Saint's Gate (19 page)

“It’s hard to know what Claire Grayson was up to.” Colin stood back, eyeing Emma. “You need to get some sleep, Agent Sharpe.”

She nodded. “I know. You’re tired, too. Go. You don’t have to stay here.”

“I think I will, though.”

She felt a rush of warmth. “I’ll be okay by myself.”

“You’d sleep well after finding a bomb in the attic?”

“It was meant to burn up my grandfather’s old files and obscure the theft of the Sunniva painting. Any harm to me was secondary.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Because Yank—”

“It’s got nothing to do with Yank. Not anymore.”

Colin started toward the stairs, and Emma took a quick breath, turned off the overhead and followed him down to her grandfather’s old office and back out to the kitchen.

“We could go back to my place,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what it is with you Sharpes and furniture. Your apartment in Boston is bare bones. Your brother’s house is bare bones. This place here’s practically empty and ready be gutted. I have furniture.”

“There’s a cot in the attic.”

“Uh-uh. I’m not sleeping in the attic and I’m not carting a cot down two flights of stairs.” He leaned in close to her. “Relax, sweetheart. I have a spare bedroom.”

She busied herself putting away the wine, cheese and apples.

“Emma? You’re thinking, aren’t you? Sometimes there’s nothing to be gained by thinking.”

She shut the refrigerator and turned to him. “You rely on your instincts. Have they ever failed you?”

His eyes darkened even as he smiled. “They might be failing me right now.”

She opened the porch door behind her. “All right. No more thinking. We’ll go to your place. You and your brother drank up my cider and it’s going to be chilly tonight. I don’t want to turn on the heat.”

Emma drove her own car to Rock Point. Her suitcase from her whirlwind trip to Ireland was still in back. Colin’s house was perfect—small, quiet, masculine, with classic Craftsman-style lines. A life vest hung on the back of a chair and framed photographs of Maine scenes were on the walls.

Saying there was a spare bedroom, however, was a stretch.

“I don’t have a lot of company,” he said, leading her to a study off the living room, behind the stairs. “There are two bedrooms upstairs. Mine, and one I’ve converted into a weight room—a dusty weight room.”

“Who needs a weight room when you can haul lobster pots and kayak when you’re home.”

“The couch pulls out in here. If you’d rather sleep on an exercise mat—”

“This is great, thanks,” she said quickly.

Too quickly. Colin leaned against the varnished woodwork, looking casual, amused and very sexy. “Safer to keep a set of stairs between us, maybe. A nice little barrier of pillows might not work tonight.”

She felt an unsettling combination of sexual awareness and fatigue. “We’ve both had a long day. Those five extra hours between here and Ireland are catching up with us.”

He winked at her. “I don’t get jet lag.”

“Of course not. What was I thinking? Then sitting still for a seven-hour flight is catching up with you. I’ll take a wild guess that you’re not a man who likes to sit still.” Emma grinned at him. “Helps that you’re a man of supreme willpower.”

“How’s your willpower?”

Weaker and weaker, she thought. “You don’t happen to have a bottle of Bracken whiskey tucked in a cupboard, do you?”

“I’m guessing the last thing you need right now is whiskey.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I need a bed. Are there sheets in here?”

Colin’s eyes narrowed on her with an intensity that buckled her knees. She had to grab the doorknob to steady herself. He straightened and slipped a thick, muscular arm around her waist. “I’m revising the plan. Up you go.”

Before Emma could figure out what he meant, he lifted her off her feet and scooped his other arm under her thighs. She was so startled, she grabbed his shoulder with such force she thought she’d draw blood. He didn’t seem to notice and just carried her to the stairs. She loosened her grip and sank into his arms, his fleece warm against her face.

He mounted the steps as if she weighed nothing, and she didn’t weigh nothing. He walked down a short hall and toed open a door, a surge of cool air sweeping over her as he carried her into a dark bedroom.

Still holding her in his arms, he leaned over a queen-size bed and whipped back the covers. “Sheets’ll be cold,” he said, then laid her on the bed, staying close, half on top of her. “You’re dead on your feet.”

She opened her fingers that were still clenched on his shoulder. “You’re warm. I didn’t expect it to be so cold up here.”

“I cracked the window. I’ll shut it before I leave.”

His words penetrated. He was leaving?

Her hand dropped from his shoulder just as he lifted her right foot by the heel and tugged off her boot. He cast it onto the floor and tugged off the other one.

He leaned back down to her, dark shadows playing on his face. “I’ll leave the rest to you. Once I get started…”

As far as she was concerned he’d gotten started the moment he’d lifted her off her feet. She smiled. “I can get my socks off myself.”

“Funny.” But he was serious, and he brushed the knuckle of one finger over her forehead, then followed with a soft kiss. “Get some sleep. It’ll help you process what’s happened.”

A mix of sensations boiled through her. “Have you processed it?”

“It wasn’t my friend and it wasn’t my attic.”

“So…. what? You’ll just go think about something else?”

He smiled, tapping her chin. “Emma. Stop thinking.”

She shuddered. “Damn. I’m freezing.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and rubbed them down her arms and back up again. “Your body heat will warm up the bed in no time.”

“Colin…” She held back a yawn, wondering if she was past the point of making any sense at all. “I don’t want to take your bed.”

“You can’t keep your eyes open.”

“If you’re thinking of me as Sister Brigid—”

He laughed softly. “Sweetheart, right now I’m not thinking of you as anything but naked.” He kissed her, her lips parting, even as he took in a breath. He drew back. “Sleep well.”

“Will you be all right?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m going downstairs and practicing my supreme willpower.”

She caught his hand in hers and felt the calluses and nicks of the life he led, then sank back to the mattress. She could feel herself already drifting off.

He tucked the blankets around her, shut the window and, in another moment, was gone.

Emma let out a breath and managed to wake up enough to sit up and peel off her clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. Then she crawled back under the covers, tucking them around her the way he had.

She liked his bed. The sheets were both soft and a little rough. Just like their owner, she thought, smiling to herself.

Colin was right. As soon as she got under the blankets, she was asleep.

29

FINIAN DIDN’T SLEEP AND FINALLY GOT UP IN THE dark before dawn. Declan, his twin, was awake early, too, making coffee in the kitchen of his contemporary house in the hills above Kenmare Bay. His wife, Fidelma, and their three small children were still asleep upstairs. They’d all spent yesterday together, enjoying one another’s company and catching up after three months apart.

Declan poured coffee. “Why don’t you give up on this Maine adventure and come home, Fin?”

“I will.”

“But not today.” He handed Finian a mug. “What have you learned?”

“I spoke to friends in Dublin. Old friends, from before I entered the priesthood. They had information. A house near Wexford owned by friends of theirs was broken into earlier this summer, and the security guard—an old man, is all he was—was hit on the back of the head. He was only knocked out, not killed.”

“Thank God,” Declan said.

“The thief got away with cash and a small, obscure but potentially quite valuable Albrecht Dürer etching the wife inherited from her family.”

“Who in blazes is Albrecht Dürer?”

“I had to look him up, too. He was a prominent fifteenth-century German painter and engraver. Here’s what’s interesting. The etching isn’t authenticated and its provenance is uncertain. My friends believe it came from America.”

His brother frowned over his coffee. “By way of this dead woman?”

“Perhaps,” Finian said, “or her family.”

“The FBI must have information on this theft, Fin, especially given the violence.”

“They might. The owners hadn’t yet gone to the trouble of authenticating the Dürer. In some ways, it could have created more hassles for them.”

“Did the thief break in to get it, do you think?” Declan asked with interest. “How would he—or she—know it was there?”

Finian sighed heavily. “I don’t have the answer, I’m afraid.”

“And you won’t get one. You’ll leave this to the authorities.”

“Of course.”

His brother scrutinized him in the morning shadows. “There’s more, Fin?”

“A tenth-century pagan Scandinavian silver bracelet was stolen from the London town house of a banker friend of a friend in August. Luckily no one was injured. It’s a gorgeous work of art, apparently, but our banker friend—”

“Let me guess. He never had it appraised, and it’s of uncertain provenance.”

Finian nodded. “He figures it’s gone now and isn’t concerned about recovering it.”

“Another American connection?”

“His father bought it on a trip to Chicago some years ago, from a couple in dire financial straits.”

Declan was silent as he paced on the tile floor. “Fin, a killer’s at work. This isn’t just an ordinary burglar. Even if every break-in isn’t accompanied by violence—”

“I know, Declan,” Finian said, looking out into the darkness. “I want to get on the road before sunrise. Don’t worry about me. Be safe, and keep Fidelma and the children safe.”

His brother winked, as fearless as ever. “No worries, Fin.”

Finian drove on the winding N71 to Moll’s Gap and Ladies View, where, in 1861, Queen Victoria and her ladies-in-waiting had marveled at the breathtaking views of the Black Valley. The Brackens had been poor farmers then. They’d been poor farmers when Declan and Finian were boys.

No one would fault him if he didn’t go back to Maine, Finian thought as he pulled over in his rented car. The sky had lightened in the east. The air was cold, windy. He zipped up his jacket and followed a rock-strewn path to the Old Kenmare Road, part of the Kerry Way walking route that encompassed more than a hundred miles of the Iveragh Peninsula. This section went through Killarney National Park with its ancient woodlands and beautiful lakes.

He continued onto a rocky path into a glen, the main road disappearing behind the barren hills. He was the only soul in sight, only his footfall disturbing the silence. He crossed a stream as the sunrise spread around him. On previous walks, as a husband, a widower, a seminarian, he’d seen Irish red deer in the oaks across the bog, but he didn’t this morning.

He eventually made his way up a steep hill, Kenmare Bay and the surrounding mountains coming into view in the distance. Behind him were the mountains of Killarney. He paused by a holly bush and looked up at the brightening sky. He could see Sally and their daughters. He could hear their laughter and not, this time, the cries of their fear and suffering. They were real, intense,
there.

“Ah, my girls. I should have been with you.”

Finian stayed a few moments, then turned back through the glen just as a rainbow arced in the mist over the still, beautiful hills.

When he arrived at his car, he had an email from Colin Donovan in response to his information on the break-ins. It was well before dawn in Maine. What was Colin doing awake? He was, as ever, to the point: Mind your own business.

Finian laughed, even as he understood the seriousness of the situation at hand.

As he drove through Killarney and out toward the airport, he saw another rainbow, vibrant, never to be taken for granted.

30

EMMA SAT ON A HIGH STOOL AT THE BREAKFAST bar in Colin’s kitchen, relieved that they’d had his email from Finian Bracken to help ease the awkwardness of the morning. Waking up in Colin’s bed without him had been just as unsettling as waking up in her bed with him. She’d lain under the blankets, warm, tingling with the memory of his arms around her as he’d carried her up the stairs.

A message about a possible Albrecht Dürer etching and a possible Viking bracelet turning up stolen had plunged her back into the harsh reality of why she was even in Maine.

“This is new information.” Emma helped herself to a cracker. Food options were few and far between. “Father Bracken didn’t exaggerate, did he? He has good sources.”

Colin was less impressed. “He’s a priest. He should stick to his job.”

“He’d have involved himself even if he didn’t know you. A nun was killed and he wanted to help.”

“Either that, or he’s fooling us all.”

Emma tilted her head back, taking in his raw look. He’d put on jeans and a dark chamois shirt but hadn’t shaved yet and was just in a pair of wool socks. The effect was intimate, casual and enough to take her breath away. “You look as if you had a rough night, Agent Donovan.”

He grunted. “I’m taking the sofa bed to the dump. The mattress is so thin I could feel the bars under it, and my feet hung off the end.”

“You could have come upstairs and—”

“No, I couldn’t have.” Colin slipped into scuffed boots by the back door. “I’ll go get us coffee and breakfast. Back in ten minutes. You can work Fin’s tip.”

“Were you awake when it came in?”

“I was.”

She felt a chilly draft when he went out the door. She slid down off her stool, the morning sun streaming through the kitchen windows. She had work to do. It was already afternoon in Ireland and London. She wanted to reach her grandfather, her own contacts. She wanted to talk to her brother again, too.

She collected her things, found a pen and index card and left Colin a quick note, then headed out to her car. The morning was warming up fast, a summerlike touch of humidity in the air. When she arrived at her grandfather’s house in Heron’s Cove, she had an email from Sister Cecilia asking her to stop by the shop and studio the sisters ran in the village.

Emma decided to walk into the village. Halfway there, Colin passed her in his truck. He didn’t wave. She didn’t exactly blame him if he was annoyed with her for sneaking out on him.

By the time she reached the sisters’ shop on a narrow side street, he was sitting on a bench in front of the small, shingled building they rented. “Are we of like minds,” Emma said, “or did you guess I’d come here?”

“I tucked a homing device on your jacket collar last night.”

“Very funny. You could have waved when you passed me.”

He stretched out his legs. “I did.”

“I didn’t see you wave.” She glanced into the first-floor shop; she could see Sister Cecilia rearranging a shelf of pottery vases painted with wild blueberries that they sold on consignment. Emma looked back at Colin. “I want to talk to Sister Cecilia. Wait out here. I don’t need you influencing her.”

“No problem. I’ll be right here unless I get bored and decide to try my hand at painting. Watercolor class is up next.”

Emma ignored him and went inside. A sister she knew from her own days at the convent was minding the cash register, allowing Sister Cecilia to lead Emma to a back room. Its white walls were decorated with cheerful children’s finger paintings, but the novice wasn’t cheerful. “This all just gets worse,” she said. “I think the shock’s worn off, and now I really feel the pain of what’s happened.”

“That’s understandable,” Emma said.

“I’ve been going through old photos that I collected for my work on Mother Linden’s biography.” Sister Cecilia brushed stray hairs out of her face, tucking them back into her white headband. “I have a few minutes before my next class. Watercolor painting for teenagers.” She gave a faltering smile. “I love watercolors.”

“I do, too. Sister, I got your message—”

“Yes. I wanted to show you.” She fumbled with a stack of files on a trestle table. “Ainsley d’Auberville wants to include her father’s painting of Mother Linden’s Saint Francis statue in her show—the one that’s hanging now in the retreat hall. That would be fun for all of us. Apparently he would often take a series of photographs of the houses and gardens he was commissioned to paint and use them to help as he did the actual painting.”

“Did he take photographs of the statue of Saint Francis?”

Sister Cecilia nodded. “Ainsley found two in her father’s studio. I can’t wait to see them. That’s not why I called, though.” She grabbed a folder and opened it on the paint-spattered table. She withdrew a small, faded black-and-white photograph of a cedar-shingled house. “The detectives asked me if I’d run into anything on Claire Grayson in my research on Mother Linden. I hadn’t, but I started looking through my files, and I found this photograph. It’s not labeled, but I’m sure it’s a picture of her and Mrs. Grayson.”

Emma recognized Mother Linden, smiling in her traditional nun’s habit. Next to her was a beautiful woman in slim pants and a white shirt, her platinum hair pushed off her face. She had a gentle smile. Her eyes were half-closed, not focused on the camera.

“It’s by the tower fence,” Sister Cecilia said. “The statue of Saint Francis is still there. I think it must have been taken the summer Mrs. Grayson took painting lessons from Mother Linden.”

And died in a fire, Emma thought. She studied the picture with interest. “Have you called the detectives yet?”

“Not yet. I wanted to show you first.” Sister Cecilia hesitated. “I need to tell Mother Natalie.”

Emma understood. “How did you get here?”

“I rode my bicycle. It’s such a beautiful day.”

“Have you told anyone else about the photograph?”

“No, just you so far. I only just found it. The convent has a huge collection of photographs from when Mother Linden was alive. I’ve been going through them because of my work on her biography.”

“You seem nervous,” Emma said.

“Do I? I guess I am. I’ve never had so much contact with the police before. I know you’re a federal agent, but…” She stopped, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll call the detectives and have them meet you here. You need to tell them what you’ve told me and show them the photograph.”

“I understand. Mother Natalie reminds us not to be afraid of the truth. She doesn’t have a heavy hand as Mother Superior. That’s not our tradition.” Sister Cecilia fingered the edge of the old photograph. “I heard you’d been a member of our community. Why did you leave?”

“I discovered I wasn’t called to be a religious sister after all. A novitiate’s an exciting time, but it’s also challenging, for the most part in positive ways.”

“When it comes time to make my final vows, I know I won’t have any doubts.”

“I expect not, Sister. I expect you’ll know what’s right for you.”

They returned to the front room of the shop and studio. Emma called Detective Renkow and, reassured that another sister was present and Sister Cecilia wouldn’t be alone, went outside. Colin rolled up off the bench, sliding his phone back into his pocket, a suggestion he hadn’t been idle while she’d been inside.

Her own phone vibrated in her jacket pocket, and Emma ducked past him to take the call. “Sunniva definitely isn’t here in Ireland.” It was her grandfather’s voice on the other end. He sounded energetic, focused. “I searched just in case I’d forgotten. I didn’t. That painting sat up in my attic for decades, Emma. It’s of no serious monetary value, but someone broke in, grabbed it and left a bomb behind, then flew to Ireland to nail me. Why, I don’t know.”

“We’ll find out, one way or the other.”

“I don’t dwell on the past, but I’ve been thinking about Claire Grayson. I wish I’d realized what a bad state she was in. Your folks do, too.”

“I can understand that,” Emma said. “I’m struck by the surface similarities between Claire and Saint Sunniva. I wonder if it was a bit of a self-portrait. Sunniva ran away from her homeland to escape a forced marriage. Claire ran away from her husband. She burned to death, though. Sunniva died in a cave.”

“The similarities might have been enough to draw Claire into painting her. She wasn’t a prolific artist, not that she had the chance to be, but I doubt she did more than two or three paintings while she was in Maine.”

“The Sunniva painting is ambitious. The research, the attention to detail—it must have taken time.” Emma stepped into the shade of the building, the midday sunshine more like summer than fall. “Anything else on any artwork Claire might have brought East with her?”

“One thing.” Her grandfather seemed subdued. “It’s nothing I thought much about at the time. I’d like to do more research—”

“Tell me, Granddad.”

He sighed. “You sound just like the FBI,” he said with a touch of humor.

“Now’s not the time to hold on to information, even if it’s not firm.”

“I don’t have much. Gordon Peck, Claire’s grandfather, bought the house in Maine and started the family’s art collection. He was a bit of a character. He liked to think of himself as a philanthropist and gave away a number of pieces, but his estate was a mess when he died. His son and daughter-in-law sold whatever they could. Then they died in a plane crash.”

“Leaving poor Claire on her own,” Emma said. “You’ll tell Lucas?”

“I don’t have to. He called a little while ago. You and he—”

“We’re in touch,” Emma said.

“You’re not staying together? You found a bomb in the damn attic, Emma. I hope you’re not staying there alone. I don’t care if you’re an FBI agent.”

She glanced back at Colin and said, “I’ve taken reasonable precautions. Thanks for the info, Granddad. Be well.” She slid her phone into her pocket and turned to Colin, wondering how much he’d overheard. “Can you take me out to see Ainsley d’Auberville? I can walk back for my car if I have to—”

“Here I was thinking we’d go out for a late breakfast and a nice stroll on the beach.”

“Sister Cecilia found a picture of Claire Grayson. CID’s on the way.”

Emma headed down the walk. Colin caught up with her in two long strides. “Hold on, sweetheart. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. You cost me an extra cup of coffee. I ate the doughnut I bought you, so I won’t put that on your tab.”

“I left you a note. I had work to do.”

“My truck’s around the corner. That was Granddad Sharpe on the phone, I gather. What if he’s covering up something in his past?”

“Then I’ll find out,” she said, refusing to take offense at Colin’s question, and got into the truck.

He climbed in next to her, filling up the cab with his broad shoulders, his long legs. He frowned at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He must have noticed the heat rushing to her cheeks. He grinned. “Wishing you walked back for your car, after all, aren’t you?”

“You’re a hard man to ignore,” she said.

“Good.”

“You’re not mad at me for skipping out on you this morning?”

“I got two doughnuts out of it.”

“I’m serious.”

“It’ll teach me to give you information.”

“You’d have done the same thing with a case on your mind,” Emma said.

“This isn’t a simple art crime case, Emma. It’s a murder case.”

As if she needed reminding.

Colin started the engine. “Tell me what Granddad had to say.”

As they headed south out of the village, Emma filled him in on her conversation with her grandfather, leaving out only his concern for where she was sleeping.

When she finished, Colin was turning onto the sunny lane to the d’Auberville studio on Claire Grayson’s former property. “Maybe your brother’s the one who’s covering up past crimes,” he said.

“You can ask him,” Emma said coolly, nodding to the converted carriage house. “That’s his car parked behind Gabe Campbell’s van.”