Chapter Ten

Lena secretly visits Mrs. Duggan, offering gifts to open negotiations. Mrs. Duggan toys with Lena, probing her past and Sean’s death, then pivots to business when Lena asks why Tommy targets the Reddys and what rattled Rachel. Mrs. Duggan says Tommy wants the Reddys’ field and, more broadly, is buying scattered parcels to leverage a planned expansion of a nearby tech-parts factory.

Mrs. Duggan explains the mechanism: with a planted ally on the county council, the factory could obtain compulsory purchase orders to seize land between Tommy’s holdings, letting Tommy name his price and consolidate power. She claims she advised Tommy on forcing long-time councilor Mick Scully to step down, and suggests Rachel would have been upset if she learned this.

Driving the back roads, Lena maps the plan onto the landscape and concludes Tommy never wanted Rachel’s truth—he wanted to know if she talked. She resolves not to keep this secret, considering how to broadcast it despite likely “civil war” in the townland.

At Lena’s gate, Tommy awaits. He offers to answer questions but instead patronizes and threatens subtly, implying he’ll frame Lena as unstable and urging her to drop it and find a hobby. He stresses she should bring any future questions only to him.

After he leaves, Lena finds her dogs safe and absorbs the trap: Tommy can discredit her, blunting any revelations. She rejects taking this to Cal (who’d feed Mart’s agenda) and worries Trey might either act rashly or despair. Shaken yet defiant, Lena begins planning how to get the truth out.