The Wild Sight (21 page)

“Yes, don’t worry.”

The flashing strobe from the ambulance bathed them in garish red and blue lights. Donovan shifted his grip on Rylie before
he swung the car door open.

“Over here!” He shouted and waved, but the noise of the sirens drowned out his voice.

The ambulance screeched to a halt just behind the car, headlights glaring like a supernova. Also close at hand, a police siren
continued to shriek. He didn’t know which was worse, the ominous silence of the past long minutes, or the chaos now erupting
around him. Against his chest, he felt Rylie tremble. But the two ambulance attendants hurried up before he could reassure
her.

“What happened?” The nearest one demanded, reaching for Rylie. She shrank away with a sob.

Donovan had to shout to be heard above the still blaring police siren. “Her arm. Gun shot.”

The man’s pale eyes widened, his brows arching up into the fair hair flopping across his forehead. “And you?”

“Twisted my knee. Can’t put weight on it.” He patted Rylie’s hair and murmured close to her ear. “’Tis all right, sweetheart.
We’re going to hospital now.”

“That blood hers or yours?” The attendant asked as he and his partner positioned a rolling gurney close to the open door.

Donovan looked at the stains, some brown, some dark red, on his hands and sleeve. “Both. I’m afraid she’s lost a lot.”

The man gave a grim nod as he pulled Rylie from Donovan’s grasp. Mercifully, the police siren stopped, and then as the two
men carefully moved Rylie onto the gurney, a uniformed PSNI officer approached.

“Donovan!” Rylie cried out.

He leapt to her side, hanging onto the gurney for balance.

“Sergeant Kelley, PSNI,” the man barked at Donovan. “You’re O’Shea?”

Donovan nodded, realizing he would undoubtedly need legal counsel and that he should call Heaney. He let go of the gurney
and fell back into the car, scrambling to retrieve his mobile from the back seat. He heard Rylie cry out his name again, but
the sergeant blocked his way.

“Care to tell me what happened?” His voice was as belligerent as his stance.

Shoving the mobile into his pocket, Donovan pulled himself to his feet, using the open car door for support. “Inspector Colm
Lynch shot her—Ms. Powell. He was trying to hit me.”

This news seemed to catch the sergeant off-guard, for his mouth fell open. But before he could speak, Donovan rushed on, “I
knocked the gun out of his hand. He came at me with a knife, and Ms. Powell picked up the gun and shot him.”

Most of it was the truth.

“Did she kill him?” The man blurted.

Donovan shook his head. He could see the two attendants had Rylie inside the ambulance, though he still heard her hysterical
cries. He
must
go to her. But Sergeant Kelley’s partner was approaching from the opposite side of the car, boxing him in.

“Far as I know, he’s still out there somewhere.” Donovan waved his hand in the direction of the fens, and a drop of fresh
blood splattered on the sergeant’s cheek. The man automatically wiped his face then stared at his stained fingers. “Did he
cut you anywhere else?”

“My shoulder,” Donovan replied. “And I twisted my knee when I fell.”

Over the PSNI officer’s shoulder he saw one of the ambulance attendants hurrying toward them.

“Just stall the ball there, Kelley!” The attendant called out. “The lad may have internal injuries. You can question him after
the docs look him over.”

The sergeant rounded on the man with a squint-eyed glare. “Don’t be tryin’ to tell me my business, O’Dwyer. A PSNI inspector’s
been shot.”

“Well I don’t see him here,” the attendant, O’Dwyer snapped back. “So shall I remind you of poor old Shamus Muldoon, who nearly
died last spring because of your infernal questions?”

“He does look pretty done in, Sergeant,” said the second officer, who now stood on the other side of the car door beside Donovan.

“Shut up, Dooley,” Kelley ordered, but he stepped aside nonetheless.

Happy for the diversion, Donovan leaned heavily on the attendant’s proffered shoulder, and hobbled toward the waiting ambulance.

“Donovan O’Shea, is it?” asked his benefactor with a half-grin. “I’m Bobby O’Dwyer, Gerry Partlan’s nephew.”

Then, before Donovan could offer his thanks, Bobby O’Dwyer shoved him into the back of the ambulance and shouted, “Let’s go,
Smitty!”

The ambulance ride went quickly. Donovan spent most of the duration holding Rylie’s hand, though he did manage to call Heaney’s
service and ask them to have the attorney meet them at the hospital in Armagh. The ongoing wail of the siren in the background
no doubt helped him drive home his point that this was an emergency.

With an IV in place in her arm, Rylie rested quietly. A white bandage gleamed just below her throat. O’Dwyer turned his attentions
to Donovan’s various injuries. He slit the seam of Donovan’s pant leg and peeled it back to reveal the swollen and bruised
kneecap. Once he stabilized it with a plastic splint, he moved on to the knife wounds on Donovan’s shoulder and hand, scrubbing
away the caked on grime.

“You two take the prize for the dirtiest patients I’ve ever seen,” O’Dwyer pronounced, taping gauze over the cuts he’d already
appraised as superficial. “How long did the pair of you roll about in the mud?”

“Too long,” Donovan replied, reaching for Rylie again as soon as the bandage was in place on his hand.

When his fingers settled over hers, her eyelids fluttered up. With a wave of relief, he recognized lucidity in her eyes. The
dried mud streaked across her face and clinging in chunks to her hair didn’t matter. She was the most beautiful woman in the
world.

“Hullo, gorgeous,” he murmured, gently squeezing her hand.

The corners of her wide mouth tilted up a fraction. “You’re such a liar,” she whispered.

“What? Name calling, is it?” enquired Bobby O’Dwyer, checking her vitals. “I can see you’re going to be fine, my girl.” Then
he nodded at Donovan. “And you are in for a heap o’ trouble.”

“From a wee little thing like her?” Donovan scoffed, his tired grin peeking through. “Although she did save my life tonight.
Twice in fact.”

Rylie’s gaze moved between him and the paramedic. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”

“’Tis all right if you don’t remember,” Donovan prompted. Far easier to claim faulty memory than be questioned endlessly by
the PSNI. “You’ve been in shock.”

“Indeed you have!” His unexpected ally, O’Dwyer, agreed.

Her fingers curled in Donovan’s and she squeezed his thumb with a knowing glow in her eyes. “Some things I remember very well.”
Her voice sounded considerably stronger, almost sassy. “You said you loved me.”

“Oh, did I now?” asked Donovan, playing along.

“Don’t you dare try to deny it,” she murmured, her tongue tracing her lower lip. “Not after all I went through to get you
to admit it.”

Shot.

Stabbed.

Pursued by vengeful spirits.

What she had endured tonight, how she had risked her very soul, momentarily robbed Donovan of a reply. He rested his forehead
against their clasped hands and drew in a ragged breath.

“I’m not about to deny it,” he finally choked out. He raised his head enough to brush his lips over her grimy knuckles. “I’ll
shout it from the rooftops if you like.”

Rylie sighed out a little tsking sound. “You’re lying to me again. You can’t even walk with that knee, much less climb onto
a roof.”

Bobby O’Dwyer gave a snorting chuckle. “Didn’t I warn you about being in trouble, O’Shea?”

Chapter 18

DONOVAN FIDGETED IN THE PASSENGER’S SEAT OF HEANEY’S BMW sedan as the vehicle bounced down the rutted lane. The attorney had
given up attempts at conversation shortly after they passed Dungannon and Donovan’s replies dwindled from monosyllables to
grunts.

Heaven knew he didn’t want to be here. But Donovan had to find out for certain that the forces rampaging through the fens
two nights ago—forces he feared
he
had triggered—were dissipated. Dread sat in his stomach, growing heavier by the second.

“That’s the gate ahead on the left,” he informed Heaney.

Fresh yellow police tape fluttered in the pale morning light, but the gate stood open. Heaney’s Beamer jounced through and
headed for the wretched-looking cottage. Rylie’s rental car had been towed to the police impound yard, so the parking area
was empty. A dozen more pieces of yellow tape criss-crossed the front door.

“As your attorney, I want to warn you one more time not to touch anything,” Heaney said as he shut off the ignition.

“’Tis not the cottage I’ve come to see,” Donovan replied, avoiding eye contact. “’Tis the fens.”

Heaney exited the car and scrambled around to join him. “I’d better come with you then.”

Leaning heavily on his three-pronged hospital cane, Donovan turned away. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Sorry, but I insist.”

Tenacious as a terrier with a bone, Heaney kept pace with him. Not difficult, considering the cumbersome plastic brace on
Donovan’s left leg and the way the cane kept sinking into the soggy earth.

When they came to the first excavated pit, Heaney’s mobile rang and Donovan flinched in reaction. Nerves frayed to the breaking
point, Donovan gazed first at the mound of dirt, then into the hole, waiting, listening. Perhaps the meds they’d given him
for pain and inflammation were dulling his senses, for he heard and felt nothing.

Saints in heaven!
If medication really could short-circuit his “gift,” he would gladly pop a dozen pills a day.

Refusing to get his hopes up, Donovan drew in a deep breath of chilly air and hobbled on toward the fens. A moment later,
Heaney caught up to him.

“The coroner concluded that Lynch drowned.”

That removed a couple of small bricks from the load of worry weighing upon Donovan. But the bulk of the weight remained. “Did
they find his gun?”

The other man shook his head. “And they haven’t found the knife he used on you either.”

Nor would they.

Donovan kept that bit of information to himself. The mist rising up from the ground blended with the white puffs of his breath
as he continued doggedly toward the looming presence of the fens.

By contrast, Heaney seemed in a mood to disclose things.

“I gave a copy of the paper McRory sent to Sybil Gallagher to the PSNI, of course,” he said, matching his steps to Donovan’s
uneven ones. “But I kept the original just to be sure. A list of bank accounts along with the names of Provos from the look
of it. My guess is that McRory tried to blackmail Lynch into giving him a cut. Since those accounts haven’t been touched in
twenty-five years there are probably several million pounds in them.”

Donovan shook his head with disgust but didn’t stop moving. “Enough to kill a man over?”

Money fell pretty low on his priority list right now, quite inconsequential in comparison to things like his future, his sanity.

“More than enough,” Heaney confirmed with a sigh.

They continued on in silence until they reached the tangle of vines and brush that marked the edge of the fens. The muddy
trail leading in looked wider and smoother, having been trampled by dozens of PSNI personnel multiple times in the past couple
of days.

Donovan paused to listen. No buzzing, but a low hum rather like an engine on idle thrummed inside his head.
Not gone then, only muted.
His fingers tightened convulsively around the handle of the cane.

“They removed the body yesterday.” From Heaney’s edgy tone, he sensed Donovan’s unease. Either that or he just didn’t relish
walking into the fens.

Couldn’t blame him there.

“What is it you expect to see?”

“Nothing, I hope,” Donovan answered honestly.

Gathering the tatters of his courage, he limped down the path. Heaney followed. Moisture clung to the surrounding vegetation
and hung in the air, but the hum remained steady. No increase or decrease, even when they came to the excavation site, though
the back of Donovan’s neck prickled with anticipation.

Two holes now gaped, piles of earth ringing both of them on three sides. Since he couldn’t bend his left knee, Donovan shifted
awkwardly in order to grab a handful of mud from the closest pile.

“They made a thorough search of this area.” Heaney sounded more nervous. Could it be he felt something too?

“I know,” Donovan mused, letting the dirt sift through his fingers while he gazed around.

There was the place where Lynch had stood when he
tackled him. They’d rolled into the farthest pit.

Swallowing hard, Donovan moved his eyes over the area where he and Rylie had crawled.

Flynn’s apparition had confronted them there.

The hum suddenly went up a notch, as if the motor had been engaged, and with it came a throbbing pain in his temple. Donovan
snapped his head back toward the holes. A shape coalesced above the newly excavated one, shimmering only a little more darkly
than the surrounding mists. Stiffening, breath caught in his throat, Donovan recognized the nearly transparent figure as Professor
McRory.

Everything else ceased to exist as he stared into the bottomless depths of McRory’s dead eyes. Pain and sorrow engulfed Donovan,
but no anger. No sign of the raging Norseman.

McRory lifted one hand, and a wave of sadness tinged with acceptance flowed from the wavering image. His mouth opened, but
instead of words, only a soft sigh emerged. Then he vanished.

Donovan staggered, his right leg buckling as the hum and the figure simultaneously disappeared. Only his death-grip on the
cane and the counterbalance of the brace on his left leg kept him from falling.

“O’Shea!” he heard Heaney cry. “Are you all right?”

Donovan wheezed in several noisy breaths and blinked his eyes, while the smaller man grasped him by the shoulders.

“Are you all right?” Heaney repeated.

“Fine . . . I’m fine.”
Or as much so as he would ever
be.
Donovan kept his grip on the cane while he forced himself to make the same slow circuit of the excavations and the surrounding
area. Except for the familiar dull ache behind his eyeballs, there was nothing.

No Celtic warriors or Druids.

No vengeful spirits.

No sounds.

Nothing.

He’d faced down his demons and for the moment at least, he had won. Taking a deep breath, Donovan mentally cast aside the
guilt and self-loathing and turned to the path leading out of the fens.

“Let’s go,” he said to Heaney.

“Go where?” the attorney asked, falling into step beside him.

He didn’t answer for several moments, for he was trying to move faster.
Damn the fecking brace and cane!
Finally he said, “Back to Armagh, the hospital. I need to see Rylie.”

“Ah.” Heaney infused a wealth of understanding into that single syllable. He fished in his pocket and pulled out his mobile.
“Do you want to call her?”

“No, I want to kiss her,” Donovan muttered. “At least for starters. If she’ll have me.”

Heaney chuckled as he replaced the phone. “Well then, that being the case . . . ” He gave Donovan a thump on the back, before
he jogged around him, headed for the car.

Donovan emerged from the fens and crossed the yard, mumbling curses at his slow progress the entire way. Heaney had the Beamer
running and the front passenger door open wide, waiting for him. He never looked back once. And he never intended to lay eyes
on this place again.

When they reached the main road, Heaney proceeded to shave several seconds off Donovan’s previous land speed record. Screaming
around a school bus and several lorries, the mild-mannered attorney drove like a man possessed. Donovan wondered aloud if
they would wind up back in the ER as patients, but Heaney just laughed.

Rylie stood under the cascade of hot water, content to let it wash away the remaining grime, stench, and horror of the fens.
This was her first real shower in three days, though trying to bathe and wash her hair with one hand was almost impossible.
Still, she was so happy to be rid of the annoying IV and the various tubes and wires that she didn’t really care.

Today was the day she’d been scheduled to leave Ireland. But thanks to the efforts of Sean Sullivan, a true knight in shining
armor, the airline had issued her a full return voucher good anytime within the next thirty days. Donovan’s garrulous brother-in-law
had also taken it upon himself to call her stepfather, Jim Powell, while she had been in surgery. When she’d been in recovery,
Sean called back and reassured Jim she was safe and in good hands.

In truth, the only hands she wanted to be in were Donovan’s, and for the past three days, he’d seldom left her side. When
they had arrived at the emergency room, he clung to the gurney, refusing treatment, right up to point where they pushed her
through the swinging doors to the operating room.

The last words out of his mouth were, “Don’t you dare leave me.”

“I won’t,” she promised, and then the door swung shut.

The first things she saw when she woke up in the recovery room were Donovan’s blue eyes a few inches from hers.

“There now, Mr. O’Shea. What did I tell ya?” asked a nurse in a querulous tone.

He breathed her name like a benediction, then dropped his head onto the blanket next to her and sobbed once.

“Donovan?” she rasped through her raw, aching throat. “Are you okay?”

Drawing in a ragged breath, he raised his head and answered, “I am now.”

Then he kissed her full on the mouth, and Rylie tasted his tears. She tried to reach for him, but her right arm was tangled
in a mass of tubes and her left arm wouldn’t move at all.

That was because the surgeon had to repair muscle damage and give her a unit of blood, she later found out. Another operation
would probably be needed, the doctor had advised, but not immediately.

Both she and Donovan feigned ignorance when asked about the strange substance smeared under her makeshift bandages. Thinking,
much less talking about the awful events in the fens wasn’t something she wanted to do right away. And so far, she had been
spared from answering questions. She was fairly certain that she had Mr. Jeremy Heaney, Esq. to thank for that.

After she’d been moved from recovery into a room, she’d sent Donovan home with Sean and Doreen to rest. He returned a few
hours later, right after she’d eaten her chicken broth and green gelatin dinner, with Heaney in tow.

The PSNI had found Lynch’s body face down in Lough Neagh. An autopsy would determine his cause of death. Though the attorney
had listened with disbelief etched plainly on his boyish face to Rylie’s claim that she remembered nothing, he assured both
she and Donovan that he was confident no charges would be filed.

Loopy on pain meds and the after effects of anesthetic, Rylie had slept all that night and most of the next day. But whenever
she woke up, Donovan was in the chair beside her bed.

The surprise had been the appearance of Doreen. Donovan’s sister explained in her brusque manner that she and Sean had moved
Rylie’s luggage from Cavanagh House to their spare bedroom and Doreen had laundered Rylie’s clothes. Then, before Rylie could
stutter out her thanks, Doreen pulled out a new nightgown. She tied and adjusted the halter-top so that all Rylie had to do
was slip it over her head. She’d also brought Rylie’s toiletries, clean underwear, and her blow dryer.

Rylie almost believed the whole incident had been a dream, except after she finished her breakfast this morning, the nurse
asked if she wanted to take a shower and put on her new gown.

Reluctantly, Rylie shut off the hot water and struggled to wrap a towel around her wet hair with one hand. With that feat
accomplished, she patted herself dry with a second towel. The plastic wrapping the nurse had placed over the blue sling effectively
blocked the moisture from her injured arm, but the bandage on her throat was soaked. She carefully pulled it off and blotted
the four neat black stitches, willing herself not to think about why she needed them.

Dressed, hair almost dry and feeling semi-human, Rylie was startled to find Doreen instead of Donovan waiting in her room.

“I knew that aqua color would become you,” Doreen said with an approving nod. “They’ve moved Dermot back to Holy Family. I’m
on my way to make sure he’s settled, and thought I’d pop by. The nurses seem to think you’ll be released today.”

“I hope so,” Rylie replied, her head spinning from the other woman’s rush of words. “Thanks for . . . everything.”

Doreen waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “’Tis the least I can do for Boh’s Yank. That’s what Da calls you, ya know.”

Rylie’s mouth dropped open in surprise and she sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. But that pronouncement was nothing
compared to Doreen’s next bombshell.

“’Twould mean a lot to him if you and Donovan got married here in Ireland,” she remarked as casually as if she were discussing
the weather. Then at Rylie’s stunnedsilence, she continued, “A spring wedding would be ideal. But if you and Donovan don’t
want to wait, a Christmas wedding would be lovely, too.”

“Wh—what?” Rylie sputtered. “Doreen, your brother and I . . . We—”

“Just think on it, will you?” Doreen interrupted, then with a glance at her watch, she added. “I must run.”

Still dumbfounded, Rylie gasped, “Wait! Do you know where Donovan is?”

“I . . . ” Doreen looked around the room as if she expected her brother to materialize right through a wall. “Oh yes, he asked
Mr. Heaney to take him out to the cottage first thing this morning.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and her tone shifted.
“The PSNI found that professor’s body yesterday.”