Carla Neggers (26 page)

She looked at Brent. The son of a bitch was just going to watch her freeze. When she collapsed, he’d walk away. By the time anyone found her, she’d be dead, and he’d be on his way.

Julianne heard voices down toward the lane. Brent swore, and his reaction told her the voices weren’t just in her head, a result of hypothermia.

Emma and Colin.

At home, they’d be armed. In Ireland...

Julianne knew she had to do—and even as Brent lurched forward to grab her, she leaped over the ledge.

She dropped onto a flat-topped boulder, landing on her feet, her knees bent, but her momentum propelled her off the edge, into the crevice between more boulders.

She hit hard. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

She heard a gunshot...shouting...

* * *

Emma reached her first. “Easy, Julianne.”

“It’s okay. I just got the wind knocked out of me.” She struggled to sit up. “What happened?”

“Brent refused to put his weapon down—”

“You shot him?”

Emma shook her head. “Sean Murphy did.”

Colin dropped in next to her. “The paperwork is a lot easier that way. We make a good team. Emma and I had rocks. Sean had a gun.”

Julianne saw that he wasn’t kidding. “You aren’t hurt? And Sean—you guys are all okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good.” Colin got off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “That was a gutsy move, kid.”

“I heard you and Emma—”

“A deliberate distraction,” he said. “We’ll talk back at the hotel. The gardai are on the way.”

Now that she was warmer—and safe—Julianne felt steadier. She got to her feet, but didn’t shake off Emma’s help onto the trail.

Colin shook his head. “No socks, Julianne?”

“I was at the spa.”

“That’s where Brent grabbed you?”

She tightened Colin’s jacket around her. “No, I was in the garden.”

“The garden isn’t the spa.”

Julianne looked at Emma. “You know the Donovans have been fantasizing about throwing me off a ledge forever, don’t you?”

Colin grinned. “Especially Andy.”

Sean Murphy met them at the top of the trail. He had a serious, take-charge look that reminded Julianne he was a law enforcement officer—one who’d just had to use deadly force.

She could hear vehicles down on the lane.

“Gardai,” Sean said.

Colin clapped an arm over the Irishman’s shoulder. “Getting the jump on a man with a gun and a hostage—you’re going to have a tough time convincing your superiors you shouldn’t be back on the job.”

Sean squinted back at the ledge where Brent Corwin lay dead. “I am back on the job.”

27

THE SUN HAD
returned when Emma arrived back at the O’Byrne House Hotel with Colin and Julianne. The gardai had finished there, taking David Hargreaves with them to discuss the particulars of the ransom and why he hadn’t told anyone. It would be a while longer, Emma knew, before Sean Murphy and his garda colleagues left Shepherd Head.

Andy Donovan was waiting, pacing in the bar lounge. Muddy and bruised, Julianne burst into tears, then sniffled and glared at him. “I don’t need you here. Go back to Maine.”

“Jules,” he said, taking her into his arms. “Damn.”

Emma stood next to Colin by the stairs. He rolled his eyes, but Julianne’s close call had clearly affected him. When he and Emma had arrived at the church ruin and saw Brent Corwin’s van—heard Julianne up on the ledge, fighting for her life—they had focused on the job at hand. An armed Sean Murphy had only helped.

Julianne needed a hot shower and dry clothes, but Emma saw that her assistance wasn’t required. Andy was more than up to the task. He wanted to carry her up the stairs, but she insisted she could walk—and then stumbled, and that was that. He had her up and off her feet in a flash.

“I’m all wet and smell like mud,” she told him.

“Nothing new with you, Jules.”

Colin sighed, watching them go up the stairs. “Let’s see what happens when the adrenaline and jet lag wear off.”

He and Emma went out to the terrace. He checked in with Yank while she checked in with Lucas and her grandfather. Kitty sent out tea and trays of sandwiches and desserts. Julianne and Andy came out to the terrace—both freshly showered and in clean clothes—and as they sat at the table, smiling, for a moment Emma pretended they were all on an Irish vacation together.

Julianne, however, was still pale, and a bruise had blossomed on her wrist. She grabbed half a ham sandwich. “It bugs the hell out of me that Brent Corwin thought I was a soft target. That’s what he told me. Soft target.”

Andy grinned at his older brother. “You see what she’s like?”

“She’s been like that since she was two. I remember.” Colin turned to Julianne. “Don’t beat yourself up because you got nabbed.”

“I’m not beating myself up. I know I’m not an FBI agent. That doesn’t mean I can’t fight.”

“No kidding,” Andy said.

“You did what any one of us would have done,” Emma said.

The Donovan brothers disagreed and discussed various ways they would have disarmed Brent and stopped him from dragging them off at gunpoint. Julianne didn’t seem to object. She was, Emma saw, used to their talk.

Sean Murphy arrived, coming through the bar lounge. “Please join us,” Emma said, and he sat across from her, next to Julianne. Kitty came out to check on them, and Emma invited her to join them, too, but she had her hands full keeping up with the gardai’s comings and goings.

“How’s Philip today?” Sean asked her.

She seemed to avoid his eye. “He’s as well as can be expected.”

“He has good instincts, Kitty,” Sean said. “He did well under pressure, and he must know now that nothing he told Lindsey put this scheme of hers into her head.”

Kitty blinked back tears. “Thank you for asking about him,” she mumbled, then whirled back inside. Sean watched her in silence.

Julianne abandoned her sandwich and wandered off to look at a bed of pansies just off the terrace. Andy made no move to join her.

“You’re a lucky man,” Sean told him. “Julianne’s a lovely woman.”

“She still wants to drown me in the Celtic Sea.”

Sean grinned. “You probably deserve it.”

No argument from either Donovan.

The Irishman got up, and Emma followed him inside to the whiskey cabinet. “We still don’t have our thief,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“I like your attitude, Special Agent Sharpe.” He peered through the glass at the array of whiskey bottles. “Fin Bracken is almost as good a judge of people as he is whiskey, and he considers Colin a friend.”

“Colin needs his freedom,” Emma said.

“From what?”

“A desk.”

“You don’t tie him down. He’s an undercover agent, isn’t he? A valuable asset for the FBI, no doubt. They’ll have another job for him. He’ll do better, not worse, knowing he has you to come home to.”

“You’re a wise man.”

“I’m dumb as a post.” He winked at her. “Luckily I know where Kitty keeps the key to the whiskey cabinet. Let’s help ourselves while she’s in a generous mood.”

* * *

Sean left a bottle of Auchentoshan with the Americans and found Kitty in her office. She didn’t look up from her desk. “I’d have turned you in if I’d had proof you were the thief.”

“I’d have done the same with you.”

Now she looked up.
“Me?”

Sean smiled. “If I wasn’t with you part of the night, then you weren’t with me part of the night.”

“I don’t know if I should be insulted you’d think I’d do such a thing or complimented that you think I could pull it off.”

“Either way, it’s not what came between us. You’ve done well with this place, Kitty, and you’ve a good lad in Philip.”

“He looks up to you.”

Sean grinned. “And well he should.”

“I’m glad you’re not this thief. Maybe just as well we don’t know who it is.” She got to her feet. “Ah, Sean. What a mess we’ve made of things.”

“Maybe we just have our own timing.”

“Philip’s father wanted an old-fashioned wife, and that I’m not and will never be. He’s a good man but...” She sighed. “He has what he wants now, and he’s happy. Philip will be off on his own soon enough. I’m still young, Sean.”

“You want more children?”

She didn’t seem that surprised by his question. “It could happen. I love babies. I always thought I’d have a brood. I’ve this place. I have such happy memories here. I deal with wonderful people every day, as guests, workers, contractors. I love Declan’s Cross. I’m blessed.”

“Come up to the farm tonight, Kitty. We’ll open a bottle of champagne and watch the stars come out over the sea.”

“That sounds wonderful.” She tilted her head back. “Did you steal the champagne like you just stole my whiskey?”

Starchy Kitty, Sean thought, laughing as he left her to wonder.

* * *

As far as Andy was concerned, the spa at the O’Byrne House Hotel was heaven, but he was jet-lagged and still getting over the shock of arriving in Declan’s Cross to all hell breaking loose. Julianne had talked him into a couple’s massage, and now they were in the couple’s lounge, relaxing, supposedly, on a double chaise lounge with deep, sleep-inducing cushions.

Quite a first day in Ireland.

It was almost dark now. The lounge overlooked a peaceful garden that was lush even in November. He had spa-provided headphones so he could listen to music. The spa attendants had left a pot of special herbal tea, a pitcher of ice water with lemons and oranges, a plate of cut-up fruit. All perfect, but he was jumping out of his skin.

He noticed Julianne didn’t have her headphones on, either. She looked tired enough to melt into the cushions, and the bruise on her wrist had darkened. Andy hated thinking about how close Colin and Emma and Sean Murphy had come to finding Julianne dead on the rocks.

“I’ve missed you,” he said finally.

“I haven’t been gone long enough for you to miss me. I left Rock Point on Monday night. It’s now Friday—”

“I mean since we broke up.”

She sighed. “We didn’t break up, Andy. You dumped me.”

“You remember everything, don’t you? I guess that’s why you’re such a good student.”

“You weren’t a good student because you had other things on your mind. You’re good at lobstering, and you’re good at restoring boats.”

“A few other things, too, Jules, as I recall you saying on occasion.”

“I love Rock Point. You know that, right?”

He didn’t know how they’d gone from him referring to making love to her talking about Rock Point, but that was how her mind worked. “I know that,” he said. “I just want you to do what’s right for you.”

“Let me be the judge of what’s right for me, okay? Don’t you try to be the judge of it. I’ll have options when I finish my degree.”

“We don’t have to figure out everything today. This hotel’s great, but I think I prefer the Murphy cottage.”

While Emma and Julianne had taken a walk in the hotel gardens, Andy had gone with Colin to have a look at Shepherd Head. The gardai wouldn’t let them onto the ledge where Lindsey Hargreaves and Brent Corwin had died, but Andy had gotten a glimpse of the Celtic crosses that had inspired Aoife O’Byrne. He could see why.

“The cottage is nice,” Julianne said, subdued now.

“We can take walks on the cliffs and out to the ruins.”

“After someone’s died there?”

“There’s a cemetery out there, Jules.”

She smiled. “Ever the pragmatic Donovan.”

“Not so pragmatic since I’m here. The massage was pragmatic, though. My doctor said I should have regular massages for my shoulder.”

She rolled onto her side, and he saw the gold flecks in her hazel eyes. “We rushed things this fall.
I
rushed things.” She touched her fingertips to his jaw. “Anyway, thank you for being here.”

His throat caught. “It’s where I want to be. I’m sorry I broke your heart, Jules. I was an idiot.”

“You were scared, and that’s not easy for a Donovan to admit. Maine’s home for me. Rock Point. I’m not going to work at Hurley’s forever, but I don’t need to go out into the big wide world to be a research biologist. I can do it there.”

“You’d miss us Donovans out in the big wide world.”

“I’d miss you.”

“Yeah.”

She rolled onto her back again. “I’m still doing my internship in Cork in January.”

“I’ll come visit then, too.”

“I hope so. I’m going to use the last of the mad money from Grandpa to bring Granny over here in the spring. I can’t stand the idea that she’ll die wishing she’d just done it and gone to Ireland once in her life.”

“Like your grandfather did.”

“Yes. Oh, Andy. I’ve tried so hard to stop loving you, but I won’t push myself on you after today. If you want me to get lost—”

“Do you think I’d have flown to damn Ireland if I wanted you to get lost?”

He kissed her, and she snuggled against him. She was so damn warm. He thought she’d fall asleep, but she said, “I still want my boat back.”

28

AS COLIN WALKED
up the driveway to Finian Bracken’s cottage, he noticed a red Micra parked out front and thought it might be Andy and Julianne in for a visit. Instead he saw Matt Yankowski standing in the drizzle.

“A Micra, Yank? Really?”

“I know. I almost got out and carried it, but I like a small car on these damn Irish roads.” He nodded toward the view over Kenmare Bay. “I just saw a rainbow.”

“You didn’t just see a rainbow, Yank.”

“I never see rainbows. It’s my lot in life.” He had on a dark suit and tie, ever the proper agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He grinned at Colin. “I think I might hate Ireland more than I hate Maine.”

Colin smiled. Yank didn’t hate Maine, or Ireland. He just liked to gripe. “You didn’t pick the best day. Come back in the spring. There’ll be lambs. You’ll love Ireland then. Bring Lucy.”

“Lucy. She loves lambs and rainbows. I was in Dublin four years ago when Emma was working for her grandfather. I didn’t see a rainbow then, either. You’ve been hiking all day?”

“All day.”

“All day every day since you left Declan’s Cross?”

“It’s just been three days, Yank.”

“Emma’s in Dublin. She’s working on this art thief case. She picked me up at the airport. We had breakfast.”

“Good.” Colin wasn’t discussing Emma with Yank. “Want to come inside?”

“Nope. I’m still shaking off driving across Ireland in that little car. I don’t need to be in a little cottage. You like it here alone?”

“It’s fine.” Just better with Emma. “The weather’s been great the past three days.”

“The Donovan luck does have its moments.”

“You didn’t come here to talk about the weather, Yank.”

Yank opened his hand, and in the palm was a round black stone inscribed with a Celtic cross. In the center was a tiny figure—Saint Declan and his bell.

It got Colin’s interest. “This is one of the cross-inscribed stones the thief sends Wendell Sharpe?”

“It came for me yesterday in Boston.”

“At your office? Yank, almost nobody knows about your office.”

“The Sharpes’ thief does. I don’t know how. He must have found out about what just happened in Declan’s Cross and gone from there.” Yank pocketed the stone. “He likes the game. I think he wants a Sharpe scalp.”

Colin stood back. “How do I know you didn’t get that rock in an Irish souvenir shop?”

“You won’t if you go off and do puffin tours.”

“Emma would tell me.”

“Nope. Against policy. Besides, you’re assuming she would want to stay with a tour-boar operator instead of a rugged undercover federal agent.”

“Tour-boat operators can be rugged.”

Yank didn’t seem to notice the fine mist collecting on his suit coat. “The director wants me to bring you back to Boston with me.”

“How long are you staying?”

“A few days. I’ll be in touch with the office, but I need to do some thinking. I want to spend a day in Declan’s Cross and walk the ground where this thief first struck. Talk to a few people.”

“Sean Murphy?”

Yank didn’t answer.

Colin didn’t push for more information. “You can stay here. There’s a loft and a sofa. Take your pick.”

“Forget it, Donovan. I’m not bunking with you.”

“You’ll have the place to yourself. I’m driving to Dublin tonight.” He gave Yank the key. “Hike the Irish hills. It’s good for the soul.”

“What about the rain?”

“Buy a raincoat.”

* * *

Aoife O’Byrne was, indeed, a truly beautiful woman—all black hair, porcelain skin, blue eyes, angles and energy. She told Emma she’d already talked to the gardai and wasn’t interested in talking to the FBI, too, but let her into her Dublin studio, a large, open room with exposed brick walls and views of the Liffey River.

“I remember David and Cynthia Hargreaves,” Aoife said, pacing on the tile floor. “I was just twenty. I was thrilled to sell my first works. He was a wealthy man with poor social skills. She was an artistic woman with no patience to learn her craft. She wanted instant results and then was disappointed when they didn’t live up to the image in her mind. I didn’t know a daughter was involved.”

“Lindsey was thirteen at the time,” Emma said. “She stayed at home with the housekeeper.”

“And now she’s dead, and so is the man who killed her.” Aoife raked both slender hands through her hair. “I can’t believe something I created was a part of such violence.”

Emma glanced around the studio and its utilitarian shelving and cabinets, filled with books and art supplies. A large industrial-looking table occupied the center of the room. Not so much as a pencil was on the scarred wood. There was no artwork on the walls. Everything in its place, and no distractions.

“Aoife,” Emma said, “did you and your uncle ever talk about the cross and the paintings that were stolen from his house?”

“Very little, before or after the theft. He just knew I loved them.”

“What about Saint Declan?”

“Saint Declan? Because of the crosses? No, Special Agent Sharpe. My uncle and I never discussed Saint Declan. Truly, there’s nothing you can ask me that I haven’t been asked already by the gardai—that I haven’t asked myself.” Aoife crossed her arms on her chest and stared out at the river, gray on the quiet November afternoon. “I want this thief caught, and I want what he stole recovered. I hope that’s clear, but if not, so be it.”

“Do you get to Declan’s Cross often?”

“Not often enough.”

“Have you stayed at your sister’s hotel?”

“I haven’t. I hate hotels, but I love the house, and Kitty. Uncle John left the house to both of us, but I had no interest in owning it.” Aoife lowered her arms and turned to Emma. “Kitty and Sean...it was destined, you know. Since we were girls. It was always Sean for Kitty, but Philip needed to be born first.”

Aoife O’Byrne had her own way of looking at life, Emma thought. “It was good to meet all of them, but I wish it had been under better circumstances.”

“Will you be going back to Declan’s Cross soon?”

“I return to Boston tomorrow.” Emma placed her business card on the worktable. “We’ll stay in touch.”

“I’d rather not,” Aoife said.

A fine, cold mist was falling when Emma reached the street. She pulled up the hood to her raincoat and walked to the Dublin pub where her grandfather had first taken her. She was staying in the small guest room at his apartment near Merrion Square. She’d postponed her return to Boston, but she wasn’t on vacation. She’d pored through everything that she and Sharpe Fine Art Recovery had on their elusive thief, and she’d sat with her grandfather for hours, probing, digging, trying to make sure he’d finally told her everything.

Matt Yankowski had arrived in Dublin early that morning, and she’d filled him in over breakfast. But she knew she wasn’t the purpose of his trip. He was in Ireland to see Colin.

“Puffin tours, Emma. Hell. I thought he wasn’t serious.”

The mist had turned to a hard rain when Emma entered the busy pub. She sat in a dark booth in a quiet corner and ordered beef stew and a pint. Her annual Guinness. Or maybe she’d had her annual Guinness already, given how complicated her life had been since meeting Colin in September.

She’d been thinking of him constantly, but she’d told him she wouldn’t call him or email him until she got back to Boston. He needed this time on his own. He knew it, too, and didn’t argue with her. She’d be going back to Boston tomorrow, without him.

“Thinking again, Emma?”

For a split-second she thought she’d imagined his voice, but when she looked up from her Guinness, he was there, sliding onto the cushioned bench across from her. He shed his wet jacket and shoved it onto the seat next to him.

“Colin.” She collected her wits. The dim light made his eyes seem even smokier, and his smile took her breath away. She managed to say, “I didn’t expect you.”

He winked at her. “Hi, Emma.”

She saw that he had on the sweater she’d given him. She took in the shape of his broad shoulders, the rain-soaked ends of his dark hair, the small scars on his right cheek, by his left eye. “You know the effect you have on me, don’t you?”

“I do.” He leaned back, but there was nothing casual about him. “How’s old Wendell?”

“Pacing. He came back here reenergized.”

“Does he know about the cross-inscribed stone our thief sent to Yank in Boston?”

Then Yank had caught up with Colin before he’d left for Dublin. “Yank told Granddad himself this morning. Granddad received one, too. So did Lucas.”

“And you?”

She picked up her glass and nodded. “A package arrived at Granddad’s apartment addressed to both of us. There were two cross-inscribed stones inside. One for each of us.”

“So this guy’s watching you,” Colin said.

“For the moment, at least.”

“He didn’t like Brent Corwin and Lindsey Hargreaves stealing his thunder, or trying to.”

“So it seems.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Emma. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“I go home tomorrow.”

A waiter set a pint of Guinness in front of Colin. He kept his eyes on Emma as he drank some of his beer. “Is your grandfather flying back with you?”

“No, but he still plans to be in Heron’s Cove for Thanksgiving.”

“My folks invited Fin Bracken to join us for Thanksgiving. He isn’t sure what he’ll do. I told him the main thing is not to try choosing between pumpkin pie and apple pie. Have both.”

Emma smiled. “I can only imagine what a Donovan family Thanksgiving is like.”

“Join us. You, Lucas, old Wendell. Your folks will still be in London. You could bake a pie.”

“I love to bake pies. Does this mean you plan to be back for Thanksgiving?”

“Sooner than that.” He leaned forward over the table, his eyes lost now in the dark shadows. “Emma...”

He got up, and for a moment, she thought he would bolt out of the pub, but he came around to her side of the table and eased in next to her. He put an arm around her and held her close. Her heartbeat quickened. She started to speak, but he touched a finger to her lips, then slipped back out of the booth.

“Kitty O’Byrne said I should get down on one knee. People tend to do what Kitty says.” He winked, and did just that—got down on one knee. He took Emma’s hand, kissed her fingers and looked up at her with a warmth and intensity that reached right to her soul. “Emma Sharpe, I’m madly in love with you, and I want to be with you forever.”

“Colin—”

“Will you marry me, Emma?” He placed a simple, beautiful ring in her palm and closed her fingers around it. He kissed her softly on the forehead. “Don’t answer yet. I saw the ring in a window in Kenmare yesterday, and I knew it was meant for you. Take your time. Think. I’ll wait.”

“I don’t need time. I don’t need to think.” She draped her arms over his shoulders and smiled. “I love you with all my heart, Colin Donovan, and yes, yes, yes—yes, I will marry you.”

A shout of approval came from nearby tables, and soon the entire pub was caught up in the celebration, people clapping, singing, dancing and cheering. Emma laughed as Colin swept her into his arms and spun her across the worn floor.

He whispered that he’d arranged for a room at a romantic hotel tonight, and he’d be on her flight tomorrow.

They’d go home together.

* * * * *