Aruba. I expect to be married donkey's years to the love of my life! Considering my history with Sean, and what I found in the burned-out garage bay, I'd consider that a miracle -- wouldn't you?