The Whisper (25 page)

Off the Iveragh Peninsula, Southwest Ireland

The ride out to the island was horrifyingly bumpy. Tim O’Donovan had made a point of telling Josie that Sophie had never vomited on her trips out there. She was an archaeologist. Josie was a professional intelligence officer. Time to buck up. But she had never liked boats. Myles, of course, was now best friends with the fisherman, neither of whom seemed even to notice the waves, the salt spray or her seasickness.

Josie managed not to vomit. She did, however, slip on the wet rock and go down on her butt. Myles grinned down at her and offered her a hand. “I’ve my pride,” she said, and bounced back to her feet. “I’m a Londoner. I don’t do bloody rocks in the middle of the bloody ocean.”

She went on in that vein for some time. The day was only slightly overcast, the light soft, the view to the Iveragh Peninsula with its breathtaking sweep of rugged mountains, the highest peaks in Ireland. The island itself was a bald mass of rock with grassy bits.

“In the old days,” Tim said, “monasteries were built along the Irish coast.”

“Yes, Seamus Harrigan’s been trying to talk me into touring the old monastery on Skellig Michael. I understand it’s very difficult to get to—even worse than here—and quite inhospitable.”

The Irishman glanced down at her as if she were completely weak-kneed. “The monastery was in operation for over six hundred years.”

“I can hold my own in difficult conditions, but if I had another choice, I can tell you that I wouldn’t live on barren rock on a remote island. Do you suppose the artifacts Sophie saw in the cave were from Skellig Michael? I understand she believes they’re pagan in origin, but if they’re gold and of historic and cultural value—well, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

Tim shrugged his big shoulders. “Anything’s possible.”

Myles pointed toward the center of the island. “Is that the way to the cave?”

“That’s it. Sophie was careful not to disturb any breeding ground for birds and sea life.”

“We’ll do the same,” Josie said, “and tread carefully.”

They followed O’Donovan up and then down again over the gray, bleak rock. Occasionally Josie would look out at the view of the coastline and water and fight off an urge to chuck everything, phone Will in London and tell him she and Myles were going off to hike the Kerry Way and stay in quaint Irish bed-and-breakfasts and have picnics.

Except, of course, Myles was riveted to his adopted mission of finding Percy Carlisle.

In her own way, so was she, Josie thought, feeling less wobbly now that she was on firm ground again. She had a terrible feeling about Carlisle.

Tim stopped atop a ledge and pointed down to a rock formation. “Sophie’s cave is there.”

Josie stood next to him, refocusing on why they were on this inhospitable hunk of rock. “I could come out here every day for a thousand years and not notice it,” she said.

Tim grunted next to her. “Sophie knows what to look for.”

Myles jumped down to the mouth of the cave. Josie sighed and edged down to him. She wasn’t as put off by tight, dark places as she was by boats. She tightened her jacket—she’d borrowed a waterproof one from the Malones—and crawled in for a peek. He followed her, and she imagined him and Will investigating caves in Afghanistan for weapons caches, terrorist plans. She did her part from a warm office in London.

“This is a lark for you,” she said, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light just inside the cave, “much as it was for Sophie Malone.”

“It’s not a lark if she saw what she claims.”

They crouched down amid the damp rock. “It’s not a pleasant spot to spend the night, is it?” Josie shuddered. “I might have made up blood-soaked branches and whispers myself, and I’ve been through all sorts of training. Sophie’s an archaeologist with a great deal of experience in the field, but still.”

“This place gives me the bloody willies.”

That did cut to the chase, Josie thought.

Myles turned to Tim, who had climbed down and stood at the cave’s entrance two yards from them. “Where did Sophie plan to camp?”

“There’s a spot of decent ground near where we landed. She had a tent, food, water—she was prepared and not at all worried.”

Josie peered into the dark at the back of the cave. “Tell me, Tim,” she said, “if you had gold treasure you wanted to keep out of the hands of the Vikings or whomever, would you hide it on this island?”

“If I knew about the cave,” he said.

“Do you think it was a ghost or fairies?” Myles asked.

“Ireland’s full of folklore.”

It wasn’t a direct answer, but Myles let it go.

“An archaeologist wouldn’t necessarily think of this place in the same way that we do,” Josie said. “To me, it’s desolate, remote and inhospitable. To Sophie—”

“It’s fascinating,” Tim said.

They heard a sound deeper inside the cave.

A moan.

Josie glanced at Myles but saw that he’d heard it, too. At the mouth of the cave, Tim O’Donovan was silent.

Someone was back there in the dark.

Boston, Massachusetts

Scoop spoke briefly with Eileen Sullivan at the Boston-Cork conference offices, then walked back down to the street. He left Sophie another voice mail. “Call me as soon as you can.”

He dropped his phone in his jacket pocket. He had it on Ring and Vibrate. No way would he miss her if she called him back. He’d been trying to reach her for the past twenty minutes. She’d left the conference offices fifteen minutes ago.

He’d joined forces with Bob and Abigail and pried information on the investigation out of Tom Yarborough, probably Yarborough’s first tweak of protocol since he’d told his mother no at two. Cliff Rafferty had almost certainly built and planted the bomb. His trail was relatively easy to follow once they had
C4 sitting on his coffee table. They knew what questions to ask. They’d found more materials in his garage and traced them to their source.

The bastard had assembled the bomb, walked into the yard of fellow officers and placed it under a gas grill, ensuring added explosive power when it went off.

“He used our trust against us,” Abigail had said.

“We never saw him,” Scoop had said. “None of us did. He sneaked in back with his damn bomb because he knew we’d ask questions if we saw him. It could have been anyone.”

But it wasn’t. It was a cop. Someone they knew.

And he’d been murdered.

Scoop walked down the street to the Carlisle house. Josie Goodwin and Myles Fletcher were checking Sophie’s island, but they hadn’t reported back yet. They’d be out there now, maybe even in the cave itself.

His phone rang and vibrated in his jacket. He had it out in seconds, but it wasn’t Sophie. Instead it was Damian Malone, her FBI-agent brother. “Helen Carlisle took a flight from London to Boston the same day you and Sophie got back,” Damian said. “She arrived a couple hours after you did. I’m checking, but I’ll bet she was in Ireland when her husband met Sophie in Kenmare.”

“Then she didn’t come from New York. She told us a bald-faced lie. Why?”

“Good question. Is she on the skids with Percy? Does she suspect he was involved with moving stolen art with Jay Augustine?” Damian sounded focused—and worried. “And where’s my sister? She texted me a little while ago that there was no problem. It was an odd message.”

“I’ll find her,” Scoop said.

He headed into the formal front yard of the Carlisle house and
turned up the walk to the side door. It was partially open. He entered the elegant house, dialing Bob O’Reilly.

“I was about to call you,” Bob said. “Yarborough’s on his way. He wants to talk to Helen Carlisle about a few lies she told.”

“About when she left her husband in Ireland?”

“We checked the auction house where she worked. She turned up in June of last year. Before that she was at a smaller auction house—a totally different woman. Quiet, timid. Not at all glamorous.” Bob paused. “Scoop, Helen Carlisle isn’t who she says she is.”

He entered the kitchen and saw skulls and blood-dripping branches. “Yeah, Bob,” Scoop said, tightening his grip on the phone, “I can see that.”

Helen Carlisle had transformed the large, elegant courtyard into her own notion of a sacred wood. Sophie stood next to Acosta by a potting bench. The blood dripping from the branches was definitely real. Helen had taken it from several “rodents” she’d killed, their carcasses hanging from the branches of a potted oak sapling.

In the middle of the courtyard was a giant cast-iron cauldron set on a grate over an open fire. Sophie could feel the blistering heat of the flames.

Helen kept her gun—one of Cliff Rafferty’s, she’d explained—pointed at her prisoners.

Her future victims, Sophie thought. “Were you here earlier today?” she asked Acosta.

He nodded, transfixed by the frightening image Helen presented with her red wig and cape pinned at the shoulder with a
gold brooch of distinctive Celtic design. His skin was gray, pasty. “I deluded myself.” He slurred his words slightly, his voice barely audible. “She tried to kill me yesterday. I see that now.”

“Listen to me.” Sophie knew she had to pull him out of his shock and self-pity if they were to survive. “Did Helen give you anything? Tea, a glass of water—”

“Tea.”

“She’s drugged you. She thinks she’s some kind of warrior queen or goddess. She thinks she’s drawing power from you. You’re a police officer. A warrior. A lover. A threat. She has wild ideas but she’s not insane. She knows exactly what she’s doing and what she wants.”

Helen sniffed. “What are you saying, Sophie? I told Jay Augustine that you had a knack for adventure and archaeology. I told him that you had a gift and it was just a matter of time before you discovered something of value and interest. I was right.” She didn’t lower her weapon a fraction of an inch. “When Percy told me about you and your Irish fisherman…I knew.”

“Rafferty and Augustine played you.”

“Oh, they tried. Certainly. Cliff was an opportunist. Jay was a killer—I didn’t know at first. Now I see he was sent to me as a sign that it was time I took action.”

“You transformed yourself,” Sophie said, wishing somehow she could get Helen to move closer to the flames, catch her cape on fire—fall against the bubbling cauldron.

“Jay and Cliff thought I was a mousy know-nothing who dusted artwork in one of New York’s lesser auction houses. And I was, until I became the woman Percy Carlisle fell in love with.” Her beautiful eyes leveled on Sophie. “I sought him out because of you.”

“Because of my expertise in Celtic archaeology.”

“Jay was amused by my transformation. Cliff didn’t even know
until after Ireland.” Her tone was superior—she was enjoying telling her story. “After he and Jay did what I wanted.”

Sophie kept her tone steady, unafraid. “They followed me to the island.”

“Can you imagine?” Helen smiled, but she didn’t lower her gun. “Percy told me about your research in Ireland and your family home in Kenmare. Everything. Cliff was stupid and lazy in many ways, but he saw you go off with your Irish fisherman. He had binoculars. He was able to follow you and figure out where you were going.”

“He got lucky. If he’d followed me the first five trips out to the island, he’d have come back empty-handed.”

“It wasn’t luck. Those pieces were meant to find their way to me. Jay wasn’t tuned in to anything except opportunities for himself, and look what it got him? He died alone in a jail cell.”

“Did you know that would happen, too?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

Acosta sank onto a bench. “Get the hell out of here,” he whispered to Sophie. “Save yourself. I knew she was out of control but not this. Damn.”

“If we can keep her talking—”

“No, don’t. Don’t, Sophie. Get out of here.”

Helen glanced at him with disdain. “He’ll fall asleep. He won’t die from what I gave him.”

“How did you kill Cliff?”

“I waited for him to get back from whining to you. I hit him on the head hard enough to knock him out. Then I hanged him. It was all planned. He had to be sacrificed. I wanted what power he had left in him.”

“You’d fantasized about doing just that to someone.”

“I don’t fantasize.” She came closer to Acosta as he fought to
stay conscious. “I found myself when I delved into the study of true ancient pagan Celtic ways. I have a special insight because of my past. That’s one thing that mouse I used to be gave me.”

“There’s nothing authentic about what you’ve done, Helen, or what you’re doing now. It’s pure, self-indulgent violence. It won’t get you what you want.”

“It will, Sophie.”

“You think you’re a destructress—that you’ll gain power by creating chaos. You’ve intentionally adopted these beliefs to justify and rationalize your violence. Your understanding of early pagan Celtic rites and rituals is limited, as well as warped.”

“
Don’t you dare
tell me what I know and don’t know. Jay and Cliff underestimated me. They hid the treasure from the cave—
my
treasure—from me. They never thought I’d be the buyer. Then when I married Percy…” She stood up straighter, taller. “When I became Mrs. Percy Carlisle, Jay understood.”

“Then he went after Keira—”

“And he was arrested for murder while my treasure was sitting in his vault.”

“You seduced Detective Acosta. You got Cliff to make sure he was assigned to security at the showroom.” Sophie’s throat was dry, but she was focused on this woman. Helen was lost in her own reality. There was no reasoning with her. There was only delaying her. “He brought you the treasure.”

“That’s right. The cauldron you found is a source of rejuve-nation and abundance,” Helen said, the flames glowing in her eyes. “I will use it to consolidate my power. I have no doubts, Sophie. I have absolute certainty. Look at me. Look at what I’ve done. I’m a Carlisle.”

“You want to be here,” Sophie said softly. “You belong in this beautiful house. You love this life, Helen.”

“That’s right. I will give up nothing.”

“If you go through with this, you’ll give up Percy.”

“He is going through his own transformation. He will understand. He’s under my control.”

Acosta passed out, sinking onto the brick courtyard.

He might have been one of her butchered squirrels for the look she gave him. “For a long time, I was weak and powerless. No one noticed me. Then I changed. Now look at me. I’m Helen Carlisle. I’m Mrs. Percy Carlisle. I’m desired by warriors like Frank Acosta.”

“Cliff Rafferty wanted my opinion on what you were up to, didn’t he? He was going to confess—”

“I’m the one who found his bomb-making materials and laid them out for his police friends.” She kept her gun pointed at Sophie. “You could join me. Think of what you could become, Sophie.”

“Not in a million years. What about Percy, Helen? What have you done with your husband?”