Carla Neggers (8 page)

“It’s one of those things we believe but don’t know.”

“Irish?”

“My guess is no. Maybe of Irish descent. The art stolen from here is Irish, but the other thefts are all different. I believe he steals what he knows he can steal.”

Colin walked over to a glass-front cabinet next to the fireplace and glanced at the contents, a mix of books, framed photographs of Declan’s Cross and small porcelain figures of birds. “I assume law enforcement has everything you have on him.”

“I am law enforcement, Colin.”

“Right. Easy to forget.”

She looked for humor in his expression but saw none. “Our thief is fast, clever and daring but not reckless. He doesn’t strike often. The art theft squad here in Ireland is handling this case, but it’s a cold trail.”

“What about fingerprints, footprints, witnesses?”

“Virtually nothing here or anywhere else. He knows what he’s doing.”

Emma ran her fingertips over more books. She could feel Colin watching her. It was as if he could read her mind, knew what she was thinking before she could acknowledge it to herself.

“It’s all right, Emma,” he said. “I get it that I’m on need-to-know status with the specifics. When and if I need to know, you’ll tell me.”

It wasn’t a question, but she said, “I will, yes. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe the thefts are directed at my grandfather. Taunting him is a bonus, not the motive.”

“But you don’t know,” Colin said with the slightest of smiles.

“I also believe he works alone. He never steals more than he can handle in one trip.”

“Maybe he’s like Santa Claus and has elves and reindeer waiting.”

Emma smiled, welcoming his lighter tone—his lighter mood. “It’s dark out, but it’s still too early for dinner. We could check out the spa. I had a quick look at the pool after lunch. Very inviting.”

“I used to be a lobsterman, but I’m not that much on swimming.” He gave her an easy grin. “I know what’s in the water.”

“No sharks in an indoor pool, at least.”

“Or alligators,” he added.

It was a reminder of his close call a few weeks ago in Fort Lauderdale, when his arms traffickers had tried to kill him. Emma didn’t always know where Donovan humor and teasing ended and Donovan seriousness began. It was the same with his brothers. They communicated with teasing and wry humor punctuated by a bluntness that could set people back on their heels. She found their approach refreshing, challenging and remarkably honest—if also sometimes disconcerting. Her family was honest but often indirect, out of respect and intuition for personal and professional boundaries, because of their natural ability to assess, analyze, reflect.

The Donovans didn’t always have a keen instinct for boundaries. When they wanted to find out something, get something done, they would keep pushing until someone or something pushed back.

Then they would push some more.

No doubt that helped explain Julianne’s abrupt trip to Ireland and her defensiveness with Colin.

And unlike Emma, Julianne had grown up with Donovans. She already knew what they were like.

Emma started for the hall. “I don’t know about you, Colin, but I’m going to grab my swimsuit and head to the spa.” She paused in the doorway and looked back at him. “Coming?”

He strode across the room to her. “Kitty O’Byrne’s whiskey cabinet beckons,” he said, then touched his fingertips to her cheek. “And you need some time to yourself. Emma thinking time. You can think while you’re swimming. I’d either be imagining alligators or letting myself be distracted by you in a swimsuit.”

“You’ve never seen me in a swimsuit.”

“This is what I’m saying.”

8

WITH EMMA OFF
to the spa, Colin didn’t immediately head downstairs to the bar. Instead he sat by the cold fireplace and dug out his phone and found Matt Yankowski’s number in Boston. Yank was the buttoned-down senior agent in charge of a small Boston-based team he’d formed in March that specialized in elusive criminals and criminal networks with virtually unlimited resources. He called it HIT. It stood for high-impact targets. Or maybe it didn’t. Colin had never really asked.

Yank had personally selected every member of the team, including Emma, and now, technically, Colin, except that was more like a shotgun wedding. Yank had decided in September that after months of solitary deep-cover work, Colin needed structure, a place to light—“a damn desk,” as Yank had put it.

Not that Colin had actually sat at his desk in Boston, or ever would.

He wasn’t even sure he had one.

He’d met Yank four years ago. Yank had come up from Washington to Rock Point to talk to Colin about his first undercover mission. Yank would be his contact agent. He’d griped about the rocky coast, boats and everything else about southern Maine, except Hurley’s lobster rolls and doughnuts.

On that same trip—something Colin hadn’t known until two months ago—Yank had also visited the isolated convent of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart and talked to a young novice, fair-haired Sister Brigid, aka Emma Sharpe. Yank had guessed that Emma, an art historian and a Sharpe, wasn’t destined to spend the rest of her life as one of the good sisters. She’d grown up in Heron’s Cove, just a few miles down the coast from Rock Point, but it might as well have been on a different planet, for all the Donovans and the Sharpes had in common.

Before Colin had left for Ireland, Yank had said he wouldn’t mind doing a Vulcan mind meld with Wendell Sharpe. The octogenarian art crimes expert had decades of knowledge and experience, layers of secrets, tidbits filed away in his acute mind that would never be a part of any formal file. Emma had learned her ways at her grandfather’s knee.

Colin put the thought aside and tapped in Yank’s cell phone number.

“Donovan,” Yank said on the second ring. “Still in Ireland?”

“Still here. You’re missing some great rainbows.”

“Tempted to chase one and find your pot of gold?”

“What would I do with a pot of gold?”

Yank grunted. “You could give it to me to pay for Lucy’s trip to Paris. She’s back. She went to Hermès and Chanel.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Uh-oh. She bought a scarf and a pair of shoes for what my first car cost.”

Lucy Yankowski probably made more money as a psychologist than her husband of fifteen years did as an FBI agent. Yank wasn’t a big talker, but a few weeks ago he’d finally admitted to Colin that he didn’t know what Lucy would do. He’d thought locating his special team in Boston, away from the glare of Washington, made sense, but he hadn’t expected his wife to resist moving out of their northern Virginia home. Nine months later, she was still there. Yank considered the trip to Paris with her sister another of her delaying tactics.

“When you’re not watching rainbows,” he said, “are you planning your new life as Cap’n Colin?”

“It’d be a good life.” Colin settled back in the love seat and pictured himself down east on the Bold Coast, away from anyone he could hurt. “I’d take tourists on boat trips to see puffins, whales and seals and such. Fish between trips and in the off season. I know boats.”

“Cap’n Colin does have a nice ring to it.”

Colin didn’t know if Yank realized that it was a serious, realistic option. “Maybe I’m not meant to do this job forever.”

“You aren’t. None of us is made to do it forever. There’s a time to move on. You don’t know if that’s now. You can’t when you’re in Ireland chasing rainbows.”

“I’m at a spa hotel with Emma.”

“A spa hotel?”

“It’s nice. She’s in the pool now. The bar has a good whiskey selection. I think Finian Bracken had a hand in it. The hotel’s on the other side of Cork from his cottage.” Colin kept his tone casual as he continued. “It’s in a tiny village called Declan’s Cross.”

Yank was silent on the other end.

Colin gripped his phone. “Yank—you know about this Declan’s Cross thief?”

“Some. Not everything. Probably not as much as I should. Definitely not as much as Wendell Sharpe does. It’s tricky sometimes keeping track of what Emma knows because she’s an FBI agent and what she knows because she’s a Sharpe. Keeping secrets comes naturally to her. It’s one of the reasons she’s good at what she does.”

“This isn’t a secret.”

“Playing her cards close to her chest, then,” Yank said. “You won’t be satisfied until I give you my files on her.”

“Nah. I don’t mind figuring her out on my own.” Colin looked up at the Aoife O’Byrne painting, imagined her and Kitty in this room as little girls. What a childhood. “Do you think Emma’s grandfather told her all he knows about these thefts?”

“I don’t think Wendell Sharpe tells anyone all he knows about anything.”

“The name Hargreaves on your radar?”

“Hargreaves Oceanographic Institute? It’s up by Gloucester. That’s all I know. I’m not into the ocean.”

“You have a great view of Boston Harbor from your office,” Colin said.

“So I do,” Yank said. “That’s not why you called. What’s up?”

As Colin filled in the senior agent, he realized all he had was a woman who had failed to keep her word about picking up Julianne at the airport and joining her at the Murphy cottage. If he was overthinking, it was because of the Sharpes and their ten years of unsolved art thefts, and it was because Lindsey Hargreaves had taken the trouble to stop in Rock Point to see Finian Bracken—and now Julianne was up at that cottage by herself. Andy had sensed something was off about her trip, and that’s why he’d told Colin about it.

Colin gritted his teeth. Not only wasn’t Julianne over his brother, his brother wasn’t over her.

He told Yank, “I don’t know if this is a Sharpe thing that sucked in Julianne or a Donovan thing that sucked her in, or if it’s nothing.”

“How could it be a Donovan thing?”

“Julianne’s here to get over my brother.”

“Andy,” Yank said. “The lobsterman.”

“Correct.”

“She’s the one who found him when your arms-trafficking friends bashed in his head and left him to drown. She told you she’s in Ireland to get over him?”

“Not a chance. She’d never admit it.”

“Whose side are you on in the breakup?”

“Neutral.”

“Third man in rule.”

“Yeah.” Colin stood, even more restless. “Did Emma tell you she plans to be back at work on Monday?”

“Yes. That’s good. We miss her around here. What about you?”

“I might check out Irish puffins.”

“Is there such a thing?”

“They’re Atlantic puffins, same as the ones you’d find off the Maine coast. The parrot of the sea—”

“You’re killing me,” Yank said. “Let me know when this woman turns up.”

Colin wasn’t ready to hang up yet. “Does the name Sean Murphy mean anything to you?”

“No. Why?”

“He’s the farmer Fin Bracken knows.”

“Does Emma know him?”

“Not that she’s said.” Colin saw that it was dark out now, no hint of dusk. “Having a Sharpe on your team is more complicated than you anticipated, isn’t it?”

“Everything about this team is more complicated than I anticipated,” Yank said. “Don’t do anything you’re not supposed to do over there. Assist as appropriate if this turns into a missing-persons case, but I don’t want to make a trip to Ireland to bail you out of trouble.”

“You’d love Ireland.”

“That’s what you said about Maine. I still don’t love it. I have to go. I’m meeting with the director. I’m going to try not even to think your name.”

“Why not? The director likes me.”

“Tolerates you. Needs you from time to time. That’s different from liking you.”

Colin grinned. “Tell him I’ll take him on a puffin tour.”

Yank made no comment as he disconnected.

Colin slid his phone into his jacket pocket. He and Yank were opposites in most ways, but they both had good instincts, and every instinct Colin had told him that something wasn’t right with this situation with Lindsey Hargreaves.

As he headed out of the reading room, he noticed how quiet the hotel was. During his months working undercover, he’d had little quiet, rarely the complete confidence that he was safe. He didn’t dwell on such things. He focused on the job he had to do. His “job” in Ireland was simple. He was to relax, enjoy his surroundings, avoid anything more pressing than what whiskey to drink. Most days the past two weeks it had worked out that way.

With any luck, it would tonight, too.

* * *

Kitty was cutting lemons behind the gleaming dark-wood bar when Colin eased onto a high-backed cushioned stool. A fire burned hot in the marble fireplace. A young couple was huddled over a bottle of wine at one of the half dozen candlelit, glass-topped tables.

“You must be ready for that drink now,” Kitty said. “What would you like?”

“A Guinness, thanks.” He nodded to a double row of simply framed color photographs of Irish ruins and misty hills. “Local scenes?”

“Mmm. My sister’s early work. Aoife had an eye even as a teenager.”

“She did the seascape upstairs in the reading room, too.”

“Gorgeous, isn’t it? I love that painting.” Kitty scooped up a handful of cut lemons and set them in a small bowl. “Aoife lives in Dublin, but she gets down here often. She’s always a little embarrassed when she remembers her work’s up on the walls. I’ve work up by other Irish artists, too.”

“A lot of talent here, not that I’m an expert.”

“Nor am I. I just like what I like.”

“Is any of the art on display from your uncle’s day?”

“Some,” she said, letting his pint rest a minute, part of the process of pouring Guinness. “Aoife has some of his works, too. He only had the two Jack Yeats paintings, if that’s what you’re asking. They were his most valuable works. You’re not trying to solve the burglary, are you? It’s been years, and it has nothing to do with your friend.”

“I understand you were in town that night.”

She set the pint in front of him. “Yes.”

Head down, Kitty grabbed a lime and her paring knife and expertly hacked the lime in two. Colin drank some of his Guinness. “Seems quiet here,” he said.

“It is. We’ve a few guests. It’ll be busier this weekend.”

“I saw a kid here earlier. Your son?”

She nodded. “Philip. He works here for now. He plans to go to college. He’s interested in oceanography. He’s learning scuba diving—he’s been helping out with this marine science field station, diving with the crew there. I can’t stand the thought of it myself.” Kitty shuddered, slicing the lime into neat quarters. “I get claustrophobic.”

“I’m not much on diving, either,” Colin said. “My brothers do some. I’d rather be on the surface than under water.”

“I hope this field station works out. It’s more a dream for Lindsey, I suspect. A hopeless dream, maybe. I don’t think it matters to the others as much. Brent Corwin, Eamon Carrick. They’re serious divers. That’s what interests them.”

As Kitty finished, Emma came into the bar lounge and sat next to Colin. The ends of her hair were damp, her cheeks pink from her swim and visit to the spa as she smiled at him. “You’d love the spa, Colin. Really. The pool is fantastic. I still think we should book that couple’s massage.”

Kitty pointed at Colin with her paring knife. “With this one?” She laughed, the spark back in her blue eyes. “I’d give you a discount.”

Colin grinned at her. “I just might surprise you.”

She abandoned her lemons and limes and wiped off her hands with a damp white towel. “What can I get you, Emma?”

“A glass of wine would be lovely. A red. You pick.”

Kitty lifted a wineglass from a shelf and set it on her work counter. “Tell me more about how Fin Bracken is doing in Maine. Does he enjoy it, do you think?”

“Colin would know better than I,” Emma said.

Colin shrugged. “He misses Ireland more than he’ll admit, but the church people like him. My brothers and I think he looks like Bono.”

“Bono? I suppose. Fin’s a good man, but I still don’t see him as a priest, honestly.” Kitty chose a cabernet sauvignon from a shelf behind her, uncorked it and poured it into the glass. She handed the glass to Emma and then recorked the bottle. “We should have the peated Bracken 15 in his honor. Later, perhaps.”

“I still haven’t developed a taste for peated whiskey,” Emma said, then tried her wine. “Great choice. Thanks.”

Kitty seemed distracted as she mopped up a spill. “I hope you can relax and enjoy your stay here, but I imagine you can no more stop thinking like FBI agents than I can stop thinking like a hotel owner.”

“Or a worried mother,” Emma said softly.

“Yes, that, too. It shows, doesn’t it? But that’s part of being a mother, isn’t it? Worrying. Philip could do worse than getting caught up in diving. I swear he likes being under water more than he does breathing fresh air.” She dropped her cloth in the sink. “Well, then. Do you have plans for dinner? Shall we set a table for you here?”

Colin was thinking in terms of fish and chips at a pub instead of the hotel’s more formal menu, but Emma said, “We’d love that,” and he adjusted his thinking to roast lamb.

He drank more of his Guinness. “How well do you know Sean Murphy?”

Kitty gave him a shocked look, recovered quickly and acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’ll be here and there if you need anything,” she mumbled, retreating quickly through the open doorway behind her.

Emma sipped some of her wine. “I wonder what that was about.”

“Definitely pushed a button.”

“You knew it would.”

He smiled. “Believed it would.” He finished the last of his pint. “I’ll be more careful. I don’t want to ask too many questions. She might kick us out, and I know you’re itching to get me to that spa.”

He saw the smile that reached all the way into Emma’s green eyes and felt it tug at his insides. It wasn’t just the effects of his beer. Being with her made him whole. It made him think about life in ways he hadn’t allowed himself to think about it—as dangerous as that might be, given the work he did. Dangerous for her.