The Angel (34 page)

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Keira scoffed at him. “You killed Patsy because she could identify you to the police. You wormed your way into her life, and she told you the story about the stone angel. With what happened in Ireland, you knew she’d figure out your role, and you killed her to protect yourself. Every

thing else is a narrative you’ve established for your own amusement.”

He ignored her, his arrogance almost palpable. “Do you really think you can take me on with that ridiculous ax?”

Only if I have no choice,
Keira thought. “Killing that poor sheep in Ireland wasn’t about redemption.”

“Practice, my dear Keira.” He held up a double-edged assault knife covered in what Keira assumed was her mother’s blood. Perhaps Patsy’s, too. He smiled. “Practice.”

She did her best to hide her revulsion. “You won’t stop with me or my mother. You’ll always want more, and you’ll pay for it. Someone will make you pay.”

“Not you, though, or your mother. And not today.”

“Why didn’t you kill me in Ireland?” Keira asked quickly, trying to distract him from his knife. For the first time, he looked uncomfortable.

“You didn’t expect me to find the ruin, did you?” She kept any fear out of her tone. “You thought you’d beat me to it. You’re a planner—you’re not spontaneous. You had to think on your feet when I showed up. Did you assume I’d die there?”

“I didn’t want you to.” He sounded sincere, as if the thought of her death had troubled him. “I wanted you here, now. I wasn’t meant to kill you in Ireland. That way.”

“The dog…he wasn’t yours. He threw you off your game.”

“Too late to help you. The ruin started to collapse and exposed the angel.” He gestured with his knife at the simple, mesmerizing statue. “Look at her, Keira. Her 314

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beauty and grace. Have you seen Deidre’s picture? They look so alike.”

“How did you meet Patsy?” Keira asked, hoping his ego would lull him into lowering his guard, give her an opening, or just keep him talking until Simon could get there.

“We met the day she displayed her silly angels at the church. Most were junk, but a few were of value.” He raised his knife to eye level. “I’ve enjoyed the chitchat, but don’t think you’re in control. You’re not tough, Keira. Don’t pretend you are. I can end your mother’s suffering in an instant. I can kill you in an instant. It’s my choice.”

He was almost spitting his words now, but not because of exertion and fatigue, Keira realized. The thrill and an

ticipation of what he had planned were getting to him. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, and her hands felt clammy as she gripped the heavy splitter, edging closer to him. If he wanted to keep talking, she’d talk, but she knew she had to be prepared to defend herself and her mother.

“If I know about you,” Keira said, “the police do, too.”

That seemed to throw him off, but only for a moment.

“Drop the ax,” he said.

Keira knew she’d gone as far with him as she could. He was done talking. “Technically, it’s not an ax,” she said.

“It’s a splitter.”

With an unexpected surge of energy, her mother stomped on his instep, and Keira whipped the splitter at him. He ducked away from the sharp edge, and she caught him in the midsection with the back of the metal head. He yelped in pain and stumbled, dropping his knife, charging into the woods.

“The police will catch up with him,” Keira said, reaching an arm around her mother’s waist and helping her to a boulder. She picked up Augustine’s knife.

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Her mother shook her head. “He’ll come back. He’s obsessed—he wants to do Deirdre’s killer one better. Stuart Fuller enjoyed Patsy’s suffering almost as much as he did Deirdre’s. Mother and daughter…”

“Maybe, but Augustine’s also an art dealer. He’ll want to profit from the angel. Does he have a buyer? Did he tell you?”

“The Murphys. They think he’s legitimate—”

“They won’t for long.”

Keira cut the ropes on her mother’s wrists.

“It stops here, Keira,” her mother said, wincing as she eased her bloody hands in front of her. “We can’t let this man kill again.”

“We won’t, Mum. Simon’s on his way. He’ll be here soon. He’ll help us find this bastard.”

“Keira—Simon? Ah, the way you say his name. Did you meet him in Ireland?”

“Boston, actually.” She managed a smile. “But I fell for him in Ireland.”

Simon slowed his pace on the trail out to Eileen Sullivan’s cabin in the woods, thinking he’d heard singing up ahead. It
was
singing.

Really bad singing, he thought. He recognized “Irish Rover,” a song his father used to belt out in the shower a long time ago, but this version had a desperate, half delirious sound to it. A warning? A distraction?

Simon stepped off the trail into knee-high ferns, ducking behind a thick oak tree for cover as a middle-aged man plunged down the trail, both arms out for balance as he ne

gotiated a sharp turn.

He was panting, sweating.

He had to be Jay Augustine.

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Simon jumped out onto the trail in front of him. “Stop—

FBI. Keep your hands where I can see them—”

Augustine ignored him, turned and bolted into the woods on the opposite side of the trail. Simon raced after him, tackled him and dropped him facedown onto the ground. Hard, right into the middle of a low, thorny bush. Augus

tine moaned and tried to get up, but Simon held him down. Moving fast, he got his knee into the middle of Augus

tine’s back and, his eyes on Augustine’s hands, cuffed him in about three seconds flat, then patted him down. He found an assault knife in a sheath on Augustine’s belt. There was a second, empty sheath.

“Where’s Keira?” Simon kept his knee in place.

“Where’s her mother?”

“Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”

“You look a little worse for the wear. Keira nail your ass?”

“She’ll bleed to death,” Augustine said, spitting his words. “So will her mother. Slowly, painfully. You know I can make it happen.”

“That wasn’t you singing, so I’m guessing they’re okay.”

Just then, Keira swooped down through the trees with a wood splitter held high.

“Whoa,” Simon said. “Easy, there.”

She lowered the splitter, breathing hard, hair flying in her face, eyes shining with fury as she focused on Augustine.

“Your only way out now is to turn yourself into a bat or a snake, you bastard,” she said, “and I’ll bet you can’t do that.”

Augustine raised his chin and grinned at her, enjoying her anger—her hatred—as if he’d accomplished some

thing. Simon didn’t ease up on him at all. A woman who had to be Keira’s mother staggered down the nearby trail, bloody, holding an assault knife in one trembling hand. She stepped closer, and Simon couldn’t

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tell if she planned on shoving the knife in Augustine’s heart. If she tried, he’d have to stop her.

“That was you singing, Mrs. Sullivan?” he asked her. She nodded, staring at Augustine. “I thought it would help cover Keira’s running and perhaps throw him off, and keep me from having to…” She didn’t finish her thought, instead lowering her knife. “I didn’t want to scream. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I love that song, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“We’ll belt out some Irish songs together sometime,”

Simon said, then winked at her. “You, me and the Clancy Brothers.”

Keira started toward her mother. “Mum…”

But Eileen Sullivan raised her bloodshot eyes to Simon.

“Is your voice better than mine?”

He grinned at her. “A wee bit, ma’am,” he said in his best Irish accent.

Sirens sounded in the distance. The local and state police would be arriving soon, and Simon wouldn’t be sur

prised if a few Boston cops were thrown into the mix for good measure.

He saw a glimmer of a smile from Eileen Sullivan as she turned to Keira. “I like his wit,” she said, then fainted in her daughter’s arms.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

8:00 p.m., EDT

June 24

Abigail showed her badge to the police officer posted at Liam Butler’s hospital room. Prosecutors were still debating whether to charge him with anything, but she doubted they would.

It was late in the evening, the end of a very long day. Liam looked as if he was sleeping. The worst gash was in his abdomen, but no vital organs were seriously affected. The paramedics and doctors had intervened in time. They’d stopped the bleeding, given him blood and stitched him up. He was on pain medication, but what he needed most now, they said, was time to heal. He’d have scars from his ordeal, but otherwise he’d make a full recovery.

Emotionally, Abigail didn’t know. He’d endured a horror few people had ever survived.

And he’d made a lot of mistakes.

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Only he wasn’t alone when it came to mistakes. What promised to be a thorough, painstaking investiga

tion had begun. Authorities in Boston, Cambridge and Ireland had already begun retracing Jay Augustine’s steps over the past few weeks and months, when he’d gone from being a respected fine art and antiques dealer to a killer handcuffed in the New Hampshire woods.

Charlotte Augustine had already hired a lawyer and a spokesperson to manage media inquiries and to portray her as another of her husband’s victims.

Maybe she was, but she hadn’t told the truth to the police, either.

Abigail couldn’t tell if Liam was aware of her presence. His parents and brother would be arriving soon from Chicago. “Hey, Liam,” she said. “It’s Abigail Browning. Are you awake?”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled without opening his eyes. She hadn’t expected any response. “Your folks will be here soon,” she said.

This time he didn’t respond.

Bob O’Reilly entered the room, jerking a thumb back toward the nurses’ station. “The nurses are worse than the Cambridge cops. I thought they were going to frisk me before they let me in here.”

Abigail was heartened by the return of his wry sense of humor.

He stood next to her at Liam’s bed. “Cambridge PD’s annoyed with you for not telling them about the devil room,” he said.

“You didn’t tell them, either.”

Bob shrugged. “Hell, I thought your guy tripped on his shoelaces.”

“We’re still not sure he didn’t, figuratively speaking—

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I realize he was wearing loafers. But it still could have been a freak accident.”

“You don’t believe that.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Maybe we’ll learn more when the rest of the autopsy results come in. The medical examiner’s already taking a closer look at the pre

liminary results. You’d think there’d have been some obvious sign of a struggle.”

“Maybe Victor thought he was up against a devil and didn’t struggle.”

“Not
a
devil, Bob.
The
devil or one of his minions. There’s a distinction—”

“One you don’t need to make.” Bob grimaced at the sight of the thin, bandaged kid in the bed. “At least Augustine didn’t slice and dice his brother-in-law the way he did that sheep in Ireland. What he had in mind for Keira and Eileen…”

“Bob—”

“It worked out,” he said. “That’s what counts.”

“How’s your sister?”

“She’ll be okay. The bastard didn’t lay a finger on Keira. She and that ax.” He shook his head. “She’s tougher than she looks, that one.”

“And your daughters—”

“I think Fi’s got a crush on Scoop. Something new to keep me awake nights.”

Abigail smiled at Bob’s bravado. As far as she could see, there wasn’t an O’Reilly who wasn’t tough.

“Augustine told people he was in New York the day Victor drowned.”

“Yes, well, supposedly he was in New York when he was in Ireland, too.”

“He wanted that angel—wanted to beat Keira to it. He knew he could get the Murphys to pay him a fortune for

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it. Figured he could always take the money and disappear. Start up again under a new name.”

“He and Charlotte have only been married two years,”

Abigail said. “Who knows what we’ll find when we dig deeper into his past?”

“Charlotte told Yarborough that she and Jay met after he found some of the pieces for her brother’s devil collec

tion. Didn’t mention that tidbit to you, did she?”

Abigail shook her head. “Jay told us that day at Victor’s that he and Charlotte met over a Renaissance tapestry he’d helped Victor find. Did he hook up with Patsy through the Murphys, or vice versa?”

Bob rubbed the back of his thick neck, his fatigue evident. Today had shaken him, Abigail thought. But she knew he wouldn’t stop until he had a solid sense of the time line of the past few weeks. What Jay Augustine had done. When. Why. How. All of it.

“He turned up for the angel bazaar at Saint Ita’s,” Bob said. “I just came from there. Showed Father Palermo a picture of this maniac. Several dealers stopped by the bazaar looking for bargains—some figurine some poor old lady had squirreled away for years and didn’t realize was valuable. Palermo remembers Patsy and Augustine taking a shine to each other.”

“He’s a manipulative son of a bitch,” Abigail said.

“He befriended the Murphys. He and Charlotte are le

gitimate dealers—Billie and Jeanette had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. Patsy eventually figured out he was no good.” Bob dropped his hand from his neck and looked at Abigail, his cornflower-blue eyes filled with pain. “In the end, she knew.”

“He loved it all. Patsy’s story and the possibility of finding a valuable Irish Celtic artifact. The tragedy of her 322

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daughter’s death. Her killer’s bizarre death.” Abigail bit down on her lower lip to control a wave of emotion. “Keira. Her mother.”