Heron′s Cove
Heron's Cove
Carla Neggers
After escaping certain death, deep-cover agent Colin Donovan is back home on the Maine coast with his new love, FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe.When Tatiana Pavlova, a London-based jewelry designer, arrives in Heron's Cove, asking for Emma's help, A prized collection from a lost era of Russian opulence, decadence and rare beauty has resurfaced, and Tatiana warns Emma it's about to be stolen again. And Colin realizes his nightmare isn't over. It's just begun. And everyone you love is a target… Emma guards her past closely, and Colin is determined to unlock her secrets.As they investigate the mysterious collection and the equally mysterious Tatiana, they confront their greatest challenge. Now they must count on their expertise–and each other–to outwit an enemywho wants to destroy them and everyone they love most. Who can you afford to trust?“A writer at the absolute top of her craft." —Providence Journal
New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers returns with a gripping story of romantic suspense, where FBI agents Sharpe and Donovan must decide whether working alone or standing together is the only way to outwit an enemy set to tear them apart.
When your safety depends on living a lie…
After escaping certain death, deep-cover agent Colin Donovan is back home on the Maine coast with his new love, FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe. Then Tatiana Pavlova, a London-based jewelry designer, arrives in Heron’s Cove, asking for Emma’s help—a prized collection from a lost era of Russian opulence, decadence and rare beauty has resurfaced, and Tatiana warns Emma it’s about to be stolen again. And Colin realizes his nightmare isn’t over. It’s just begun.
And everyone you love is a target...
Emma guards her past closely, and Colin is determined to unlock her secrets. As they investigate the mysterious collection and the equally mysterious Tatiana, they confront their greatest challenge. Now they must count on their expertise—and each other—to outwit an enemy who wants to destroy them and everyone they love most.
Who can you afford to trust?
Heron’s
Cove
Carla Neggers
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To Jodi Reamer
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u78a6f689-8f30-527f-a528-8426237be938)
Chapter 2 (#u270a0a1e-3d80-507a-9440-f8c8554dc5e3)
Chapter 3 (#u57e1bada-e5d0-5059-a1a9-5444586254b2)
Chapter 4 (#ua627c214-9bed-5e69-b0b4-cd65c21c1ecc)
Chapter 5 (#u1d5e0ccf-2b48-5496-82d0-93820126d6b4)
Chapter 6 (#u282495ef-ffc6-59f9-94a6-8ca266f035bf)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
1
WITH THREE DONOVAN brothers and an Irish priest watching her, Emma Sharpe choked back her sample of the smoky single-malt Scotch—her sixth and last tasting of the night. “Intense,” she said, managing not to slam the tulip-shaped nosing glass on the table and grab the pitcher of water. Give it a few seconds. She was an FBI agent, after all. Tough as nails. She smiled at the four men. “People pay to drink this one, huh?”
“Dearly,” Finian Bracken, the Irish priest, said. “You’re not one for a heavily peated whiskey, I see.”
Emma tried to distinguish the other flavors of the sample—spices, fruits, whatever—but only tasted the peat. “I don’t know if I’m one for a lightly peated whiskey, either.”
A cold wind penetrated Hurley’s thin walls and sprayed the old windows with salt water and rain. The restaurant, a fixture on the Rock Point harbor, was basically a shack that jutted out over the water. Now only a few lights penetrated the dark night and fog. Finian had organized the impromptu tasting, setting up on a back table away from what few diners were there on a windy, rainy late-October Friday. He and Michael, Andy and Kevin Donovan were already gathered over a half-dozen bottles of high-end whiskey when Emma had arrived in southern Maine an hour ago, up from Boston and her job with a small, specialized FBI unit.
Only Colin, the second-born Donovan, wasn’t in Rock Point. Mike was a Maine guide, Andy a lobsterman and Kevin a state marine patrol officer, but, like Emma, Colin was an FBI agent.
Not like me, she thought.
She specialized in art crimes. Colin was a deep-cover agent. He’d left his hometown a month ago, pretending to return to FBI headquarters in Washington. The true nature of his work was known to only a few even within the FBI, but his brothers had guessed that he didn’t sit at a desk. Initially he’d kept in touch at least intermittently with his family and friends—and Emma—but for the past three weeks, no one had heard from him.
The silence was far too long, not just for his family and friends but for the FBI.
And for Emma.
She felt the draft at her feet. She had come prepared for the conditions, dressed in jeans, black merino wool sweater, raincoat, wool socks and Frye boots. The Donovans were in a mix of flannel, canvas and denim, no sign they even noticed the cold and the damp. Finian had opted against his usual black suit and Roman collar and instead wore a dark gray Irish-knit sweater and black corduroy trousers. He was a sharp-featured, handsome Irishman in his late thirties who had arrived in the small Maine fishing village in June. He had run into Colin, home for a few days in the midst of a difficult, dangerous mission, and they quickly became unexpected friends.
Emma hadn’t met Colin until September. She suspected his friendship with the Irish priest was less of a mystery to her than to his brothers. Finian Bracken was a fish out of water in Rock Point. He had no history with the town and little familiarity with the FBI. He also had a ready Irish wit, and he knew whiskey. He was objective, intelligent, tolerant—a safe friend for a federal agent with secrets.
Andy Donovan held his small glass to the light and examined the Scotch’s deep caramel color, then swirled it and brought it to his nose. He raised his eyes—the same shade of gray as Colin’s—to Finian. “Do you want me to tell you what I smell?”
“If you like,” Finian said. “Just sniff. Don’t inhale deeply. It’s not a yoga class.”
“As if you’d ever find one of us in a yoga class,” Andy said, then shrugged. “It smells like peat.”
Finian observed him with interest. “What else? Do you smell spices, fruit—chocolate, maybe?”
“Nope. It smells like an expensive Scotch to me.”
“Have a taste, then,” the priest said with a sigh, his Irish Kerry accent more pronounced than usual.
“No problem.” Andy tossed back the Scotch and made a face. “I’m with Emma. Too smoky for me.”
It was the final whiskey of the evening. The Donovan brothers hadn’t left so much as a drop in any of the specially designed glasses, one for each whiskey. The glasses all had little hats, like Scottish tams, that concentrated the aromas of each sample. Finian had brought them from the rectory; Hurley’s didn’t have whiskey nosing glasses. Before turning to the priesthood six years ago, Finian and his twin brother, Declan, had founded and operated Bracken Distillers on the southwest Irish coast. Bracken 15 year old, an award-winning single malt and rare peated Irish whiskey, was one of the night’s offerings—or “expressions,” as Finian called his lineup of bottles.
Emma noticed Mike, the eldest Donovan, eyeing her from across the round table. He was down from the remote Bold Coast where he worked as an independent wilderness guide. “Special Agent Sharpe’s a wine drinker. Aren’t you, Emma?”
She couldn’t detect any hint of criticism or sarcasm in his tone, but he still was looking at her as if she had done something wrong. “I like wine.” She kept any defensiveness out of her voice. “How about you, Mike? Do you pack a nice Central Coast red in your canoe when you take tourists on moose-sighting excursions?”
Kevin and Andy both grinned. Mike ignored them and settled back in his chair. “I took a couple out on the river in August. They had a wicker picnic hamper stocked with real wineglasses, cloth napkins, silver cutlery, French cheese, a baguette, apples and pears and two bottles of fancy wine.”
“Must have weighed down the canoe,” Kevin, the marine patrol officer, said.
“Oh, yeah. They insisted on having a picnic on the riverbank but they didn’t count on Maine mosquitoes. They lasted three minutes before we had to throw everything back in the canoe. We paddled straight back to their car.”
“Don’t tell me,” Andy said, amused. “The next stop on their Maine tour was Heron’s Cove.”
“Couldn’t wait to get there. I’m sure they enjoyed the quaint shops and fancy restaurants.”
“Everyone does,” Emma said.
“I don’t care.” Mike raised his as-yet untouched glass of the heavily peated Scotch; his eyes were lighter than those of his three younger brothers but no less intense. “Sláinte.”
Finian winked at Emma but said nothing. She reached for the Inish Turk Beg, a clear, triple-distilled whiskey from an independent distillery on a small island off the west coast of Ireland. She splashed a little into a fresh glass, set down the distinctive tilted bottle, then held up her glass to Mike. “Sláinte.”
He swallowed the Scotch and she sipped the Inish Turk Beg, one of Finian’s favorites. He had explained that it was gentle on the palate, clean and fresh on the nose, with fruity aromas, flavors of apple and orange zest and a dry finish. Emma wasn’t discriminating enough to go much beyond whether she could get a taste down with or without choking.
“Colin would have enjoyed tonight,” said his eldest brother, still watching her.
Emma nodded. “He’ll have that chance soon. Lots of whiskey left.”
“Are you and your FBI friends any closer to finding him?”
“You’re assuming he’s missing—”
“That’s right. I am.”
Her head spun and she wished she had skipped the extra taste of the Inish Turk Beg. “I can’t discuss your brother’s work with you.”
Andy and Kevin were as serious now as Mike was. Even Kevin, a law enforcement officer himself, didn’t have any information on his older brother’s work as one of the FBI’s most valuable ghosts. Emma had only a few details on his latest mission herself. It wasn’t as if Colin couldn’t handle himself in a dangerous situation. He was bold, aggressive and tough.
He was also sexy, she thought.
Incredibly sexy, in fact.
She kept that assessment to herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why Colin hasn’t been in touch.”
“He’s not a desk jockey in Washington.” Mike got up abruptly, grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. “You don’t have to confirm or deny. We all know. He’s always stuck his nose in dangerous situations. Even as kids, he’d be the one jumping into cold water and waves, chasing sharks. It’s his way.”
“I understand that,” Emma said.
“Is it your way, Emma?”
She didn’t respond at once. Aware of the four men watching her, she picked up one of the tiny tam-style hats and set it atop a glass. “Maybe Colin and I have more in common than you realize.”
“You’re a Sharpe,” Mike said. “You were a nun.”
“A novice. I never made my final vows.” Emma kept her voice even, neutral. “I studied art history and art conservation during my time with the sisters. I come from a family of art detectives. That background helps in my work with the FBI.”
Mike shrugged on his jacket. “I just think you have a knack for attracting trouble.”
“And you’re worried about your brother.”
“Maybe I’m worried about you, too.”
She let his comment slide. She had already said too much. “When do you go home?”
He grinned. “Not soon enough for you, I expect.” The seriousness returned to his eyes as he looked down at her. “If you hear from Colin, you’ll let us know, okay?”
It was more of an order than a request but Emma nodded. “I will, Mike.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Take care of yourself.” He shifted his gaze to Finian. “Thanks for the whiskey and the whiskey education, Father. Uisce beatha. ‘The water of life.’ I like that.”
“We’ll do it again when Colin’s in town,” Finian said.
“Yeah. We will.” The eldest Donovan grinned suddenly. “I think I tasted chocolate in that last Scotch.”
Kevin and Andy thanked Finian and said good-night to him and to Emma as they followed Mike out of the nearly empty restaurant. The late-October weather wouldn’t faze them. They would take whatever weather northern New England threw at them in stride. Rain, snow, sleet, fog, wind. Wouldn’t matter.
Once the brothers disappeared through the outer door, Finian sighed as he corked the Inish Turk Beg. “If you had information that could ease their worry, Emma, would you give it to them? Could you?”
“If I’d heard from Colin, I’d have said so.”
“His story of an intense schedule in Washington has worn thin. I assume the FBI will be in touch with his family if need be.”
Emma felt the whiskey burning in her throat. “The safety of an agent—any agent—is of paramount importance to the FBI. Colin’s brothers know that.”
“But you don’t know where he is, do you?”
The look he gave her told her she didn’t need to answer.
A strong gust of wind whistled, whipped more rain against the windows. The small, protected working harbor was lost in the dense, swirling fog. In September, Emma had gone on a boat ride with Colin, kayaked with him, picked apples with him. Laughed, made love. They had met over the horrific murder of a nun at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart, Emma’s former convent. Until then, she hadn’t realized another FBI agent had grown up just a few miles from her own home in Heron’s Cove. They’d had a short time together before Colin was gone again, chasing illegal arms merchants.
He had the FBI behind him but, ultimately, he was alone. Emma understood he could go dark, but not like this. Not with no word for weeks.
His Irish friend’s midnight eyes narrowed on her. “Colin’s in trouble, isn’t he, Emma? It’s all right. You don’t have to answer. I watched you tonight. I could see the answer for myself.”
“He’s independent.”
“He’s good at working alone. All the Donovans are.”
She watched raindrops slide down the window. “Do you ever feel alone here?”
“I’m here for a reason. I have a purpose.”
She glanced back at Finian. “That doesn’t answer the question, does it?”
“It does for me.”
She thought she understood what he meant. After the deaths of his wife and their two young daughters in a sailing accident, he had walked away from Bracken Distillers to enter the priesthood and follow his calling wherever it took him. In June, he had landed in Rock Point to serve struggling St. Patrick’s parish while its priest, Father Callaghan, was in Ireland for a year.
Emma touched the elegant, distinctive gold label of the Bracken 15 year old. “Do you miss Ireland?”
“Every day. That doesn’t mean I’m unhappy here. What about you, Emma? Are you happy?”
His question caught her off guard. “Right now?”
“In your life. In what you do. In where you are, at this moment.”
A cold draft came through the thin walls and worn floorboards. “I don’t miss the convent, Father, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He smiled. “You only call me ‘Father’ when you think I’m speaking about your life as a religious sister.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said with a small laugh. “Yes, Fin, I’m happy. In my work, in my private life. I haven’t known Colin long but our relationship feels like the real thing. I understand that I’m a new addition to his life, and that his brothers regard me as impermanent.”
“Is that how you feel, Emma? Impermanent?”
“Colin and I are very different. I know that much.”
“You’re worried about him, too. And you miss him.”
“Yes.”
She helped herself to a couple of the Simple White Stonewall Kitchen crackers Finian had provided, and his Donovan tasters hadn’t touched, then poured water from one of Hurley’s plastic pitchers. Finian disapproved of adding ice or water to whiskey but he encouraged having water on the side to help counter the dehydrating effects of the alcohol. Only during a tasting did he tolerate, if reluctantly, adding a bit of room-temperature water to the whiskey, which arguably helped with “nosing” the aromas, but there’d been no takers tonight. Mike, Andy and Kevin had all stuck to whiskey, period. Emma had followed their lead, if, admittedly, in part because of their scrutiny.
Her head spun with whiskey, fatigue and tension—with the uncertainty and frustration she felt at not knowing where Colin was, if he was safe. “He’ll be back, Fin,” she said in a half whisper.
Finian transferred the tasting glasses to a tray and took them to the empty bar. Hurley’s would wash them and he would pick them up tomorrow. Emma ate the crackers and took a few sips of the water, thinking now that she should have stayed in Boston for the weekend instead of making the two-hour drive to southern Maine. She had become adept at avoiding lonely evenings, but tonight, she suspected, would be very lonely indeed.
Finian returned to the table and lined up bottles of Glenfiddich, Inish Turk Beg, Midleton, Lavagulin, Connemara and Talisker. Most of his choices for the evening were from his private stock. “No one over imbibed,” he said.
“I’m still not fit to drive.” Emma got to her feet and pulled on her raincoat, skipping buttons and just tying the belt loosely around her. “I can help carry stuff to your car.”
“I walked here from the rectory. I’ll come with the car to pick up everything in the morning.”
“I left mine at Colin’s house and walked down here, too. I made it before the rain started, but it looks as if it’s letting up. We can walk back together if you’d like.”
“That’d be good. Emma…” Finian touched her shoulder, none of his usual spark or humor in his eyes. “You must find Colin.”
She nodded. “I know, Fin.”
They headed out into the cool evening air, the fog breaking up, the breeze steady off the water, smelling of salt, sand and seaweed. She had enjoyed the evening, listening to Finian describe the different “expressions” of whiskey—or whisky, if it were Scotch—and how each was made, dispelling myths and preconceptions in his Irish brogue. She had enjoyed being with Mike, Andy and Kevin as they had teased Finian Bracken, her, each other.
Even so, ultimately, she knew, her presence had reminded Colin’s brothers and his Irish priest friend of what they were trying so hard not to think about—that Colin was an FBI agent who hadn’t been in touch in far too long, and was likely in trouble.
* * *
Emma entered Colin’s small Craftsman-style house through the back, using the key he had given her before his abrupt departure a month ago. He didn’t pop out of the shadows, and he wasn’t in his kitchen, drinking one of the bottles of Smithwick’s he had left in the stainless-steel refrigerator.
The house was quiet and cold, masculine with its dark woods and neutral colors.
His refuge, she thought, heading to the front room.
He wasn’t there, either, sitting by the fireplace in the dark with a glass of Bracken’s finest.
Not that she had expected him to be. Technically they worked on the same team. She would know if he were back in Maine.
As she went up the stairs, she noticed a light, undisturbed film of dust on the wood rail, a tangible reminder of his absence.
She made her way down a short hall to the back bedroom he had chosen for himself.
No Colin Donovan there, either.
Emma turned on a lamp on the nightstand. She remembered him sweeping her into his arms a few short weeks ago, as if she were a fairy princess. He’d carried her upstairs and laid her on the soft duvet atop his bed.
They had fallen for each other so fast, so hard.
Madness, really.
And perfect.
She stood at his oak dresser and ran her fingertips over the stack of books, sports watch and a few coins that Colin had left. She caught her reflection in the mirror and stared at herself, as if somehow it would help her see answers that so far had eluded her. She had moved to Boston in March to join a small, specialized team. Her area of expertise was art crimes and their intersection with other major crimes. In early June, she had discovered that Vladimir Bulgov, a wealthy Russian citizen and the kingpin of a transnational network of illegal arms traffickers, had a passion—a perfectly legal passion—for Picasso and would be in Los Angeles for an auction.
At the time, Emma had suspected a deep-cover operative was chasing Bulgov but had no idea who it was. When she met Colin in Maine in September, she thought he was a lobsterman.
Well, for a minute, anyway.
She had learned that his friend and former contact agent was Matt Yankowski, the same senior agent who had encouraged her to join the FBI as a young novice and then handpicked her for his new Boston-based team.
Colin had done the hard, dangerous, often solitary work to investigate and build the case against Vladimir Bulgov. The Los Angeles auction was a way to lure Bulgov onto U.S. soil and arrest him.
Emma had no illusions that Matt Yankowski—Yank—had recruited her solely because of her expertise in art and art crimes. She was also a Sharpe. Her grandfather was Wendell Sharpe, a renowned art detective who had started Sharpe Fine Art Recovery out of his home in Heron’s Cove. He had six decades of experience working with the FBI, Interpol, Scotland Yard and countless other law enforcement agencies, as well as embassies, insurance companies and individuals—celebrities, princes, heiresses, CEOs, new money, old money. Fifteen years ago, he had opened an office in his native Dublin and had worked there ever since. Now in his early eighties, he was semi-retired and Emma’s older brother, Lucas, was running the family business.
Yank had known from the moment he met her at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart convent and decided he wanted her in the FBI that as a Sharpe, she had her own sources, her own contacts.
Emma noticed her cheeks were pink from the wind and cold. As Finian Bracken had wished her a simple good-night, continuing on his way to St. Patrick’s rectory, she had felt his deep concern for his friend. She understood. She was worried about Colin, too.
She turned from the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed, tugged off her boots, her wool socks. She had come up to Rock Point several times during Colin’s absence but never stayed overnight at his house. She had always gone back to her apartment in Boston or the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove.
She flopped back onto the soft duvet and gazed up at the ceiling, knowing it wasn’t just the whiskey that was keeping her in Rock Point. It was being here, in Colin’s house. In his bed.
“Colin, Colin. Where are you?”
Her whisper sounded hollow, even bewildered. She sat up straight, shivered in the chilly room. The sheets would be cold. And no Colin there to help warm them.
Her cell phone rang and she realized she still had on her raincoat and dug her phone out of the outer pocket.
A private number.
She answered without giving her name. “Hello, who is this?”
“Hello, Emma Sharpe. It’s good to hear your voice.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the Russian-accented voice of the man on the other end. He would never identify himself over the phone, and she would never ask, or guess, or say who she thought—knew—he was.
“And yours,” she said.
A half beat’s pause. “Your man is in danger.”
Colin.
Emma stood up from the bed, the floor cold on her bare feet. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
He gave her an address in Fort Lauderdale, and disconnected before she could thank him or ask any questions.
Another ghost, she thought, and dialed Matt Yankowski.
2
THE TWO RUSSIANS wanted to kill him now. Pete Horner, the American, wanted to wait. Then kill him if he didn’t produce the weapons they wanted. In their shoes, Colin Donovan would have sided with the Russians. Time to cut their losses. Too many risks doing business with a turncoat FBI agent.
They were out by the pool behind the pale yellow stucco house that Horner had rented on a finger of the intricate web of canals that had given Fort Lauderdale its nickname as the Venice of America. It was a hot, humid night, even for South Florida in late October.
A cabin cruiser was tied to a private dock in the dark, quiet Intracoastal water. Colin had the feeling the boat was in his immediate future. He was already sore from a few warning blows back at the marina where he had tried to persuade his new friends to let him be the one to take them to the weapons they wanted, but they weren’t doing this his way. They were doing it their way.
Horner and the two Russians were armed. Colin wasn’t.
“Watch this guy,” Yuri, the older of the two Russians, said. He had short, thinning gray hair and a scar under his left eye, his English excellent but heavily accented. “He’s like cat. He has nine lives. Maybe more. First he’s alive, then he’s dead. Now he’s alive again.”
The younger Russian, Boris, who was especially eager to kill Colin now, stood at the edge of the pool, the water turquoise in the light from the house. Boris was good-looking, with wavy brown hair, pale brown eyes and no visible scars. Colin didn’t know their last names and doubted their first names were Yuri and Boris. The American, however, really was Pete Horner, a private pilot in his mid-forties who had flown one of Vladimir Bulgov’s arms-smuggling cargo planes.
A good thing for Colin, Horner was the leader of the armed trio and still held out hope that their FBI agent could help them. “We give him this one chance to deliver,” Horner said. “If he does, he gets to live. That’s the deal.”
That clearly wasn’t the deal but Colin wasn’t offended at being lied to by a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, amoral thug who wanted to procure illegal weapons and then sell them to anyone who would give him his price—drug cartels, warlords, guerrilla groups, terrorist cells, paramilitary organizations, mass murderers. Horner didn’t care provided he got paid, and he would get paid more selling weapons—picking up the pieces of Vladimir Bulgov’s network—than he ever had flying planes.
The house behind them was an expensive furnished rental walled off from its upscale neighborhood of currently absent snowbirds. Horner lived above his means, and the lure of easy money was obviously too much for him to resist.
“I’ll take you to the arms,” Colin said. “I stashed them myself.”
“When?” Horner asked.
“I told you. Two days after Bulgov’s arrest in June. My buyer got cold feet and bolted. I had to disappear for a while and let the dust settle.”
Yuri narrowed his gaze on Colin. “Does FBI think you are dead?”
Colin shook his head. “I couldn’t fake my death with them. I’m an undercover agent. Turning up dead would have drawn too much attention to me. You boys might keep that in mind. The FBI thinks I’m on their side. If you kill me, they won’t rest until they catch you.”
Boris smirked. “Or FBI thanks us for killing a traitor.”
“The weapons he promises are a fiction,” Yuri said.
“They’re not a fiction,” Horner said. “He bought them with FBI money for a fake buyer but he was running his own game. He had his own buyer waiting in the wings. A real buyer.”
“I like how you talk about me as if I’m not standing here,” Colin said. “We’ve been through this. I put the weapons in a safe place and told the FBI that Bulgov had them. Then I let everyone in Bulgov’s world think I was dead and bided my time until I could find another buyer. That would be you three budding arms merchants.”
The younger Russian looked disdainful. “He double-crossed the FBI.”
Honor among thugs, Colin thought. “I don’t want a career doing this,” he said. “I want to unload my stash and disappear. I’ll take you to enough weapons to prove I’m legitimate. Then we do business. My price is a third of what your buyer is willing to pay. You’ll make a tidy profit. It’s a risk worth taking.”
Horner gave him a cool look. “I didn’t say we had a buyer.”
Colin didn’t argue but he knew they had a buyer.
Yuri jumped into the aft deck of the boat. “I still say we kill him now. We can find other weapons.”
“We don’t have time,” Horner said.
Colin rubbed a bruise on his forearm where he had blocked Boris’s first hit. “Your buyer’s impatient.”
“Everyone is impatient,” Boris said with a short, disgusted laugh.
Horner shrugged. “You and Yuri have a point but your way, we know we get nothing. My way, we have a chance.”
From the boat, Yuri pointed a thick finger at Colin. “And if our deep-cover agent here leads us straight to the FBI instead of to weapons? What chance do we have then?”
Horner didn’t answer. He motioned with his gun for Colin to climb into the boat. “Let’s go.”
As Colin got in the boat, pretending to be in more pain than he was, he noticed the light from the patio catch Horner’s face, and he knew. The Russians had finally persuaded him that the risk of walking into an FBI trap was too great. The promise of fast, easy weapons was a mirage. They would have to find another source.
Kill the FBI agent now. Move on.
Only Horner wouldn’t kill Colin here by his pool. He would get out to the ocean first, then kill him and throw his body overboard.
Colin had expected that resurfacing as his undercover alter ego would be tricky, suspicious, but sometimes it just wasn’t any fun to be right.
Faking a limp, he sat in a corner of the aft deck. Horner and his two Russian thugs had no respect for a turncoat FBI agent; even one they had hoped would lead them to an easy cache of orphaned illicit arms and their start as arms merchants. They knew Colin was an undercover federal agent because he had told them so, just before they shoved him into the back of Horner’s Mercedes and drove to Horner’s rented Fort Lauderdale house. Colin had offered them a reasonable explanation for what he had been up to the past few months and what he wanted now, and he had set conditions for his continued cooperation.
He hadn’t bought himself as much time as he’d hoped but he wasn’t dead yet, either.
Yuri and Boris went inside, up to the helm to pilot the boat.
Colin breathed in the thick, stifling air. He didn’t like hot weather, but he was a former Maine lobsterman and Maine state marine patrol officer and knew his way around boats and the water.
It was something his captors didn’t know about him.
The boat cruised up the narrow canal toward the main Intracoastal Waterway. Horner was watching a party aboard a luxury yacht, lit up against the black night. Boris and Yuri were navigating the turn out of the canal into the main Intracoastal.
Without a second thought, Colin eased himself over the side and dropped into the dark water.
He didn’t make a sound.
The water was warm, certainly by Maine standards, but he figured it had snakes. Maybe an alligator. It’d be a hell of a thing to escape armed thugs only to be bitten by a poisonous snake or eaten by an alligator.
He liked Florida well enough but really wasn’t one for the subtropics.
He swam back to the rented house and climbed up onto the dock, then ducked onto the patio, the pool still glistening in the light through the French doors. Once Horner and his Russian friends realized he was gone, they would come straight back and kill him on the spot. No waiting this time.
Colin planned to be gone by then.
Then he would find them, and he would find their buyer.
“Scary bastards,” he said under his breath.
The warm canal water dripped off him. His head pounded. His bruises ached. Dehydration blurred his vision.
He wanted to be back on the rocky coast of Maine.
Back with Emma.
He noticed a movement by the far corner of the pool.
He saw two black-clad figures by some tropical shrub.
Not the bad guys. Not this time. Colin grinned, and he felt the tension ease out of him.
The cavalry was here.
* * *
Two hours later, Matt Yankowski was frowning at a large painting of black, red and white splotches on a stark white wall of the rented house. He had on a medium gray suit that looked crisp despite the South Florida heat. Colin watched the senior FBI agent from his position on a soft, white leather couch. He had changed into fresh clothes from his pack, still in the back of Horner’s Mercedes. The tactical team had almost finished going through the car, the house, the three-car garage, the yard and patio.
So far, they hadn’t found the name of Pete Horner’s buyer or a little note saying where he, Boris and Yuri would be if the FBI swarmed the house.
Yank moved to another painting, almost identical to the first one. “I don’t like them,” he said. “Emma knows art. Do you think she’d like them?”
Colin hid his impatience. “I don’t know, Yank. I’m not thinking about art right now.”
“If I ever buy a house down here, I’d want flamingos on the walls. Not splotches. Looks like somebody got shot.” Yank turned and took in the large, airy room. “This place is sterile. More like a hotel than a home. How long were you here?”
“Minutes. I was staying at a fleabag hotel a few blocks off the beach. Horner, Boris and Yuri met me at a marina where I had a boat rented. The plan was for me to take them to weapons. Instead they tossed me in the Mercedes at gunpoint and drove here. We parked, walked through the house out to the pool, got in the boat and left. I waited until they were distracted and went overboard. For all I know, they still don’t miss me.”
“Unlikely.”
Colin agreed. “Any sign of them?”
“Not yet.”
“How did you find me?” Then he saw Yank’s grimace and knew. “Emma.”
“She got a tip and gave us this address. I alerted the team and flew straight down here.”
“Where is she?”
“Heron’s Cove. She went up there to bake pies and drink whiskey with Father Bracken and your brothers.”
“My family?”
“She’ll get them word you’re safe.”
“No more lying to them, Yank.”
He nodded. “They’ve guessed what you do, anyway. I should have known telling them you worked in D.C. wouldn’t fly.”
Colin looked out through the tall windows at the patio and the canal, quiet in the morning haze. He volunteered for his first undercover mission four years ago. Matt Yankowski had ventured up to the Maine coast to talk to him about the mission and being his contact agent. As of a month ago, Colin was technically the newest member of Yank’s Boston-based team and Yank was his contact agent on this mission.
“I had to go dark,” Colin said. “It still didn’t work. I don’t have Horner’s buyer. I don’t know who’s bankrolling him. He and Boris and Yuri are in the wind. This stinks, Yank.”
“You got a toehold with them. It’s a start.” Yank sat on another white leather couch opposite Colin. “Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?”
“I have three brothers. I can take a punch.”
The senior agent’s dark eyes were steady, serious. He had been a legendary field agent, but he had never strayed too far from the book. He had never gone deep undercover to chase a transnational threat like Vladimir Bulgov and his complex arms pipeline.
“You do like to go it alone,” Yank said heavily.
“I didn’t have much choice this time.”
“Well, you’re no good to us dead.”
“That’s why I decided to jump off that boat, Yank. So I could be an FBI asset.”
“You know what I meant.” Yank drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Your luck saved you this time.”
“Not luck. Skill.”
Yank didn’t crack a smile.
Colin worked a tight muscle in his jaw. He thought he would be sleepy by now, but he wasn’t. He was wide-awake, thinking about how Yank had found him. “What Russians does Emma know?”
“Between her and her family, I imagine she knows quite a few.”
“Vladimir Bulgov’s Russian. Horner flew planes for him. His pals Boris and Yuri are Russian.”
“Emma’s contacts are one of the reasons she’s on my team,” Yank said, his tone cool, measured.
Colin leaned forward. “What else?”
“Nothing else. She’s every bit the asset I thought she’d be when I recruited her. That hasn’t changed in the past month.”
Colin watched a small boat cruise past the house on the picturesque waterway. “Any reason to think whoever tipped off Emma knows my real name?”
“She wouldn’t do anything to compromise you.”
“Not intentionally, maybe.”
“You’ve had a rough few weeks. You need a break. We’ll find these guys.”
“Their buyer? Whoever it is won’t like a delay. Horner knows that.”
Yank didn’t look as confident but nodded. “We’ll find Horner and the Russians and stop them from procuring more weapons. We’ll find their buyer. You laid the groundwork.”
“I knew a blown cover was a possibility going into this thing, turning up alive after three months. I told Horner myself that I was a federal agent.” Colin touched a bruise on his wrist. “But having one of your people get a tip about me isn’t sitting well.”
“One of my people?” Yank raised an eyebrow. “Emma got the tip about this place while she was sleeping in your bed in Maine.”
Colin pictured her honey hair, her green eyes, and sighed. “Hell, Yank.”
He draped an arm on the back of the couch and stretched out his long legs on the white-tile floor. “You two complicate my life.”
Colin didn’t argue. His relationship with Emma complicated his life, too. He had never expected to fall for a woman like Emma Sharpe, granddaughter of a renowned art detective, ex-nun and FBI art crimes expert, but he had. Thinking about her over the past few weeks had been both a comfort as well as a potentially dangerous distraction. Any contact with her—with his family, his real life, even Yank—had become too risky given the stakes and the scrutiny he was under.
“You’re nothing if not pragmatic, Yank,” Colin said. “It’s easier not to ask tough questions if Emma got this tip from a Sharpe source.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“You know who it is, don’t you?”
The dark eyes didn’t waver. “Informants are a tricky business. We have strict rules, but they include reasonable room to maneuver. Are you going back to Maine?”
“I always go back to Maine.” Colin drank some water from a bottle one of the agents had handed him. His lips were dry, burning from his salty swim in the canal. “Are you worried Emma got in over her head to find me?”
Yank got to his feet and stood by the French doors. “I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
“You’ve been known to hold back pertinent information,” Colin said. “For instance, you didn’t mention Emma had been a nun when you asked me to keep an eye on her in September. I had no idea that this pretty FBI agent used to be Sister Brigid of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.”
“She’d just found a nun from her former convent murdered. I needed your fresh eyes on the situation. I wasn’t thinking you two would end up…you know. Together.”
Maybe so, but Colin wondered how he would have responded to Emma if he had known from the start she had once been a postulant and novice. “What are you not telling me now?”
“Her brother’s in Dublin with her grandfather.”
“Is that relevant to the tip she got on my whereabouts?”
“I don’t know.”
Colin shifted on the couch, the Florida sun burning through the haze and hitting him in the eye, as if to remind him he hadn’t had any sleep. “You’ve never met Vladimir Bulgov, have you?”
“Not in person, no.”
“He’s this likable, chain-smoking former Soviet helicopter pilot who cobbled together a small fleet of aging planes and made a fortune hauling cargo. Most of the cargo was legitimate, but he also had access to stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons, from Kalashnikov rifles to shoulder-fired missiles. He tucked them in with the legitimate cargo. No problem finding buyers.”
Yank turned from the French doors. “Your point?”
“Along the way, Bulgov developed a taste for modern art. Emma found out and we finally had him in the U.S. and arrested him. That’s the only tie I can see between him and the Sharpes. Peter Horner and his two Russian friends aren’t interested in art.” Colin noticed that Yank was all but pacing now. “If you asked Emma for her source, would she tell you?”
“I’m not asking.”
“Because you want to trust her?”
“I do trust her. She’s analytical, intelligent. She’s not a black-and-white thinker. She sees the shades of gray in a situation.”
“She’s not like anyone else on your team.”
“That’s not a negative.”
Colin stood, ignoring a twinge of pain in his lower back. A bruise had blossomed on his forearm, and when he had changed clothes, he had noticed a nick on his right temple. “What’s your best guess, Yank? Did Emma put herself in danger to find me?”
“I don’t like to guess, but I get nervous when emotion enters into a decision. You operate on instinct and experience. You’re good at reading people. Emma…”
“Emma gives people a lot of rope, and she was worried about me.”
“Your whole family was worried.” Yank seemed to give himself a mental shake. “Emma can handle herself. Come on. We have a flight to catch.”
“Where are we going?”
“Washington. The Director wants to see you.”
Colin wasn’t surprised but had no desire to board a flight to Washington. “I’m not finished, Yank.”
“Don’t start second-guessing yourself. We have more than we had a month ago. If you hadn’t gone overboard when you did, you’d be dead now.”
“No kidding.” Colin grinned. “Why do you think I braved the snakes and gators?”
Yank sighed. “What was I thinking? You never second-guess yourself.”
They crossed the bright, elegant living room and went up three steps to a wide front door. “Is Lucy in Washington?” Colin asked.
“Paris. She’s shopping with her sister.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t invited.” Yank opened the door with more force than was needed. “I don’t see me in Hermès, do you?”
Colin followed him out into the South Florida heat and humidity. “What happens when Lucy and her sister get back from Paris? Is Lucy moving up to Boston with you?”
Yank’s expression was unreadable. “I’m on a need-to-know basis, and I guess I don’t need to know.”
They walked over to a black sedan idling in the driveway. Colin glanced at the lush, professionally landscaped yard, vines curling over a tall fence, a stone fountain bubbling amid colorful flowers. Suddenly he couldn’t wait to be out of there. He would go to D.C. with Yank and talk to the Director of the FBI, but he wanted to be back in Maine. He wanted to enjoy a glass of whiskey with his brothers and Finian Bracken, and he wanted Emma.
Not in that order, he realized.
Emma was first.
3
EMMA BROUGHT HER red sable brush, saturated with cerulean-blue watercolor paint, to the dampened paper she had clipped to the easel on the back porch of the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove. She pulled the brush across the paper, right to left, practicing a simple flat wash and, out of the corner of her eye, watching the woman down on the docks. She had looked up at the house several times. She was small, with long, straight dark hair, and she wore a pumpkin-colored barn jacket that, even at a distance, was obviously too big for her.
A Sharpe Fine Art Recovery client? A sightseer who had wandered down to the waterfront and now was trying to figure out how to get back out to the street with its attractive houses, shops and restaurants?
Emma noticed her cerulean-blue was leaking down the page into her burnt-sienna. Probably should have stuck to one color. Perfecting a flat wash wasn’t as easy as it looked. In the weeks since Colin had gone after his arms traffickers, she had started taking painting lessons with Sister Cecilia, a young novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. She and Emma had become friends since their encounter with a crazed killer in September. The lessons at the sisters’ shop in the village were therapeutic for both of them, and always followed by a walk, tea or just a good chat. Sister Cecilia especially loved hearing the latest about Rock Point and the Donovans.
Yank had called an hour ago. He and Colin had arrived in Boston and were on their way to Maine. Yank would drop Colin off in Rock Point. Then he was on his own.
No handing over the phone to Colin to say hello. Not Yank’s style.
Colin, Emma knew, would want to know about her source. He would have figured out the tip about the Fort Lauderdale house had come from her, or Yank would have told him outright.
She stood back from her painting, her brush in hand. Not her best effort.
A lobster boat drifted from the open ocean through the channel into the tidal river. It was late on a still, cool autumn afternoon. Several pleasure boats had passed by, heading to the marina and adjacent yacht club, but there were fewer boats now, with the colder weather and the foliage past peak. In midsummer, Heron’s Cove would be bustling with boats and people.
Colin had been a lobsterman in his teens, before joining the Maine state marine patrol. Emma didn’t know why he had decided to become an FBI agent. Boredom? Ambition? A precipitating incident? An unsolved case?
How could she have fallen for a man about whom she ultimately knew so little?
She had showered and changed in Colin’s house that morning, putting on fresh jeans and a sweater she had brought up from Boston. She’d had little sleep, dozing in his bed. When she got word that he was safe, she called Mike Donovan, then Finian Bracken, and let them know all was well and Colin would return to Rock Point later today.
She had stopped at Hurley’s for coffee and a cider doughnut and took them with her to Heron’s Cove. A run on the beach, a visit to a local apple orchard, a stop at her brother Lucas’s house to check on his cats while he was away—it had been a long day. She had known she wouldn’t hear from Colin until he was fully debriefed and back home.
The woman in the pumpkin-colored jacket had circled up to the retaining wall and was squeezing past tall hydrangeas, their white blossoms turned burgundy with autumn, into the Sharpe yard.
Emma set her brush in a jar of water on a small dresser against the back wall of the covered porch and stood at the rail. “Hi, there,” she called down to the woman. “It’s a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
“It is. And it’s a beautiful place.” The woman spoke with an accent that Emma couldn’t immediately place. “You’re Emma Sharpe, yes?”
“That’s right. What’s your name?”
“Tatiana,” she said, crossing the yard to the porch. “Tatiana Pavlova.”
Emma stiffened at the Russian name, what she now realized was a Russian accent with a British undercurrent, as if Tatiana Pavlova had learned English on the streets of London. “What can I do for you, Tatiana?”
She started up the porch steps. “You mind?”
“Just keep your hands where I can see them, okay?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. You’re an FBI agent. You must worry about villains.”
Villains? “Are you a Sharpe client?” Emma asked.
Tatiana joined her on the small porch of the gray-shingled house where Wendell Sharpe had started Sharpe Fine Art Recovery in a front room. “A friend was,” she said. “I’m a jewelry designer in London. One of my clients once hired your grandfather. But that’s not important. It’s not why I’m here. Your grandfather is retired now, yes?”
“He’s semi-retired.”
“Ah. I can see that. I want to work until I can no longer lift a pencil.” Tatiana tightened her oversize jacket around her slim frame. “It’s colder here than I expected but I’m used to the cold.”
Emma leaned back against the rail. Tatiana wore black leggings and black flats more suited to London than a walk on the docks of Heron’s Cove, but no makeup or jewelry. Her nails were blunt, unpolished. Stylishly unstylish, Emma thought. “You’re Russian?” she asked.
Tatiana nodded. “But I left Russia years ago.”
“Years? You must have been a child. You’re young—”
“Twenty-five. I was twenty when I left the country for good. It’s a long story.” Her dark eyes gleamed with emotion. “Are there any short Russian stories? Some of our fables and folktales, perhaps. Do you know the fable of the cat and the nightingale?”
“I don’t think so,” Emma said.
“It’s very short. Of course, since it’s a fable.” Tatiana stood at the porch rail and watched a great blue heron swoop low to the water. “A cat catches a nightingale and taunts the poor bird to sing for her. The terrified nightingale can only manage pitiful squeaks, which remind the cat of annoying kittens. Disgusted, the cat eats the nightingale.”
“Charming,” Emma said with a smile. “What made you think of this particular fable?”
“My walk, maybe. Seeing all the birds here.” Tatiana sighed as the heron dipped past a sailboat, then out of sight. “The cat and the nightingale remind us that we can’t expect beautiful songs from a bird trapped in the clutches of a creature that can devour it. Their story tells us that fear isn’t always the best instrument to get us what we want.”
“Are you describing yourself, Tatiana?”
She turned, smiling enigmatically. “But am I the scary cat, or am I the terrified nightingale?” She waved a slender hand in dismissal. “It’s just a fable. It’s best in Russian, of course. Do you speak any Russian?”
“A few words,” Emma said truthfully.
“Heron’s Cove is very beautiful. I knew it would be, but I hoped to get here for peak leaves—that’s what you say?”
“Peak foliage.”
“That’s it.” Tatiana’s smile brightened. “There are still many orange and yellow leaves, but the reds are all on the ground. But I’m not here as tourist.” She spied the easel and frowned at Emma’s attempt at a watercolor wash. “Such a pretty blue, but watercolor is not so easy, yes?”
Emma groaned. “Watercolor isn’t easy at all.”
“A painter and an FBI agent. I suppose that’s not such a surprise since you’re a Sharpe.” Tatiana lifted the brush out of the jar and blotted it on a sheet of paper on the small chest of drawers that held Emma’s painting supplies. “My English is better when I concentrate, have you noticed?”
“Your English is fine. When did you arrive in Heron’s Cove?”
“This afternoon. I have a cottage just on the other side of the yacht club. I have it for a week but the owner said I can stay longer if I wish. It’s very small. Adorable. It’s one room on legs—stilts. We’re neighbors.”
“Why Heron’s Cove?” Emma asked.
Tatiana laid the rinsed brush on the dresser, so that its natural bristles hung over the edge. “You shouldn’t leave your brushes in water. They will last longer.” She picked up the tube of cerulean-blue watercolor paint and screwed the top back on, then set it back on the dresser. “A rare, valuable collection of Russian Art Nouveau jewelry and decorative arts is arriving in Heron’s Cove soon. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow. I’m afraid it’s another long, sad Russian story, but I don’t need to tell it, do I, Emma Sharpe? This one you already know.”
“I’ve learned in my work not to make assumptions.” Emma kept her voice neutral, despite her shock at mention of the collection. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”
Tatiana sighed at the practice painting. “You didn’t wait for one color to dry before you tried another color. They bled together, and now you have mud.” She glanced disapprovingly at Emma. “You must not give in to the excitement of creative inspiration at the expense of craft. You must make the tension between the two work for you. That’s true mastery.”
“Tatiana…”
“You grow impatient,” she said lightly. “It’s the Rusakov collection. A dozen works of great beauty and artistry crafted during the last days of the Romanovs. You know it, yes?”
Emma nodded. “I know it, yes.”
“Twenty years ago, Dmitri Rusakov discovered the collection hidden in the walls of his Moscow mansion and hired your grandfather to help him understand it. Its history, its provenance, its value. We were just small girls then, you and I.”
Emma remembered her grandfather coming home from Moscow and reading Russian fairy tales to her and Lucas. Later—four years ago, when she dealt with Dmitri Rusakov herself—she had learned that each of the dozen works in the collection was inspired by some aspect of Russian folk tradition. Dmitri was a former army officer who had made a fortune in oil and gas in post–Soviet Russia.
He was also the trusted friend of the man who had called Emma last night with the Fort Lauderdale address.
“Dmitri Rusakov has never publicized his discovery of the collection,” Emma said. “How do you know about it?”
Tatiana pulled open the top dresser drawer and helped herself to a soft lead pencil, her dark hair hanging in her face as she continued. “Everyone in Russia knows about Dmitri Rusakov. I hear things in my work. Fabergé, Tiffany, Gaillard, Lalique—I study all the great designers of the late nineteenth century. It was a time when art met life, when an object as simple and ordinary as a cane knob, a picture frame or a cigarette case could become an artistic creation.” Tatiana smiled, a dimple showing in her left cheek. “I especially love Art Nouveau.”
“I do, too. Who is bringing the collection to Heron’s Cove?”
“Natalie Warren, the daughter of Rusakov’s American ex-wife.” Tatiana checked the tip of the pencil with her thumb. “Her mother died earlier this year in Tucson. I don’t think Natalie realized her mother had the collection, or perhaps even of its existence. That’s why she’s coming here. She wants to talk to the Sharpes.”
“My brother and grandfather are both in Dublin.”
“Ah. Well. Perhaps Natalie wants to talk to you.”
Emma noticed streaks of pale lavender high in the sky. It was dusk. Colin would be back in Rock Point soon after weeks of dangerous undercover work, after escaping certain death just hours ago. How could she tell him about Dmitri Rusakov?
About his connection to last night’s call?
She turned back to Tatiana. “Do you and Natalie know each other?”
“No, no. We’ve never met. She lives in Phoenix. I’m relatively invisible at my studio. I listen. I hear things. I heard about the collection.”
“That’s not all there is to it,” Emma said. “Why are you really here?”
Tatiana looked out at the water, gray now in the fading late-afternoon light. “I believe someone will steal the collection.”
“Who?”
“A villain,” she said, half under her breath.
“Tatiana, if you have specific information about an imminent crime, then you need tell the local police. I’ll put you in touch.”
She shook her head. “I have no proof of anything. I know you’re not with Sharpe Fine Art Recovery any longer, but can you help, Emma—Agent Sharpe?”
Emma considered her response, then said, “If the Rusakov collection arrives in Heron’s Cove, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good.” With a few swift strokes of the pencil, Tatiana sketched a graceful great blue heron, incorporating Emma’s washes and muddy drips, so that suddenly they didn’t look amateurish and awkward. She stood back from the easel and appraised her handiwork. “You can go from here. I love grand blue herons.”
Emma smiled. “Great blue herons.”
The young Russian laughed. “Yes, just so. Thank you, Emma Sharpe. I appreciate your help.”
She skipped down the porch steps and back across the yard, her hair flying in the wind as she jumped from the retaining wall down to the pier.
Emma abandoned her painting and went back inside. Although she had been to the house a number of times since renovations had started, she still felt a tug of nostalgia when she entered the kitchen and saw the counters were now home to carpenters’ tools, rags, cabinet brochures, paint chips and an empty box of Hurley’s cider doughnuts. Most of the guys working on the place were from Rock Point. She had promised them she would clear out the rest of the kitchen over the weekend.
She stepped past a roll of insulation. Renovations had been a long time in coming and a joint family decision, but Lucas was in charge. The idea was to transform the small house into a modern base for Sharpe Fine Art Recovery while still retaining its Victorian charm and character. Lucas, who had his own house in the village, had asked the architect to include a guest suite for family and friends, or for their grandfather should he eventually return to Heron’s Cove.
Getting Lucas to acquiesce to preserving the porch had taken some doing. He had envisioned taking over that space for the interior and adding a stone terrace out back, but Emma had reminded him how much of their family life had centered on the porch, especially before their grandmother’s death, the fall on the ice that had relegated their father to a restless life of chronic pain and their grandfather’s relocation to Dublin.
Emma rinsed dried watercolor paint off her hands and saw she had a text message.
It was from Colin: I’m home.
She smiled as she typed her response: I’ll come to you.
She headed out through the front and got his message back: Yank just left. I’ll be at Hurley’s.
Emma got in her car. She would be in Rock Point in twenty minutes. That gave her at least a little more time to consider how to handle his questions about how she had found him in Florida, and what to tell him about Tatiana Pavlova.
* * *
Colin was alone at Hurley’s bar, a bowl of steaming fish chowder in front of him. He patted the stool next to him. “Have a seat, Special Agent Sharpe.”
Emma climbed onto the stool, taking in his broad shoulders, the thick muscles in his legs, the smoky gray of his eyes as they settled on her. He was so damn sexy, she thought. So incredibly physical and down to earth. He could handle deep-cover work because he was focused, decisive and independent. Yet he wasn’t a man easy to get to know. Maybe that made him good at what he did, too.
She noticed a purple bruise on his forearm, then met his eyes with a smile. “Welcome home.”
He winked at her. “Nothing says home like a bowl of Hurley’s fish chowder.”
“Your brothers aren’t here yet, I see.”
“On their way. Finian, too. Word travels fast in Rock Point.” He touched a hand to her cheek. “How are you, Emma?”
“Glad to see you back in one piece.”
“I came close to being eaten by alligators.” He tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Yank says you saved my ass.”
“We all help each other.”
“Did he tell you to say that?” Colin turned back to his chowder. “As I pointed out to him, I had already escaped when the cavalry arrived. I do allow that if they hadn’t swooped in when they did, my new friends could have doubled back and thrown me to the gators.”
“That wouldn’t have been good,” Emma said.
“It would not. Then where would you be?” He picked up his spoon, dipped it into the milky chowder. “Sleeping alone in my bed again.”
She helped herself to an oyster cracker. She knew what he was getting at, had suspected it was coming. How much would she tell him about her source? How much could she tell him? She’d had a good chunk of last night and all day to prepare her response, but Tatiana Pavlova’s arrival in Heron’s Cove, with her talk of Dmitri Rusakov, had further muddled the situation.
“The call came to my cell phone. Not to your house phone.” Emma kept her tone even, without a hint of defensiveness. “Yank knew I was at your house because he asked and I told him. Father Bracken had organized a whiskey tasting.”
“What was your favorite?”
“I just know I don’t like the heavily peated ones.”
“An acquired taste.”
“Colin—”
“It’s okay, Emma.” His eyes softened. “It’s been a long month. You can sleep in my bed anytime.”
In other words, his questions about last night could wait.
“Were my brothers good to you while I was away?” he asked.
She nodded. “Mike’s not a big fan but we do all right.”
“Mike’s not a big fan of anyone.”
“He’s been down here more because of your family’s concern for you.”
Finian Bracken arrived, wearing his black suit and Roman collar today. He stopped short when he saw Emma. “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all,” Emma said with a smile.
Colin eased off his stool. “It’s good to see you, Fin.” He clapped the priest on the shoulder in a warm greeting. “Mike, Andy and Kevin will be here in a few minutes.”
“They’re outside now,” Finian said.
“Then grab some glasses and pour the Bracken 15 year old.”
Finian glanced past him at Emma. “Wine for you tonight?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” she said, standing up. “I’ll let you gentlemen enjoy your evening.”
“Good to see you, as always,” Finian said, then headed to his favorite table by the window.
Emma buttoned her jacket, aware of Colin’s gaze on her. His questions about the past twenty-four hours wouldn’t wait forever. He wanted answers. But she saw the cut on his right temple, the fatigue in his eyes and the stiffness with which he moved, and she knew this wasn’t the time or the place for a serious conversation.
He needed tonight with his brothers and his Irish priest friend.
He seemed to guess what she was thinking and slipped an arm around her waist. “Missed you, babe.”
“I missed you, too. Be with your family and friends.” She leaned into him, just for an instant. “I’ll see you soon.”
He patted her hip. “Real soon.”
Emma managed to get out of there without running into his brothers. It was colder, clearer than last night. She listened to the tide wash in on the sand and smooth stones. A bright star had come out above the harbor. She took in a deep breath. She could still feel Colin’s strength and warmth—as well as his questions, his doubts.
If Natalie Warren was bringing the Rusakov collection to Heron’s Cove, would Dmitri Rusakov be right behind her?
Would Ivan Alexander be with him?
“Your man is in danger.”
Emma put her own doubts and questions out of her mind as she watched Mike, Andy and Kevin Donovan walk up the stairs to Hurley’s. They were one reason Colin could bounce back from the dangers he faced. His resilience wasn’t just due to his training and experience, or even his nature. It was also due to his family and friends, the solid foundation he had in Rock Point.
A gust of cold wind propelled her into her car. She debated what to do. She could stay at her parents’ house in Heron’s Cove, Lucas’s house, with friends. At the Sharpe house. The state of renovations meant it wasn’t as comfortable as in the past, but she’d manage.
She could check on Tatiana Pavlova and see if she was in her rented cottage, working on sketches.
Emma started her car. She needed to get in touch with Lucas and her grandfather in Dublin.
Would her grandfather remember Dmitri Rusakov?
“Of course he would,” she said aloud.
Wendell Sharpe remembered everything.
She noticed the bag of Northern Spy apples on her front passenger seat. She’d bought them at her visit to the orchard that afternoon, before her attempt at a flat wash. They were perfect for pies.
Tough to bake a pie in the Sharpe kitchen.
Emma smiled and decided she might as well head up to Colin’s house after all.
4
FINIAN BRACKEN MARVELED at the camaraderie of the Donovans and the obvious, if unstated, relief and pleasure they shared at being together after the fear and worry of recent days. He had poured Bracken 15 year old for all four brothers and even a taoscán for himself.
“Did we run Emma off?” Mike asked, tasting his whiskey. “I think she peeled rubber getting out of the parking lot.”
Colin shook his head. “She would have stayed if she wanted to.”
“She’s as bullheaded in her own way as you are,” Kevin said.
Andy grinned but was quiet as the eldest Donovan swirled the whiskey in his glass. “What did you call this, Father?” Mike asked. “Not a dram. Some unpronounceable Irish word.”
“Taoscán,” Finian said.
Mike gave a mock shudder. “I’ll never get it right.” He set his glass down on the worn table. “The Sharpe house is torn up for renovations. Emma’s not driving back to Boston, is she?”
“She’s not picky,” Colin said. “She’ll sleep on the floor if she has to.”
Kevin reached for the water pitcher. “I have to remember she’s an ex-nun. She can tolerate spare conditions. Right, Father Bracken?”
Finian wasn’t getting into the middle of this particular discussion. “The Sisters of the Joyful Heart have a lovely convent. As a matter of fact, I just came from there. A young woman stopped me at the gate to ask about the sisters’ work in the arts and art conservation. She’s an artist herself. A jeweler in London.”
“Maybe she’s an ex-nun, too,” Mike said.
Finian suspected Colin’s brothers were ambivalent about his relationship with Emma less because she was an FBI agent and a Sharpe than because she had once come close to professing her final vows as a religious sister. Chastity, obedience, poverty. The profession of vows wasn’t as simple as it might seem and involved deep thought, study, prayer and reflection. Emma had come to the right decision for her.
All that was for her and the Donovans to sort out among themselves.
Finian continued with his story. “I don’t think the woman who spoke to me was a nun, or even considering the convent. She lives in London but she’s Russian. She has the most charming accent.”
Colin raised his eyes over the rim of his glass as he tried his whiskey.
Finian saw that Kevin, also a law enforcement officer, had noticed Colin’s alert expression, too. “A Russian jeweler in Heron’s Cove,” Kevin said. “Imagine that. What else did she say?”
“It was a casual conversation. I asked her name, and she told me it’s Tatiana and she had heard about the sisters’ work.”
“Did she mention Emma?” Colin asked.
Finian felt as if he had unknowingly just dived into shark-infested waters. “Not by name, no.”
Colin’s gaze narrowed on him. Next to him, Kevin had one hand on his glass on the table and his gray eyes likewise narrowed. Andy looked as surprised by their intense reaction as Finian was. Only Mike’s expression was impassive, impossible to read.
“What do you mean, not by name?” Colin asked.
“Well.” Finian now regretted having brought her up. “She said she’d run into an FBI agent in Heron’s Cove who used to be a nun.”
“That’s true,” Kevin said. “Where in Heron’s Cove did this Tatiana run into Emma?”
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” Finian wished he didn’t sound so defensive. “It wouldn’t occur to me to interrogate a young woman—a tourist—enjoying an autumn afternoon out at a convent gate.”
Kevin picked up his glass. “If that’s what she was doing. Sounds more like she was checking out Emma.”
“Or the convent itself,” Finian said. “The sisters tell me they’ve had a marked increase in visitors and curiosity seekers since Sister Joan’s death and the subsequent discovery of a Rembrandt in the attic.”
Colin drank some of his water. “Did this Tatiana give you her last name?”
“Not that I recall, no. Dear heaven, I’m starting to sweat. Did I do something wrong?”
“Not a thing.” Colin seemed to make an effort to smile. “You’re a good man, Fin. Bringing Bracken 15 tonight instead of leaving us to Hurley’s rotgut. I don’t know what arrangements you and John Hurley have made but I’m all for it.” He raised his glass. “Sláinte.”
Finian splashed more Bracken 15 year old into his own glass and raised it. “Sláinte.”
Mike finished his whiskey in one last swallow and stood, reaching for his canvas jacket as he glanced down at Colin. “One night we’ll break open another bottle of Bracken’s finest and you can tell us about the real nature of your work. I’m guessing it involves Russians. It’s good you’re back. Our sweet mother worried about you.”
That she had, Finian thought. He’d had more than one conversation himself with Rosemary Donovan about her fears for Colin—for all four of her sons.
“I warned her I’d be difficult to reach,” Colin said.
Mike grunted. “You couldn’t have sent her a postcard, put up something on Facebook? Sent a carrier pigeon telling her you were alive and well?”
“You know Washington. Crazy place.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.” Mike shifted to the youngest Donovan. “Come on, Kev. I’ll drive you home. We can talk about Russians.”
“There are millions of Russians, Mike,” Kevin said, getting to his feet.
“Only one showed up at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart this afternoon. Forget it. I should go back to the woods.”
Andy rose, too. “I have an early start. See you all later.” He gave Colin a curt nod. “Good to have you back.” Then he smiled. “You can help Father Bracken dig bean holes for his first-ever bean-hole supper.”
“Better than getting the shit beat out of you by Russians,” Mike muttered, then exited with Andy and Kevin on his flanks.
With his brothers gone, Colin eyed the Bracken 15. “I could empty this bottle but I’m not going to.”
“All things in moderation,” Finian said, appreciating the long finish of the whiskey he had overseen from distillation to laying down in the cask. “It’s good to be back with your brothers, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Colin said with a heavy sigh.
Finian pushed back an unexpected memory of hiking in Ireland with his brother on a sparkling autumn morning. He and Declan had just turned twenty and were filled with hopes and dreams. They had paused to appreciate the view of the Atlantic and the surrounding countryside and decided then and there they would do it; they would find a way to start their own distillery.
“Brothers are to be cherished,” Finian said. “Mike especially has good instincts about people.”
“Mike hates people.”
“‘Hate’ is too strong. He’s a loner. An observer. That’s why he lives the way he does. Being here in Rock Point helping your parents with their inn, with their worries, has worn his patience.”
“Have you been out to the Bold Coast where he lives?”
“Not yet, no.”
“It’s way down east on the Bay of Fundy. Strong tides, huge rock cliffs. Remote. Stunning scenery. Mike deals with people just enough to make a living, then spends the rest of his time on his own. He’s always been like that, even before he joined the army.”
“He came home from the military a different man?”
Colin shook his head. “Same Mike, just more so. What’s going on with him and Emma?”
“My assessment? She looks at him and wonders if she can fit in among the Donovans. He looks at her and wonders if he really knows his brother, perhaps wonders if he’ll ever have a relationship in his own life such as the one you and Emma have.”
Colin frowned, then grinned suddenly. “I think I actually understand what you just said.”
“This Russian woman, Colin…”
“Not your problem. Worry about your bean-hole supper. I’ll worry about Emma’s Russian.”
“She’s making pies for the supper.”
“The Russian?”
Finian sighed. Colin, of course, knew better. “Emma.”
Colin hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Finian could see that his friend wasn’t so sure about his new love inserting herself into his life in Rock Point, perhaps less sure than he had been a few weeks ago in the heat of their first days together. It was only natural, Finian thought.
“I’ll clean up here,” he said. “You’ve had very little to drink. You’ll be fine to drive.”
“I walked down here.”
“But you’ll be driving to Emma in Heron’s Cove.”
“So I will.” Colin rose, a spark in his gray eyes. “Thanks for the whiskey. It’s good to be back.”
Finian studied his friend, noted the clear pain he was in, the depth of his fatigue. “How bad was it, Colin?”
“I’m here drinking whiskey with you, so it could have been worse.”
“Your brothers know you didn’t get your cuts and bruises in Washington.”
Colin grinned. “You don’t think I can convince them I tripped on my way to a cocktail party?”
Finian gave up and smiled. “Go, my friend. Be with your woman.”
“An excellent plan.” But as Colin pulled on his jacket, he pointed a finger at Finian. “If this Russian jeweler shows up again, you call me. Got that, Father Bracken?”
Colin left without waiting for an answer, and Finian corked the Bracken 15 year old, then poured himself a glass of water. He had to remember to keep a clear head when dealing with a Donovan. He put the uncomfortable conversation out of his mind and looked around the quiet restaurant. An elderly couple was sharing a piece of wild blueberry pie—a local favorite—and two young sisters he recognized from the church were talking themselves out of ice-cream sundaes.
His previous life in Ireland seemed so long ago, so far away.
He shook off his melancholy before it could get him in its grip. A woman on Hurley’s staff edged over to his table with a plastic tray. She was slender and shapely, with deep gold-flecked hazel eyes and a thick golden-brown braid hanging down her back. “I’ll get these glasses, Father,” she said, anchoring the tray on one hip.
He thanked her. “What’s your name?”
“Julianne Maroney. My grandmother is helping with the bean-hole supper at the church this next weekend—that is, if she’s able.”
“Is she ill?”
Julianne grabbed Mike’s and Colin’s empty whiskey glasses. “I don’t know if you’d call it ill. More like thoroughly pissed off at God.” She blushed. “Sorry, Father.”
Finian leaned back in his chair. “I understand being pissed off at God. I was for a time myself.”
“Were you? Really? And you’re not now?”
“I’m not now. In fact, I never was. I just thought I was.”
“Misdirected anger,” Julianne said thoughtfully. “That’s Granny. She loves the bean-hole supper but she says she’s mad at God for taking Grandpa away from her. He died last year, before you arrived at St. Patrick’s. We all miss him, but it’s not good for her to be so mad all the time. I think it’s making her sick.”
“Physically sick?”
Her eyes shone with sudden tears. “I think she wants to die, too. Join Grandpa in the great beyond. Heaven. Whatever.” Julianne added the water pitcher to her tray. “Do you think you could talk to her?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t tell her I said anything. Her name is Fran. Franny Maroney. Her grandmother was from Ireland. Sligo, I think. Do you know where that is?”
Finian smiled. “I do, indeed.”
“Granny likes your Irish accent. I want to go to Ireland someday. Working on it, in fact.” Julianne snatched up Andy Donovan’s whiskey glass with more force than was necessary and banged it onto her tray. “It’s nice to see Colin back in town. He does come and go. He and Kevin are my favorite Donovans. I don’t know Mike that well.”
Given the way she grabbed Andy’s water glass and banged it onto the tray with the same force as she had his whiskey glass, Finian had an idea of her opinion of the third-born Donovan.
“Andy Donovan’s a rake,” Julianne said matter-of-factly. “You know that, right, Father?”
“I haven’t heard a man called a ‘rake’ in an age.”
“It’s fitting.” She glared out the window at the dark harbor where Andy had his lobster boat moored. “I’m working my way through school. I’m finishing my master’s in marine biology. I don’t know what I was thinking…Andy and I…” She sighed. “That son of a bitch broke my heart.” Her cheek color deepened. “Sorry, Father.”
“Not at all.”
She seemed to regret having said anything. “I told Granny I’d go with her to the supper. She says she doesn’t want to go without Grandpa, but I think it’d be good for her.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Finian said.
Julianne spun back across the restaurant with her tray and through the swinging door into Hurley’s kitchen. Finian returned the Bracken 15 to the bar, where it would be safe until his next visit, said good-night and headed outside, the wood door creaking as it shut hard behind him.
He crossed the quiet parking lot, a sharpness in the air he hadn’t noticed earlier. He was just barely warm enough in his suit coat. He continued onto the narrow streets above the harbor, lined with modest homes lit up against the dark night. He passed a large shade tree, bright yellow leaves clinging to its sweeping branches and scattered on the pavement, a reminder that the long Maine winter was soon upon them. He had heard tales of brutal New England winters. This would be his first.
At least by winter the blasted bean-hole supper would be behind him.
A man in a black fleece jacket and baseball cap walked across the street from Hurley’s. Finian didn’t recognize him but the man approached him as if they knew each other. “Evening, Father. Nice night. Chilly.” The stranger hunched his shoulders. He looked fit, with fair skin and fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “Didn’t I just see you at Hurley’s with the Donovan brothers?”
Finian hadn’t noticed him. “Are you a friend of theirs?”
“Nah. I’ve never stepped foot in Rock Point until today. A kid sweeping the floors told me. Four brothers altogether. FBI, marine patrol, lobsterman, Maine guide. Tough guys. Their folks own an inn on the waterfront. The father’s a retired cop.”
“Are you asking me?”
“Just shooting the breeze. I needed to stretch my legs.” He ambled a few more steps up the street, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. “Colin Donovan’s the FBI agent brother, right, Father?”
“If you’d like, I can give him a quick ring—”
“Thanks, but I’m on my way to Heron’s Cove. It’ll be my first time there, too. I should let you get back to your walk. You serve a church here in Rock Point?”
“St. Patrick’s. We’re having a bean-hole supper next weekend. You’re welcome to join us.”
The man grinned. “I can’t remember the last time I was at a church supper.”
He said good-night, turned and walked back toward the harbor. Finian stood still, watching the man cross the street back to Hurley’s.
At least he hadn’t spoken with a Russian accent.
It was a fair guess that Colin’s secret work with the FBI involved Russians, Finian thought as he navigated the maze of now-familiar streets to the simple, stone-faced church and rectory that would be his home for at least a year. St. Patrick’s Church was a small parish, struggling more than some and less than others. A gnarled maple in front of the church had dropped all its leaves, but a river birch by the back steps—or what Colin had told Finian was a river birch—held on to its vibrant yellow leaves. The New England fall foliage season was as spectacular and festive as he had hoped and anticipated. St. Patrick’s bean-hole supper marked the last of the popular autumn suppers among the local churches.
Finian had no illusions that Rock Point and the people of St. Patrick’s had fully embraced him since his arrival in June. That was all right. His presence was deliberately temporary, and he was Irish and a different sort of priest—a widower who had lost his wife and two young daughters before turning to the priesthood.
He entered the rectory kitchen and pulled off his clerical garb, then slipped into a hand-knit Irish sweater. He went still, his pulse quickening as he noticed several envelopes on the floor by the old stove. All the windows were closed. Had he brushed them with his arm before he had left and simply hadn’t noticed?
He thought of the man who had intercepted him. Could he have sneaked in here before heading to the waterfront?
Why would anyone sneak into a rectory?
Finian started for the telephone to call Colin but stopped himself. The poor man was just back home after what had obviously been a difficult ordeal. Finian shook off his uneasiness. He hadn’t observed any sign of a break-in at the back door.
To further reassure himself, he checked the threadbare living room and dining room, but nothing was out of place, broken or disturbed. He had let his imagination run wild.
His gaze rested on a framed photograph on the china cupboard of his beautiful wife, Sally, and their sweet daughters, Kathleen and Mary, together on a sunlit Irish morning at their home above Kenmare Bay. They were smiling, and he could hear their laughter as he took the picture, only a few weeks before he lost them forever.
He didn’t come into this room every day, but when he did, he would see them. The pain of his grief was still there and he recognized—accepted—that it always would be.
But he hadn’t lost his girls forever. He’d lost them in this life.
They had gone to God and were at peace.
He left the dining room and checked the front door, discovering to his surprise that it was unlocked. Perhaps that oversight explained his sense of intrusion. With no evidence of a break-in, he had no reason to call Colin or the local police. He would feel ridiculous.
He returned to the kitchen and made tea as he opened St. Patrick’s well-worn file on the bean-hole supper. The menu was tried-and-true, unchanged in decades. Homemade baked beans, roast pork, coleslaw, applesauce, pickles, rolls and pies. The folder included handwritten recipes and instructions on digging the bean holes, building the fire inside them and burying the pots for the slow baking of the beans.
Well. Why not?
Finian settled back in his chair, reading the recipes and dismissing his stubborn sense of uneasiness as the result of having just enjoyed a bit of Irish whiskey with four intense Donovans.
5
EMMA WAS SURPRISED to find a rolling pin in one of Colin’s kitchen drawers. It had a worn, broken-in feel that suggested he had inherited it from someone else’s kitchen. She didn’t find a pastry cutter, but she used her fingers to work in the shortening and flour that a cupboard had yielded, another surprise. She managed to put together a respectable pie while Colin was drinking whiskey with his brothers and Father Bracken.
She leaned back against the sink and forced herself to focus on her surroundings and practice the kind of mindfulness she had during her days with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. They had shared all the routine chores of convent life, hiring out only what they couldn’t do themselves. She had discovered purpose and comfort in preparing meals, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening—daily work that didn’t directly involve the sisters’ mission in art conservation, education and history.
A different life, and yet she still could draw on what she had learned during her time as Sister Brigid.
She smelled the apples bubbling in the oven and felt the warmth of the kitchen, noticed the reflection of the overhead lights in the windows. Colin didn’t have drapes or curtains, only natural-fiber shades. There were no plants or knickknacks on the windowsills, although he had left a small, rounded gray stone on the sill above the sink. He must have picked it up on a Maine beach. It was smooth, polished by the sea.
She heard footsteps outside and saw him in the back door window.
“I see you didn’t lock the door behind you,” he said, entering the kitchen. “I guess you’re not worried about intruders.”
“I guess not.” She smiled through her sudden, inexplicable tension. She had just been with him at Hurley’s, but his presence still was a shock to her system. She pointed at the gas stove. “I have a pie in the oven.”
“Smells good. Apple, right?”
“I had some Northern Spies in the car. I bought them at the orchard where we went apple-picking before you took off to parts unknown.”
He shut the door behind him, a stiffness to his movements that reminded her it had been only hours, not days, since his escape from killers. “That was a good afternoon.”
“One of those afternoons you never want to end.”
“You enjoy baking.”
“Most of the time. Baking helps me think.”
His smoky eyes narrowed on her. “What were you thinking about, Special Agent Sharpe?”
Dmitri Rusakov, a Russian billionaire. Ivan Alexander, a private security consultant who had started out as Dmitri’s bodyguard. Her week in London four years ago when she had met them, shortly after the disappearance of the Russian Art Nouveau collection Dmitri had discovered in the walls of his Moscow house sixteen years earlier.
She hadn’t heard from Dmitri since London, but she had heard from Ivan.
Three times, she thought. The third was last night.
All three times his information was valuable, provided with the understanding that she would utter his name to no one.
She stood straight, noticed the shadows on Colin’s face. “You must be exhausted.”
“Emma, Emma.” He took a dish towel she had forgotten about off her shoulder and set it on the counter. “You have a lot on your mind. Calls from confidential informants in the middle of the night. Russians in Heron’s Cove.”
Emma covered her surprise that he knew about Tatiana by turning on the faucet at the sink, washing a stray apple seed down the drain. “One call, and one Russian. I assume Yank told you about the call. Who told you about Tatiana Pavlova?”
“That’s her name—Tatiana Pavlova?”
“She’s a jewelry designer in London. She’s renting a cottage in Heron’s Cove.”
“Finian ran into her at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. Why would she go all the way out there to check you out?”
“Is that what she said? That she was checking me out?”
“Close enough.”
Meaning he was operating on gut instinct. It was what he did, why he could do deep-cover work. Emma took a more measured, analytical approach. Both, she told herself, had their place.
“Do you know her?” Colin asked.
“We only met today.”
He leaned against the counter, then stood straight again. “My back doesn’t like that position. I have some nice bruises where two Russians pounded me last night. Imagine that. I also investigated a Russian arms merchant now in federal custody. And here I come home to a Russian jeweler down the road. What are the odds?”
Emma shut off the faucet. “Tatiana wants me to stop a Russian Art Nouveau collection from being stolen. She says it’s arriving in Heron’s Cove soon.”
“Who has it?”
“A woman from Phoenix. She’s American. This all goes back to a former Sharpe client.”
“The former client is Russian?”
“That’s right.”
“When you say ‘Sharpe,’ do you mean you, your grandfather, your parents, your brother or all of the above?”
Emma grabbed two pot holders off the counter by the stove. “It doesn’t matter.” She glanced back at him, felt his intensity, his restless fatigue. “Yank said you need to rest.”
“A wise man, our fearless senior agent in charge.” Colin shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “And your tip about me? Was that from a Sharpe client?”
“No.”
“Another Russian?”
Emma didn’t want to lie to him. Couldn’t lie to him. “I’m glad you’re safe, Colin. That’s what counts.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not going to talk about my source.”
“Does this source have any connection to this Russian collection?”
She tucked her hand into one of the pot holders. “I came here to do something with the bag of apples. Tatiana Pavlova isn’t your problem. I’ll deal with her. I’ve emailed my grandfather and brother already. I’ll talk to them in the morning. Tatiana was emotional, and she had no facts to back up her suspicions about the collection.”
“All right. For now.” Colin touched a finger to her cheek. “How long before the pie’s out of the oven?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” he said as if it were an eternity.
“It’s basically done now. I can turn off the oven and it’ll be fine.”
“Excellent plan.”
She yanked open the oven door, the burst of heat enough to remind her to think, take her time, be sensible. She lifted the glass pie plate off the rack and set it on top of the stove, then switched off the timer and the oven heat.
“I meant to go straight back to Heron’s Cove,” she said quietly. “I wanted to give you a chance to get some rest, but I can still go.”
“Isn’t the Sharpe house gutted by now?”
“Mostly gutted.”
“You slept here last night.”
“Because of the whiskey,” she said.
Colin took the pot holders from her and set them on the counter. “Thank you for the pie.” He slipped his arms around her. “We can talk about your new Russian friend later. Let me decide if I need rest. I slept some on my flights.”
“But not last night—”
“Not much in recent days.”
Steam rose from the pie, sweet juice from the cooked apples, sugar and cinnamon oozing over the crimped edges of the browned crust. Emma eased her arms along his sides and around to his back, her physical attraction to him as strong, as immediate, as the first time he had touched her a little more than a month ago.
“It’s been a long month,” she said. “If you want to talk, I can put on coffee and cut the pie.”
“I’m good with Fin’s whiskey and warming up my cold bed with you. We can save the pie for tomorrow.” Colin drew her closer to him. “I don’t need to talk about what happened. I’m here. I’m with you. The rest can wait.”
“I’m not hiding anything from you. I just can’t talk about everything that involves my family’s work.”
He touched his lips to hers, just a breath of a kiss. “No talking, no thinking. Not tonight.” He ran his fingers into her hair and smiled. “No sleeping on a mat in Heron’s Cove, either.”
She smiled back at him. “Where, then?”
“With me.”
“You’re in pain, aren’t you? These bastards—”
“I don’t want to think about them. I want to think about you.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “I should carry you upstairs tonight.”
He gave a small laugh. “Sweetheart, the day I can’t carry you up to bed…”
“You rugged undercover types,” Emma said, slipping from his embrace. “I’ll finish up here and meet you upstairs. Don’t fall asleep on me.”
She reached for the faucet, but in one swift move, he swept an arm around her and lifted her off her feet, then up and over his shoulder, potato-sack style. She knew several different maneuvers to get herself back onto the floor in one piece but used none of them as he headed for the stairs. Not that her maneuvers would have worked, anyway. He was strong, in good shape and determined, despite his ordeal.
He didn’t put her down at the top of the stairs. In a few more strides, he had her in his bedroom. It was pitch-dark, the shades pulled, not so much as a night-light on. She had hastily made the bed that morning, but Colin kept any remarks to himself as he ripped back the duvet, just as she had pictured, dreamed about, in the weeks since he’d left Rock Point.
“The sheets will be cold,” she said.
“Not for long.” He wasn’t breathing hard at all as he laid her on the bed. He grinned and gave a mock shudder. “Damn. It is cold.”
“Are you sure about this? You need time to decompress and reintegrate—”
“Exactly.” He fell with her onto the bed, his mouth finding hers. “Nothing’s changed, Emma. Nothing. I want you now as much as I did when I carried you up here the first time.”
“That’s good,” she whispered, her throat tight with emotion and a rush of desire.
Her shirt went first, then his, joining the blankets on the floor. Emma inhaled sharply when he skimmed his hands over her bare breasts, then caught a nipple between his lips. She sank deep into the bed, already warm from their presence. He licked, tasted, teased, even as he smoothed his palms down her sides, over her hips.
Her pulse raced; her skin was on fire.
In another two seconds, he had her jeans off, and she raked at his, until finally they, too, were gone, cast onto the floor.
He came to her, as ready as she was. She’d dreamed of this moment, ached for it, hoped for it. He was her soul mate in the only way she understood soul mates.
“Emma,” he whispered, “stop thinking.”
She could hear the amusement in his tone and drew her arms around him, coursed her palms up his back. “No more thinking. Promise. It’s good to have you here.”
“Glad you put that pie in the oven?”
The man was irresistible, impossible. She smiled, tried to answer, but he shifted position on top of her, eased himself between her legs, and she found that she couldn’t speak. Instead she drew him into her, closing her eyes, lying back, taking in the heat and hardness of him. He thrust deeply and went still, as if to give them both the chance to absorb that this was real, that they were together again, making love on a dark autumn night. Then he drove into her again, and she was lost.
Only later, when her heartbeat had calmed and the cool air chilled her overheated skin, did anything resembling a thought work its way into her consciousness, and it was a good thought. She didn’t want to be anywhere else but where she was right now.
She realized there was only one pillow left on the bed, and they were sharing it, facing each other. Colin kissed her on the forehead but didn’t say a word.
* * *
Colin ended up on the outer edge of the bed, with Emma asleep in the crook of his arm. The milky light of dawn brought out the honey tones of her hair, and he noticed her black lashes against her creamy skin. He’d slept, but not a lot. She was right about the need for decompression and reintegration. They were as important to his work as training, preparation, reports, analysis, experience and instinct. Fatigue bred mistakes. Mental and physical exhaustion put not just his own life in danger but other people’s lives, and it jeopardized the mission. It led to burnout and it frayed relationships.
The problem was, he seldom recognized when he was past the point of no return. His ability to push through exhaustion and fear was part of what made him good at undercover work, but he also knew that it made reentry into his home life—his real life—tricky, even difficult.
What made it even harder was his distaste for lies and deception.
His bruises ached, but not as much as before making love to Emma. Pain wasn’t what had awakened him and kept him awake. His instincts had. He trusted them, and they were hammering at him now, telling him that Emma’s Russian jeweler and her warning about a Russian collection weren’t just some obscure Sharpe matter.
He pictured Pete Horner’s supercilious smile. “I see you’re back from the dead.”
Back, but determined to finish the job he had started when he set out from Maine last month. He wanted Horner, Yuri and Boris in custody. He wanted to find out how they planned to get weapons now that Colin’s stash was no longer an option. Did they have other contacts in Vladimir Bulgov’s old network—access to the same stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons?
When had Horner and his Russian colleagues discovered their turncoat undercover agent had jumped into the Intracoastal? Had they searched for him? Had they tried to go back to the rented house but realized it was crawling with feds?
Had they figured out he wasn’t a turncoat after all?
Were they the type to seek revenge? Did they still think they could force him to help them?
Who was their buyer?
Colin had run the same questions over in his mind for hours.
He didn’t see himself spending the next two weeks kayaking, drinking whiskey and digging bean holes with Finian Bracken.
Making love to Emma, yes.
She and Matt Yankowski both were holding back on him. Did Yank know about this Tatiana Pavlova?
The wind rattled the windows, reminding Colin that he needed to get the house ready for the winter. He could do that over the next couple weeks, too. Caulk windows, stack wood, clean the chimney.
Dwelling on his frustrations and questions in the middle of the night wasn’t helping anything. He looked at the woman lying next to him and put emotion and desire aside. The Sharpes were a family with sixty years of investigations, contacts and secrets behind them. Emma had worked art crimes with her grandfather from childhood—long before she’d become an FBI agent.
Colin didn’t expect to know everything about her in the short time they’d been together, but he doubted even Yank knew what all lurked in the Sharpe family vault of secrets.
She shifted slightly, throwing back a slender arm. Colin held her close, and she rolled over, touched her fingertips to a deep purple-and-yellow bruise on his side. “They did this to you?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“You could have said something before we—”
“Trust me, sweetheart, I wasn’t thinking about my aches and pains while we were making love.”
“There are more bruises?”
“A few. I heal fast. Being back here helps.”
“They were trying to kill you—”
“Not when they hit me. They were just trying to get me into their car, show me they were in charge. They disagreed on killing me.”
“They knew you were a federal agent,” Emma said.
“By then, yes. They thought I was playing both sides and was willing to sell them weapons at a cut rate.” Colin thought a moment, then said, “Yank is getting the go-ahead to involve the team, but there were three men. Pete Horner, a private pilot out of Florida. He flew planes for Bulgov but wasn’t one of his regular pilots. He wanted to wait to kill me.”
“The other two?”
“Russians. Yuri and Boris. They wanted to kill me right away. Yuri is in his late forties, with short, thinning gray hair and blue eyes. Boris is younger—maybe thirty. Medium brown hair, brown eyes. Good-looking. Yuri’s kind of flat faced.”
Emma sat up slightly. “You’re describing them to me because you think I might recognize them.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“They could be anywhere. They could have split up, or they could still be together. They could have new IDs. Another boat. They could have had a car or a plane waiting for them. I had to bail too soon—”
“It sounds as if you bailed in the nick of time.”
“You mean before they fed me to the alligators?”
She gave him a faint smile. “Your sense of humor is a coping mechanism.”
He leaned in close to her. “What’s funny about alligators?”
“Do they believe they could force you to get them weapons?”
“Hard to say. They want to be arms merchants. They have contacts, resources, funds—seed money, Horner calls it.”
“Will their buyer be mad at them for not coming through with weapons?”
“Oh, yes. Very mad.” Colin realized suddenly how much he appreciated her approach to a problem. “I made it easy for Horner by turning up with orphaned weapons that I wanted to unload.”
“They knew you didn’t want a career as an arms merchant,” she said. “Just a profit. Everyone has good reason to be mad at you. Horner, the Russians, their buyer. Are they the type to exact revenge?”
Her skin was warm, as soft as anything Colin had touched in a month. “They’d have to find me first,” he said.
“And they don’t know who you are.”
“That’s right, they don’t—unless your source tipped them off.”
“My source isn’t one of them. I can tell you that much.”
“Did you break rules to find me, Emma?”
She let her fingertips drift over his chest. “I would have.” She looked up at him, her eyes as green as he’d ever seen them. “But I didn’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“You’re good at undercover work.”
It wasn’t an answer. Colin saw that she knew it, too, but he didn’t care. Not right now. He kissed her, then let the curve of his hand drift over her smooth, cool skin. “I’m good at this, too.”
6
LUCAS SHARPE SLOWED from a run to a light jog as he entered St. Stephen’s Green, a welcome oasis in the heart of Dublin. The lush greenery, flowers, statues and fountains were dripping as much as he was, if only from the early-morning rain and not a mixture of rain and sweat. He had pushed himself hard on his five-mile run. Nothing like an enigmatic, irritating email from his one-and-only sister to propel him into the Irish rain in sweats and running shoes:
I need everything you and Granddad have on London jewelry designer Tatiana Pavlova and her interest in the Rusakov collection. I’ll call tomorrow.
Btw, Colin is back.
Hope you’re enjoying Dublin,
Emma
She had sent the email at 8:00 p.m. Maine time, 1:00 a.m. in Ireland. Lucas had picked it up when he had awakened at seven in the spare bedroom of his grandfather’s Dublin apartment. Checking messages first thing, before he even crawled out of bed, was a habit he was trying, with limited success, to break. Given the five-hour time difference, there was even less point to diving onto his iPhone at first light in Ireland than in Maine, where at least he could rationalize that he wanted to stay abreast of what was going on in Europe.
As it was, by the time he read Emma’s email, it was the middle of the night on the U.S. East Coast. He would have to wait several hours before he could call his sister for more information.
Was Emma referring to Russian tycoon Dmitri Rusakov?
“Bloody likely,” Lucas muttered, jogging past a curving ornamental pond, ducks grooming themselves in the rain-soaked grass.
He slowed to a walk on a meandering path that led to a gate on the east end of the iconic green. The rain had let up but he was already soaked to the bone. Dublin was quiet so early on a drizzly Sunday morning. He crossed the normally busy street and continued into the heart of residential Georgian Dublin where his grandfather had lived for the past fifteen years.
Three days ago, Lucas had seized on the disruption of the renovations at the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove as an excuse to fly to Dublin. He had barely had time to adjust to Irish time and get over jet lag before he had received Emma’s urgent message.
Having a sister who was an FBI agent had its drawbacks, but Lucas didn’t doubt that she was as concerned about their grandfather as he was. Ostensibly Lucas was in Dublin to check out the status of the Sharpe Fine Art Recovery office there, but he was also checking out the status of his grandfather. His health, his well-being, his plans for the future.
Easier said than done with an independent-minded old codger like Wendell Sharpe, Lucas thought with a sigh of exasperation.
He came to the narrow brick town house where his grandfather had an apartment. Born in Dublin, Wendell Sharpe had been just two when he had left Ireland with his parents for Boston. They soon moved to southern Maine, where his father had worked as a property manager and his mother as a domestic at large summer homes. Wendell had started out as a security guard at a Portland museum, ultimately finding his calling in investigating and recovering missing fine art and antiques.
His decision to open a Dublin office and return to Ireland had been a surprise, but it had also worked out well. At first, his only son—Lucas’s father—had run the Heron’s Cove office. Then a fall on the ice landed Timothy Sharpe in chronic pain, and bit by bit Lucas took over.
Now in his early eighties, Wendell, a widower for almost two decades, was giving up day-to-day work in the business to which he had devoted his life and edging into retirement, or at least semi-retirement.
Lucas went around back and ducked through a gate onto the terrace and into the kitchen. It was past eight but still no sign that his grandfather had yet rolled out of bed. Lucas was dying for coffee but returned to the small guest room and stripped off his wet clothes, leaving them in a heap on the tile floor. He pulled on a robe and headed for the apartment’s only bathroom.
A hot shower, shave and dry clothes didn’t ease his tension.
He headed back to the kitchen, filled the electric kettle with tap water and plugged it in. He dumped loose-leaf Irish Breakfast tea into an earthenware pot for his grandfather and fresh-ground beans into a glass coffee press for himself. By the time he had tea and coffee steeping, his host entered the kitchen dressed in dark gray wool trousers, a crisp white shirt, black vest and red bowtie.
“It’s Sunday, Granddad,” Lucas said.
“I thought I might go to church. Don’t worry. The rafters won’t cave in. I’ve been going more frequently in recent months.”
Lucas was worried, although not about his grandfather’s churchgoing habits. “I just don’t want you to be depressed,” he said, loading the tea, coffee, plates, silverware and a basket of toast onto a tray.
His grandfather looked mystified. “Depressed? Why would I be depressed?”
“Sometimes there’s not a reason. It just happens. Come on. The rain’s stopped. Let’s have breakfast outside.”
Lucas carried the tray and Wendell grabbed a towel to dry off the chairs and two-person round table on the small brick terrace. The sun broke through the clouds as they sat across from each other. They were both lanky and blue-eyed, but any resemblance ended there. Except for her green eyes, Emma favored their grandfather more than Lucas did.
He watched his grandfather butter a piece of toast with a steady hand. For all his expertise in fine art, Wendell Sharpe lived simply. The only art he owned was by contemporary artists and craftspeople, mostly Irish, whose work appealed to him for whatever reason. He didn’t care about critics, reviews, whether a particular work or particular artist would ever end up in a museum or prized by discerning collectors. He just bought and bartered for what he liked. His lack of snobbery, combined with his knowledge, experience and extensive contacts, made him a formidable, insightful expert in art theft and recovery. He could see, think and feel what others couldn’t or overlooked because of their blind spots and prejudices.
Lucas wanted to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, but he knew, too, that he had to carve out his own path. And he was just thirty-four. Wendell did have a few decades on his only grandson.
Wendell took a bite of toast and poured tea. “What’s on your mind, Lucas?”
“Do you know a London jeweler named Tatiana Pavlova?”
“No, I don’t, but that’s a Russian name. Why? Who is she?”
“I don’t know. Emma sent an email last night asking about her. She said she’d call today.” Lucas poured his coffee, appreciated its heat. “She also wants anything we have on the Rusakov collection.”
“The Rusakov collection?” Wendell went still, knife and toast in hand. “You’re sure?”
Lucas nodded. “I’m sure. You can read the email if you’d like.”
“No. I don’t need to read it.” He set his toast on his plate and glanced at the sky, the sun back behind the shifting gray clouds. He seemed to give himself a mental shake, then picked up his teacup and focused again on Lucas. “What else did Emma say?”
“Colin Donovan is back.”
“I met him in September when he and Emma were in Ireland chasing that killer. Good-looking fellow. All the Donovans are.”
“I didn’t realize you knew them,” Lucas said, already wishing he’d made more coffee.
“They’d come by the waterfront from time to time, mostly in a lobster boat. I’d wave. They’d wave. That was the extent of it. They were teenagers. I was old even back then. Their father was a town police officer.”
“Did you think Colin would become an FBI agent?”
“No, I thought he’d become a lobsterman. I’m better at figuring out art thieves than I am at figuring out law enforcement officers. They surprise me every time. Look at Emma. You said Colin’s back? Where did he go?”
“Washington, supposedly. I don’t think that’s the whole story. I think he was in trouble.”
Wendell nodded thoughtfully. “I suspect trouble’s a way of life for Colin Donovan. As it’s becoming for Emma, I fear.”
“They’re FBI agents, Granddad. It’s their job to look for trouble. What about this collection? Does it in fact belong to Dmitri Rusakov?”
Wendell shifted in his chair, a ray of sunlight catching his thinning white hair. “I haven’t been back to Maine in far too long. How is life there?”
“It’s fine,” Lucas said, not hiding his impatience well. “Granddad—”
“I’ll recognize the house when you’re finished with it?”
“Yes. I’ve worked with an architect and designer to make sure we keep its character. My main focus is modernizing the offices. You’ve seen the drawings.”
“The apartment will be ready by winter?”
“Yes, but you have a place to stay in Heron’s Cove anytime you want to be there. You know you can always stay at my place. And you’ll love the apartment when it’s done. I promise.”
“I know I will, Lucas,” Wendell said, pouring himself more tea. “I’m physically and mentally fit for a man my age, but I can’t help but feel that moving back to Heron’s Cove will mean I’m about to die. People will take it that way, though. Mark my words.”
Lucas felt a spray of drizzle and sat back, wishing now he’d stayed inside and turned on the Irish news instead of trying to have a conversation with his grandfather. Coffee first. Then talk of going home to die.
The rain didn’t develop, and the sun popped out again.
Finally Lucas said, “Granddad, if you’re having second thoughts about retiring, we can work something out. You’ll still be a consultant but if you miss going into an office, there are options.”
“I know, I know.”
“And there’s a difference between retirement and death, you know.”
His grandfather gave a wry smile. “Yes, I do know, Lucas. What about you? You never thought you’d be running the show at your age. You thought you’d have more time to sow your wild oats.”
“Dad’s accident changed all that.”
“And Emma,” Wendell said. “The convent, the FBI. We thought you would share the responsibility of running the business with her.”
“It’s all worked out. Dad’s still a valuable asset to the business even if he can’t run it. Mom, too.”
With another sigh, Wendell ate his toast, drank more of his tea. “Your father’s strength was always research and analysis. He and Emma have that same ability to dig into something and see all the pieces and how they might fit together.”
Lucas again reined in his impatience and focused on enjoying his coffee and toast. He could feel his run in the backs of his thighs. He had pushed too hard. He could blame jet lag, but he didn’t. He blamed Emma’s email, and his grandfather’s attempt to deflect the questions about Pavlova and Rusakov—and his melancholy mood. Lucas had hoped that his presence in Dublin would be a boost for his grandfather. Instead, he was just another reminder that Wendell Sharpe had more days behind him than ahead of him. Transferring what he knew—what wasn’t in the files—to his grandson drew him into the past and underscored that he was at the end of a long and storied career.
“I don’t know what the next chapter will be for me,” Wendell said, buttering his last triangle of toast, “but it’ll be short.”
“Granddad, that’s morbid.”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
“You could live to a hundred-and-five. That’s more than twenty years.”
“I shudder at the thought.” He winked. “It’s all right, Lucas. I’m not about to leap off the Cliffs of Moher. In fact, I’ve decided to take a sort of walkabout on the southwest coast.”
“Of Ireland?”
“Yes, of Ireland. Of course.”
“It’s late October, Granddad.”
“The weather’s fine. There’ll be rain, of course, but the days are getting shorter. I’ll just have to find my way to a pub once it gets dark.”
“When will you leave?”
“As soon as you do. I presume you’ll be going to London to look into this Tatiana Pavlova. Ah, Lucas.” His grandfather looked up at the sky again, peeks of blue showing now. “Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions. Have you learned that yet in your work?”
“I treat every situation individually—”
“That sounds like a line from a Sharpe Fine Art Recovery brochure, or these days its website.” Wendell looked across the table, his blue eyes as incisive as ever. “It’s against Emma’s nature not to ask a question, to dig deeper. She wants to have all the pieces, the whole picture. I’m convinced that’s one reason she entered the convent. Asking, probing, analyzing, thinking. Those practices come naturally to her.”
“She can also kick ass,” Lucas pointed out, if only to lighten the mood.
“And shoot,” his grandfather added with a laugh.
Even as teenagers, Lucas had noticed Emma’s fascination with the intersection of art crimes and other major crimes—the illegal trafficking of weapons and drugs, human trafficking, extortion, money laundering, murder. That interest coupled with her expertise in art history and preservation had made her an attractive candidate for the FBI.
“I’d see more of both you and Emma if I moved back to Heron’s Cove,” Wendell said, pensive again. “That would be a good thing.”
“We’d like it, Granddad. You know that, I hope.”
He nodded. “I do. Lucas…” His grandfather sighed as if in pain. “We do the best we can to influence, to inform, but in the end, we can’t control the people who come to us for help. What they want, what they know, what they’re willing to tell us.”
“Are you talking about Tatiana Pavlova and the Rusakov collection now?”
“I told you I don’t know this Tatiana Pavlova.” He drank more tea, setting the cup off balance on the saucer, so much so that it tipped off on its side with a clatter; he left it, pressed his cloth napkin to his lips, then put the napkin back in his lap. “Dmitri Rusakov hired us twenty years ago. I met with him in Moscow. Then he hired us again four years ago. And I sent Emma to him in London.”
“Granddad,” Lucas said, “why don’t I know any of this?”
He tapped the tip of his index finger to his temple. “Because it’s one of those cases that’s in here and not in the files.” He got stiffly to his feet and glanced at his watch. “I don’t want to be late for church.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lucas said, rising.
Wendell’s eyes sparked with sudden humor and energy. “Now I will have to warn Father O’Leary or the rafters will cave in for sure.”
“You can tell me about Dmitri Rusakov on the way.”
* * *
After sitting impatiently through church with his grandfather, Lucas let himself into the Dublin office of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery on the second floor of a small brick building on a cobblestone street a few blocks off St. Stephen’s Green. He shut the door quietly behind him and noticed through the tall windows that the day had gone gray again. He didn’t mind. He just needed time to think.
His grandfather was having a postchurch full Irish breakfast with friends. In preparation for his retirement, he had removed all his personal items and personal files from the office where he had worked for the past decade and a half, leaving behind two desks, shelves, a credenza and a computer. There was no hint of the intriguing work that had gone on there. He had never been one for bulking up a staff, instead taking on consultants and temporary assistants as needed. Lucas wanted to keep a Dublin office but needed to identify a role for it now that his grandfather wouldn’t be there on a daily basis.
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Carla Neggers
After escaping certain death, deep-cover agent Colin Donovan is back home on the Maine coast with his new love, FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe.When Tatiana Pavlova, a London-based jewelry designer, arrives in Heron's Cove, asking for Emma's help, A prized collection from a lost era of Russian opulence, decadence and rare beauty has resurfaced, and Tatiana warns Emma it's about to be stolen again. And Colin realizes his nightmare isn't over. It's just begun. And everyone you love is a target… Emma guards her past closely, and Colin is determined to unlock her secrets.As they investigate the mysterious collection and the equally mysterious Tatiana, they confront their greatest challenge. Now they must count on their expertise–and each other–to outwit an enemywho wants to destroy them and everyone they love most. Who can you afford to trust?“A writer at the absolute top of her craft." —Providence Journal
New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers returns with a gripping story of romantic suspense, where FBI agents Sharpe and Donovan must decide whether working alone or standing together is the only way to outwit an enemy set to tear them apart.
When your safety depends on living a lie…
After escaping certain death, deep-cover agent Colin Donovan is back home on the Maine coast with his new love, FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe. Then Tatiana Pavlova, a London-based jewelry designer, arrives in Heron’s Cove, asking for Emma’s help—a prized collection from a lost era of Russian opulence, decadence and rare beauty has resurfaced, and Tatiana warns Emma it’s about to be stolen again. And Colin realizes his nightmare isn’t over. It’s just begun.
And everyone you love is a target...
Emma guards her past closely, and Colin is determined to unlock her secrets. As they investigate the mysterious collection and the equally mysterious Tatiana, they confront their greatest challenge. Now they must count on their expertise—and each other—to outwit an enemy who wants to destroy them and everyone they love most.
Who can you afford to trust?
Heron’s
Cove
Carla Neggers
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To Jodi Reamer
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u78a6f689-8f30-527f-a528-8426237be938)
Chapter 2 (#u270a0a1e-3d80-507a-9440-f8c8554dc5e3)
Chapter 3 (#u57e1bada-e5d0-5059-a1a9-5444586254b2)
Chapter 4 (#ua627c214-9bed-5e69-b0b4-cd65c21c1ecc)
Chapter 5 (#u1d5e0ccf-2b48-5496-82d0-93820126d6b4)
Chapter 6 (#u282495ef-ffc6-59f9-94a6-8ca266f035bf)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)
1
WITH THREE DONOVAN brothers and an Irish priest watching her, Emma Sharpe choked back her sample of the smoky single-malt Scotch—her sixth and last tasting of the night. “Intense,” she said, managing not to slam the tulip-shaped nosing glass on the table and grab the pitcher of water. Give it a few seconds. She was an FBI agent, after all. Tough as nails. She smiled at the four men. “People pay to drink this one, huh?”
“Dearly,” Finian Bracken, the Irish priest, said. “You’re not one for a heavily peated whiskey, I see.”
Emma tried to distinguish the other flavors of the sample—spices, fruits, whatever—but only tasted the peat. “I don’t know if I’m one for a lightly peated whiskey, either.”
A cold wind penetrated Hurley’s thin walls and sprayed the old windows with salt water and rain. The restaurant, a fixture on the Rock Point harbor, was basically a shack that jutted out over the water. Now only a few lights penetrated the dark night and fog. Finian had organized the impromptu tasting, setting up on a back table away from what few diners were there on a windy, rainy late-October Friday. He and Michael, Andy and Kevin Donovan were already gathered over a half-dozen bottles of high-end whiskey when Emma had arrived in southern Maine an hour ago, up from Boston and her job with a small, specialized FBI unit.
Only Colin, the second-born Donovan, wasn’t in Rock Point. Mike was a Maine guide, Andy a lobsterman and Kevin a state marine patrol officer, but, like Emma, Colin was an FBI agent.
Not like me, she thought.
She specialized in art crimes. Colin was a deep-cover agent. He’d left his hometown a month ago, pretending to return to FBI headquarters in Washington. The true nature of his work was known to only a few even within the FBI, but his brothers had guessed that he didn’t sit at a desk. Initially he’d kept in touch at least intermittently with his family and friends—and Emma—but for the past three weeks, no one had heard from him.
The silence was far too long, not just for his family and friends but for the FBI.
And for Emma.
She felt the draft at her feet. She had come prepared for the conditions, dressed in jeans, black merino wool sweater, raincoat, wool socks and Frye boots. The Donovans were in a mix of flannel, canvas and denim, no sign they even noticed the cold and the damp. Finian had opted against his usual black suit and Roman collar and instead wore a dark gray Irish-knit sweater and black corduroy trousers. He was a sharp-featured, handsome Irishman in his late thirties who had arrived in the small Maine fishing village in June. He had run into Colin, home for a few days in the midst of a difficult, dangerous mission, and they quickly became unexpected friends.
Emma hadn’t met Colin until September. She suspected his friendship with the Irish priest was less of a mystery to her than to his brothers. Finian Bracken was a fish out of water in Rock Point. He had no history with the town and little familiarity with the FBI. He also had a ready Irish wit, and he knew whiskey. He was objective, intelligent, tolerant—a safe friend for a federal agent with secrets.
Andy Donovan held his small glass to the light and examined the Scotch’s deep caramel color, then swirled it and brought it to his nose. He raised his eyes—the same shade of gray as Colin’s—to Finian. “Do you want me to tell you what I smell?”
“If you like,” Finian said. “Just sniff. Don’t inhale deeply. It’s not a yoga class.”
“As if you’d ever find one of us in a yoga class,” Andy said, then shrugged. “It smells like peat.”
Finian observed him with interest. “What else? Do you smell spices, fruit—chocolate, maybe?”
“Nope. It smells like an expensive Scotch to me.”
“Have a taste, then,” the priest said with a sigh, his Irish Kerry accent more pronounced than usual.
“No problem.” Andy tossed back the Scotch and made a face. “I’m with Emma. Too smoky for me.”
It was the final whiskey of the evening. The Donovan brothers hadn’t left so much as a drop in any of the specially designed glasses, one for each whiskey. The glasses all had little hats, like Scottish tams, that concentrated the aromas of each sample. Finian had brought them from the rectory; Hurley’s didn’t have whiskey nosing glasses. Before turning to the priesthood six years ago, Finian and his twin brother, Declan, had founded and operated Bracken Distillers on the southwest Irish coast. Bracken 15 year old, an award-winning single malt and rare peated Irish whiskey, was one of the night’s offerings—or “expressions,” as Finian called his lineup of bottles.
Emma noticed Mike, the eldest Donovan, eyeing her from across the round table. He was down from the remote Bold Coast where he worked as an independent wilderness guide. “Special Agent Sharpe’s a wine drinker. Aren’t you, Emma?”
She couldn’t detect any hint of criticism or sarcasm in his tone, but he still was looking at her as if she had done something wrong. “I like wine.” She kept any defensiveness out of her voice. “How about you, Mike? Do you pack a nice Central Coast red in your canoe when you take tourists on moose-sighting excursions?”
Kevin and Andy both grinned. Mike ignored them and settled back in his chair. “I took a couple out on the river in August. They had a wicker picnic hamper stocked with real wineglasses, cloth napkins, silver cutlery, French cheese, a baguette, apples and pears and two bottles of fancy wine.”
“Must have weighed down the canoe,” Kevin, the marine patrol officer, said.
“Oh, yeah. They insisted on having a picnic on the riverbank but they didn’t count on Maine mosquitoes. They lasted three minutes before we had to throw everything back in the canoe. We paddled straight back to their car.”
“Don’t tell me,” Andy said, amused. “The next stop on their Maine tour was Heron’s Cove.”
“Couldn’t wait to get there. I’m sure they enjoyed the quaint shops and fancy restaurants.”
“Everyone does,” Emma said.
“I don’t care.” Mike raised his as-yet untouched glass of the heavily peated Scotch; his eyes were lighter than those of his three younger brothers but no less intense. “Sláinte.”
Finian winked at Emma but said nothing. She reached for the Inish Turk Beg, a clear, triple-distilled whiskey from an independent distillery on a small island off the west coast of Ireland. She splashed a little into a fresh glass, set down the distinctive tilted bottle, then held up her glass to Mike. “Sláinte.”
He swallowed the Scotch and she sipped the Inish Turk Beg, one of Finian’s favorites. He had explained that it was gentle on the palate, clean and fresh on the nose, with fruity aromas, flavors of apple and orange zest and a dry finish. Emma wasn’t discriminating enough to go much beyond whether she could get a taste down with or without choking.
“Colin would have enjoyed tonight,” said his eldest brother, still watching her.
Emma nodded. “He’ll have that chance soon. Lots of whiskey left.”
“Are you and your FBI friends any closer to finding him?”
“You’re assuming he’s missing—”
“That’s right. I am.”
Her head spun and she wished she had skipped the extra taste of the Inish Turk Beg. “I can’t discuss your brother’s work with you.”
Andy and Kevin were as serious now as Mike was. Even Kevin, a law enforcement officer himself, didn’t have any information on his older brother’s work as one of the FBI’s most valuable ghosts. Emma had only a few details on his latest mission herself. It wasn’t as if Colin couldn’t handle himself in a dangerous situation. He was bold, aggressive and tough.
He was also sexy, she thought.
Incredibly sexy, in fact.
She kept that assessment to herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why Colin hasn’t been in touch.”
“He’s not a desk jockey in Washington.” Mike got up abruptly, grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. “You don’t have to confirm or deny. We all know. He’s always stuck his nose in dangerous situations. Even as kids, he’d be the one jumping into cold water and waves, chasing sharks. It’s his way.”
“I understand that,” Emma said.
“Is it your way, Emma?”
She didn’t respond at once. Aware of the four men watching her, she picked up one of the tiny tam-style hats and set it atop a glass. “Maybe Colin and I have more in common than you realize.”
“You’re a Sharpe,” Mike said. “You were a nun.”
“A novice. I never made my final vows.” Emma kept her voice even, neutral. “I studied art history and art conservation during my time with the sisters. I come from a family of art detectives. That background helps in my work with the FBI.”
Mike shrugged on his jacket. “I just think you have a knack for attracting trouble.”
“And you’re worried about your brother.”
“Maybe I’m worried about you, too.”
She let his comment slide. She had already said too much. “When do you go home?”
He grinned. “Not soon enough for you, I expect.” The seriousness returned to his eyes as he looked down at her. “If you hear from Colin, you’ll let us know, okay?”
It was more of an order than a request but Emma nodded. “I will, Mike.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Take care of yourself.” He shifted his gaze to Finian. “Thanks for the whiskey and the whiskey education, Father. Uisce beatha. ‘The water of life.’ I like that.”
“We’ll do it again when Colin’s in town,” Finian said.
“Yeah. We will.” The eldest Donovan grinned suddenly. “I think I tasted chocolate in that last Scotch.”
Kevin and Andy thanked Finian and said good-night to him and to Emma as they followed Mike out of the nearly empty restaurant. The late-October weather wouldn’t faze them. They would take whatever weather northern New England threw at them in stride. Rain, snow, sleet, fog, wind. Wouldn’t matter.
Once the brothers disappeared through the outer door, Finian sighed as he corked the Inish Turk Beg. “If you had information that could ease their worry, Emma, would you give it to them? Could you?”
“If I’d heard from Colin, I’d have said so.”
“His story of an intense schedule in Washington has worn thin. I assume the FBI will be in touch with his family if need be.”
Emma felt the whiskey burning in her throat. “The safety of an agent—any agent—is of paramount importance to the FBI. Colin’s brothers know that.”
“But you don’t know where he is, do you?”
The look he gave her told her she didn’t need to answer.
A strong gust of wind whistled, whipped more rain against the windows. The small, protected working harbor was lost in the dense, swirling fog. In September, Emma had gone on a boat ride with Colin, kayaked with him, picked apples with him. Laughed, made love. They had met over the horrific murder of a nun at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart, Emma’s former convent. Until then, she hadn’t realized another FBI agent had grown up just a few miles from her own home in Heron’s Cove. They’d had a short time together before Colin was gone again, chasing illegal arms merchants.
He had the FBI behind him but, ultimately, he was alone. Emma understood he could go dark, but not like this. Not with no word for weeks.
His Irish friend’s midnight eyes narrowed on her. “Colin’s in trouble, isn’t he, Emma? It’s all right. You don’t have to answer. I watched you tonight. I could see the answer for myself.”
“He’s independent.”
“He’s good at working alone. All the Donovans are.”
She watched raindrops slide down the window. “Do you ever feel alone here?”
“I’m here for a reason. I have a purpose.”
She glanced back at Finian. “That doesn’t answer the question, does it?”
“It does for me.”
She thought she understood what he meant. After the deaths of his wife and their two young daughters in a sailing accident, he had walked away from Bracken Distillers to enter the priesthood and follow his calling wherever it took him. In June, he had landed in Rock Point to serve struggling St. Patrick’s parish while its priest, Father Callaghan, was in Ireland for a year.
Emma touched the elegant, distinctive gold label of the Bracken 15 year old. “Do you miss Ireland?”
“Every day. That doesn’t mean I’m unhappy here. What about you, Emma? Are you happy?”
His question caught her off guard. “Right now?”
“In your life. In what you do. In where you are, at this moment.”
A cold draft came through the thin walls and worn floorboards. “I don’t miss the convent, Father, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He smiled. “You only call me ‘Father’ when you think I’m speaking about your life as a religious sister.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said with a small laugh. “Yes, Fin, I’m happy. In my work, in my private life. I haven’t known Colin long but our relationship feels like the real thing. I understand that I’m a new addition to his life, and that his brothers regard me as impermanent.”
“Is that how you feel, Emma? Impermanent?”
“Colin and I are very different. I know that much.”
“You’re worried about him, too. And you miss him.”
“Yes.”
She helped herself to a couple of the Simple White Stonewall Kitchen crackers Finian had provided, and his Donovan tasters hadn’t touched, then poured water from one of Hurley’s plastic pitchers. Finian disapproved of adding ice or water to whiskey but he encouraged having water on the side to help counter the dehydrating effects of the alcohol. Only during a tasting did he tolerate, if reluctantly, adding a bit of room-temperature water to the whiskey, which arguably helped with “nosing” the aromas, but there’d been no takers tonight. Mike, Andy and Kevin had all stuck to whiskey, period. Emma had followed their lead, if, admittedly, in part because of their scrutiny.
Her head spun with whiskey, fatigue and tension—with the uncertainty and frustration she felt at not knowing where Colin was, if he was safe. “He’ll be back, Fin,” she said in a half whisper.
Finian transferred the tasting glasses to a tray and took them to the empty bar. Hurley’s would wash them and he would pick them up tomorrow. Emma ate the crackers and took a few sips of the water, thinking now that she should have stayed in Boston for the weekend instead of making the two-hour drive to southern Maine. She had become adept at avoiding lonely evenings, but tonight, she suspected, would be very lonely indeed.
Finian returned to the table and lined up bottles of Glenfiddich, Inish Turk Beg, Midleton, Lavagulin, Connemara and Talisker. Most of his choices for the evening were from his private stock. “No one over imbibed,” he said.
“I’m still not fit to drive.” Emma got to her feet and pulled on her raincoat, skipping buttons and just tying the belt loosely around her. “I can help carry stuff to your car.”
“I walked here from the rectory. I’ll come with the car to pick up everything in the morning.”
“I left mine at Colin’s house and walked down here, too. I made it before the rain started, but it looks as if it’s letting up. We can walk back together if you’d like.”
“That’d be good. Emma…” Finian touched her shoulder, none of his usual spark or humor in his eyes. “You must find Colin.”
She nodded. “I know, Fin.”
They headed out into the cool evening air, the fog breaking up, the breeze steady off the water, smelling of salt, sand and seaweed. She had enjoyed the evening, listening to Finian describe the different “expressions” of whiskey—or whisky, if it were Scotch—and how each was made, dispelling myths and preconceptions in his Irish brogue. She had enjoyed being with Mike, Andy and Kevin as they had teased Finian Bracken, her, each other.
Even so, ultimately, she knew, her presence had reminded Colin’s brothers and his Irish priest friend of what they were trying so hard not to think about—that Colin was an FBI agent who hadn’t been in touch in far too long, and was likely in trouble.
* * *
Emma entered Colin’s small Craftsman-style house through the back, using the key he had given her before his abrupt departure a month ago. He didn’t pop out of the shadows, and he wasn’t in his kitchen, drinking one of the bottles of Smithwick’s he had left in the stainless-steel refrigerator.
The house was quiet and cold, masculine with its dark woods and neutral colors.
His refuge, she thought, heading to the front room.
He wasn’t there, either, sitting by the fireplace in the dark with a glass of Bracken’s finest.
Not that she had expected him to be. Technically they worked on the same team. She would know if he were back in Maine.
As she went up the stairs, she noticed a light, undisturbed film of dust on the wood rail, a tangible reminder of his absence.
She made her way down a short hall to the back bedroom he had chosen for himself.
No Colin Donovan there, either.
Emma turned on a lamp on the nightstand. She remembered him sweeping her into his arms a few short weeks ago, as if she were a fairy princess. He’d carried her upstairs and laid her on the soft duvet atop his bed.
They had fallen for each other so fast, so hard.
Madness, really.
And perfect.
She stood at his oak dresser and ran her fingertips over the stack of books, sports watch and a few coins that Colin had left. She caught her reflection in the mirror and stared at herself, as if somehow it would help her see answers that so far had eluded her. She had moved to Boston in March to join a small, specialized team. Her area of expertise was art crimes and their intersection with other major crimes. In early June, she had discovered that Vladimir Bulgov, a wealthy Russian citizen and the kingpin of a transnational network of illegal arms traffickers, had a passion—a perfectly legal passion—for Picasso and would be in Los Angeles for an auction.
At the time, Emma had suspected a deep-cover operative was chasing Bulgov but had no idea who it was. When she met Colin in Maine in September, she thought he was a lobsterman.
Well, for a minute, anyway.
She had learned that his friend and former contact agent was Matt Yankowski, the same senior agent who had encouraged her to join the FBI as a young novice and then handpicked her for his new Boston-based team.
Colin had done the hard, dangerous, often solitary work to investigate and build the case against Vladimir Bulgov. The Los Angeles auction was a way to lure Bulgov onto U.S. soil and arrest him.
Emma had no illusions that Matt Yankowski—Yank—had recruited her solely because of her expertise in art and art crimes. She was also a Sharpe. Her grandfather was Wendell Sharpe, a renowned art detective who had started Sharpe Fine Art Recovery out of his home in Heron’s Cove. He had six decades of experience working with the FBI, Interpol, Scotland Yard and countless other law enforcement agencies, as well as embassies, insurance companies and individuals—celebrities, princes, heiresses, CEOs, new money, old money. Fifteen years ago, he had opened an office in his native Dublin and had worked there ever since. Now in his early eighties, he was semi-retired and Emma’s older brother, Lucas, was running the family business.
Yank had known from the moment he met her at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart convent and decided he wanted her in the FBI that as a Sharpe, she had her own sources, her own contacts.
Emma noticed her cheeks were pink from the wind and cold. As Finian Bracken had wished her a simple good-night, continuing on his way to St. Patrick’s rectory, she had felt his deep concern for his friend. She understood. She was worried about Colin, too.
She turned from the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed, tugged off her boots, her wool socks. She had come up to Rock Point several times during Colin’s absence but never stayed overnight at his house. She had always gone back to her apartment in Boston or the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove.
She flopped back onto the soft duvet and gazed up at the ceiling, knowing it wasn’t just the whiskey that was keeping her in Rock Point. It was being here, in Colin’s house. In his bed.
“Colin, Colin. Where are you?”
Her whisper sounded hollow, even bewildered. She sat up straight, shivered in the chilly room. The sheets would be cold. And no Colin there to help warm them.
Her cell phone rang and she realized she still had on her raincoat and dug her phone out of the outer pocket.
A private number.
She answered without giving her name. “Hello, who is this?”
“Hello, Emma Sharpe. It’s good to hear your voice.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the Russian-accented voice of the man on the other end. He would never identify himself over the phone, and she would never ask, or guess, or say who she thought—knew—he was.
“And yours,” she said.
A half beat’s pause. “Your man is in danger.”
Colin.
Emma stood up from the bed, the floor cold on her bare feet. “Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
He gave her an address in Fort Lauderdale, and disconnected before she could thank him or ask any questions.
Another ghost, she thought, and dialed Matt Yankowski.
2
THE TWO RUSSIANS wanted to kill him now. Pete Horner, the American, wanted to wait. Then kill him if he didn’t produce the weapons they wanted. In their shoes, Colin Donovan would have sided with the Russians. Time to cut their losses. Too many risks doing business with a turncoat FBI agent.
They were out by the pool behind the pale yellow stucco house that Horner had rented on a finger of the intricate web of canals that had given Fort Lauderdale its nickname as the Venice of America. It was a hot, humid night, even for South Florida in late October.
A cabin cruiser was tied to a private dock in the dark, quiet Intracoastal water. Colin had the feeling the boat was in his immediate future. He was already sore from a few warning blows back at the marina where he had tried to persuade his new friends to let him be the one to take them to the weapons they wanted, but they weren’t doing this his way. They were doing it their way.
Horner and the two Russians were armed. Colin wasn’t.
“Watch this guy,” Yuri, the older of the two Russians, said. He had short, thinning gray hair and a scar under his left eye, his English excellent but heavily accented. “He’s like cat. He has nine lives. Maybe more. First he’s alive, then he’s dead. Now he’s alive again.”
The younger Russian, Boris, who was especially eager to kill Colin now, stood at the edge of the pool, the water turquoise in the light from the house. Boris was good-looking, with wavy brown hair, pale brown eyes and no visible scars. Colin didn’t know their last names and doubted their first names were Yuri and Boris. The American, however, really was Pete Horner, a private pilot in his mid-forties who had flown one of Vladimir Bulgov’s arms-smuggling cargo planes.
A good thing for Colin, Horner was the leader of the armed trio and still held out hope that their FBI agent could help them. “We give him this one chance to deliver,” Horner said. “If he does, he gets to live. That’s the deal.”
That clearly wasn’t the deal but Colin wasn’t offended at being lied to by a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, amoral thug who wanted to procure illegal weapons and then sell them to anyone who would give him his price—drug cartels, warlords, guerrilla groups, terrorist cells, paramilitary organizations, mass murderers. Horner didn’t care provided he got paid, and he would get paid more selling weapons—picking up the pieces of Vladimir Bulgov’s network—than he ever had flying planes.
The house behind them was an expensive furnished rental walled off from its upscale neighborhood of currently absent snowbirds. Horner lived above his means, and the lure of easy money was obviously too much for him to resist.
“I’ll take you to the arms,” Colin said. “I stashed them myself.”
“When?” Horner asked.
“I told you. Two days after Bulgov’s arrest in June. My buyer got cold feet and bolted. I had to disappear for a while and let the dust settle.”
Yuri narrowed his gaze on Colin. “Does FBI think you are dead?”
Colin shook his head. “I couldn’t fake my death with them. I’m an undercover agent. Turning up dead would have drawn too much attention to me. You boys might keep that in mind. The FBI thinks I’m on their side. If you kill me, they won’t rest until they catch you.”
Boris smirked. “Or FBI thanks us for killing a traitor.”
“The weapons he promises are a fiction,” Yuri said.
“They’re not a fiction,” Horner said. “He bought them with FBI money for a fake buyer but he was running his own game. He had his own buyer waiting in the wings. A real buyer.”
“I like how you talk about me as if I’m not standing here,” Colin said. “We’ve been through this. I put the weapons in a safe place and told the FBI that Bulgov had them. Then I let everyone in Bulgov’s world think I was dead and bided my time until I could find another buyer. That would be you three budding arms merchants.”
The younger Russian looked disdainful. “He double-crossed the FBI.”
Honor among thugs, Colin thought. “I don’t want a career doing this,” he said. “I want to unload my stash and disappear. I’ll take you to enough weapons to prove I’m legitimate. Then we do business. My price is a third of what your buyer is willing to pay. You’ll make a tidy profit. It’s a risk worth taking.”
Horner gave him a cool look. “I didn’t say we had a buyer.”
Colin didn’t argue but he knew they had a buyer.
Yuri jumped into the aft deck of the boat. “I still say we kill him now. We can find other weapons.”
“We don’t have time,” Horner said.
Colin rubbed a bruise on his forearm where he had blocked Boris’s first hit. “Your buyer’s impatient.”
“Everyone is impatient,” Boris said with a short, disgusted laugh.
Horner shrugged. “You and Yuri have a point but your way, we know we get nothing. My way, we have a chance.”
From the boat, Yuri pointed a thick finger at Colin. “And if our deep-cover agent here leads us straight to the FBI instead of to weapons? What chance do we have then?”
Horner didn’t answer. He motioned with his gun for Colin to climb into the boat. “Let’s go.”
As Colin got in the boat, pretending to be in more pain than he was, he noticed the light from the patio catch Horner’s face, and he knew. The Russians had finally persuaded him that the risk of walking into an FBI trap was too great. The promise of fast, easy weapons was a mirage. They would have to find another source.
Kill the FBI agent now. Move on.
Only Horner wouldn’t kill Colin here by his pool. He would get out to the ocean first, then kill him and throw his body overboard.
Colin had expected that resurfacing as his undercover alter ego would be tricky, suspicious, but sometimes it just wasn’t any fun to be right.
Faking a limp, he sat in a corner of the aft deck. Horner and his two Russian thugs had no respect for a turncoat FBI agent; even one they had hoped would lead them to an easy cache of orphaned illicit arms and their start as arms merchants. They knew Colin was an undercover federal agent because he had told them so, just before they shoved him into the back of Horner’s Mercedes and drove to Horner’s rented Fort Lauderdale house. Colin had offered them a reasonable explanation for what he had been up to the past few months and what he wanted now, and he had set conditions for his continued cooperation.
He hadn’t bought himself as much time as he’d hoped but he wasn’t dead yet, either.
Yuri and Boris went inside, up to the helm to pilot the boat.
Colin breathed in the thick, stifling air. He didn’t like hot weather, but he was a former Maine lobsterman and Maine state marine patrol officer and knew his way around boats and the water.
It was something his captors didn’t know about him.
The boat cruised up the narrow canal toward the main Intracoastal Waterway. Horner was watching a party aboard a luxury yacht, lit up against the black night. Boris and Yuri were navigating the turn out of the canal into the main Intracoastal.
Without a second thought, Colin eased himself over the side and dropped into the dark water.
He didn’t make a sound.
The water was warm, certainly by Maine standards, but he figured it had snakes. Maybe an alligator. It’d be a hell of a thing to escape armed thugs only to be bitten by a poisonous snake or eaten by an alligator.
He liked Florida well enough but really wasn’t one for the subtropics.
He swam back to the rented house and climbed up onto the dock, then ducked onto the patio, the pool still glistening in the light through the French doors. Once Horner and his Russian friends realized he was gone, they would come straight back and kill him on the spot. No waiting this time.
Colin planned to be gone by then.
Then he would find them, and he would find their buyer.
“Scary bastards,” he said under his breath.
The warm canal water dripped off him. His head pounded. His bruises ached. Dehydration blurred his vision.
He wanted to be back on the rocky coast of Maine.
Back with Emma.
He noticed a movement by the far corner of the pool.
He saw two black-clad figures by some tropical shrub.
Not the bad guys. Not this time. Colin grinned, and he felt the tension ease out of him.
The cavalry was here.
* * *
Two hours later, Matt Yankowski was frowning at a large painting of black, red and white splotches on a stark white wall of the rented house. He had on a medium gray suit that looked crisp despite the South Florida heat. Colin watched the senior FBI agent from his position on a soft, white leather couch. He had changed into fresh clothes from his pack, still in the back of Horner’s Mercedes. The tactical team had almost finished going through the car, the house, the three-car garage, the yard and patio.
So far, they hadn’t found the name of Pete Horner’s buyer or a little note saying where he, Boris and Yuri would be if the FBI swarmed the house.
Yank moved to another painting, almost identical to the first one. “I don’t like them,” he said. “Emma knows art. Do you think she’d like them?”
Colin hid his impatience. “I don’t know, Yank. I’m not thinking about art right now.”
“If I ever buy a house down here, I’d want flamingos on the walls. Not splotches. Looks like somebody got shot.” Yank turned and took in the large, airy room. “This place is sterile. More like a hotel than a home. How long were you here?”
“Minutes. I was staying at a fleabag hotel a few blocks off the beach. Horner, Boris and Yuri met me at a marina where I had a boat rented. The plan was for me to take them to weapons. Instead they tossed me in the Mercedes at gunpoint and drove here. We parked, walked through the house out to the pool, got in the boat and left. I waited until they were distracted and went overboard. For all I know, they still don’t miss me.”
“Unlikely.”
Colin agreed. “Any sign of them?”
“Not yet.”
“How did you find me?” Then he saw Yank’s grimace and knew. “Emma.”
“She got a tip and gave us this address. I alerted the team and flew straight down here.”
“Where is she?”
“Heron’s Cove. She went up there to bake pies and drink whiskey with Father Bracken and your brothers.”
“My family?”
“She’ll get them word you’re safe.”
“No more lying to them, Yank.”
He nodded. “They’ve guessed what you do, anyway. I should have known telling them you worked in D.C. wouldn’t fly.”
Colin looked out through the tall windows at the patio and the canal, quiet in the morning haze. He volunteered for his first undercover mission four years ago. Matt Yankowski had ventured up to the Maine coast to talk to him about the mission and being his contact agent. As of a month ago, Colin was technically the newest member of Yank’s Boston-based team and Yank was his contact agent on this mission.
“I had to go dark,” Colin said. “It still didn’t work. I don’t have Horner’s buyer. I don’t know who’s bankrolling him. He and Boris and Yuri are in the wind. This stinks, Yank.”
“You got a toehold with them. It’s a start.” Yank sat on another white leather couch opposite Colin. “Are you sure you don’t need a hospital?”
“I have three brothers. I can take a punch.”
The senior agent’s dark eyes were steady, serious. He had been a legendary field agent, but he had never strayed too far from the book. He had never gone deep undercover to chase a transnational threat like Vladimir Bulgov and his complex arms pipeline.
“You do like to go it alone,” Yank said heavily.
“I didn’t have much choice this time.”
“Well, you’re no good to us dead.”
“That’s why I decided to jump off that boat, Yank. So I could be an FBI asset.”
“You know what I meant.” Yank drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Your luck saved you this time.”
“Not luck. Skill.”
Yank didn’t crack a smile.
Colin worked a tight muscle in his jaw. He thought he would be sleepy by now, but he wasn’t. He was wide-awake, thinking about how Yank had found him. “What Russians does Emma know?”
“Between her and her family, I imagine she knows quite a few.”
“Vladimir Bulgov’s Russian. Horner flew planes for him. His pals Boris and Yuri are Russian.”
“Emma’s contacts are one of the reasons she’s on my team,” Yank said, his tone cool, measured.
Colin leaned forward. “What else?”
“Nothing else. She’s every bit the asset I thought she’d be when I recruited her. That hasn’t changed in the past month.”
Colin watched a small boat cruise past the house on the picturesque waterway. “Any reason to think whoever tipped off Emma knows my real name?”
“She wouldn’t do anything to compromise you.”
“Not intentionally, maybe.”
“You’ve had a rough few weeks. You need a break. We’ll find these guys.”
“Their buyer? Whoever it is won’t like a delay. Horner knows that.”
Yank didn’t look as confident but nodded. “We’ll find Horner and the Russians and stop them from procuring more weapons. We’ll find their buyer. You laid the groundwork.”
“I knew a blown cover was a possibility going into this thing, turning up alive after three months. I told Horner myself that I was a federal agent.” Colin touched a bruise on his wrist. “But having one of your people get a tip about me isn’t sitting well.”
“One of my people?” Yank raised an eyebrow. “Emma got the tip about this place while she was sleeping in your bed in Maine.”
Colin pictured her honey hair, her green eyes, and sighed. “Hell, Yank.”
He draped an arm on the back of the couch and stretched out his long legs on the white-tile floor. “You two complicate my life.”
Colin didn’t argue. His relationship with Emma complicated his life, too. He had never expected to fall for a woman like Emma Sharpe, granddaughter of a renowned art detective, ex-nun and FBI art crimes expert, but he had. Thinking about her over the past few weeks had been both a comfort as well as a potentially dangerous distraction. Any contact with her—with his family, his real life, even Yank—had become too risky given the stakes and the scrutiny he was under.
“You’re nothing if not pragmatic, Yank,” Colin said. “It’s easier not to ask tough questions if Emma got this tip from a Sharpe source.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“You know who it is, don’t you?”
The dark eyes didn’t waver. “Informants are a tricky business. We have strict rules, but they include reasonable room to maneuver. Are you going back to Maine?”
“I always go back to Maine.” Colin drank some water from a bottle one of the agents had handed him. His lips were dry, burning from his salty swim in the canal. “Are you worried Emma got in over her head to find me?”
Yank got to his feet and stood by the French doors. “I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
“You’ve been known to hold back pertinent information,” Colin said. “For instance, you didn’t mention Emma had been a nun when you asked me to keep an eye on her in September. I had no idea that this pretty FBI agent used to be Sister Brigid of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.”
“She’d just found a nun from her former convent murdered. I needed your fresh eyes on the situation. I wasn’t thinking you two would end up…you know. Together.”
Maybe so, but Colin wondered how he would have responded to Emma if he had known from the start she had once been a postulant and novice. “What are you not telling me now?”
“Her brother’s in Dublin with her grandfather.”
“Is that relevant to the tip she got on my whereabouts?”
“I don’t know.”
Colin shifted on the couch, the Florida sun burning through the haze and hitting him in the eye, as if to remind him he hadn’t had any sleep. “You’ve never met Vladimir Bulgov, have you?”
“Not in person, no.”
“He’s this likable, chain-smoking former Soviet helicopter pilot who cobbled together a small fleet of aging planes and made a fortune hauling cargo. Most of the cargo was legitimate, but he also had access to stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons, from Kalashnikov rifles to shoulder-fired missiles. He tucked them in with the legitimate cargo. No problem finding buyers.”
Yank turned from the French doors. “Your point?”
“Along the way, Bulgov developed a taste for modern art. Emma found out and we finally had him in the U.S. and arrested him. That’s the only tie I can see between him and the Sharpes. Peter Horner and his two Russian friends aren’t interested in art.” Colin noticed that Yank was all but pacing now. “If you asked Emma for her source, would she tell you?”
“I’m not asking.”
“Because you want to trust her?”
“I do trust her. She’s analytical, intelligent. She’s not a black-and-white thinker. She sees the shades of gray in a situation.”
“She’s not like anyone else on your team.”
“That’s not a negative.”
Colin stood, ignoring a twinge of pain in his lower back. A bruise had blossomed on his forearm, and when he had changed clothes, he had noticed a nick on his right temple. “What’s your best guess, Yank? Did Emma put herself in danger to find me?”
“I don’t like to guess, but I get nervous when emotion enters into a decision. You operate on instinct and experience. You’re good at reading people. Emma…”
“Emma gives people a lot of rope, and she was worried about me.”
“Your whole family was worried.” Yank seemed to give himself a mental shake. “Emma can handle herself. Come on. We have a flight to catch.”
“Where are we going?”
“Washington. The Director wants to see you.”
Colin wasn’t surprised but had no desire to board a flight to Washington. “I’m not finished, Yank.”
“Don’t start second-guessing yourself. We have more than we had a month ago. If you hadn’t gone overboard when you did, you’d be dead now.”
“No kidding.” Colin grinned. “Why do you think I braved the snakes and gators?”
Yank sighed. “What was I thinking? You never second-guess yourself.”
They crossed the bright, elegant living room and went up three steps to a wide front door. “Is Lucy in Washington?” Colin asked.
“Paris. She’s shopping with her sister.”
“You didn’t want to go?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter because I wasn’t invited.” Yank opened the door with more force than was needed. “I don’t see me in Hermès, do you?”
Colin followed him out into the South Florida heat and humidity. “What happens when Lucy and her sister get back from Paris? Is Lucy moving up to Boston with you?”
Yank’s expression was unreadable. “I’m on a need-to-know basis, and I guess I don’t need to know.”
They walked over to a black sedan idling in the driveway. Colin glanced at the lush, professionally landscaped yard, vines curling over a tall fence, a stone fountain bubbling amid colorful flowers. Suddenly he couldn’t wait to be out of there. He would go to D.C. with Yank and talk to the Director of the FBI, but he wanted to be back in Maine. He wanted to enjoy a glass of whiskey with his brothers and Finian Bracken, and he wanted Emma.
Not in that order, he realized.
Emma was first.
3
EMMA BROUGHT HER red sable brush, saturated with cerulean-blue watercolor paint, to the dampened paper she had clipped to the easel on the back porch of the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove. She pulled the brush across the paper, right to left, practicing a simple flat wash and, out of the corner of her eye, watching the woman down on the docks. She had looked up at the house several times. She was small, with long, straight dark hair, and she wore a pumpkin-colored barn jacket that, even at a distance, was obviously too big for her.
A Sharpe Fine Art Recovery client? A sightseer who had wandered down to the waterfront and now was trying to figure out how to get back out to the street with its attractive houses, shops and restaurants?
Emma noticed her cerulean-blue was leaking down the page into her burnt-sienna. Probably should have stuck to one color. Perfecting a flat wash wasn’t as easy as it looked. In the weeks since Colin had gone after his arms traffickers, she had started taking painting lessons with Sister Cecilia, a young novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. She and Emma had become friends since their encounter with a crazed killer in September. The lessons at the sisters’ shop in the village were therapeutic for both of them, and always followed by a walk, tea or just a good chat. Sister Cecilia especially loved hearing the latest about Rock Point and the Donovans.
Yank had called an hour ago. He and Colin had arrived in Boston and were on their way to Maine. Yank would drop Colin off in Rock Point. Then he was on his own.
No handing over the phone to Colin to say hello. Not Yank’s style.
Colin, Emma knew, would want to know about her source. He would have figured out the tip about the Fort Lauderdale house had come from her, or Yank would have told him outright.
She stood back from her painting, her brush in hand. Not her best effort.
A lobster boat drifted from the open ocean through the channel into the tidal river. It was late on a still, cool autumn afternoon. Several pleasure boats had passed by, heading to the marina and adjacent yacht club, but there were fewer boats now, with the colder weather and the foliage past peak. In midsummer, Heron’s Cove would be bustling with boats and people.
Colin had been a lobsterman in his teens, before joining the Maine state marine patrol. Emma didn’t know why he had decided to become an FBI agent. Boredom? Ambition? A precipitating incident? An unsolved case?
How could she have fallen for a man about whom she ultimately knew so little?
She had showered and changed in Colin’s house that morning, putting on fresh jeans and a sweater she had brought up from Boston. She’d had little sleep, dozing in his bed. When she got word that he was safe, she called Mike Donovan, then Finian Bracken, and let them know all was well and Colin would return to Rock Point later today.
She had stopped at Hurley’s for coffee and a cider doughnut and took them with her to Heron’s Cove. A run on the beach, a visit to a local apple orchard, a stop at her brother Lucas’s house to check on his cats while he was away—it had been a long day. She had known she wouldn’t hear from Colin until he was fully debriefed and back home.
The woman in the pumpkin-colored jacket had circled up to the retaining wall and was squeezing past tall hydrangeas, their white blossoms turned burgundy with autumn, into the Sharpe yard.
Emma set her brush in a jar of water on a small dresser against the back wall of the covered porch and stood at the rail. “Hi, there,” she called down to the woman. “It’s a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
“It is. And it’s a beautiful place.” The woman spoke with an accent that Emma couldn’t immediately place. “You’re Emma Sharpe, yes?”
“That’s right. What’s your name?”
“Tatiana,” she said, crossing the yard to the porch. “Tatiana Pavlova.”
Emma stiffened at the Russian name, what she now realized was a Russian accent with a British undercurrent, as if Tatiana Pavlova had learned English on the streets of London. “What can I do for you, Tatiana?”
She started up the porch steps. “You mind?”
“Just keep your hands where I can see them, okay?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. You’re an FBI agent. You must worry about villains.”
Villains? “Are you a Sharpe client?” Emma asked.
Tatiana joined her on the small porch of the gray-shingled house where Wendell Sharpe had started Sharpe Fine Art Recovery in a front room. “A friend was,” she said. “I’m a jewelry designer in London. One of my clients once hired your grandfather. But that’s not important. It’s not why I’m here. Your grandfather is retired now, yes?”
“He’s semi-retired.”
“Ah. I can see that. I want to work until I can no longer lift a pencil.” Tatiana tightened her oversize jacket around her slim frame. “It’s colder here than I expected but I’m used to the cold.”
Emma leaned back against the rail. Tatiana wore black leggings and black flats more suited to London than a walk on the docks of Heron’s Cove, but no makeup or jewelry. Her nails were blunt, unpolished. Stylishly unstylish, Emma thought. “You’re Russian?” she asked.
Tatiana nodded. “But I left Russia years ago.”
“Years? You must have been a child. You’re young—”
“Twenty-five. I was twenty when I left the country for good. It’s a long story.” Her dark eyes gleamed with emotion. “Are there any short Russian stories? Some of our fables and folktales, perhaps. Do you know the fable of the cat and the nightingale?”
“I don’t think so,” Emma said.
“It’s very short. Of course, since it’s a fable.” Tatiana stood at the porch rail and watched a great blue heron swoop low to the water. “A cat catches a nightingale and taunts the poor bird to sing for her. The terrified nightingale can only manage pitiful squeaks, which remind the cat of annoying kittens. Disgusted, the cat eats the nightingale.”
“Charming,” Emma said with a smile. “What made you think of this particular fable?”
“My walk, maybe. Seeing all the birds here.” Tatiana sighed as the heron dipped past a sailboat, then out of sight. “The cat and the nightingale remind us that we can’t expect beautiful songs from a bird trapped in the clutches of a creature that can devour it. Their story tells us that fear isn’t always the best instrument to get us what we want.”
“Are you describing yourself, Tatiana?”
She turned, smiling enigmatically. “But am I the scary cat, or am I the terrified nightingale?” She waved a slender hand in dismissal. “It’s just a fable. It’s best in Russian, of course. Do you speak any Russian?”
“A few words,” Emma said truthfully.
“Heron’s Cove is very beautiful. I knew it would be, but I hoped to get here for peak leaves—that’s what you say?”
“Peak foliage.”
“That’s it.” Tatiana’s smile brightened. “There are still many orange and yellow leaves, but the reds are all on the ground. But I’m not here as tourist.” She spied the easel and frowned at Emma’s attempt at a watercolor wash. “Such a pretty blue, but watercolor is not so easy, yes?”
Emma groaned. “Watercolor isn’t easy at all.”
“A painter and an FBI agent. I suppose that’s not such a surprise since you’re a Sharpe.” Tatiana lifted the brush out of the jar and blotted it on a sheet of paper on the small chest of drawers that held Emma’s painting supplies. “My English is better when I concentrate, have you noticed?”
“Your English is fine. When did you arrive in Heron’s Cove?”
“This afternoon. I have a cottage just on the other side of the yacht club. I have it for a week but the owner said I can stay longer if I wish. It’s very small. Adorable. It’s one room on legs—stilts. We’re neighbors.”
“Why Heron’s Cove?” Emma asked.
Tatiana laid the rinsed brush on the dresser, so that its natural bristles hung over the edge. “You shouldn’t leave your brushes in water. They will last longer.” She picked up the tube of cerulean-blue watercolor paint and screwed the top back on, then set it back on the dresser. “A rare, valuable collection of Russian Art Nouveau jewelry and decorative arts is arriving in Heron’s Cove soon. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow. I’m afraid it’s another long, sad Russian story, but I don’t need to tell it, do I, Emma Sharpe? This one you already know.”
“I’ve learned in my work not to make assumptions.” Emma kept her voice neutral, despite her shock at mention of the collection. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”
Tatiana sighed at the practice painting. “You didn’t wait for one color to dry before you tried another color. They bled together, and now you have mud.” She glanced disapprovingly at Emma. “You must not give in to the excitement of creative inspiration at the expense of craft. You must make the tension between the two work for you. That’s true mastery.”
“Tatiana…”
“You grow impatient,” she said lightly. “It’s the Rusakov collection. A dozen works of great beauty and artistry crafted during the last days of the Romanovs. You know it, yes?”
Emma nodded. “I know it, yes.”
“Twenty years ago, Dmitri Rusakov discovered the collection hidden in the walls of his Moscow mansion and hired your grandfather to help him understand it. Its history, its provenance, its value. We were just small girls then, you and I.”
Emma remembered her grandfather coming home from Moscow and reading Russian fairy tales to her and Lucas. Later—four years ago, when she dealt with Dmitri Rusakov herself—she had learned that each of the dozen works in the collection was inspired by some aspect of Russian folk tradition. Dmitri was a former army officer who had made a fortune in oil and gas in post–Soviet Russia.
He was also the trusted friend of the man who had called Emma last night with the Fort Lauderdale address.
“Dmitri Rusakov has never publicized his discovery of the collection,” Emma said. “How do you know about it?”
Tatiana pulled open the top dresser drawer and helped herself to a soft lead pencil, her dark hair hanging in her face as she continued. “Everyone in Russia knows about Dmitri Rusakov. I hear things in my work. Fabergé, Tiffany, Gaillard, Lalique—I study all the great designers of the late nineteenth century. It was a time when art met life, when an object as simple and ordinary as a cane knob, a picture frame or a cigarette case could become an artistic creation.” Tatiana smiled, a dimple showing in her left cheek. “I especially love Art Nouveau.”
“I do, too. Who is bringing the collection to Heron’s Cove?”
“Natalie Warren, the daughter of Rusakov’s American ex-wife.” Tatiana checked the tip of the pencil with her thumb. “Her mother died earlier this year in Tucson. I don’t think Natalie realized her mother had the collection, or perhaps even of its existence. That’s why she’s coming here. She wants to talk to the Sharpes.”
“My brother and grandfather are both in Dublin.”
“Ah. Well. Perhaps Natalie wants to talk to you.”
Emma noticed streaks of pale lavender high in the sky. It was dusk. Colin would be back in Rock Point soon after weeks of dangerous undercover work, after escaping certain death just hours ago. How could she tell him about Dmitri Rusakov?
About his connection to last night’s call?
She turned back to Tatiana. “Do you and Natalie know each other?”
“No, no. We’ve never met. She lives in Phoenix. I’m relatively invisible at my studio. I listen. I hear things. I heard about the collection.”
“That’s not all there is to it,” Emma said. “Why are you really here?”
Tatiana looked out at the water, gray now in the fading late-afternoon light. “I believe someone will steal the collection.”
“Who?”
“A villain,” she said, half under her breath.
“Tatiana, if you have specific information about an imminent crime, then you need tell the local police. I’ll put you in touch.”
She shook her head. “I have no proof of anything. I know you’re not with Sharpe Fine Art Recovery any longer, but can you help, Emma—Agent Sharpe?”
Emma considered her response, then said, “If the Rusakov collection arrives in Heron’s Cove, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good.” With a few swift strokes of the pencil, Tatiana sketched a graceful great blue heron, incorporating Emma’s washes and muddy drips, so that suddenly they didn’t look amateurish and awkward. She stood back from the easel and appraised her handiwork. “You can go from here. I love grand blue herons.”
Emma smiled. “Great blue herons.”
The young Russian laughed. “Yes, just so. Thank you, Emma Sharpe. I appreciate your help.”
She skipped down the porch steps and back across the yard, her hair flying in the wind as she jumped from the retaining wall down to the pier.
Emma abandoned her painting and went back inside. Although she had been to the house a number of times since renovations had started, she still felt a tug of nostalgia when she entered the kitchen and saw the counters were now home to carpenters’ tools, rags, cabinet brochures, paint chips and an empty box of Hurley’s cider doughnuts. Most of the guys working on the place were from Rock Point. She had promised them she would clear out the rest of the kitchen over the weekend.
She stepped past a roll of insulation. Renovations had been a long time in coming and a joint family decision, but Lucas was in charge. The idea was to transform the small house into a modern base for Sharpe Fine Art Recovery while still retaining its Victorian charm and character. Lucas, who had his own house in the village, had asked the architect to include a guest suite for family and friends, or for their grandfather should he eventually return to Heron’s Cove.
Getting Lucas to acquiesce to preserving the porch had taken some doing. He had envisioned taking over that space for the interior and adding a stone terrace out back, but Emma had reminded him how much of their family life had centered on the porch, especially before their grandmother’s death, the fall on the ice that had relegated their father to a restless life of chronic pain and their grandfather’s relocation to Dublin.
Emma rinsed dried watercolor paint off her hands and saw she had a text message.
It was from Colin: I’m home.
She smiled as she typed her response: I’ll come to you.
She headed out through the front and got his message back: Yank just left. I’ll be at Hurley’s.
Emma got in her car. She would be in Rock Point in twenty minutes. That gave her at least a little more time to consider how to handle his questions about how she had found him in Florida, and what to tell him about Tatiana Pavlova.
* * *
Colin was alone at Hurley’s bar, a bowl of steaming fish chowder in front of him. He patted the stool next to him. “Have a seat, Special Agent Sharpe.”
Emma climbed onto the stool, taking in his broad shoulders, the thick muscles in his legs, the smoky gray of his eyes as they settled on her. He was so damn sexy, she thought. So incredibly physical and down to earth. He could handle deep-cover work because he was focused, decisive and independent. Yet he wasn’t a man easy to get to know. Maybe that made him good at what he did, too.
She noticed a purple bruise on his forearm, then met his eyes with a smile. “Welcome home.”
He winked at her. “Nothing says home like a bowl of Hurley’s fish chowder.”
“Your brothers aren’t here yet, I see.”
“On their way. Finian, too. Word travels fast in Rock Point.” He touched a hand to her cheek. “How are you, Emma?”
“Glad to see you back in one piece.”
“I came close to being eaten by alligators.” He tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Yank says you saved my ass.”
“We all help each other.”
“Did he tell you to say that?” Colin turned back to his chowder. “As I pointed out to him, I had already escaped when the cavalry arrived. I do allow that if they hadn’t swooped in when they did, my new friends could have doubled back and thrown me to the gators.”
“That wouldn’t have been good,” Emma said.
“It would not. Then where would you be?” He picked up his spoon, dipped it into the milky chowder. “Sleeping alone in my bed again.”
She helped herself to an oyster cracker. She knew what he was getting at, had suspected it was coming. How much would she tell him about her source? How much could she tell him? She’d had a good chunk of last night and all day to prepare her response, but Tatiana Pavlova’s arrival in Heron’s Cove, with her talk of Dmitri Rusakov, had further muddled the situation.
“The call came to my cell phone. Not to your house phone.” Emma kept her tone even, without a hint of defensiveness. “Yank knew I was at your house because he asked and I told him. Father Bracken had organized a whiskey tasting.”
“What was your favorite?”
“I just know I don’t like the heavily peated ones.”
“An acquired taste.”
“Colin—”
“It’s okay, Emma.” His eyes softened. “It’s been a long month. You can sleep in my bed anytime.”
In other words, his questions about last night could wait.
“Were my brothers good to you while I was away?” he asked.
She nodded. “Mike’s not a big fan but we do all right.”
“Mike’s not a big fan of anyone.”
“He’s been down here more because of your family’s concern for you.”
Finian Bracken arrived, wearing his black suit and Roman collar today. He stopped short when he saw Emma. “Am I interrupting?”
“Not at all,” Emma said with a smile.
Colin eased off his stool. “It’s good to see you, Fin.” He clapped the priest on the shoulder in a warm greeting. “Mike, Andy and Kevin will be here in a few minutes.”
“They’re outside now,” Finian said.
“Then grab some glasses and pour the Bracken 15 year old.”
Finian glanced past him at Emma. “Wine for you tonight?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” she said, standing up. “I’ll let you gentlemen enjoy your evening.”
“Good to see you, as always,” Finian said, then headed to his favorite table by the window.
Emma buttoned her jacket, aware of Colin’s gaze on her. His questions about the past twenty-four hours wouldn’t wait forever. He wanted answers. But she saw the cut on his right temple, the fatigue in his eyes and the stiffness with which he moved, and she knew this wasn’t the time or the place for a serious conversation.
He needed tonight with his brothers and his Irish priest friend.
He seemed to guess what she was thinking and slipped an arm around her waist. “Missed you, babe.”
“I missed you, too. Be with your family and friends.” She leaned into him, just for an instant. “I’ll see you soon.”
He patted her hip. “Real soon.”
Emma managed to get out of there without running into his brothers. It was colder, clearer than last night. She listened to the tide wash in on the sand and smooth stones. A bright star had come out above the harbor. She took in a deep breath. She could still feel Colin’s strength and warmth—as well as his questions, his doubts.
If Natalie Warren was bringing the Rusakov collection to Heron’s Cove, would Dmitri Rusakov be right behind her?
Would Ivan Alexander be with him?
“Your man is in danger.”
Emma put her own doubts and questions out of her mind as she watched Mike, Andy and Kevin Donovan walk up the stairs to Hurley’s. They were one reason Colin could bounce back from the dangers he faced. His resilience wasn’t just due to his training and experience, or even his nature. It was also due to his family and friends, the solid foundation he had in Rock Point.
A gust of cold wind propelled her into her car. She debated what to do. She could stay at her parents’ house in Heron’s Cove, Lucas’s house, with friends. At the Sharpe house. The state of renovations meant it wasn’t as comfortable as in the past, but she’d manage.
She could check on Tatiana Pavlova and see if she was in her rented cottage, working on sketches.
Emma started her car. She needed to get in touch with Lucas and her grandfather in Dublin.
Would her grandfather remember Dmitri Rusakov?
“Of course he would,” she said aloud.
Wendell Sharpe remembered everything.
She noticed the bag of Northern Spy apples on her front passenger seat. She’d bought them at her visit to the orchard that afternoon, before her attempt at a flat wash. They were perfect for pies.
Tough to bake a pie in the Sharpe kitchen.
Emma smiled and decided she might as well head up to Colin’s house after all.
4
FINIAN BRACKEN MARVELED at the camaraderie of the Donovans and the obvious, if unstated, relief and pleasure they shared at being together after the fear and worry of recent days. He had poured Bracken 15 year old for all four brothers and even a taoscán for himself.
“Did we run Emma off?” Mike asked, tasting his whiskey. “I think she peeled rubber getting out of the parking lot.”
Colin shook his head. “She would have stayed if she wanted to.”
“She’s as bullheaded in her own way as you are,” Kevin said.
Andy grinned but was quiet as the eldest Donovan swirled the whiskey in his glass. “What did you call this, Father?” Mike asked. “Not a dram. Some unpronounceable Irish word.”
“Taoscán,” Finian said.
Mike gave a mock shudder. “I’ll never get it right.” He set his glass down on the worn table. “The Sharpe house is torn up for renovations. Emma’s not driving back to Boston, is she?”
“She’s not picky,” Colin said. “She’ll sleep on the floor if she has to.”
Kevin reached for the water pitcher. “I have to remember she’s an ex-nun. She can tolerate spare conditions. Right, Father Bracken?”
Finian wasn’t getting into the middle of this particular discussion. “The Sisters of the Joyful Heart have a lovely convent. As a matter of fact, I just came from there. A young woman stopped me at the gate to ask about the sisters’ work in the arts and art conservation. She’s an artist herself. A jeweler in London.”
“Maybe she’s an ex-nun, too,” Mike said.
Finian suspected Colin’s brothers were ambivalent about his relationship with Emma less because she was an FBI agent and a Sharpe than because she had once come close to professing her final vows as a religious sister. Chastity, obedience, poverty. The profession of vows wasn’t as simple as it might seem and involved deep thought, study, prayer and reflection. Emma had come to the right decision for her.
All that was for her and the Donovans to sort out among themselves.
Finian continued with his story. “I don’t think the woman who spoke to me was a nun, or even considering the convent. She lives in London but she’s Russian. She has the most charming accent.”
Colin raised his eyes over the rim of his glass as he tried his whiskey.
Finian saw that Kevin, also a law enforcement officer, had noticed Colin’s alert expression, too. “A Russian jeweler in Heron’s Cove,” Kevin said. “Imagine that. What else did she say?”
“It was a casual conversation. I asked her name, and she told me it’s Tatiana and she had heard about the sisters’ work.”
“Did she mention Emma?” Colin asked.
Finian felt as if he had unknowingly just dived into shark-infested waters. “Not by name, no.”
Colin’s gaze narrowed on him. Next to him, Kevin had one hand on his glass on the table and his gray eyes likewise narrowed. Andy looked as surprised by their intense reaction as Finian was. Only Mike’s expression was impassive, impossible to read.
“What do you mean, not by name?” Colin asked.
“Well.” Finian now regretted having brought her up. “She said she’d run into an FBI agent in Heron’s Cove who used to be a nun.”
“That’s true,” Kevin said. “Where in Heron’s Cove did this Tatiana run into Emma?”
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” Finian wished he didn’t sound so defensive. “It wouldn’t occur to me to interrogate a young woman—a tourist—enjoying an autumn afternoon out at a convent gate.”
Kevin picked up his glass. “If that’s what she was doing. Sounds more like she was checking out Emma.”
“Or the convent itself,” Finian said. “The sisters tell me they’ve had a marked increase in visitors and curiosity seekers since Sister Joan’s death and the subsequent discovery of a Rembrandt in the attic.”
Colin drank some of his water. “Did this Tatiana give you her last name?”
“Not that I recall, no. Dear heaven, I’m starting to sweat. Did I do something wrong?”
“Not a thing.” Colin seemed to make an effort to smile. “You’re a good man, Fin. Bringing Bracken 15 tonight instead of leaving us to Hurley’s rotgut. I don’t know what arrangements you and John Hurley have made but I’m all for it.” He raised his glass. “Sláinte.”
Finian splashed more Bracken 15 year old into his own glass and raised it. “Sláinte.”
Mike finished his whiskey in one last swallow and stood, reaching for his canvas jacket as he glanced down at Colin. “One night we’ll break open another bottle of Bracken’s finest and you can tell us about the real nature of your work. I’m guessing it involves Russians. It’s good you’re back. Our sweet mother worried about you.”
That she had, Finian thought. He’d had more than one conversation himself with Rosemary Donovan about her fears for Colin—for all four of her sons.
“I warned her I’d be difficult to reach,” Colin said.
Mike grunted. “You couldn’t have sent her a postcard, put up something on Facebook? Sent a carrier pigeon telling her you were alive and well?”
“You know Washington. Crazy place.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.” Mike shifted to the youngest Donovan. “Come on, Kev. I’ll drive you home. We can talk about Russians.”
“There are millions of Russians, Mike,” Kevin said, getting to his feet.
“Only one showed up at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart this afternoon. Forget it. I should go back to the woods.”
Andy rose, too. “I have an early start. See you all later.” He gave Colin a curt nod. “Good to have you back.” Then he smiled. “You can help Father Bracken dig bean holes for his first-ever bean-hole supper.”
“Better than getting the shit beat out of you by Russians,” Mike muttered, then exited with Andy and Kevin on his flanks.
With his brothers gone, Colin eyed the Bracken 15. “I could empty this bottle but I’m not going to.”
“All things in moderation,” Finian said, appreciating the long finish of the whiskey he had overseen from distillation to laying down in the cask. “It’s good to be back with your brothers, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Colin said with a heavy sigh.
Finian pushed back an unexpected memory of hiking in Ireland with his brother on a sparkling autumn morning. He and Declan had just turned twenty and were filled with hopes and dreams. They had paused to appreciate the view of the Atlantic and the surrounding countryside and decided then and there they would do it; they would find a way to start their own distillery.
“Brothers are to be cherished,” Finian said. “Mike especially has good instincts about people.”
“Mike hates people.”
“‘Hate’ is too strong. He’s a loner. An observer. That’s why he lives the way he does. Being here in Rock Point helping your parents with their inn, with their worries, has worn his patience.”
“Have you been out to the Bold Coast where he lives?”
“Not yet, no.”
“It’s way down east on the Bay of Fundy. Strong tides, huge rock cliffs. Remote. Stunning scenery. Mike deals with people just enough to make a living, then spends the rest of his time on his own. He’s always been like that, even before he joined the army.”
“He came home from the military a different man?”
Colin shook his head. “Same Mike, just more so. What’s going on with him and Emma?”
“My assessment? She looks at him and wonders if she can fit in among the Donovans. He looks at her and wonders if he really knows his brother, perhaps wonders if he’ll ever have a relationship in his own life such as the one you and Emma have.”
Colin frowned, then grinned suddenly. “I think I actually understand what you just said.”
“This Russian woman, Colin…”
“Not your problem. Worry about your bean-hole supper. I’ll worry about Emma’s Russian.”
“She’s making pies for the supper.”
“The Russian?”
Finian sighed. Colin, of course, knew better. “Emma.”
Colin hesitated, just for a fraction of a second, but it was enough. Finian could see that his friend wasn’t so sure about his new love inserting herself into his life in Rock Point, perhaps less sure than he had been a few weeks ago in the heat of their first days together. It was only natural, Finian thought.
“I’ll clean up here,” he said. “You’ve had very little to drink. You’ll be fine to drive.”
“I walked down here.”
“But you’ll be driving to Emma in Heron’s Cove.”
“So I will.” Colin rose, a spark in his gray eyes. “Thanks for the whiskey. It’s good to be back.”
Finian studied his friend, noted the clear pain he was in, the depth of his fatigue. “How bad was it, Colin?”
“I’m here drinking whiskey with you, so it could have been worse.”
“Your brothers know you didn’t get your cuts and bruises in Washington.”
Colin grinned. “You don’t think I can convince them I tripped on my way to a cocktail party?”
Finian gave up and smiled. “Go, my friend. Be with your woman.”
“An excellent plan.” But as Colin pulled on his jacket, he pointed a finger at Finian. “If this Russian jeweler shows up again, you call me. Got that, Father Bracken?”
Colin left without waiting for an answer, and Finian corked the Bracken 15 year old, then poured himself a glass of water. He had to remember to keep a clear head when dealing with a Donovan. He put the uncomfortable conversation out of his mind and looked around the quiet restaurant. An elderly couple was sharing a piece of wild blueberry pie—a local favorite—and two young sisters he recognized from the church were talking themselves out of ice-cream sundaes.
His previous life in Ireland seemed so long ago, so far away.
He shook off his melancholy before it could get him in its grip. A woman on Hurley’s staff edged over to his table with a plastic tray. She was slender and shapely, with deep gold-flecked hazel eyes and a thick golden-brown braid hanging down her back. “I’ll get these glasses, Father,” she said, anchoring the tray on one hip.
He thanked her. “What’s your name?”
“Julianne Maroney. My grandmother is helping with the bean-hole supper at the church this next weekend—that is, if she’s able.”
“Is she ill?”
Julianne grabbed Mike’s and Colin’s empty whiskey glasses. “I don’t know if you’d call it ill. More like thoroughly pissed off at God.” She blushed. “Sorry, Father.”
Finian leaned back in his chair. “I understand being pissed off at God. I was for a time myself.”
“Were you? Really? And you’re not now?”
“I’m not now. In fact, I never was. I just thought I was.”
“Misdirected anger,” Julianne said thoughtfully. “That’s Granny. She loves the bean-hole supper but she says she’s mad at God for taking Grandpa away from her. He died last year, before you arrived at St. Patrick’s. We all miss him, but it’s not good for her to be so mad all the time. I think it’s making her sick.”
“Physically sick?”
Her eyes shone with sudden tears. “I think she wants to die, too. Join Grandpa in the great beyond. Heaven. Whatever.” Julianne added the water pitcher to her tray. “Do you think you could talk to her?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t tell her I said anything. Her name is Fran. Franny Maroney. Her grandmother was from Ireland. Sligo, I think. Do you know where that is?”
Finian smiled. “I do, indeed.”
“Granny likes your Irish accent. I want to go to Ireland someday. Working on it, in fact.” Julianne snatched up Andy Donovan’s whiskey glass with more force than was necessary and banged it onto her tray. “It’s nice to see Colin back in town. He does come and go. He and Kevin are my favorite Donovans. I don’t know Mike that well.”
Given the way she grabbed Andy’s water glass and banged it onto the tray with the same force as she had his whiskey glass, Finian had an idea of her opinion of the third-born Donovan.
“Andy Donovan’s a rake,” Julianne said matter-of-factly. “You know that, right, Father?”
“I haven’t heard a man called a ‘rake’ in an age.”
“It’s fitting.” She glared out the window at the dark harbor where Andy had his lobster boat moored. “I’m working my way through school. I’m finishing my master’s in marine biology. I don’t know what I was thinking…Andy and I…” She sighed. “That son of a bitch broke my heart.” Her cheek color deepened. “Sorry, Father.”
“Not at all.”
She seemed to regret having said anything. “I told Granny I’d go with her to the supper. She says she doesn’t want to go without Grandpa, but I think it’d be good for her.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Finian said.
Julianne spun back across the restaurant with her tray and through the swinging door into Hurley’s kitchen. Finian returned the Bracken 15 to the bar, where it would be safe until his next visit, said good-night and headed outside, the wood door creaking as it shut hard behind him.
He crossed the quiet parking lot, a sharpness in the air he hadn’t noticed earlier. He was just barely warm enough in his suit coat. He continued onto the narrow streets above the harbor, lined with modest homes lit up against the dark night. He passed a large shade tree, bright yellow leaves clinging to its sweeping branches and scattered on the pavement, a reminder that the long Maine winter was soon upon them. He had heard tales of brutal New England winters. This would be his first.
At least by winter the blasted bean-hole supper would be behind him.
A man in a black fleece jacket and baseball cap walked across the street from Hurley’s. Finian didn’t recognize him but the man approached him as if they knew each other. “Evening, Father. Nice night. Chilly.” The stranger hunched his shoulders. He looked fit, with fair skin and fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “Didn’t I just see you at Hurley’s with the Donovan brothers?”
Finian hadn’t noticed him. “Are you a friend of theirs?”
“Nah. I’ve never stepped foot in Rock Point until today. A kid sweeping the floors told me. Four brothers altogether. FBI, marine patrol, lobsterman, Maine guide. Tough guys. Their folks own an inn on the waterfront. The father’s a retired cop.”
“Are you asking me?”
“Just shooting the breeze. I needed to stretch my legs.” He ambled a few more steps up the street, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets. “Colin Donovan’s the FBI agent brother, right, Father?”
“If you’d like, I can give him a quick ring—”
“Thanks, but I’m on my way to Heron’s Cove. It’ll be my first time there, too. I should let you get back to your walk. You serve a church here in Rock Point?”
“St. Patrick’s. We’re having a bean-hole supper next weekend. You’re welcome to join us.”
The man grinned. “I can’t remember the last time I was at a church supper.”
He said good-night, turned and walked back toward the harbor. Finian stood still, watching the man cross the street back to Hurley’s.
At least he hadn’t spoken with a Russian accent.
It was a fair guess that Colin’s secret work with the FBI involved Russians, Finian thought as he navigated the maze of now-familiar streets to the simple, stone-faced church and rectory that would be his home for at least a year. St. Patrick’s Church was a small parish, struggling more than some and less than others. A gnarled maple in front of the church had dropped all its leaves, but a river birch by the back steps—or what Colin had told Finian was a river birch—held on to its vibrant yellow leaves. The New England fall foliage season was as spectacular and festive as he had hoped and anticipated. St. Patrick’s bean-hole supper marked the last of the popular autumn suppers among the local churches.
Finian had no illusions that Rock Point and the people of St. Patrick’s had fully embraced him since his arrival in June. That was all right. His presence was deliberately temporary, and he was Irish and a different sort of priest—a widower who had lost his wife and two young daughters before turning to the priesthood.
He entered the rectory kitchen and pulled off his clerical garb, then slipped into a hand-knit Irish sweater. He went still, his pulse quickening as he noticed several envelopes on the floor by the old stove. All the windows were closed. Had he brushed them with his arm before he had left and simply hadn’t noticed?
He thought of the man who had intercepted him. Could he have sneaked in here before heading to the waterfront?
Why would anyone sneak into a rectory?
Finian started for the telephone to call Colin but stopped himself. The poor man was just back home after what had obviously been a difficult ordeal. Finian shook off his uneasiness. He hadn’t observed any sign of a break-in at the back door.
To further reassure himself, he checked the threadbare living room and dining room, but nothing was out of place, broken or disturbed. He had let his imagination run wild.
His gaze rested on a framed photograph on the china cupboard of his beautiful wife, Sally, and their sweet daughters, Kathleen and Mary, together on a sunlit Irish morning at their home above Kenmare Bay. They were smiling, and he could hear their laughter as he took the picture, only a few weeks before he lost them forever.
He didn’t come into this room every day, but when he did, he would see them. The pain of his grief was still there and he recognized—accepted—that it always would be.
But he hadn’t lost his girls forever. He’d lost them in this life.
They had gone to God and were at peace.
He left the dining room and checked the front door, discovering to his surprise that it was unlocked. Perhaps that oversight explained his sense of intrusion. With no evidence of a break-in, he had no reason to call Colin or the local police. He would feel ridiculous.
He returned to the kitchen and made tea as he opened St. Patrick’s well-worn file on the bean-hole supper. The menu was tried-and-true, unchanged in decades. Homemade baked beans, roast pork, coleslaw, applesauce, pickles, rolls and pies. The folder included handwritten recipes and instructions on digging the bean holes, building the fire inside them and burying the pots for the slow baking of the beans.
Well. Why not?
Finian settled back in his chair, reading the recipes and dismissing his stubborn sense of uneasiness as the result of having just enjoyed a bit of Irish whiskey with four intense Donovans.
5
EMMA WAS SURPRISED to find a rolling pin in one of Colin’s kitchen drawers. It had a worn, broken-in feel that suggested he had inherited it from someone else’s kitchen. She didn’t find a pastry cutter, but she used her fingers to work in the shortening and flour that a cupboard had yielded, another surprise. She managed to put together a respectable pie while Colin was drinking whiskey with his brothers and Father Bracken.
She leaned back against the sink and forced herself to focus on her surroundings and practice the kind of mindfulness she had during her days with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. They had shared all the routine chores of convent life, hiring out only what they couldn’t do themselves. She had discovered purpose and comfort in preparing meals, cleaning, doing laundry, gardening—daily work that didn’t directly involve the sisters’ mission in art conservation, education and history.
A different life, and yet she still could draw on what she had learned during her time as Sister Brigid.
She smelled the apples bubbling in the oven and felt the warmth of the kitchen, noticed the reflection of the overhead lights in the windows. Colin didn’t have drapes or curtains, only natural-fiber shades. There were no plants or knickknacks on the windowsills, although he had left a small, rounded gray stone on the sill above the sink. He must have picked it up on a Maine beach. It was smooth, polished by the sea.
She heard footsteps outside and saw him in the back door window.
“I see you didn’t lock the door behind you,” he said, entering the kitchen. “I guess you’re not worried about intruders.”
“I guess not.” She smiled through her sudden, inexplicable tension. She had just been with him at Hurley’s, but his presence still was a shock to her system. She pointed at the gas stove. “I have a pie in the oven.”
“Smells good. Apple, right?”
“I had some Northern Spies in the car. I bought them at the orchard where we went apple-picking before you took off to parts unknown.”
He shut the door behind him, a stiffness to his movements that reminded her it had been only hours, not days, since his escape from killers. “That was a good afternoon.”
“One of those afternoons you never want to end.”
“You enjoy baking.”
“Most of the time. Baking helps me think.”
His smoky eyes narrowed on her. “What were you thinking about, Special Agent Sharpe?”
Dmitri Rusakov, a Russian billionaire. Ivan Alexander, a private security consultant who had started out as Dmitri’s bodyguard. Her week in London four years ago when she had met them, shortly after the disappearance of the Russian Art Nouveau collection Dmitri had discovered in the walls of his Moscow house sixteen years earlier.
She hadn’t heard from Dmitri since London, but she had heard from Ivan.
Three times, she thought. The third was last night.
All three times his information was valuable, provided with the understanding that she would utter his name to no one.
She stood straight, noticed the shadows on Colin’s face. “You must be exhausted.”
“Emma, Emma.” He took a dish towel she had forgotten about off her shoulder and set it on the counter. “You have a lot on your mind. Calls from confidential informants in the middle of the night. Russians in Heron’s Cove.”
Emma covered her surprise that he knew about Tatiana by turning on the faucet at the sink, washing a stray apple seed down the drain. “One call, and one Russian. I assume Yank told you about the call. Who told you about Tatiana Pavlova?”
“That’s her name—Tatiana Pavlova?”
“She’s a jewelry designer in London. She’s renting a cottage in Heron’s Cove.”
“Finian ran into her at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. Why would she go all the way out there to check you out?”
“Is that what she said? That she was checking me out?”
“Close enough.”
Meaning he was operating on gut instinct. It was what he did, why he could do deep-cover work. Emma took a more measured, analytical approach. Both, she told herself, had their place.
“Do you know her?” Colin asked.
“We only met today.”
He leaned against the counter, then stood straight again. “My back doesn’t like that position. I have some nice bruises where two Russians pounded me last night. Imagine that. I also investigated a Russian arms merchant now in federal custody. And here I come home to a Russian jeweler down the road. What are the odds?”
Emma shut off the faucet. “Tatiana wants me to stop a Russian Art Nouveau collection from being stolen. She says it’s arriving in Heron’s Cove soon.”
“Who has it?”
“A woman from Phoenix. She’s American. This all goes back to a former Sharpe client.”
“The former client is Russian?”
“That’s right.”
“When you say ‘Sharpe,’ do you mean you, your grandfather, your parents, your brother or all of the above?”
Emma grabbed two pot holders off the counter by the stove. “It doesn’t matter.” She glanced back at him, felt his intensity, his restless fatigue. “Yank said you need to rest.”
“A wise man, our fearless senior agent in charge.” Colin shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. “And your tip about me? Was that from a Sharpe client?”
“No.”
“Another Russian?”
Emma didn’t want to lie to him. Couldn’t lie to him. “I’m glad you’re safe, Colin. That’s what counts.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not going to talk about my source.”
“Does this source have any connection to this Russian collection?”
She tucked her hand into one of the pot holders. “I came here to do something with the bag of apples. Tatiana Pavlova isn’t your problem. I’ll deal with her. I’ve emailed my grandfather and brother already. I’ll talk to them in the morning. Tatiana was emotional, and she had no facts to back up her suspicions about the collection.”
“All right. For now.” Colin touched a finger to her cheek. “How long before the pie’s out of the oven?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” he said as if it were an eternity.
“It’s basically done now. I can turn off the oven and it’ll be fine.”
“Excellent plan.”
She yanked open the oven door, the burst of heat enough to remind her to think, take her time, be sensible. She lifted the glass pie plate off the rack and set it on top of the stove, then switched off the timer and the oven heat.
“I meant to go straight back to Heron’s Cove,” she said quietly. “I wanted to give you a chance to get some rest, but I can still go.”
“Isn’t the Sharpe house gutted by now?”
“Mostly gutted.”
“You slept here last night.”
“Because of the whiskey,” she said.
Colin took the pot holders from her and set them on the counter. “Thank you for the pie.” He slipped his arms around her. “We can talk about your new Russian friend later. Let me decide if I need rest. I slept some on my flights.”
“But not last night—”
“Not much in recent days.”
Steam rose from the pie, sweet juice from the cooked apples, sugar and cinnamon oozing over the crimped edges of the browned crust. Emma eased her arms along his sides and around to his back, her physical attraction to him as strong, as immediate, as the first time he had touched her a little more than a month ago.
“It’s been a long month,” she said. “If you want to talk, I can put on coffee and cut the pie.”
“I’m good with Fin’s whiskey and warming up my cold bed with you. We can save the pie for tomorrow.” Colin drew her closer to him. “I don’t need to talk about what happened. I’m here. I’m with you. The rest can wait.”
“I’m not hiding anything from you. I just can’t talk about everything that involves my family’s work.”
He touched his lips to hers, just a breath of a kiss. “No talking, no thinking. Not tonight.” He ran his fingers into her hair and smiled. “No sleeping on a mat in Heron’s Cove, either.”
She smiled back at him. “Where, then?”
“With me.”
“You’re in pain, aren’t you? These bastards—”
“I don’t want to think about them. I want to think about you.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “I should carry you upstairs tonight.”
He gave a small laugh. “Sweetheart, the day I can’t carry you up to bed…”
“You rugged undercover types,” Emma said, slipping from his embrace. “I’ll finish up here and meet you upstairs. Don’t fall asleep on me.”
She reached for the faucet, but in one swift move, he swept an arm around her and lifted her off her feet, then up and over his shoulder, potato-sack style. She knew several different maneuvers to get herself back onto the floor in one piece but used none of them as he headed for the stairs. Not that her maneuvers would have worked, anyway. He was strong, in good shape and determined, despite his ordeal.
He didn’t put her down at the top of the stairs. In a few more strides, he had her in his bedroom. It was pitch-dark, the shades pulled, not so much as a night-light on. She had hastily made the bed that morning, but Colin kept any remarks to himself as he ripped back the duvet, just as she had pictured, dreamed about, in the weeks since he’d left Rock Point.
“The sheets will be cold,” she said.
“Not for long.” He wasn’t breathing hard at all as he laid her on the bed. He grinned and gave a mock shudder. “Damn. It is cold.”
“Are you sure about this? You need time to decompress and reintegrate—”
“Exactly.” He fell with her onto the bed, his mouth finding hers. “Nothing’s changed, Emma. Nothing. I want you now as much as I did when I carried you up here the first time.”
“That’s good,” she whispered, her throat tight with emotion and a rush of desire.
Her shirt went first, then his, joining the blankets on the floor. Emma inhaled sharply when he skimmed his hands over her bare breasts, then caught a nipple between his lips. She sank deep into the bed, already warm from their presence. He licked, tasted, teased, even as he smoothed his palms down her sides, over her hips.
Her pulse raced; her skin was on fire.
In another two seconds, he had her jeans off, and she raked at his, until finally they, too, were gone, cast onto the floor.
He came to her, as ready as she was. She’d dreamed of this moment, ached for it, hoped for it. He was her soul mate in the only way she understood soul mates.
“Emma,” he whispered, “stop thinking.”
She could hear the amusement in his tone and drew her arms around him, coursed her palms up his back. “No more thinking. Promise. It’s good to have you here.”
“Glad you put that pie in the oven?”
The man was irresistible, impossible. She smiled, tried to answer, but he shifted position on top of her, eased himself between her legs, and she found that she couldn’t speak. Instead she drew him into her, closing her eyes, lying back, taking in the heat and hardness of him. He thrust deeply and went still, as if to give them both the chance to absorb that this was real, that they were together again, making love on a dark autumn night. Then he drove into her again, and she was lost.
Only later, when her heartbeat had calmed and the cool air chilled her overheated skin, did anything resembling a thought work its way into her consciousness, and it was a good thought. She didn’t want to be anywhere else but where she was right now.
She realized there was only one pillow left on the bed, and they were sharing it, facing each other. Colin kissed her on the forehead but didn’t say a word.
* * *
Colin ended up on the outer edge of the bed, with Emma asleep in the crook of his arm. The milky light of dawn brought out the honey tones of her hair, and he noticed her black lashes against her creamy skin. He’d slept, but not a lot. She was right about the need for decompression and reintegration. They were as important to his work as training, preparation, reports, analysis, experience and instinct. Fatigue bred mistakes. Mental and physical exhaustion put not just his own life in danger but other people’s lives, and it jeopardized the mission. It led to burnout and it frayed relationships.
The problem was, he seldom recognized when he was past the point of no return. His ability to push through exhaustion and fear was part of what made him good at undercover work, but he also knew that it made reentry into his home life—his real life—tricky, even difficult.
What made it even harder was his distaste for lies and deception.
His bruises ached, but not as much as before making love to Emma. Pain wasn’t what had awakened him and kept him awake. His instincts had. He trusted them, and they were hammering at him now, telling him that Emma’s Russian jeweler and her warning about a Russian collection weren’t just some obscure Sharpe matter.
He pictured Pete Horner’s supercilious smile. “I see you’re back from the dead.”
Back, but determined to finish the job he had started when he set out from Maine last month. He wanted Horner, Yuri and Boris in custody. He wanted to find out how they planned to get weapons now that Colin’s stash was no longer an option. Did they have other contacts in Vladimir Bulgov’s old network—access to the same stockpiles of Soviet-era weapons?
When had Horner and his Russian colleagues discovered their turncoat undercover agent had jumped into the Intracoastal? Had they searched for him? Had they tried to go back to the rented house but realized it was crawling with feds?
Had they figured out he wasn’t a turncoat after all?
Were they the type to seek revenge? Did they still think they could force him to help them?
Who was their buyer?
Colin had run the same questions over in his mind for hours.
He didn’t see himself spending the next two weeks kayaking, drinking whiskey and digging bean holes with Finian Bracken.
Making love to Emma, yes.
She and Matt Yankowski both were holding back on him. Did Yank know about this Tatiana Pavlova?
The wind rattled the windows, reminding Colin that he needed to get the house ready for the winter. He could do that over the next couple weeks, too. Caulk windows, stack wood, clean the chimney.
Dwelling on his frustrations and questions in the middle of the night wasn’t helping anything. He looked at the woman lying next to him and put emotion and desire aside. The Sharpes were a family with sixty years of investigations, contacts and secrets behind them. Emma had worked art crimes with her grandfather from childhood—long before she’d become an FBI agent.
Colin didn’t expect to know everything about her in the short time they’d been together, but he doubted even Yank knew what all lurked in the Sharpe family vault of secrets.
She shifted slightly, throwing back a slender arm. Colin held her close, and she rolled over, touched her fingertips to a deep purple-and-yellow bruise on his side. “They did this to you?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“You could have said something before we—”
“Trust me, sweetheart, I wasn’t thinking about my aches and pains while we were making love.”
“There are more bruises?”
“A few. I heal fast. Being back here helps.”
“They were trying to kill you—”
“Not when they hit me. They were just trying to get me into their car, show me they were in charge. They disagreed on killing me.”
“They knew you were a federal agent,” Emma said.
“By then, yes. They thought I was playing both sides and was willing to sell them weapons at a cut rate.” Colin thought a moment, then said, “Yank is getting the go-ahead to involve the team, but there were three men. Pete Horner, a private pilot out of Florida. He flew planes for Bulgov but wasn’t one of his regular pilots. He wanted to wait to kill me.”
“The other two?”
“Russians. Yuri and Boris. They wanted to kill me right away. Yuri is in his late forties, with short, thinning gray hair and blue eyes. Boris is younger—maybe thirty. Medium brown hair, brown eyes. Good-looking. Yuri’s kind of flat faced.”
Emma sat up slightly. “You’re describing them to me because you think I might recognize them.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“They could be anywhere. They could have split up, or they could still be together. They could have new IDs. Another boat. They could have had a car or a plane waiting for them. I had to bail too soon—”
“It sounds as if you bailed in the nick of time.”
“You mean before they fed me to the alligators?”
She gave him a faint smile. “Your sense of humor is a coping mechanism.”
He leaned in close to her. “What’s funny about alligators?”
“Do they believe they could force you to get them weapons?”
“Hard to say. They want to be arms merchants. They have contacts, resources, funds—seed money, Horner calls it.”
“Will their buyer be mad at them for not coming through with weapons?”
“Oh, yes. Very mad.” Colin realized suddenly how much he appreciated her approach to a problem. “I made it easy for Horner by turning up with orphaned weapons that I wanted to unload.”
“They knew you didn’t want a career as an arms merchant,” she said. “Just a profit. Everyone has good reason to be mad at you. Horner, the Russians, their buyer. Are they the type to exact revenge?”
Her skin was warm, as soft as anything Colin had touched in a month. “They’d have to find me first,” he said.
“And they don’t know who you are.”
“That’s right, they don’t—unless your source tipped them off.”
“My source isn’t one of them. I can tell you that much.”
“Did you break rules to find me, Emma?”
She let her fingertips drift over his chest. “I would have.” She looked up at him, her eyes as green as he’d ever seen them. “But I didn’t need to.”
“Why not?”
“You’re good at undercover work.”
It wasn’t an answer. Colin saw that she knew it, too, but he didn’t care. Not right now. He kissed her, then let the curve of his hand drift over her smooth, cool skin. “I’m good at this, too.”
6
LUCAS SHARPE SLOWED from a run to a light jog as he entered St. Stephen’s Green, a welcome oasis in the heart of Dublin. The lush greenery, flowers, statues and fountains were dripping as much as he was, if only from the early-morning rain and not a mixture of rain and sweat. He had pushed himself hard on his five-mile run. Nothing like an enigmatic, irritating email from his one-and-only sister to propel him into the Irish rain in sweats and running shoes:
I need everything you and Granddad have on London jewelry designer Tatiana Pavlova and her interest in the Rusakov collection. I’ll call tomorrow.
Btw, Colin is back.
Hope you’re enjoying Dublin,
Emma
She had sent the email at 8:00 p.m. Maine time, 1:00 a.m. in Ireland. Lucas had picked it up when he had awakened at seven in the spare bedroom of his grandfather’s Dublin apartment. Checking messages first thing, before he even crawled out of bed, was a habit he was trying, with limited success, to break. Given the five-hour time difference, there was even less point to diving onto his iPhone at first light in Ireland than in Maine, where at least he could rationalize that he wanted to stay abreast of what was going on in Europe.
As it was, by the time he read Emma’s email, it was the middle of the night on the U.S. East Coast. He would have to wait several hours before he could call his sister for more information.
Was Emma referring to Russian tycoon Dmitri Rusakov?
“Bloody likely,” Lucas muttered, jogging past a curving ornamental pond, ducks grooming themselves in the rain-soaked grass.
He slowed to a walk on a meandering path that led to a gate on the east end of the iconic green. The rain had let up but he was already soaked to the bone. Dublin was quiet so early on a drizzly Sunday morning. He crossed the normally busy street and continued into the heart of residential Georgian Dublin where his grandfather had lived for the past fifteen years.
Three days ago, Lucas had seized on the disruption of the renovations at the Sharpe house in Heron’s Cove as an excuse to fly to Dublin. He had barely had time to adjust to Irish time and get over jet lag before he had received Emma’s urgent message.
Having a sister who was an FBI agent had its drawbacks, but Lucas didn’t doubt that she was as concerned about their grandfather as he was. Ostensibly Lucas was in Dublin to check out the status of the Sharpe Fine Art Recovery office there, but he was also checking out the status of his grandfather. His health, his well-being, his plans for the future.
Easier said than done with an independent-minded old codger like Wendell Sharpe, Lucas thought with a sigh of exasperation.
He came to the narrow brick town house where his grandfather had an apartment. Born in Dublin, Wendell Sharpe had been just two when he had left Ireland with his parents for Boston. They soon moved to southern Maine, where his father had worked as a property manager and his mother as a domestic at large summer homes. Wendell had started out as a security guard at a Portland museum, ultimately finding his calling in investigating and recovering missing fine art and antiques.
His decision to open a Dublin office and return to Ireland had been a surprise, but it had also worked out well. At first, his only son—Lucas’s father—had run the Heron’s Cove office. Then a fall on the ice landed Timothy Sharpe in chronic pain, and bit by bit Lucas took over.
Now in his early eighties, Wendell, a widower for almost two decades, was giving up day-to-day work in the business to which he had devoted his life and edging into retirement, or at least semi-retirement.
Lucas went around back and ducked through a gate onto the terrace and into the kitchen. It was past eight but still no sign that his grandfather had yet rolled out of bed. Lucas was dying for coffee but returned to the small guest room and stripped off his wet clothes, leaving them in a heap on the tile floor. He pulled on a robe and headed for the apartment’s only bathroom.
A hot shower, shave and dry clothes didn’t ease his tension.
He headed back to the kitchen, filled the electric kettle with tap water and plugged it in. He dumped loose-leaf Irish Breakfast tea into an earthenware pot for his grandfather and fresh-ground beans into a glass coffee press for himself. By the time he had tea and coffee steeping, his host entered the kitchen dressed in dark gray wool trousers, a crisp white shirt, black vest and red bowtie.
“It’s Sunday, Granddad,” Lucas said.
“I thought I might go to church. Don’t worry. The rafters won’t cave in. I’ve been going more frequently in recent months.”
Lucas was worried, although not about his grandfather’s churchgoing habits. “I just don’t want you to be depressed,” he said, loading the tea, coffee, plates, silverware and a basket of toast onto a tray.
His grandfather looked mystified. “Depressed? Why would I be depressed?”
“Sometimes there’s not a reason. It just happens. Come on. The rain’s stopped. Let’s have breakfast outside.”
Lucas carried the tray and Wendell grabbed a towel to dry off the chairs and two-person round table on the small brick terrace. The sun broke through the clouds as they sat across from each other. They were both lanky and blue-eyed, but any resemblance ended there. Except for her green eyes, Emma favored their grandfather more than Lucas did.
He watched his grandfather butter a piece of toast with a steady hand. For all his expertise in fine art, Wendell Sharpe lived simply. The only art he owned was by contemporary artists and craftspeople, mostly Irish, whose work appealed to him for whatever reason. He didn’t care about critics, reviews, whether a particular work or particular artist would ever end up in a museum or prized by discerning collectors. He just bought and bartered for what he liked. His lack of snobbery, combined with his knowledge, experience and extensive contacts, made him a formidable, insightful expert in art theft and recovery. He could see, think and feel what others couldn’t or overlooked because of their blind spots and prejudices.
Lucas wanted to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, but he knew, too, that he had to carve out his own path. And he was just thirty-four. Wendell did have a few decades on his only grandson.
Wendell took a bite of toast and poured tea. “What’s on your mind, Lucas?”
“Do you know a London jeweler named Tatiana Pavlova?”
“No, I don’t, but that’s a Russian name. Why? Who is she?”
“I don’t know. Emma sent an email last night asking about her. She said she’d call today.” Lucas poured his coffee, appreciated its heat. “She also wants anything we have on the Rusakov collection.”
“The Rusakov collection?” Wendell went still, knife and toast in hand. “You’re sure?”
Lucas nodded. “I’m sure. You can read the email if you’d like.”
“No. I don’t need to read it.” He set his toast on his plate and glanced at the sky, the sun back behind the shifting gray clouds. He seemed to give himself a mental shake, then picked up his teacup and focused again on Lucas. “What else did Emma say?”
“Colin Donovan is back.”
“I met him in September when he and Emma were in Ireland chasing that killer. Good-looking fellow. All the Donovans are.”
“I didn’t realize you knew them,” Lucas said, already wishing he’d made more coffee.
“They’d come by the waterfront from time to time, mostly in a lobster boat. I’d wave. They’d wave. That was the extent of it. They were teenagers. I was old even back then. Their father was a town police officer.”
“Did you think Colin would become an FBI agent?”
“No, I thought he’d become a lobsterman. I’m better at figuring out art thieves than I am at figuring out law enforcement officers. They surprise me every time. Look at Emma. You said Colin’s back? Where did he go?”
“Washington, supposedly. I don’t think that’s the whole story. I think he was in trouble.”
Wendell nodded thoughtfully. “I suspect trouble’s a way of life for Colin Donovan. As it’s becoming for Emma, I fear.”
“They’re FBI agents, Granddad. It’s their job to look for trouble. What about this collection? Does it in fact belong to Dmitri Rusakov?”
Wendell shifted in his chair, a ray of sunlight catching his thinning white hair. “I haven’t been back to Maine in far too long. How is life there?”
“It’s fine,” Lucas said, not hiding his impatience well. “Granddad—”
“I’ll recognize the house when you’re finished with it?”
“Yes. I’ve worked with an architect and designer to make sure we keep its character. My main focus is modernizing the offices. You’ve seen the drawings.”
“The apartment will be ready by winter?”
“Yes, but you have a place to stay in Heron’s Cove anytime you want to be there. You know you can always stay at my place. And you’ll love the apartment when it’s done. I promise.”
“I know I will, Lucas,” Wendell said, pouring himself more tea. “I’m physically and mentally fit for a man my age, but I can’t help but feel that moving back to Heron’s Cove will mean I’m about to die. People will take it that way, though. Mark my words.”
Lucas felt a spray of drizzle and sat back, wishing now he’d stayed inside and turned on the Irish news instead of trying to have a conversation with his grandfather. Coffee first. Then talk of going home to die.
The rain didn’t develop, and the sun popped out again.
Finally Lucas said, “Granddad, if you’re having second thoughts about retiring, we can work something out. You’ll still be a consultant but if you miss going into an office, there are options.”
“I know, I know.”
“And there’s a difference between retirement and death, you know.”
His grandfather gave a wry smile. “Yes, I do know, Lucas. What about you? You never thought you’d be running the show at your age. You thought you’d have more time to sow your wild oats.”
“Dad’s accident changed all that.”
“And Emma,” Wendell said. “The convent, the FBI. We thought you would share the responsibility of running the business with her.”
“It’s all worked out. Dad’s still a valuable asset to the business even if he can’t run it. Mom, too.”
With another sigh, Wendell ate his toast, drank more of his tea. “Your father’s strength was always research and analysis. He and Emma have that same ability to dig into something and see all the pieces and how they might fit together.”
Lucas again reined in his impatience and focused on enjoying his coffee and toast. He could feel his run in the backs of his thighs. He had pushed too hard. He could blame jet lag, but he didn’t. He blamed Emma’s email, and his grandfather’s attempt to deflect the questions about Pavlova and Rusakov—and his melancholy mood. Lucas had hoped that his presence in Dublin would be a boost for his grandfather. Instead, he was just another reminder that Wendell Sharpe had more days behind him than ahead of him. Transferring what he knew—what wasn’t in the files—to his grandson drew him into the past and underscored that he was at the end of a long and storied career.
“I don’t know what the next chapter will be for me,” Wendell said, buttering his last triangle of toast, “but it’ll be short.”
“Granddad, that’s morbid.”
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
“You could live to a hundred-and-five. That’s more than twenty years.”
“I shudder at the thought.” He winked. “It’s all right, Lucas. I’m not about to leap off the Cliffs of Moher. In fact, I’ve decided to take a sort of walkabout on the southwest coast.”
“Of Ireland?”
“Yes, of Ireland. Of course.”
“It’s late October, Granddad.”
“The weather’s fine. There’ll be rain, of course, but the days are getting shorter. I’ll just have to find my way to a pub once it gets dark.”
“When will you leave?”
“As soon as you do. I presume you’ll be going to London to look into this Tatiana Pavlova. Ah, Lucas.” His grandfather looked up at the sky again, peeks of blue showing now. “Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions. Have you learned that yet in your work?”
“I treat every situation individually—”
“That sounds like a line from a Sharpe Fine Art Recovery brochure, or these days its website.” Wendell looked across the table, his blue eyes as incisive as ever. “It’s against Emma’s nature not to ask a question, to dig deeper. She wants to have all the pieces, the whole picture. I’m convinced that’s one reason she entered the convent. Asking, probing, analyzing, thinking. Those practices come naturally to her.”
“She can also kick ass,” Lucas pointed out, if only to lighten the mood.
“And shoot,” his grandfather added with a laugh.
Even as teenagers, Lucas had noticed Emma’s fascination with the intersection of art crimes and other major crimes—the illegal trafficking of weapons and drugs, human trafficking, extortion, money laundering, murder. That interest coupled with her expertise in art history and preservation had made her an attractive candidate for the FBI.
“I’d see more of both you and Emma if I moved back to Heron’s Cove,” Wendell said, pensive again. “That would be a good thing.”
“We’d like it, Granddad. You know that, I hope.”
He nodded. “I do. Lucas…” His grandfather sighed as if in pain. “We do the best we can to influence, to inform, but in the end, we can’t control the people who come to us for help. What they want, what they know, what they’re willing to tell us.”
“Are you talking about Tatiana Pavlova and the Rusakov collection now?”
“I told you I don’t know this Tatiana Pavlova.” He drank more tea, setting the cup off balance on the saucer, so much so that it tipped off on its side with a clatter; he left it, pressed his cloth napkin to his lips, then put the napkin back in his lap. “Dmitri Rusakov hired us twenty years ago. I met with him in Moscow. Then he hired us again four years ago. And I sent Emma to him in London.”
“Granddad,” Lucas said, “why don’t I know any of this?”
He tapped the tip of his index finger to his temple. “Because it’s one of those cases that’s in here and not in the files.” He got stiffly to his feet and glanced at his watch. “I don’t want to be late for church.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lucas said, rising.
Wendell’s eyes sparked with sudden humor and energy. “Now I will have to warn Father O’Leary or the rafters will cave in for sure.”
“You can tell me about Dmitri Rusakov on the way.”
* * *
After sitting impatiently through church with his grandfather, Lucas let himself into the Dublin office of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery on the second floor of a small brick building on a cobblestone street a few blocks off St. Stephen’s Green. He shut the door quietly behind him and noticed through the tall windows that the day had gone gray again. He didn’t mind. He just needed time to think.
His grandfather was having a postchurch full Irish breakfast with friends. In preparation for his retirement, he had removed all his personal items and personal files from the office where he had worked for the past decade and a half, leaving behind two desks, shelves, a credenza and a computer. There was no hint of the intriguing work that had gone on there. He had never been one for bulking up a staff, instead taking on consultants and temporary assistants as needed. Lucas wanted to keep a Dublin office but needed to identify a role for it now that his grandfather wouldn’t be there on a daily basis.
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Carla Neggers
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: After escaping certain death, deep-cover agent Colin Donovan is back home on the Maine coast with his new love, FBI art crimes expert Emma Sharpe.When Tatiana Pavlova, a London-based jewelry designer, arrives in Heron′s Cove, asking for Emma′s help, A prized collection from a lost era of Russian opulence, decadence and rare beauty has resurfaced, and Tatiana warns Emma it′s about to be stolen again. And Colin realizes his nightmare isn′t over. It′s just begun. And everyone you love is a target… Emma guards her past closely, and Colin is determined to unlock her secrets.As they investigate the mysterious collection and the equally mysterious Tatiana, they confront their greatest challenge. Now they must count on their expertise–and each other–to outwit an enemywho wants to destroy them and everyone they love most. Who can you afford to trust?“A writer at the absolute top of her craft." —Providence Journal