Carla Neggers (4 page)

She finished her coffee and scone and made her way to the rental car counter. A car was available. Irish roads being what they were, collision coverage was extra and highly recommended. She had enough room on her credit card, but she’d have to find a fancier place to wait tables than Hurley’s in Rock Point, Maine, to pay it off if she didn’t want to dip deeper into the money from her grandfather. She decided to worry about that later. Father Bracken had jotted down directions to the cottage, and she’d put them in her Ireland folder.

She bought a bottle of water, a latte and another scone and somehow got everything out to the rental car lot. Her red Nissan Micra was one of the smallest cars they offered, and it had a standard transmission—a car with automatic transmission was another fortune on top of the rental fee and collision coverage. Her suitcase fit in back, just barely, and she set her tote bag on the front seat and arranged her water, latte and scone next to her. No way could she eat and drive, so she downed most of the latte while she familiarized herself with the car and got used to the idea of shifting with her left hand.

Her first roundabout nearly gave her a heart attack, but she didn’t stall out, didn’t hit anything—or anyone—and was now wide-awake with the adrenaline rush.

When she cleared Limerick and entered a pretty village, she pulled over to the side of the road. She ate the rest of her scone and checked her messages but there was still nothing from Lindsey.

A half-dozen children passed her car, giggling on their way to school. Julianne rolled down her window and smiled, letting the cool air invigorate her, reminding herself that she was a serious marine biologist and accustomed to being on her own.

She had no intention of calling or emailing Andy to tell him he was right.

There was nothing a Donovan liked better than being right.

4

AN ELFIN-FACED,
black-haired Kitty O’Byrne Doyle showed Emma and Colin to their room on the second floor of the graceful, ivy-covered O’Byrne House Hotel. Once a private residence owned by Kitty’s uncle, the boutique hotel occupied a scenic stretch of south Irish coast in the small village of Declan’s Cross. “Fin Bracken is a great friend of mine,” Kitty said as she set the door key on a gleaming mahogany side table in the attractive room. “I saw you were from Maine and emailed him on the off chance he knew you. He said he did and told me I should take good care of you. That sounds like Fin, doesn’t it?”

Emma started to assure Kitty there was no need to go to any trouble on their account, but Colin grinned and said, “It does sound like him. He’s stayed here?”

“He’s had a drink or two here. We haven’t been open quite a year yet.” Kitty adjusted a tie on a drape of a tall window overlooking the hotel’s extensive gardens and, beyond, the Celtic Sea. “Fin’s well?”

“He just survived his first authentic Maine bean-hole supper,” Colin said.

Kitty turned from the window. “Heavens. That sounds ominous. Dare I ask?”

“You dig a hole, light a fire in it, add a cast-iron pot of beans and let them bake. After twenty-four hours or so, you dig them up and serve them. It’s a Maine tradition.”

“So is wild blueberry pie,” Emma added with a smile.

“I’ll be sure to try them both if I’m ever in Maine,” Kitty said. “I’ll let you two get settled. Let me know if you need anything.”

Emma followed her to the door. “Did Finian mention that a friend of ours from Rock Point is arriving in Declan’s Cross today?”

Kitty’s hand faltered on the door latch. She was in her late thirties, in a chunky wool sweater and a slim skirt in a dark blue that matched her eyes. “Yes—yes, Fin told me about her. A marine biologist. He put her in touch with a local man. Sean Murphy.” She recovered her emotions. “Your friend is staying at a cottage on the Murphy sheep farm. It’s up on Shepherd Head.”

“Walking distance?” Colin asked.

“It’s a good walk, if you don’t mind hills. Easiest is to go through the garden and out the back gate. Don’t go right—go left, all the way down to the bookshop. You can’t miss it. It’s painted red. You can go straight or go right. Don’t go straight. Turn right up the hill, continue on past the cliffs, then bear left. The cottage is just there.” She smiled, her cheeks pink. “It’s easier than I make it sound. You’ll have no trouble at all.”

Emma thanked her. Kitty glanced around the room as if for a final inspection and then withdrew. When the door closed, Colin said, “She knows who you are.”

“You beam ‘FBI’ more than I do.”

“I don’t mean FBI. I mean that our Kitty recognized the Sharpe name. As in Wendell Sharpe and Sharpe Fine Art Recovery.”

“I assumed she would, actually.” Emma walked over to the window and looked out at the sea, quiet under a blue-gray sky. “It’s a pretty hotel, isn’t it? Contemporary Irish art and clean, cheerful colors. I like it. John O’Byrne, Kitty’s uncle, left this place to Kitty and her younger sister, Aoife. Aoife’s an accomplished artist. I think some of the art in the hotel is hers.”

“They’re from Declan’s Cross?”

Emma shook her head. “They grew up in Dublin. Their uncle was the eldest of seven. I think he was in his forties already when they were born. I never met him.”

“Your grandfather did?”

“Yes.”

Colin stood next to her at the window. “Good view.”

He wasn’t interested in the view. She could tell. “What else is on your mind?”

“What do you know about our Kitty and our sheep farmer?”

“Not as much as you think I do, and not as much as I’d like.”

“An Emma Sharpe answer if I’ve ever heard one.” He looked out the window as if the view of gardens and sea offered answers. He’d done the driving to Declan’s Cross, stopping only once. “It’s too early for lunch and way too early for whiskey.”

“We can walk up to the Murphy farm and have a look at Julianne’s cottage,” Emma said. “She’ll be here soon if she’s not already. Or I could go up there on my own, in case she’s in no mood to deal with a Donovan.”

Colin moved back from the window. “She and Andy got in over their heads. Just one of those things.”

“Maybe to Andy.”

“We all warned him about breaking her heart. Mike, Kevin and I. He didn’t listen. A family trait. After that, we stayed out of it. I’m not worried about Julianne’s state of mind. She’s tough. She’s more likely to shoot me than shoot herself.”

“That’s what you see on the exterior,” Emma said, zipping her rain jacket. “She’s not going to let you all see how hurt she is by what happened between her and Andy.”

“The Maroneys are all proud and stubborn.” Colin grabbed the room key off the table and opened the door. “After you.”

Emma went past him into the hall. He shut the door behind them, slid the key into his jacket pocket and touched her cheek. “Being here brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“My work with Granddad in Dublin was an intense time for me. I was at a crossroads, sure I had made the right decision in leaving the sisters but not sure what came next.” She raised her eyes to his. “Not unlike what you’re going through now.”

“Taking tourists on puffin tours was on your list of new career possibilities?”

She rolled her eyes and bit back a smile. He would always try to make her laugh, despite the seriousness of what was on her mind—or his. Since the arrests of his arms traffickers and the breakup of their network, he’d been half jokingly talking about quitting the FBI and setting himself up as a tour boat operator off the coast of Maine, maybe returning to lobstering to supplement his income.

She understood the temptations of a different life.

“No puffin tours,” she said. “I knew it was Sharpe Fine Art Recovery or the FBI. I briefly considered teaching or working in a museum, but they weren’t for me. You know you have options besides becoming Cap’n Colin and taking tourists on puffin tours.”

“We’d see seals and bald eagles, too, and I could do whale watches.”

She’d meant options within the FBI, but he knew that. Getting him to talk to her about his career crisis—his personal crisis—since his undercover mission had led murderous thugs to Rock Point in October wasn’t easy. He was a deep, complex man, but that didn’t mean he liked to talk.

“We’ll continue this conversation another time,” she said as they headed down the hall.

Emma paused at a reading room at the top of the curving stairs. Its double doors were open, inviting passersby in among the comfortable-looking sofas and chairs. A round table in the middle of a thick, colorful Persian carpet displayed books on Irish history, geography, art and food. The basic lines and layout of the room hadn’t changed in the extensive renovations that had transformed the musty, run-down mansion into a quirky, upscale boutique hotel.

“Is this where the stolen art was located?” Colin asked.

“The paintings were here.”

Four years ago, Paddy Murphy, the part-time caretaker, had let her peek into what had then been a library. Emma had observed musty furnishings, a threadbare rug and oppressive wallpaper. John O’Byrne had died the previous year. It had been late summer, a beautiful day on the south Irish coast. She’d already decided to have a go at Quantico. She hadn’t known if she’d make it through the training and become an FBI agent, but she’d known she’d had to try. That trying was part of whatever was next for her.

“Thinking again, Emma?” he asked.

She smiled. “Always.”

He winked, slipped an arm around her. “Not always.”

They descended the stairs and headed into the bar lounge, a low fire in its marble fireplace, and outside through French doors to a tiled terrace. Colorful pots of ivy and scarlet and lavender cyclamen glistened in the morning sun. A half-dozen tables overlooked the gardens, pebbled paths meandering among rosebushes, hydrangeas, rhododendrons and raised flower and herb beds, inviting even now, in early November.

Emma sighed, admiring the gardens. “It’s a perfect spot for a romantic getaway.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

They took a walkway past beds of deep-colored pansies, rows of trimmed-back hedges and pale pink cyclamen that had taken over a corner by the ornate iron gate.

Colin opened the gate. “Did your thief go in and out this way?”

“It’s a good guess, but that’s all it is,” Emma said. “We don’t know. It was a dark, rainy night. He could have escaped several different ways without being seen.”

“You’re sure it’s a he?”

“Another good guess but we don’t know.”

“‘We’ meaning the Sharpes or the FBI?”

“Both.”

They went out the gate, shutting it behind them, and turned left onto a narrow street, following Kitty’s directions.

“My question bugged you,” Colin said calmly.

“I expected it,” Emma said. “I’d have asked it myself in your place.”

“It still bugged you.”

They passed a gray stone house with dark green shutters and white lace curtains in tall, sparkling windows. Most of the buildings in the village were painted in a range of primary colors, with colorful awnings, flower boxes and flowerpots, the occasional bench out front. Simple, lovely—Emma wished she could dismiss her nagging doubts about Julianne’s choice of Declan’s Cross and just enjoy the day.

They came to the promised red-painted bookshop on the north end of the village and turned right, as Kitty had instructed, onto a narrow lane that took them uphill. Emma felt herself relax as she breathed in the cool, salt-tinged air. The lane leveled off, curving along dramatic cliffs that dropped straight down to the sea, then winding through a patchwork of rolling fields dotted with grazing sheep.

She remembered how much she’d loved the atmosphere of Declan’s Cross on her one visit. So much had changed in the past four years. She wondered how she’d have responded to Colin if he’d turned up in Dublin back then, or if she’d run into him on her day trip down here. He was already an FBI agent, on his first undercover assignment.

Ten to one that Colin Donovan wasn’t any different from the one walking next to her now.

“Smiling at the view of the Celtic Sea?” he asked her.

“It’s spectacular, but no. I was thinking about you and what it would have been like if we’d met sooner.”

“How much sooner?”

“Well, not when I was with the sisters. I expect I needed that time so that I’d be ready when we did meet.”

He laughed. “Learning to shoot probably helped, too.”

“A wonder I didn’t run into you even before the sisters, since we grew up within a few miles of each other. Maybe we did and just didn’t know it.” She slowed her pace and noticed a few yellow blossoms on a cluster of prickly gorse along the edge of the lane.
So pretty,
she thought, then squinted out at the horizon in the distance as she answered the question that hung between them. “I know my background as a Sharpe is complicated, but growing up around our family business, working for my grandfather, learning as much as I have from him—all of that’s a plus, Colin. Being a Sharpe is an asset in my art crimes work.”

“Mostly an asset,” he said without hesitation.

She glanced sideways at him. “Are you trying to provoke me?”

“Just trying to get you to admit that I already have provoked you.”

She sighed. “I’m not as hotheaded as you are.”

“You have doubts, Emma. You’re not sure you’re where you’re supposed to be.”

“I’m here with you.” She knew he meant the FBI and not him. “That’s good enough for me.”

“No argument from me. We’ll save the deep talk for another time. I may not know all your secrets, but I know you. I know you’re worried that being a Sharpe is getting in the way of your work.” He took her hand and drew her close. “Your fingers are cold.”

She was relieved he hadn’t pushed her for answers. “I left my gloves at the hotel.”

“We’ll have to keep each other warm, then.”

She smiled. “Sometimes we do think alike.”

* * *

A few minutes later, they came to a tan cinder-block bungalow in a small lot bordered on three sides by fields and more sheep. Emma stopped at a barbed-wire fence where four woolly ewes had gathered. They didn’t seem to mind the stiff breeze off the water, but it was colder than she expected, prompting her to pull up her jacket collar. “It’s a beautiful spot for Julianne’s stay,” she said, glancing at Colin. “If you decide you never want to leave Ireland after all, you could always take up sheep farming.”

He patted a ewe’s head. She bleated and pushed against his palm. He grinned. “I do have a way with women, don’t you think?”

“Very funny.”

“I don’t see myself taking up sheep farming in Ireland. Whale watches, maybe. Irish coastal waters are a sanctuary for whales, dolphins and porpoises.”

“Colin, you’re not serious, are you?”

His smoky gray eyes settled on her. “I’m kidding, Emma. I won’t be staying in Ireland forever. Whatever’s next for me is back home.”

“You won’t be going back with me on Friday. You need more time on your own here, without me.”

“It wasn’t a mistake for you to have come,” he said.

“I’m glad of that.”

He stood back from the sheep, the wind catching the ends of his dark hair. He hadn’t asked her to join him in Ireland. When he’d left without her, she’d understood that he’d believed some time on his own in Finian Bracken’s Irish cottage was a way for him to decompress after his months undercover, and at least to start the process of figuring out what came next for him. She’d followed him there because she’d wanted, simply, to be with him. If he’d asked her to go back to Boston, she’d have gone.

But he hadn’t asked her to leave. They’d taken long walks, laughed in pubs, made love on dark, rain-soaked nights. She’d relished every minute of being with him, but that didn’t mean she’d made the right decision in coming here. Leaving without him didn’t seem right, either, but she still was booked on a flight back to Boston on Friday.

The sheep about-faced and wandered back into the field. Emma turned from the fence and looked across the lane, past a stone wall and a strip of golden grass to a steep, rocky slope that angled down to the water, sparkling under a mix of clouds and sun. Not a boat was in sight.