Carla Neggers Read online

  “To help with this research facility?”

  “Andy doesn’t have any details. He hasn’t talked to Julianne himself.

  “Then who told him?”

  “Her brother. Ryan. He’s in the Coast Guard, but he’s in Rock Point visiting for a few days. He found out from their grandmother. Julianne lives with her.”

  Rock Point was a small, tight-knit southern Maine fishing village. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, but Julianne’s short-lived romance with Andy Donovan, third-born of the four Donovan brothers, apparently had come as a surprise, especially since she’d vowed never to get involved with a Donovan. Emma didn’t know either Andy or Julianne well. She’d only met Colin in September and was still figuring out who was who in his hometown.

  “What’s this woman’s name?” she asked. “Do we know her?”

  “Her name’s Lindsey Hargreaves. I don’t know her.”

  Hargreaves. Emma searched her memory but shook her head. “I don’t, either. Did she come to Rock Point looking for Julianne?”

  “I don’t have any details. I just know Julianne’s on her way to Ireland.”

  “And you don’t like it.”

  “Julianne’s as smart as they come, but she’s impulsive and she’s had a rough time lately. She’s never been that far from home. I doubt she’s been farther than Nova Scotia. Now all of a sudden she’s meeting some strange woman in a little Irish village.”

  “Are you concerned she’s running away because of her breakup with Andy?”

  “I know she is,” Colin said half under his breath. “This trip could be exactly what she needs, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone.”

  “We could drive over to Declan’s Cross tomorrow,” Emma said.

  He tilted his head back, eyed her again. “We could, but what’s going on? I noticed your look when I mentioned Declan’s Cross. Emma, is there a Sharpe connection to this village?”

  She sighed. “We can talk on the hike back to the car.”

  2

  THEY DIDN’T TALK on the hike back to their car or the drive back to their borrowed cottage in the Kerry hills across Kenmare Bay. Colin drove. He’d adjusted quickly to driving on the left, but the high, thick hedges and narrow roads—each with its own quirks—kept him on alert.

  He’d known he and Emma wouldn’t talk the moment he’d mentioned Declan’s Cross and she’d given him that tight look. He liked to joke that he could do deep-cover work because he himself wasn’t deep, but Emma was. She had layers of secrets. Sharpe secrets, Sister Brigid secrets, FBI secrets.

  Emma secrets.

  He didn’t have secrets. He just had stuff he couldn’t talk about.

  And he had his demons. He’d come to Ireland because of them. His months of undercover work had taken a toll not just on him but on his family and friends—and on Emma, even in the short time they’d known each other. They’d met in September on his brief respite at home in Rock Point.

  Then he went away again, and when he came back, he’d brought some of his bad guys with him.

  The short version, he thought as he pulled into the gravel driveway of the little stone cottage he and Emma had shared for the past two weeks. He’d stayed here on his own for several days before she couldn’t stand it any longer—as she’d put it—and got on a plane in Boston, flew to Shannon, rented a car and found him.

  Colin hadn’t asked her to turn around and go back to Boston without him.

  Maybe he should have.

  It was dark now, the wind shifting, turning blustery. He glanced at Emma, but she had already clicked off her seat belt and was slipping out of the car.

  Definitely preoccupied.

  He was in no rush. Let her take all the time she needed before she told him about the Sharpes and Declan’s Cross. Wendell Sharpe had lived and worked in Dublin for the past fifteen years. Whatever was on her mind likely involved him. Colin had drunk whiskey with old Wendell. Interesting fellow. Maybe not quite the analytical thinker his granddaughter was but definitely a man with secrets.

  Colin got out of the car, not minding the spray of cold rain. He grabbed their packs from the back and headed up a pebbled path to the cottage. The front door was painted a glossy blue, a contrast to the gray stone exterior. Finian Bracken, the owner, an Irish priest serving a parish in Rock Point, had told Colin to stay as long as he wanted. They’d become friends over the past few months, maybe as much because of their differences as in spite of them.

  Fin couldn’t bring himself to stay in the cottage. It was a reminder of his life before the priesthood, when he’d been a successful businessman, a husband and a father. He and his wife had renovated the tiny ruin of a place, adding a bathroom, kitchen, skylights, richly colored fabrics. It had been their refuge, he’d told Colin, a favorite spot to spend time with their two daughters.

  Never in Fin’s worst nightmares had he imagined he would lose all three of them. Sally, little Kathleen and Mary. They’d drowned seven years ago in a freak sailing accident.

  Fin had removed any personal mementoes, but Colin thought he could feel the presence of his friend’s lost wife and daughters and the happy times they’d had there.

  He set the packs on the tile floor and pulled the door shut behind him. He liked being here. He liked having Emma here. The rest would sort itself out.

  He watched her as she got on her knees and carefully, methodically, placed sods of turf in the stone fireplace. Colin liked the smell of burning peat, and a fire would warm up the single room and loft in minutes.

  She rolled back onto her heels and stared at the fire as it took hold. Then she glanced up at him, the flames reflecting in her green eyes. “I hate to leave this place,” she said.

  “Ah, yes.” He moved closer to her. “The cold, cruel world awaits.”

  She stood, and he slipped an arm around her waist, kissed the top of her head. Even her hair smelled like mud, but he didn’t mind. She leaned into him. “I thought we’d have a few more nights together here. It’s the most romantic cottage ever, isn’t it? But we need to go to Declan’s Cross, Colin. At least I do.”

  “There is a Sharpe connection to this village, then.”

  She eased an arm around his middle, the lingering tentativeness of even two weeks ago gone now. “I’ve reserved a room at the O’Byrne House Hotel,” she said. “It’s on the water, right in the village of Declan’s Cross.”

  “That was fast.”

  “The joys of smartphones.”

  And she’d had her plan fixed in her mind when they’d arrived back from their hike. “Have you ever been to Declan’s Cross?” he asked.

  “Once, when I worked with my grandfather in Dublin. I was only there for the day. The O’Byrne House wasn’t a hotel then. It was a rambling, boarded-up private home. It opened as a hotel last fall. Apparently its spa is quite nice.”

  “A spa,” Colin said, as if he were translating a foreign language.

  “I bet it offers a couple’s massage.”

  “Dream on, Emma.”

  She grinned. “I think you’d enjoy a hot stone massage.”

  “I’d rather have you heat up my stones, Special Agent Sharpe.”

  “You’re hopeless.” She tightened her hold on him, her grin gone now. “Massages are good for demon fighting.”

  He wasn’t going to be distracted by talk of his demons. He drew her against him. “What’s good for extracting Sharpe secrets?”

  “There are secrets and there are confidences, and there are things I just can’t tell you.” She broke away from him and grabbed a black-iron poker, stirred the fire. “I wish I had a fireplace in my apartment in Boston.”

  “Emma.”

  She turned, and now the hot flames deepened the green of her eyes. “It was a great hike today, but I smell like dried mud, sweat and sheep dung.”

  “Just mud,” he said.

  “Such a gentleman. I’ve no regrets. I love hiking the Irish hills.”

  Still trying to change the subject, or at least delay telling him what was going on. He wasn’t easily put off. “Roaming the Irish hills is different from figuring out what drives people to steal art. Is Declan’s Cross the scene of an art heist the Sharpes investigated?”

  Emma sank onto a bright blue-and-white rug in front of the fireplace, kicked off her shoes and tucked her knees under her chin as she stared at the flames. “It’s the scene of an art heist we’re still investigating.”

  Colin remained on his feet. He was restless, but he knew he had to be patient. An unsolved art theft was right up Emma’s alley as both a Sharpe and an FBI agent. “What was stolen?” he asked.

  “Three Irish landscape paintings and an unusual Celtic cross.” She still didn’t look up from the fire. “They were stolen from the O’Byrne House ten years ago, on a dark November night much like tonight.”

  “Your grandfather investigated?”

  “Not at first. Not until after another theft in Amsterdam six months later.”

  “The work of the same thief?”

  “We believe so, yes. He’s struck at least eight more times since then. London, Paris, Oslo, Venice, San Francisco, Dallas, Brussels and Prague.”

  “A different city each time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Patterns?”

  She hesitated, then said, “Some.”

  She didn’t go on. Colin sat next to her, feeling the warmth of the slow-burning fire, her intensity. “Declan’s Cross was his first hit?”

  “We believe so, yes. It’s also the smallest location, and the only one in Ireland.”

  “Any viable leads?”

  “Almost none.”

  “And of all the cute Irish villages, Julianne picks this one. Okay. I get it. You want to make sure her choice of Declan’s Cross d
oesn’t have anything to do with your thief.”

  “I have no reason to suspect it does. We can scoot over there tomorrow, welcome Julianne to Ireland, spend the night in a romantic Irish hotel and then get out of the way and let her enjoy her stay.”

  “Without a Donovan breathing down her neck,” Colin added.

  “If she’s making this trip in part to get over Andy...then, yes, she deserves to be Donovan-free.”

  Colin stretched out his legs. “All right. Let’s check out Declan’s Cross and see what Julianne’s up to. If it’s just whales and dolphins, you’re on for that couple’s massage.”

  “You jest now, but wait until you’ve had one.”

  “Jest.” He smiled at her. “I don’t know if I’ve ever used jest in a sentence.”

  “Making fun of me, are you?”

  She didn’t look at all worried. “Never.” He edged closer to her. “What were you like four years ago when you were working with old Wendell in Dublin?”

  “Not as good with a gun for one thing.”

  “Quantico changed you.”

  “I learned new things there, most certainly. Did it change you?”

  He shrugged. “Not that much.”

  “You were in law enforcement before you entered the academy. I wasn’t. My grandfather can’t break the law, but he doesn’t have to follow the same rules we do.”

  “In other words, he doesn’t care about prosecuting this thief. He just cares about catching him.”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

  “You’re a complex woman of many interests. I’m a simple man of limited interests. Whiskey, sex and—” Colin grinned at her. “I can get by on whiskey and sex for some time.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers. “No more questions, Emma. No more thinking. Not tonight.”

  3

  JULIANNE MARONEY WAS half in love with Father Bracken and totally in love with Andy Donovan, and that, she thought, was reason enough to head to Ireland. She grabbed a coffeepot and headed across the dining room to Father Bracken’s table. It was a dreary afternoon in southern Maine, and she was wrapping up her shift at Hurley’s, a popular, rustic restaurant on Rock Point harbor.

  This time tomorrow, she’d be in Declan’s Cross on the south Irish coast.

  She’d accepted a marine biology internship in Cork, but it didn’t start until January. Impatient, going crazy, she’d jumped when opportunity had knocked last week in the shape of Lindsey Hargreaves, a diver, a marine science enthusiast and a member of the family that had founded the prestigious Hargreaves Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

  Impulsive, maybe, but Julianne didn’t care. She was packed. Her flight to Shannon left tonight.

  She arrived at Father Bracken’s table overlooking the harbor. “Not much of a view today, Father,” she said, refilling his mug. “Gray rain, gray sky, gray ocean.”

  He smiled up at her. “I’m Irish. Wet weather doesn’t bother me.”

  He’d ordered fried eggs, ham, toast and jam, a late breakfast by Rock Point standards but not, he insisted, all that late by Irish standards. He’d taken his time, reading a book and jotting notes in a black Moleskine. The lunch crowd, such as it was on a Monday in November, was in now, mostly locals—fishermen, carpenters, retirees, a group of young mothers with babies in tow.

  No Donovans, at least not yet.

  There were four Donovan brothers—gray-eyed, dark-haired, rugged, sexier than any men had a right to be and not one of them even remotely easy.

  They said Finian Bracken reminded them of Bono. Maybe with a little Colin Firth, Julianne thought as she checked to make sure he had enough cream in the little stainless-steel pitcher. He was in his late thirties, relatively new to the priesthood. In his early twenties, he and his twin brother, Declan, had started a whiskey business in Ireland. Bracken Distillers was a success, but the tragic deaths of Finian’s wife and daughters had changed everything.

  Julianne didn’t have many details and wasn’t sure she wanted any. She couldn’t fathom such a loss. He’d left Ireland in June to serve a one-year assignment at struggling St. Patrick’s, the Maroney family’s church a few blocks from Rock Point harbor.

  He wore his usual priestly black garb. She had on knee-high boots, dark brown leggings and a Hurley’s-required white shirt and dark blue apron. She had her hair tied back. It was golden brown, and Andy used to tell her its natural highlights matched the gold flecks in her hazel eyes.

  “You must be about to leave for the airport,” Father Bracken said. “How are you getting there?”

  “My brother’s dropping me off.”

  “Will you be seeing Colin and Emma while you’re in Ireland?”

  She almost reminded him that Colin was a Donovan but instead said, “They’re in the southwest, and they’re supposed to be relaxing.”

  Father Bracken’s midnight-blue eyes leveled on her. He had to be aware of the complicated dynamics of Colin’s relationship with Emma Sharpe and the reaction of his family and friends in Rock Point to her. An FBI agent, an ex-nun, a Sharpe. She and Colin were, to say the least, an eyebrow-raising match.

  “Have you told them you’re coming?” Father Bracken asked.

  “No, but it’s fine. They don’t need to know. I wouldn’t want to interrupt their time together.” Julianne stopped herself, which wasn’t her style. Usually she said too much, not too little. “You haven’t told them about my trip, have you?”

  “I wouldn’t without your permission,” he said simply.

  She felt her cheeks flame. “Oh, right, of course not. I hope they’re having a good time, and Emma isn’t finding out the hard way what rock heads the Donovan men can be.” She gave Father Bracken a quick smile. “Sorry, Father.”

  His mouth twitched with humor. “No worries.”

  “I can handle Colin. It’s not that. I’m used to Donovans.”

  And she’d never slept with Colin. Never even considered it. She’d known better than to get mixed up with any of the Donovans. Mike, the eldest, was an ex-army wilderness guide on Maine’s Bold Coast. Then came Colin, an FBI agent. Kevin, the youngest, was a Maine state marine patrol officer. But it was third-born Andy, a lobsterman who restored classic boats on the side, who had captured her heart.

  She’d slept with him, all right. One of the stupidest things she’d ever done.

  Father Bracken was frowning at her, but if he guessed what she was thinking, he kept it to himself. She smiled. “Sorry. Mind wandering.”

  “No apology necessary. Be sure to tell Sean Murphy I said hello.”

  Sean Murphy owned the cottage Julianne was renting in Declan’s Cross. She’d expected to stay in a bed-and-breakfast, but Father Bracken had arranged for the cottage after she’d brought him his fried eggs yesterday morning and told him about her trip. He and his fellow Irishman were friends somehow. Julianne didn’t have any details. She was curious but felt awkward prying into Father Bracken’s private life.

  “I will,” she said. “He’s not a priest, is he?”

  “No, but he’ll look after you if you need anything.”

  “This will be great. I’m really excited. I can get the lay of the land, figure things out ahead of my internship. I’ve never been anywhere. I’ve told my folks and my brother, and Granny, naturally, but I don’t need everyone in town knowing my business.”

  “Meaning the Donovans,” Father Bracken said with a smile.

  “Trust me, it’ll be easier if I just go on my way without the benefit of their opinion of my sanity.”

  “Well, then. Godspeed, Julianne. Give my love to Ireland.”

  “Thanks, Father, I will.”

  She withdrew with her coffeepot. She felt good about her impromptu trip. It wasn’t just a chance to get things sorted out for January or even to put space between her and Andy. She would also be helping with her new friend’s marine science field station.

  She and Lindsey Hargreaves had hit it off when Lindsey had stopped at Hurley’s last Wednesday. Not even a week ago. Lindsey had explained that she and some diving friends had been diving in Declan’s Cross that fall, and she’d had the idea of launching a field station there. She’d flown home for a few days to work on some of the details.