An FBI legend, a mysterious antiquities specialist and a brazen art thief draw top FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan into a complex web of blackmail, greed and murder in the eagerly awaited new novel in the highly acclaimed Sharpe & Donovan series

Emma Sharpe is suspicious when retired Special Agent Gordon Wheelock, a legend in FBI art crimes, drops by her Boston office for a visit. Gordy says he’s heard rumors about stolen ancient mosaics. Emma, an art crimes specialist herself, won’t discuss the rumors. Especially since they involve Oliver York, an unrepentant English art thief. Gordy and Emma’s grandfather, a renowned private art detective, chased Oliver for a decade. Gordy knows Wendell Sharpe didn’t give him everything he had on the thief. Even now, Oliver will never be prosecuted.

When a shocking death occurs, Emma is drawn into the investigation. The evidence points to a deadly conspiracy between Wendell and Oliver, and Emma’s fiancé, deep cover agent Colin Donovan, knows he can’t stay out of this one. He also knows there will be questions about Emma’s role and where her loyalties lie.

From Boston to Maine to Ireland, Emma and Colin track a dangerous killer as the lives of their family and friends are at stake. With the help of their friend, Irish priest Finian Bracken, and Emma’s brother, Lucas, the Sharpes and Donovans must band together to stop a killer.

No one creates exciting, action-packed romantic suspense and international intrigue like New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers.

Liar’s Key

Carla Neggers

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For my mother, again and always with thanks and love

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Extract

Copyright

1

Boston, Massachusetts

Gordy Wheelock washed the dried blood off his face and checked the damage in the mirror. Not too bad. The blood was from a swollen scrape behind his left ear, at his hairline. It wouldn’t be visible if he combed his hair right and wore a collared shirt and sport coat.

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what had happened.

He stared at his reflection. Gray stubble, bags under his eyes, flab under his chin, hair completely gray, what was left of it, anyway. He was still in the slacks he’d worn on yesterday’s flight from London.

Damn. He looked like an old, out-of-shape has-been.

He hated that.

He picked up his bloody shirt off the bathroom floor. His left knee ached. It felt swollen. He didn’t remember any problems with it when he’d checked into the Boston waterfront hotel around seven last night. He’d had a drink and gone out to get some air and have a cigarette, never mind that he’d quit smoking decades ago.

That much he remembered clearly. After that...

He grimaced and limped into the bedroom, where he’d awakened on the floor, in a major stupor, fifteen minutes ago. He tossed his shirt on the untouched bed, then walked over to the windows and pulled open the drapes. Had he shut them after he’d fallen—or hadn’t he fallen? Had he been clocked? Damn. He didn’t remember, but he figured he must have shut the drapes himself. The hotel wasn’t bad but it didn’t have a turndown service.

Cold water and now the morning sunlight didn’t help him separate memory and nightmare, but blood, pain and a palpable sense of fear and foreboding suggested that what was stirring in his aching head was more reality than the dregs of a bad dream.

He made coffee in the Keurig machine and dug a Kit Kat out of the minibar.

“Shirt. I need a clean shirt.”

He saw his overnight bag by the door. He remembered dropping it off in the room before heading down to the bar off the lobby.

He tore open the candy. Coffee and chocolate would help him wake up, come to—both.

They did, and he didn’t like it.

This is your only warning. Back off.

A ragged low voice, maybe male, maybe female. Who knew these days?

A gun in the ribs.

Felt like a gun, anyway. Gordy didn’t know for a fact what it had been.

A pro? Not sure about that, either, but whoever it had been had managed to deliver the warning and stay out of Gordy’s line of vision. Probably would have taken less skill just to beat him over the head.

Gordy was disgusted with himself. He was rusty. Back in the day, he’d have had his attacker’s ass in the harbor.

He rubbed his lower back and discovered a bruise where he’d been jabbed. Given his fuzzy head and general aches and pains, he hadn’t noticed until now.

His head throbbed. He hadn’t been shot, grazed by a bullet, anything like that.

“I fell.”

He heard the disdain in his voice. His attacker had come at him from behind at the top of the stone steps near the hotel, stuck a gun, club or whatever in his ribs, grunted the warning and given him a good shove. It’d been dark. Gordy had stumbled and hit his head and banged his knee on the steps.

Never had a chance to light his cigarette.

It was all coming back to him.

He drank his coffee and ate his candy bar, forcing himself to stay loose, relaxed. He’d done that last night with his attacker, too. He hadn’t wanted to fight, risk serious injury, call attention to himself, have to explain to the police—all of which his assailant had clearly known and counted on.

Gordy figured if he was supposed to have come out of this thing dead, he’d be dead.

The warning meant he wasn’t grasping at straws. He was on to something.

He tossed the cup and candy wrapper into the trash. He’d have to tough out the pain from his bruises. He got a collared shirt out of his bag. He’d opted against a suit and tie, but he did have a navy sport coat. He wouldn’t be dressed as if he were off to play golf, at least.

He hadn’t planned to change his slacks despite having slept in them, but he noticed blood on his right hip, visible and obvious against the light gray flannel. He must have touched the blood on his face and then his pants. He dug out fresh trousers. He saw he had a scrape on his right hand, probably from breaking his fall, but it didn’t bother him.

Getting dressed hurt. Walking would hurt, too. Hell, thinking hurt. The attack hadn’t been a coincidence. He’d asked for it, sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. But who all knew he was in Boston?

Once he was dressed, he checked his reflection in the mirror above the small desk in the corner. Better. He looked as if he’d had a bad night, but he didn’t see any visible sign of blood or bruises.

He took the elevator three floors down to the lobby. After a moment’s deliberation, he checked out and left his bag with the bellman, a different one from last night.

He went outside, the sunlight making his head hurt worse. It was a warm spring morning, at least by Boston standards. He walked past the wharf where the New England Aquarium was located, a crowd assembled at the entrance. Parents, toddlers, students and teachers on spring field trips. A few retirees. Not many. Gordy figured he sort of blended in and people could think he was meeting his grandkids, but he’d chosen his hotel for its proximity to his ten o’clock meeting with the FBI. A little late to cover his tracks, anyway. Whoever had attacked him had obviously known where to find him. Followed him from the airport, then waited for him to come out for a smoke? What if he hadn’t? Maybe his attacker had nailed the wrong guy. But Gordy didn’t think so.

He dug out the pack of cigarettes he’d bought after arriving at Logan, tapped one out and lit it with the disposable lighter he’d bought at the same time. If he hadn’t been sneaking a cigarette, would he have been blindsided last night?

Moot point now.

He took two puffs and tossed the cigarette onto the sidewalk. He ground it out under his foot, scooped up the butt and pitched it into a trash can. Never mind someone assaulting him. If the local cops saw him litter, they’d be all over him.

Gordy chuckled to himself, feeling better. Now that he was awake and the caffeine and chocolate were taking effect, the warning and his tumble last night had fired up his adrenaline. He was tuned in, confident he was back in the game. Almost a year playing golf and hanging out with his wife and the kids and grandkids in North Carolina hadn’t softened him up too much. He wouldn’t be caught off guard another time.

A chilly gust blew off the harbor. A stab of pain seemed to go through his eyeball, but he shook it off. Hell, he might even survive May in Boston. He thought he’d never get used to living in North Carolina again, but here he was, shivering.

He glanced at his watch. He’d have to hoof it not to be late for his meeting with the FBI, specifically Special Agent Emma Sharpe.

The hell with that.

He’d take his time. He was an FBI legend. Emma could wait.

2

At first Emma didn’t recognize the man standing in her office doorway. Gordy Wheelock? Had to be. People didn’t just walk into her small FBI building on the Boston waterfront, and she was expecting him. He’d called her last night to set up their meeting. “Ten o’clock sharp, Emma. Funny, huh? Sharp, Emma. Emma Sharpe. Ha.”

That was Gordy, always with the lame humor.

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking pained. “I know. I look like Yank’s drunken uncle these days. Sorry. I should have warned you.”

Yank—Matt Yankowski—was the senior agent in charge of HIT, the specialized FBI team of which Emma was a handpicked member. She doubted he had a drunken uncle.

Yank and Gordy weren’t friends.

“No problem,” Emma said. “Come in, please. It’s good to see you.”

He stepped into her small office. She did her best to hide her shock at seeing him. Gordon Wheelock was an FBI legend who’d taken the investigation of art crimes to a new level during his thirty-year career, but he didn’t look like a legend this morning. He had dark circles and puffy bags under his eyes, and he’d put on weight—at least fifteen pounds. His hair was sparse and totally gray now, not the salt-and-pepper of just a year ago when she’d flown back to DC to attend his retirement party. He wore a collared ice-blue shirt without a tie, a navy sport jacket, tan trousers and scuffed leather walking shoes. The clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d pulled them out of a suitcase or a laundry basket.

Before joining HIT and moving to Boston last March, Emma had worked with Gordy in Washington for several months. Like her, his area of expertise was art crimes. He understood as a law enforcement professional the intersection of major art crimes with other major crimes—embezzlement, extortion, kidnapping, money laundering, drug smuggling, illegal weapons trafficking, murder and even terrorism. He didn’t have a background in art but considered that a strength. She had a degree in art history, and she was a Sharpe—her grandfather was a world-renowned private art detective. Matt Yankowski had urged her to join the FBI and then had chosen her for HIT specifically because of her expertise, but Gordy had warned her not to get distracted by her knowledge and interests. We don’t investigate protocols, controversies and cool stuff going on in the art world, Agent Sharpe. We investigate potential and actual federal crimes.

Word was he’d been ready to retire, but Emma had never asked him for his reasons.

He nodded to the papers, index cards and Post-it notes she’d arranged on the inexpensive sofa against the wall opposite her desk. “Anything interesting?”

“No, unfortunately. I’m sorting through the contents of some physical files.”

“Anything interesting, you wouldn’t let me near it.”

She forced a smile. She noticed a nick on his jaw where he must have cut himself shaving. He’d always been so crisp and professional when she’d worked with him.

He gave her a frank once-over. She was dressed professionally in slim-cut dark pants and a cream-colored shirt, with a lightweight leather jacket hanging on a peg behind the door. She had good walking shoes, no visible sign of wear. Her hair, fair and shoulder-length, was neatly pulled back. “You look good, Emma. Kick-ass and pretty as a picture.” He grinned. “You’re blushing. It’s okay. I can say whatever I want now that I’m retired.”

“One of the perks, I guess. Did you just get into town?”

“Last night. I flew in from London. I used to fly all the time, all over the country—all over the world. Jet lag never bothered me. These days a pop fly from London to Boston knocks me on my ass.”

“What were you doing in London?”

“Whim.”

It was obviously an incomplete answer, but he didn’t seem to care. She decided not to push him. “Did your wife go with you?”

He shook his head. “Joan’s home in North Carolina with the gang. Our youngest is having another baby. We have four grandkids now. Two boys, two girls. This next one will tip the scales back to the girls. Joan’s excited. Loves babies.”

“That’s great, Gordy. Congratulations.” Emma paused, a hand on the back of her desk chair. “If this is a personal visit, why don’t we wait and have lunch?”

“It’s not a personal visit, but I’m not going to keep you.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

“Nah. I’ll stand. Sciatica acted up on the flight.” He walked over to her one window. The main offices, including hers, were on the second floor of a former warehouse, one of many rescued buildings of Boston’s waterfront past. “Alley view. I bet Yank has a harbor view.”

He did, but Emma made no comment.

“Security’s tight here but it’s not a fortress,” Gordy added. “The world’s changed since I broke into my first sweat at the academy.”

“You had an amazing career, Gordy.” Emma sat on her desk chair, swiveling to face him. “What brings you to Boston?”

“I’m on my way to Maine for the open house at the new Sharpe Fine Art Recovery offices on Saturday. I’m invited. That wasn’t your doing?”

“No, it wasn’t. I’m not part of the business. You know that.”

Founded sixty years ago by her grandfather, Sharpe Fine Art Recovery was relaunching itself under the leadership of her older brother, Lucas. Although still relatively small, the business had grown since Wendell Sharpe had set up his first office in his home in Heron’s Cove on the southern Maine coast. He’d been a young museum security guard, following his interests, hoping for the best. Now he was semiretired, living in Dublin since his wife’s untimely death fifteen years ago. Emma knew Lucas had never expected to take the helm so young, or on his own, but he’d taken to the work—or at least he was good at it, dedicated, tireless.

Gordy glanced back at her, a touch of the no-nonsense Agent Wheelock she’d known in his incisive look. “Any regrets about joining the FBI instead of the family business?”

“No. Gordy...”

“A touch of impatience. I like that. I don’t intimidate you anymore.”

She didn’t respond. He’d never intimidated her, but she’d always respected him. In his mind, the two often went together, and either or both could be used as leverage to get what he wanted. Answers, cooperation, his way.

She tilted back in her chair. “Let’s do this. You talk. I listen. Okay?”

He moved away from the window but didn’t sit. “Sure thing. I stopped in at a high-class tea party in London on Sunday. Champagne, chocolate, scones, loose-leaf tea. It was at Claridge’s. Damn fine hotel. I didn’t stay there—too pricey for my wallet. The party was in celebration of the opening of a show at the Victoria and Albert Museum featuring art and artifacts from the late antiquity period.” He paused. “How’d I do? Pretty good, huh?”

Emma didn’t buy his act. “As always.”

“I’ve picked up a few tidbits. Late antiquity bridges the classical era and the Middle Ages, around the time the proverbial shit hit the fan with the Roman Empire, at least in the west. It lasted from the fourth century to the end of the sixth century. That’s AD, or CE, as we say these days. But you know all this.”

“It’s a fascinating era.”

“I guess so. The party was relatively small, maybe forty people.”

“How did you know about it?”

“I still have contacts in London,” he said. “Getting the invitation to the Sharpe open house stirred me up, I guess. I’d hoped to go out on a high note and I went out on a dead end. That’s the way I looked at it. Anyway, I’m at this London tea party, and no sooner did I help myself to fancy tea than lo and behold, who do I see? Want to guess, Emma?”

“You go ahead, Gordy.”

He grinned at her. “I hope that’s my training you’re putting to use. I ran into an MI5 agent I know, a guy as knowledgeable as anyone in law enforcement and intelligence on the illegal antiquities trade and its connections to terrorism and terrorist funding.”

Emma sat straight. Gordy had her interest now. “Did you speak with this agent?” she asked.

“Sort of. He marched over to me and told me to drink my tea and then pack my bags and head home. I told him I only had one bag. He laughed.”

“Most people appreciate your sense of humor.”

“Yeah, right. More like he humored the old fart who doesn’t know enough to stay home and play golf. He wouldn’t tell me why he was sniffing around at a fancy London party—denied that’s what he was doing.” Gordy settled back on his heels and narrowed his gaze on Emma. “I thought you might know what his interest was.”

“Why would I know?”

“Because your pal Oliver York was there, too.”

And there it is. Emma remained very still. “Keep going.”

“English mythologist. A wealthy loner with a tragic past. He witnessed his parents’ murder at their London apartment when he was eight years old. The killers kidnapped him, but he escaped. They’re still at large thirty years later.” Gordy’s voice wasn’t without compassion. “Awful business.”

“Yes.”

“How long have you known York?” Gordy asked.

“Not long. Gordy—”

He held up a hand. “It’s okay. I don’t know anything that wasn’t in the papers. He got mixed up in an investigation into a private security firm this winter. You almost got killed. You already knew him by then, though, didn’t you?”

“Sort of. Keep talking.”

Gordy paused, studying her.

“Is Oliver York working with MI5, Emma?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Instinct. The MI5 guy is a real bastard. If he’s got York by the short hairs for some reason...well, it’s no wonder York is doing MI5’s bidding. But what could British intelligence have on a lonely mythologist?”

Tons, Emma thought, but she didn’t respond to Gordy’s question. Given his experience as a federal agent, he would know she couldn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. For a decade, he had chased a serial thief who’d broken into museums, businesses and private homes in a dozen different cities in Europe and the US, making off with a fortune in artwork. Wendell Sharpe, Emma’s grandfather, had also hunted for the thief, who had especially enjoyed taunting the world-renowned art detective. Last fall, while on an unrelated case, Emma had helped identify the thief as eccentric English mythologist Oliver York. Oliver had never admitted his guilt, and he would never face arrest and prosecution for any of his brazen heists—in part because of lack of evidence, but mainly because he’d agreed to help the United Kingdom’s Security Service, popularly known as MI5.

“I guess I wouldn’t answer that question, either,” Gordy said. “Oliver York’s London apartment—the same one where he witnessed his parents’ murder—is a short distance from Claridge’s. He also owns a farm in the Cotswolds. Again, though, I’m telling you something you already know, since he’s your pal.”

“Oliver isn’t my pal.”

“Is he one of your grandfather’s eccentric pals?”

“You’d have to ask him. Did you speak with Oliver at the party on Sunday?”

“No, I didn’t. He saw me and took off in the opposite direction. Coincidence, maybe.”

Emma doubted it. “What else, Gordy? I can’t get worked up about MI5 and an English mythologist showing up at a high-end London party.”

“Your parents were there.”

Now this was news, Emma thought, containing any reaction. She could see he was gauging her response as the experienced agent he was. As a member of HIT, short for High-Impact Target, she worked on investigations focusing on elusive criminals with virtually unlimited resources. But she had only a little over four years on the job. Gordy, retired just a year, had decades.

“I haven’t talked with them in a few days,” she said.

“We said a quick hello while the MI5 agent was looking daggers at me. They’re living in London now, I understand. It’s temporary?”

“A year. That’s what they say, at least. The idea was that a dramatic change of scenery would help my father with his chronic pain.”

Gordy winced. “Terrible. A simple fall on the ice and his life is changed forever. Your brother had to pick up the reins of the family business sooner than he expected. I hear old Wendell is retiring, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Emma got to her feet. “Gordy, if you’re here because you want me to give you information, you’re wasting your time. I appreciate any information you want to give me, but it’s a one-way street.”

“Yeah. I get it.” He picked up an index card that had fallen onto the floor and set it back on the sofa. “You heard Alessandro Pearson died about two weeks ago? Funeral was a week ago Tuesday. He had a heart attack and fell down the stairs near his apartment. Heart attack is what killed him, though. He was eighty-eight. He had a good run.”

Emma nodded. “Yes, I heard.”

“Old Wendell was at the funeral. I didn’t realize they were friends.”

“He consulted with Alessandro a few times.”

“Archaeologist specializing in ancient mosaics. I thought your grandfather steered clear of antiquities.”

“He does these days. Look, it seems you should be talking to him instead of me.”

“Relax. I’m just curious. I’m at a party celebrating an antiquities show with MI5, this Oliver York character, your parents and a few other people, and everyone’s buzzing about Alessandro Pearson’s death.”

“He was a respected expert in antiquities.”

“Know anything about ancient mosaics stolen recently in London, Emma?”

It was a calculated blurt. Despite his disheveled appearance and obvious fatigue and aches and pains, Gordy had clearly come to this meeting prepared. He watched her closely.

“No,” she said. “What do you know?”

“Not much. I overheard rumors at the tea party. Word is several sixth-century Byzantine Christian mosaics, possibly illegally obtained, were stolen a few weeks ago from an unnamed London collector. I’m no expert on mosaics but I did some quick research. Mosaic art flourished from the time of the ancient Greeks through the fall of the eastern Roman Empire—what we commonly refer to as the Byzantine Empire—in the fifteenth century. Sort of fell out of favor during the Renaissance.” He steadied his gaze on Emma. “Interesting, isn’t it? A mosaic expert dies and these rumors surface.”

“Are you suggesting the FBI should get involved?”

“No.” Gordy rolled his left shoulder, as if to work out a muscle spasm. He breathed, shuddering. “I kinked up on the plane yesterday.”

“Are you sure you won’t sit down?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. You don’t know anything about these stolen ancient mosaics?”

Emma saw no reason not to be straight with him. “I haven’t heard a peep.” She sat down again. She wished she’d had him meet her in the conference room instead of her office. He would be taking in everything, from the way she’d unloaded the files onto the sofa to the tidiness of her desk and her choice of artwork—or lack thereof. “Where are you off to now?”

“No firm plans yet. It’s only Thursday. I don’t have to be in Maine until Saturday. Are you going to be at the open house?”

“I’ll stop in, yes.”

“When do you head up there?”

“Later today.” She didn’t elaborate on her plans. “You have my cell phone number. Let me know if you need anything while you’re in Maine.”

He leaned toward her, his gray eyes serious, his skin more ashen with the light from her desk lamp hitting his face. “Emma, do we have an active investigation involving stolen ancient mosaics? We meaning the Bureau.”

“You know I can’t answer that.”

A bit of color returned to his face. “Figured I’d try. What about your fiancé? Is he going to be at the open house?”

Gordy’s question took Emma by surprise, but she knew it shouldn’t have. He would have checked with his contacts for her latest news, and her engagement definitely fit under that heading. “We’ll see. Do you know him?”

“Of him. Colin Donovan. A rough-and-tough type. Good for you, Emma. Engaged to be married, wedding in a few weeks, member in good standing of an elite FBI unit. Quite a change from your days with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart, isn’t it?”

She noted the edge to his voice but made no comment.

“The paths started and abandoned in life,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been a nun before you joined the FBI?”

“It wasn’t a secret. It was just something I didn’t talk about.”

“And you never reported directly to me,” he added, almost knocking over folders stacked on the arm of the sofa. “I only found out a few months ago. I had to hear it through the vine. You think Wendell would have said something. We were in touch when you were in the convent.”

“I doubt it was relevant.”

“I guess. You’ve never riled easily. Those years as a postulant and novice must have helped. It’s true Yank recruited you out of the convent?”

“Yes. I never professed my final vows.”

“Whatever that means. The Sisters of the Joyful Heart. I like that.” There wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “They specialize in art education, preservation and conservation and have a beautiful convent on the Maine coast. Life could be worse.” He eyed her, as if he were trying to picture her as a nun. “Sister Emma.” He wrinkled up his face. “That’s a hard one to wrap my head around. Except Emma wasn’t your name as a nun, was it? Didn’t you have to take another name?”

“I was known as Brigid then.”

“Good Irish Catholic name.”

Emma inhaled deeply. “Anything else?”

He grinned. “I like the impatience. I’d have threatened to throw me out the window by now. Do the good sisters work on restoring ancient mosaics?”

“I don’t know. They primarily work on pieces that can be safely transported to the convent.”

“They don’t fly out to archaeological digs?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Fair enough. Is Oliver York coming to the open house?”

Another blurt designed to throw her off her stride. “As I said, I’m not involved with the open house, up to and including the guest list.”

“But you’d know.”

She got to her feet. She wanted to maneuver Gordy out of the small confines of her office. He was fishing. He wasn’t even trying hard to hide it. She nodded toward the door. “Agent Yankowski’s office is straight ahead if you want to stop in on your way out.”

“That’s okay. Yank knows I’m here. He can poke his head out of his office if he wants to see me. He’s got work to do, and we didn’t part on the best terms. We never saw eye-to-eye on his idea for this team. I’m not convinced I was wrong but results speak for themselves. Water over the dam now. I’m retired. A dinosaur.” There was no self-pity in his tone. “I should get moving. I might go see the penguins at the aquarium, or I might skip the penguins and drive up to Maine in time to take old Wendell out for a pint.”

“I’m sure he’d like that,” Emma said, her tone neutral.

Gordy started past her but stopped abruptly. “I hoped you’d level with me, Emma.”

“That’s a two-way street, Gordy.”

“I always believed there were no secrets between us. I should have known better. You’re a Sharpe, after all.”

“Sorry the fishing expedition didn’t work out for you.”

He laughed. “I had that coming. You’re tougher than you used to be. Maybe you had a little of Sister Brigid left in you when you worked with me. Or is the smart remark your fiancé’s influence?” He winked at her. “I bet you complicate his life.”

“I’ll see you on Saturday,” Emma said.

“Another careful answer.” Gordy pointed a finger at her. “That’s good, Emma. Be careful, because your grandfather will burn you if you aren’t. Mark my words.”

“Can you find your own way out?”

“Not a problem.”

“Take care, Gordy. You know how to reach me should you need to.”

“And you know how to reach me.”

She gave a curt nod. “Yes, I do.”

“Good to see you, Special Agent Sharpe.”

* * *

After Gordy left, Emma texted Oliver York and her parents, asking them to get in touch, and then she went into Matt Yankowski’s office. His windows overlooked Boston Harbor, glistening in the morning sun. Yank had her sit on a chair facing his desk and he didn’t interrupt her report on her brief, odd meeting with the retired agent.

When she finished, Yank grimaced. In his midforties, he was a good-looking, straight-arrow, buttoned-down agent out of central casting—except nothing about him was that simple. It was a lesson Emma had learned early in the four-plus years she’d known him. “Do you have anything on these stolen mosaics?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

Yank’s eyes narrowed. “But?”

“It’s entirely possible Alessandro Pearson’s death triggered the rumor mill. Something to do with his estate, maybe. Wild imaginations. I don’t know.”

“Could York and MI5 be creating the rumors to stir the pot?”

“Anything is possible.”

“Right now I wish your brother and grandfather hadn’t put Gordon Wheelock on their guest list. Do you know which one of them had that bright idea, when and why?”

“I don’t.”

“But you’re going to ask,” Yank said.

“I’m heading up to Maine after I’m done here.”

He heaved a sigh. “Did you know about this London party?”

“No.”

“But your parents were there as well as Oliver York. I was afraid his name would come up when I heard Gordy Wheelock had an appointment with you. Does York know Gordy investigated the thefts?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“What about Gordy—does he know Oliver’s the serial art thief he and your grandfather chased for years?”

“I don’t think so, but that’s only a guess. Gordy’s certainly suspicious of my relationship with Oliver.”

“He’ll figure it out, then.”

“I would bet on that.”

“Was Oliver at this party because Gordy was, or was it the other way around and Gordy was there because of Oliver?”

“I’ve already texted Oliver asking him to get in touch with me.”

“You said please, since he’s a British citizen protected by MI5?”

Emma shrugged, ignoring Yank’s sarcasm. “Whatever it takes.”

Yank looked pained. “I was hoping we were done with him for a while.”

“Same here.”

“Yeah. I ran into Gordy before he left. He invited me outside for a cigarette. Sarcastic SOB. He knows I don’t smoke. I said no. He never approved of HIT. He wrote a letter to the director articulating his disapproval. No love lost between us, but there’s no question he was one of the best.” Yank pushed back his chair and rose. “When I’m done with this job, I’m going quietly. I’ll go for long runs on the Esplanade, take up tai chi and help Lucy run her knitting shop.”

Emma got to her feet. Lucy was Yank’s wife, a psychologist who’d been reluctant to move from their home in northern Virginia. She’d finally agreed to move north and was adapting to Boston life, moving into a Back Bay apartment and opening a knitting shop. She and Yank had no children, and he was convinced she would go back to psychology. Colin was, too, but Emma wasn’t. Lucy Yankowski was getting into yarns, needles, knitting patterns and classes.

“Oliver’s an expert in tai chi,” Emma said finally, with a slight smile.

Yank scowled as he came around his desk. “Do we have a bored retired agent on our hands who’s trying to connect dots that don’t connect because he wants to feel relevant, or is Gordy Wheelock on to something?”

“I can’t say for certain.”

“I’m not asking for certainty. I’m asking for your gut take on what he’s up to.”

Emma tended to be analytical and objective, gathering bits and pieces of information and evidence and letting them point her in the right direction. Gut takes were Colin’s strength, given his training, experience and natural instincts, and an asset in his work as an undercover agent.

“Gordy was deliberate and reasonably well prepared,” she said. “But he wasn’t in great shape, whether it was jet lag or what, I don’t know. I didn’t work with him during his last few months on the job. I’ll look into what he left unfinished.”

Yank nodded. “Good. Gordy could have made up the rumors to get in here and try to pump you for information. Him, MI5, Oliver York and your family. Not my favorite combination.” He heaved another sigh. “I don’t need more Sharpe trouble, Emma. I really don’t.”

“Understood.”

She headed out of his office, shutting the door behind her. To get to her own office, she had to pass through an open-layout area of tables and cubicles where HIT team members could meet or work on their own. Sam Padgett, the newest member, had set up at a U-shaped table with his wireless keyboard, laptop, separate monitor, a stack of printed spreadsheets and notebooks and several Sharpies. He was a dark, ultrafit, good-looking Texan, full of contradictions and foiled stereotypes, an expert marksman, a whiz at numbers and a total wimp when it came to New England winters. He’d arrived in Boston last fall and Emma swore no one had ever been so happy to see the green grass of spring.

He looked up at her. “Bad?”

“Not great. A retired agent was just here. Gordon Wheelock. Did you see him?”

“Nope. I was in my office gathering up my gear so I could spread out here.”

“And he didn’t see you?”

Padgett shook his head. He had on a dark suit, a crisp white shirt and loosened red tie, but he always managed to look casual. “Why, you want me to tail him?”

“Maybe,” Emma said, then explained the situation. “Think you can find out where he stayed last night? Knowing Gordy, it will be convenient and relatively inexpensive.”

“I never use inexpensive and Boston in the same sentence. Convenient to here?”

“He mentioned penguins. Try near the aquarium. I’m concerned he’s working his own agenda and could infringe on something he shouldn’t.”

“A freelancing retiree. Just what we need. I’ll go see the penguins. You off to Maine?”

“I’m on my way out now. I’m supposed to have lunch tomorrow with my future mother-in-law.”

“Lobster rolls and wild blueberry pie?”

“Very possibly. They’re not quintessential Maine foods for no reason.”

“No doubt. I’ve met your future mother-in-law. Nothing fazes her. You can tell.”

Emma smiled, some of her tension easing after her visits with Gordy and Yank. “Four sons would do that,” she said.

“Especially when all of them are Donovans. We’ll stay in touch about Agent Wheelock.”

She returned to her office and collected the contents of the files spread out on her sofa, stuffing them into their appropriate folders, then stacking the folders on her desk. She grabbed her jacket off the back of her door. Was Gordy invited to the open house on Saturday—or had he lied about the invitation as a maneuver to get her to talk?

One of a thousand questions coming at her.

No wonder Yank had hidden in his office during Gordy’s visit.

3

About forty children around ten years old were congregated at the entrance of the New England Aquarium, laughing and elbowing each other as their teachers counted heads, when Emma arrived. She’d decided to take a quick look on her walk back to her apartment. She wasn’t surprised not to see Gordy lined up at the ticket booth. A stiff breeze was blowing off the harbor but it didn’t freeze her to the bone the way it would have even a month ago. Spring had taken hold of New England, and that meant her wedding was getting closer and closer.

If only Colin were close, too...

She pushed the thought aside and walked the short distance to the nearest hotel, a four-star chain hotel on a small wharf jutting out into the water. It was probably more expensive than Gordy would have liked, but it was an easy walk to HIT and not a bad cab drive from the airport, assuming he hadn’t lied and he’d come in from London yesterday.

Emma didn’t quite know why she was thinking the way she was—not simply that Gordy Wheelock hadn’t told her the whole story about why he was in her office, but that he might have deliberately lied to her—but there it was.

She approached a cheerful bellman, explained who she was and showed him her FBI credentials. “I’m looking for a friend of mine,” she said, then described Gordy. The bellman pointed her to a colleague, an older man flagging a cab for a young couple. Emma waited until he finished.

He remembered Gordy. “Sure, sure. You missed him by a few minutes. I just put him in a cab.”

Emma stepped back from the curb, away from an arriving cab. “Has he checked out?”

“Yes, ma’am, he had his bag with him.”

“Do you know where he was headed?”

“I don’t, sorry.”

“Was he alone?”

The bellman nodded. “He was, yes. I never saw him with anyone. I worked late last night and I got in early today. I didn’t see him leave the hotel, but I saw him come back—he was on foot. Alone. Only weird thing...” He hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t say anything.”

“Go ahead, please,” Emma said. “He’s not in any trouble.”

“Well, he tripped last night. That’s what he said—I didn’t see it happen myself. He was bleeding...here.” He pointed to a spot behind his left ear. “We keep hand towels by the door for runners. I gave him one. He wasn’t real coherent but he thanked me. He said he tripped and went flying on the steps by the aquarium when he went out for a smoke.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course. Why would you lie about something like that? At first I thought he’d been mugged, but he’s a big guy—not the target you’d pick, you know? Then he said he tripped and that made sense to me. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. I asked him if he needed an ambulance, but he said no, he’d be fine. He looked okay just now.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

“There was one other thing. A cab driver gave us an envelope to deliver to him.”

“To Mr. Wheelock?”

The bellman nodded. “The driver said he left his passenger window open while he was chatting with another driver, and when he got back in, the envelope was on the front seat. He didn’t see who left it. He said there was a label on it but it blew off.”

“What did the label say?” Emma asked.

“Just the guy’s name and that he was a hotel guest. He’d checked his bag with the front desk. I found it and put the envelope in an outside pocket.”

“Did you look inside the envelope?”

“No, ma’am, I did not,” the bellman said, obviously offended.

Emma thanked him and headed back to the street. She called Sam Padgett and filled him in. “No wonder Gordy looked as if he was in pain,” she said.

“I’ll talk to housekeeping and see what they can tell me about the state of his room. Good work, Agent Sharpe. Are you going to call Wheelock and ask him what the bloody head and this envelope are all about?”

“Doing that next.”

“He didn’t mention falling either because it’s embarrassing, tripping while out for a smoke, or he was attacked and doesn’t want you to know.”

“Or it didn’t occur to him to mention it.”

“It occurred to him,” Sam said with his usual certainty.

“What’s your take on the envelope?”

“Was he expecting it or was it a surprise? Something from a source? A threat? Red Sox tickets? Lots of possibilities. We’ll stay in touch.”

After they disconnected, Emma called Gordy on his cell phone. When he didn’t answer, she left a voice mail. “It’s Emma Sharpe. Call me.”

She continued along the harbor to the tiny waterfront apartment she’d rented upon her arrival in Boston last March to join Yank’s team. Happy to be back in New England, working on challenging investigations on a small team led by a senior agent who’d always been her champion, she’d settled into her new apartment and new routines. Not for a second had she envisioned—or even dreamed—that by fall, she would be in love with a deep-cover agent with roots in a small fishing village a few miles from her own southern Maine hometown.

Now she and Colin were getting ready for their wedding.

She smiled, thinking of him. His dark hair, his smile, his blue-gray eyes that reminded her of the ocean.

“I miss you,” she whispered, as if he could hear her.

After several months back and forth to Washington, he’d finally disappeared in mid-March on his latest undercover mission. Despite her own role with the FBI, Emma didn’t know what his mission was or where it had taken him. She only knew it was intense, dangerous and exhausting. He’d come home for a few days in late April and then left again. Since then, not a word—not so much as a text message, email or cryptic voice mail.

Matt Yankowski knew where Colin was. Yank had been Colin’s contact agent on his first deep-cover mission four years ago. Last October, he’d gone out on a limb to get Colin, at least nominally, into HIT and had put up with his relationship with one of his team members. Emma would never ask him to give her hints as to Colin’s whereabouts. She respected their professional relationship, but she also respected Colin’s silence and his trust in her to handle the situation.

Never in a million years did I think he’d put a ring on your finger, at least not this soon.

That was Yank in November. He’d never been one to mince words. Emma smiled, remembering that rainy Dublin night when Colin had dropped onto one knee in a crowded pub and proposed to her.

Wherever he was, she knew he was safe. She felt it.

As she unlocked her apartment door, she noticed a new sailboat had arrived at the marina that shared the small wharf with her building, another renovated warehouse. There would be more boats with the warming weather.

She went inside and was helping herself to a yogurt out of the fridge when a text message came in. Video chat in ten minutes?

Oliver York. Emma texted him back. Five.

* * *

“You look uptight, Emma,” Oliver York said in his genuine upper-class English accent. “Or do you continue to insist I call you Special Agent Sharpe?”

“Agent Sharpe will do.”

“Mmm. That sort of call, is it?”

“It’s always that sort of call, Oliver.”

She’d placed her laptop on her coffee table and was seated on the sofa in her small living room. Just as well they were talking here instead of her FBI office. Nothing about her relationship with the wealthy Englishman, sheep farmer, mythologist and serial art thief was regular. He was in his late thirties, with curly tawny hair and lively, light green eyes. His features were deceptively boyish, betraying none of the psychological trauma and physical pain he had suffered as a child.

“I see.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “For someone usually so cool and analytical, this uptight look of yours worries me. You and Colin haven’t canceled the wedding, have you?”

“It’s Agent Donovan and no, we haven’t.”

“Have you relented and decided to invite me after all? Is that why you texted me?”

“I’m not inviting you to my wedding.”

“Is Agent Donovan inviting me, then?”

“No.”

“A pity, but I’ll send a gift, regardless.” He sat back, putting a bit of distance between him and his screen. “You’re home early. I recognize the moody seascape on the wall behind you. It’s the work of our fair Irish artist friend, Aoife O’Byrne.”

“It’s a signed print. I can’t afford her original art.”

“Who can these days? But a signed print is worth something. It’s only four o’clock here. That means it’s just eleven in the morning in Boston. Did you get fired?”

“Not yet. It could happen anytime with you in my life.”

“I see you tried and failed to smile while making that comment. What can I do for you, then, Agent Sharpe? Does the FBI need my help given my expertise in mythology?”

Emma barely heard him. She was looking past him, taking in his surroundings. She recognized the bright, contemporary furnishings and the view from the partially open window behind him of the Irish Sea. “Oliver...” She gritted her teeth. “Oliver, you’re in Declan’s Cross. You’re in a seaside room at the O’Byrne House Hotel.”

“I am, indeed. I’m taking in a delightful breeze off the sea as we speak. Spring on the south Irish coast is quite lovely. I believe I’m in the room where you and Colin stayed on your last visit this winter.”

“It’s not the same room.”

“As if you’d tell me if it were.”

“Why are you in Declan’s Cross?”

“I couldn’t resist Kitty O’Byrne’s scones.”

Kitty was Aoife’s older sister and the proprietress of the boutique hotel, which a decade ago had been a rambling old seaside house owned by their uncle. Ten years ago, the house had been broken into by a clever, brazen art thief, still officially unidentified and at large, although the stolen works had mysteriously reappeared last fall.

Oliver did have nerve.

“I’m leaving once we’ve finished our chat,” he said. “Kitty kindly allowed me a late checkout without extra charge. So, my dear, if you’re tempted to sic the Irish guards on me, there’s no need.”

He was referring to the Gardaí, the Irish police. Kitty’s love interest happened to be a Dublin-based garda detective who owned a farm in Declan’s Cross.

Sean Murphy would love an excuse to interrogate Oliver York.

“I’m not going to sic the guards on you,” Emma said. “But if you’re hatching a plan to resteal the art you returned to the O’Byrnes, you can forget it. You’ll be arrested. MI5 won’t be able to save you.”

Oliver waved a hand. “You and your fantasies about me, Emma—Agent Sharpe. I flew into Dublin from London yesterday thinking I’d have a pint with your grandfather, but I discovered he’s already in Maine. I consoled myself with a quick visit to quaint, pretty Declan’s Cross.”

“Why did you want to see my grandfather?”

“Wendell and I always have things to talk about.”

“He was in London last week before he flew here on Saturday. Did you see him?”

“I shared a dram of an interesting new Scotch with him. Now, what can I do for you, Agent Sharpe?” Oliver made a show of glancing furtively around him, then leaned close to the screen. “Keep in mind MI5 is likely listening to us.”

Emma wouldn’t be surprised if they were. “You were at a party at Claridge’s on Sunday. Tell me about it.”

“Tell you what?”

“For starters, why were you there?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Don’t sound so surprised. I live in the neighborhood and Claridge’s is one of my favorite hangouts.”

It wasn’t a direct answer to her question but Emma let it go. “Who else was there?”

“Your parents.” His brow furrowed. “Did the good Faye and Timothy Sharpe see or hear something of interest to the FBI, or to you personally?”

“I haven’t spoken to them. This is a voluntary interview on your part, Oliver, but I’d like to ask the questions if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. By all means.” He sat back farther, clearly relaxed. “Ask away.”

“A retired FBI agent was there. I believe you know him. Gordon Wheelock.”

“Do I?”

“He investigated your US thefts. San Francisco, Dallas. He’s responsible for putting away a number of art thieves and was sorry he retired before he could put you away.”

“My thefts? Me? The still unidentified thief, you mean.” Oliver gave an obviously faked yawn. “I want to take a walk before I return to London this evening. Aoife O’Byrne is in Declan’s Cross painting sunrises, did you know? They aren’t a cliché subject in her hands, although I am partial to her short-lived phase painting porpoises.”

Emma refused to be distracted. “Agent Wheelock stopped in my office this morning and told me he saw you at Claridge’s.”

“Did he? Hmm. He must have been the disheveled American who gave me the dirty look. We didn’t speak but someone mentioned he was an American agent of some sort.”

“Who mentioned him?”

Oliver made a face. “Take a guess.”

“Your MI5 handler?”

He pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

“Was he at the party?”

“Obviously you already have the answer, but I’m not going to confirm or deny his presence. It was an uneventful, perfectly civil English tea. No guns, no blood, no arrests. I wish you’d been there, Emma—although given your life these days, I suspect the afternoon would have taken a different turn and ended up in the papers.”

She ignored his remark. “Any particular interest in late antiquity or the Victoria and Albert Museum?”

“Of course. Both. I’m a mythologist and I’m devoted to the museum. You’ve been, haven’t you?”

“A number of times. Did you see anyone with Agent Wheelock?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. He arrived alone but he met up with Claudia Deverell. I believe you know her? She’s an American who used to work at one of the big auction houses. She specializes in Mediterranean antiquities. She lives in London.”

“I know who she is,” Emma said.

“That’s what I thought. She and her family are no strangers to the Sharpes. Wasn’t her mother once a Sharpe client? Victoria Norwood Deverell. She died last year. Cancer. Very sad. The Norwoods were great collectors of antiquities, with a special passion for mosaics. They’ve owned a house in Heron’s Cove for generations.” Oliver sat forward, as if he were in the same room with Emma instead of on the other side of the Atlantic. “Is Agent Wheelock meddling in FBI business, Emma?”

She kept her expression neutral. “Did you hear any interesting rumors while you were at the party on Sunday?”

“Ah. You mean the rumor about stolen Byzantine mosaics. Did that get your retired FBI agent worked up? I know nothing.”

“How, when and where did you hear the rumors yourself?”

“I was eating a delightful mini scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam when I overheard two elderly gentlemen say they’d heard someone had nicked a couple of ancient mosaics from a London collector. I got jam on my shirt cuff and went to the men’s room. I don’t know the gents and heard nothing further before I left.”

“Since then?”

“Not a peep.”

He could be lying, or he could be telling the truth. Emma couldn’t tell. “Did you speak with Claudia Deverell yourself?”

“Your parents introduced us but I didn’t linger. Didn’t Claudia once date your brother? But that’s none of my business, and I must be going. By the way, the sheepskins I sent you and Colin this winter are wonderful in warm weather, too. You’ll see.”

“Oliver—wait.”

But he was gone.

Emma shut her laptop. No point trying to get him back. He wouldn’t answer. She rolled to her feet and went into the bedroom. She’d rented the apartment when she’d first moved to Boston, months before she’d met Colin. It was small for the two of them but they’d decided to keep it, given its convenient location and Boston’s sky-high rents. They had his house in Maine for more space. Not that they’d needed space lately, given his absences.

She dug her overnight bag out of the closet and set it on the double bed. Thinking about living arrangements was a welcome respite from thinking about Gordy Wheelock and whatever he was up to, and how it involved Oliver York, Claudia Deverell and the Sharpes.

The Sharpes.

Emma unzipped her suitcase. She was a Sharpe, too. She didn’t need to remind herself.

Her parents hadn’t responded yet to her text. Her father still worked for Sharpe Fine Art Recovery from London in a low-stress research and analysis position. Her mother had left her job as an art teacher. They made a point of socializing on occasion, sometimes because it was good for business but mostly because it was good for them for its own sake. A new procedure in December had provided her father with some relief from his chronic back pain, but Emma didn’t know when, or if, her parents would return to Maine, even for her wedding.

She threw a few things into her suitcase. She had some clothes at Colin’s house—yoga pants, sweatshirts, hiking shoes, kayaking gear—but she’d need something to wear to lunch with his mother as well as to the open house. Now she had to add checking up on Gordy Wheelock to her list for the long weekend.

Would Claudia Deverell be there? Emma hadn’t seen Claudia or any of the Deverells in at least six years. She’d been a novice then. Blonde, attractive and a few years older, Claudia had joined Emma on the tidal river in Heron’s Cove. I can’t believe you’re a nun, Emma. You were always so worldly and well-dressed, and you seemed to enjoy life. But I shouldn’t call you Emma, should I? It must be Sister Something.

Sister Brigid. I’m a novice. Are you in town long?

I’m here with my mother for the weekend. It’s Fourth of July, or didn’t you know?

Emma, wearing her modified habit, her hair pulled back with a wide white headband, had picked up two river-polished stones, handed one to Claudia and then tossed hers into the rising tide. She’d learned not to be defensive about people’s notions about a religious life. She invited Claudia to tour the convent, located on a small peninsula near Heron’s Cove.

Claudia had tossed her stone into the river. My maternal great-grandfather was good friends with the man who built the original estate that’s now your convent. They were adventurers. They did several trips together in the early twentieth century and brought home all sorts of treasures from the lands of the former Roman Empire. Loot, we might call it now. Eye of the beholder, I suppose. She’d dusted bits of mud off her hands and smiled. Good to see you, Emma.

Claudia never came to the convent for a tour, and Emma left the Sisters of the Joyful Heart a short time later for her new life with the FBI—and now her life included Colin.

She wondered if Claudia had been the one who’d told Gordy about her past.

Emma slung her overnight bag over one shoulder and headed out. Her next logical step was a chat with her brother and her grandfather about Gordy, Alessandro Pearson, Claudia Deverell and the rumors about stolen mosaics. Fortunately, for the first time in years, Wendell Sharpe, founder of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery and one of the foremost private art detectives in the world, was less than two hours away in southern Maine, and Emma wouldn’t have to fly all the way to Dublin to see him.

4

Near Ardmore

County Waterford, Ireland

Mary Bracken paused on the narrow lane that wound along the cliffs above the village of Declan’s Cross. She was winded from walking too fast up the hill, but the lane had leveled off. She was on the headland where Sean Murphy, a garda detective, had his farm. As she caught her breath, she watched a trio of chubby lambs chase each other in the pasture on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. Nearby, two ewes nibbled on the lush green. Mary could hear the bleating of the lambs above the crash of waves on the rocks far below her. She didn’t know if the tide was coming in or going out, just that it was somewhere between low and high.

She knew whiskey, not tides, she thought with a smile.

She resumed her walk on the quiet lane, a short distance from historic Ardmore, the ancient land of Saint Declan. She loved this part of Ireland, but it wasn’t home. Home was Killarney to the west, a favorite with tourists given its natural beauty, national park and fascinating history. Bracken Distillers, where she worked, was located in the hills not far from the busy village. A good location.

I should be there now.

Mary sighed, frustrated with her obsessing. She’d made her decision. She even had her boarding pass for her flight tomorrow. No point questioning her motives for setting off to America now. She’d fly from Dublin to Boston and then drive on to Maine and a visit with her brother, Finian.

Her priest brother.

One of the ewes spotted her and bleated loudly, as if she knew Mary needed a good talking-to.

She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and continued on her way. Where would she be now if Finian and Declan, twin brothers and the eldest of the five Bracken siblings, had decided to make a go of the Bracken farm instead of launching their own whiskey business?

She passed another ewe, a lamb at her teats.

Mary smiled. “That’s where I’d be. I’d have little ones at my teats by now.”

As it was, she had a full-time job at Bracken Distillers, running tours and the whiskey school. She loved her work. She and Declan got on well.

They missed Finian.

Mary felt a lump in her throat. “Ah, Fin.”

Where would he be if he’d made a go of the farm?

He’d be off on a tractor, fixing fences and tending sheep instead of across the Atlantic working as a parish priest in a small Maine fishing village. Fixing himself, tending his church flock—living far away from the reminders of his loss. His wife, his daughters. Gone too soon.

He was a worry, Father Finian Bracken was.

Mary, the youngest Bracken, usually wasn’t prone to worry or obsessing, but Finian’s choice to enter the priesthood felt all wrong to her and had from the start. Now seven years had passed and he hadn’t yet returned to Bracken Distillers and his senses. She feared he never would.

Old Paddy Murphy waved to her from his tractor, across a rolling pasture on the other side of the lane as it curved along the cliffs. She waved back, and Paddy continued his work, which no doubt involved mud, muck and manure. Mary could smell the salt water and welcomed the fresh, clean breeze, no hint of rain in the clear air. As the lane wound closer to the cliffs, she saw the tide indeed was ebbing, and she wished her worries could ebb with it. Yet she knew even if they could, they’d be back, as sure as the tide would rise again.

The lane turned to dirt, narrowing further as she approached the tip of the headland, where a medieval church lay in ruin along an ancient stone wall covered with moss and tangles of greenery. Mary recognized holly, rushes and a small oak, but she couldn’t name the spring wildflowers, delicate-looking with their pink and blue blossoms amid the vines and moss. Like tides, she didn’t know much about wildflowers. They seemed to hold their own against rock, wind and sea, and were an integral part of the rugged, beautiful scenery.

Three ornately carved Celtic Christian stone crosses stood on a green hilltop above her, as if they were sentries protecting the headland. She noticed a movement, and then recognized Oliver York as he emerged from behind the center cross. “Don’t come up here,” he called to her. “It’s muddy as bloody hell.”

Mary stayed put as he trotted down the hillside toward her. She zipped her Irish Mackintosh and felt the stiffening breeze whip through her long, dark Bracken hair.

She thought the mysterious Brit on his way to her might be one of Finian’s new friends, too. He disappeared into the church ruin, its partial walls of lichen-covered stone behind the trees and vines on the overgrown wall. Mary didn’t know what to make of him. They’d met briefly in February, here in Declan’s Cross. Finian had been there, home in Ireland for a short visit.

Oliver squeezed between the oak and a holly and jumped onto the lane, missing a puddle by inches. He was, indeed, splattered with mud, from his Wellingtons to his well-worn waxed-cotton jacket. His tawny hair was tousled and his cheeks were red, no doubt from the windier conditions up by the crosses.

“Mary Bracken,” he said cheerfully. “Father Bracken’s youngest sister. Hello, Mary. I don’t know if you remember me. Oliver York.”

“I do remember you. How are you, Oliver? It’s a beautiful afternoon for a walk.”

“I suppose it is. I’m not much on rambling, I’m afraid.” He glanced out at the sea, a deep turquoise in the late-day light. “This is a good spot to nourish the soul, if one goes for that sort of thing.”

“Do you?”

“Sometimes. Here, especially. I can’t explain.”

He shifted his gaze back to her, scrutinizing her with a frankness she didn’t find unsettling, perhaps because of his overall good cheer and easygoing manner. She was dressed casually, in leggings, a simple top under her jacket and waterproof walking shoes.

“I didn’t expect to walk this far,” she said. “Did you just arrive in Declan’s Cross?”

“Last night. I stayed at the charming O’Byrne House Hotel. I enjoyed Bracken whiskey in the lounge before turning in and then a full Irish breakfast this morning while I looked out at the Irish Sea. I checked out before I started up here.”

“Did I interrupt your contemplation of ancient Irish Celtic myths and legends?”

“Hardly. I was contemplating getting on with my drive to Cork in time for my flight back to London.” He tilted his head to one side, his green eyes narrowing on her. “And you, Mary? What are you contemplating on your ramble among the sheep, sea and ruins?”

“I was just enjoying the scenery.” It wasn’t the entire truth, of course, but she wasn’t baring her soul to this man. “I leave for Dublin soon. I have an early flight to Boston tomorrow.”

Oliver’s eyebrows went up. “Is that right?”

Yet...he didn’t seem surprised. Mary couldn’t put her finger on why she thought that. She heard a bird twittering in the rushes and suddenly wished she wasn’t leaving for Dublin and America but could stay on here for a few days.

“Will you be visiting your brother in Maine?”

She nodded. “I want to see him before his year there is up. I’m staying with him at the rectory. He can’t take much time off, but I’ll be able to amuse myself.”

“I’ve no doubt. Is this a sudden trip?”

“The priest he’s replacing is finishing his Irish sabbatical in a few weeks. If I don’t visit now, I’ll never have this chance again.”

“You hope, if it means he’ll be back in Ireland,” Oliver said.

“Maybe so.”

“Did you drive here from Killarney? Declan’s Cross is a bit out of the way if you’re on your way to Dublin Airport.”

“I know, but I couldn’t resist. Have you been in touch with Finian lately?”

“Not in a while, but he and I are great friends. You must say hello to him for me.”

“I will,” Mary said.

“Did he warn you about me?”

She smiled. “Everyone’s warned me about you.”

“Ah.” Oliver’s lively eyes sparked with humor. “Let me guess. I’m an eccentric, solitary Englishman steeped in the language of myth, legend and folklore.”

“Also that you’re a teller of tall tales and, like Fin, friends with dangerous types—such as the two FBI agents who were at the gathering here in February.”

“Egad.” Oliver shuddered. “Agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan would throw me in irons if I referred to them as friends. That’s only the slightest exaggeration, mind you.” He kicked a clump of mud off the toe of his boot. “Does your work with Bracken Distillers put you in contact with many dangerous types?”

“Not me personally, no, but we had a brush with smugglers last spring, just as Fin was moving to America. The smugglers used an abandoned section of the old distillery for their illicit activities. They were caught with help from Fin. I missed most of the excitement, or whatever you want to call it.”

“Sean Murphy was injured in the fracas.”

For reasons to which Mary wasn’t privy, Sean didn’t approve of Oliver York. She didn’t know if his reasons were personal or professional, as an elite garda detective.

She angled a look at the Englishman. “You seem to know a lot about us.”

“I suspect Detective Garda Murphy and the FBI know far more about me than I do them. Shall we walk back to the village together, or do you want to ramble some more? I wasn’t joking about the mud up on the hill.”

“I’ll walk back to Declan’s Cross with you.”

The lane was the only route on the headland to the village. Oliver didn’t seem at all out of breath as he walked with her, the breeze picking up as they emerged from the protection of the wall and ruins. Mary found it curious if not suspicious that he’d shown up in Declan’s Cross as she was leaving for Maine to see her brother. She didn’t know if Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan would be there, but she expected they would be.

Oliver slowed as they came to the Murphy farmhouse. Paddy, Sean’s uncle, had returned from the fields and was cleaning off the tractor in front of the barn. Sean owned the farm, but Paddy mostly worked it.

“I love listening to the lambs,” Oliver said. “Can you hear them?”

Mary smiled without looking at him. “I can.”

“I have a farm in England. I inherited it from my grandparents.”

“It’s in the Cotswolds, isn’t it? I’ve been there—to the Cotswolds, I mean. Obviously I haven’t been to your farm. I did one of those inn-to-inn walking tours.”

“More rambling,” Oliver said with a wry smile. “You went on your own?”

“Yes. It was after the deaths of my sister-in-law and nieces in a sailing accident. I was on summer break before my final year at university in Cork. I needed...” Mary broke off, searching for the right words. “I suppose you could say my solitary walk in the English countryside was good for the soul. Are you here in Ireland alone?”

The wind caught the ends of his tawny hair. “I am, yes.”

“Is your visit because of mythology or because of the dangerous types you know?”

“Perhaps both.”

He spoke lightly, but Mary detected an edgy undertone, as if her question had struck a nerve. She wondered if his response might be the truth. “When did you arrive in Ireland?” she asked.

“Yesterday. I flew into Dublin.”

“And you’re leaving tonight. That’s a brief visit.”

“I’d hoped to see Wendell Sharpe but discovered he’d already left for America. Do you know him?”

“Not personally, no.”

“He’s gone home to Maine for the first time in years. He’s attending the open house for the new Sharpe Fine Art Recovery offices.”

“Wonderful,” Mary said. “Fin and I will be there. Did you know the Sharpes investigated an art theft at the O’Byrne house about ten years ago?”

“I’ve heard,” Oliver said.

“It wasn’t a hotel then. Kitty’s uncle owned it. It was a drafty old place, I understand. The thief made off with several valuable artworks, including two landscapes by Jack Butler Yeats that are worth a fortune now.”

“He was the younger brother of William Butler Yeats. A talented family.”

“Most of the stolen works mysteriously reappeared last fall.” Mary could hear the drama in her voice, but she didn’t care. It was a captivating tale. “Only a landscape painting of the crosses and ruin out on the headland is still missing. It’s unsigned and probably of little value. Some people think it’s an early work by Aoife O’Byrne, but she hasn’t claimed it. She says she became an artist in part because of the theft.”

“I’m a great fan of her work.” Oliver looked out at the sea, past a narrow strip of pasture between the lane and the cliffs. “I own one of her porpoise paintings.”

Mary hadn’t known that but hid her surprise. “Aoife was at the gathering in February, too. You two, you aren’t...”

“We’re friends. At least I think of her as a friend. I’m a simple mythologist, Mary.”

“I doubt there’s much about you that’s simple.” She nodded back toward the church ruin. “Do you have a particular interest in the three crosses on the hilltop?”

“I’m not working on a scholarly paper, if that’s what you mean. The church that’s in ruin is named after Saint Declan. This is Saint Declan country. He’s one of the great patron saints of Ireland.” Oliver smiled, the hint of awkwardness a moment ago vanishing. “Fin’s twin brother is named Declan.”

“It’s a traditional Irish name,” Mary said. “I’m not religious. I certainly don’t believe Saint Declan was led to this part of Ireland by a bell atop a boulder floating on the Irish Sea.”

“Not literally, perhaps—”

“Rocks sink.”

“But think of rocks flung about in a fierce storm. Perhaps they could appear to float. In any case, I see the power of Saint Declan’s story not in its literal truth but in its human truth.”

“Now you sound like Finian.”

“Also the name of an Irish saint,” Oliver said with a wink. “There’s no chance of you entering a convent, is there?”

Mary laughed. “None at all. I’d have said there was no chance of Finian entering the priesthood, but obviously he did.”

“He’s a very good priest.”

“He was a good whiskey man, too. And a good father and husband.”

“You don’t approve of his vocation?”

“It’s not for me to approve or disapprove.”

“But you don’t approve.”

She sighed. “Let’s go back to discussing art. It’s much safer, don’t you think?”

“That all depends,” Oliver said.

“Oh, right—helps not to be a thief or the victim of a thief.”

He said nothing. The lane descended steeply into the village with its brightly painted homes and shops. Mary found herself wishing again she were staying here through the weekend, enjoying the spa at the O’Byrne House Hotel, indulging in scones, whiskey and full Irish breakfasts. She could wander to Ardmore with its sand beach, stunning cliff walk and impressive medieval round tower. Saint Declan was said to have been buried there. She was almost sorry she was leaving for Dublin and a long flight to Boston in the morning. She didn’t need to go to Maine.

Except she did. Deep inside her, she knew she did.

“The Sharpes came up in a conversation last week,” she said as she and Oliver turned off the lane at a bookshop, its front painted a vivid shade of red. “An American woman on a tour at the distillery mentioned them. We chatted for a few minutes after the tour. She said she was fascinated by Killarney’s history, but she herself knows more about ancient Greece and Rome. She said she inherited a passion for antiquities from her mother, who was once a Sharpe client. Small world, isn’t it?”

“Antiquities and whiskey. A good combination, I would think.”

Mary felt heat rush to her face, but she glanced at Oliver and realized he wasn’t making fun of her. “I tend to chat with visitors between tours, lectures and tastings.”

“You’re gregarious by nature.”

“I know much more about whiskey than I do antiquities. This woman was aware I have a brother in Maine who’s friends with the Sharpes. It seemed odd at first, but then she explained that she chose our distillery to visit because of the connection.”

“Do you recall her name?” Oliver asked.

“Claudia Deverell. I made a point of remembering. She visited the distillery on Friday, but I don’t know how long she was in Ireland. She said she lives in London most of the time. Do you know her, by chance?”

“We met at a party on Sunday, as a matter of fact. Small world. I can’t say I’ve run into her before then. Have you told anyone else about her visit?”

Mary paused, noting a few pedestrians out in the village enjoying the fine spring day. The hotel was a short distance up the street. She suddenly couldn’t wait to be there. She felt unsettled, as if she might have said too much to this charming, eccentric Englishman. She had been warned about him, after all.

“I haven’t said a word to anyone,” she said finally. “I don’t know why I mentioned her to you. Because she lives in London and knows the Sharpes, I suppose.”

“The Sharpes are an intriguing lot.”

Mary forced herself to take in her surroundings—a passing car, the scent of roses from a trellis on a small house painted a rich yellow. Best to change the subject, she decided. “Finian’s promised to take me sightseeing in Maine,” she said cheerfully.

Oliver eyed her a split second longer than was comfortable. “That sounds splendid.”

Mary smiled, relieved he didn’t press her further about Claudia Deverell. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use splendid in a sentence.”

“My grandfather used to say splendid. I suppose I was channeling him.”

“I’m not making fun of you. It’s sweet, using a word your grandfather used.”

“He was a good man.”

“Did he like the Irish?”

Oliver winked. “Who doesn’t like the Irish?”

* * *

“What did Oliver York want with you?”

Mary bristled at Sean Murphy’s tone. She sat next to him at the bar at the O’Byrne House Hotel, nursing a glass of sparkling water and lemon as he gave her a dark look. He was drinking coffee. She had assumed he was in Dublin, but he’d explained he’d come down to Declan’s Cross to visit Kitty and see about his farm. Mary appreciated Sean’s rekindled relationship with Kitty O’Byrne, who’d left them alone at the bar.

Mary wondered if Oliver York had anything to do with Sean’s arrival in Declan’s Cross. She liked Sean, although she didn’t know him as well as Finian did. The two had become friends in the terrible months after the deaths of Finian’s family. In a way, Sean had saved her brother’s life, or at least he’d helped.

Nonetheless, Mary didn’t like his tone. “Are you asking as a friend or a detective?”

“I’m both, Mary.”

His tone had softened slightly. The spring breeze floated into the quiet lounge through open doors and windows, and she could hear the wash of the tide across the back garden of the boutique hotel. It was located in the heart of the quaint, tiny village. “Oliver didn’t want anything with me. I ran into him out past your farm. We walked back here together, and he got in his car and is on his way to Cork for his flight to London.” Mary paused, but Sean made no comment. She hadn’t touched her sparkling water yet and took a small sip, setting her glass down before she continued. “What’s your quarrel with Oliver?”

“Trouble has a way of following him. Let’s leave it at that.”

Mary eyed Sean. He was a fine-looking man with his dark, thick hair and piercing blue eyes. He had an amiable manner, but she knew better than to allow that to lull her into thinking he was more sheep farmer and friend than alert detective.

“What did you and Oliver discuss?” Sean asked finally, lifting his coffee cup.

Mary shrugged. “Not much. The weather and a few other things.”

“What other things?”

She felt more like a recalcitrant toddler than a manager of tours and lectures at a successful whiskey distillery, but Sean had crawled under her skin—and he knew it. In fact, she saw now he’d been quite deliberate about it. She supposed she’d fallen into his trap, letting herself get twisted into knots. “I’m not used to being interrogated,” she said.

“I’m not interrogating you, Mary.”

“You are, but we won’t argue about it. Oliver and I chatted about Saint Declan, whiskey and Finian, since they’re friends.”

Sean grimaced. “I wouldn’t call them friends.”

“It was a normal conversation, Sean, which, I might add, this is not.” She hesitated, debating how far to go, but she’d never been one to keep her thoughts to herself. “I’ve had a feeling Oliver had something to do with the art stolen from here ten years ago. Is he a source—a consultant with the Garda, or Interpol, perhaps? He can’t be the thief, can he?”

Sean drank some of his coffee and set the cup carefully in the saucer.

Mary waited, studying him. She felt her pulse quicken. “Can he? Sean!”

“Forget Oliver York.” Sean pushed his cup and saucer away from him on the polished wood bar. “Are you driving to Dublin alone?”

“I am. Oliver offered to switch his flight and drive me if I was too tired or wanted to have a drink before I left Declan’s Cross.”

Sean’s expression darkened. “Mary Bracken, you can’t—Fin would have my head if I let you—”

“You don’t have a say in what I do, Detective Garda Murphy.”

“Provided it’s legal,” he said.

“Well, of course. In any case, I said no to Oliver’s offer, and, as I’ve already told you, he’s gone, on his way to Cork, which, I needn’t remind you, is a good distance from Dublin. I’m leaving in a few minutes and driving myself. I debated taking the train, but Aoife offered to let me leave my car at her studio in Dublin. She’s here in Declan’s Cross painting for a few weeks.”

Sean sighed. “You enjoyed riling me up, didn’t you?”

Mary grinned at him but didn’t let down her guard. “Very much.”

“Have you told me everything you and Oliver discussed?”

She relented and told him about the American woman and Oliver’s reaction. Sean’s jaw tightened visibly as she spoke. “Do you know her?” Mary asked when she finished. “This Claudia Deverell?”

Sean’s jaw seemed to tighten more. “No.” He studied her a moment. “I wish you’d reconsider this trip to Maine, Mary.”

“I promise I’ll stick close to Fin the entire time.”

Sean turned and stared out the window next to him. It looked out on a strip of lush, green grass with a bench and stone urns dripping with bright spring flowers. Once again, Mary couldn’t name the variety of flowers. Begonias, she thought. She had an apartment with a garden in Killarney but she’d killed everything she’d tried to plant. It wasn’t a question of aptitude, Declan and her sisters would tell her. It was a question of regular maintenance.

Finally, Sean shifted back to her. “Trouble has a way of finding our Father Finian Bracken these days, too.”

Mary breathed in the scent of grass and salt water floating into the lounge from the doors and windows. “It’s a good thing it’s a fine spring day or I might have to figure out how to poison you, Sean Murphy. I’d get away with it, too, because you’d be gone and you’re the best detective the garda has.”

“And no one would suspect pretty, blue-eyed Mary Bracken. Well, I suppose the flattery cancels the threat, and I don’t have to arrest you.” He rolled off the stool onto his feet. “You’d be wise to steer clear of Oliver York, Mary. Let’s hope he stays in London.”

“You really are going to phone Finian, aren’t you?”

“The minute I get home.”

“Home to Dublin or to your farm here?”

Sean glanced past her to the doorway where Kitty had disappeared. “Home is wherever Kitty is.”

“Such a romantic,” Mary said, feeling a pang of loneliness. She had loads of friends and acquaintances, but she’d never fallen in love the way Kitty O’Byrne and Sean Murphy had with each other—never mind they’d needed years and years to figure out they were soul mates. Mary hoped her true love, should he ever materialize, didn’t take that long to get sorted and there were fewer twists and turns.

But if it was twists and turns she wanted to avoid in her life, why was she on her way to visit her brother in Maine?

“Find yourself an Irish lad,” Sean said, as if reading her mind. “One who likes a strong, stubborn woman, because that’s what you are, Mary Bracken.” He handed her a card. “Ring me anytime, day or night, if you run into trouble in America.”

“I will, Sean. Thank you, but I won’t run into any trouble.”

He looked unconvinced as he left in search of Kitty.

Mary filled her water bottle, grabbed an apple from a bowl and headed out through the front door for her car. She’d be in Dublin in less than three hours. She considered stopping at the cottage Aoife had rented for her painting retreat. Maybe Aoife could explain Oliver York, the Sharpes, the FBI agents and one Father Finian Bracken, but Mary had detected tension between Aoife and Finian at the winter gathering here in Declan’s Cross.

Perhaps best to get on to Dublin and rest ahead of her flight to Boston in the morning.

5

Killarney

County Kerry, Ireland

Colin Donovan was admiring a giant rhododendron with a profusion of white blossoms and thinking of his fiancée, who would appreciate the rhodie more than he did, when Sean Murphy called and ruined his afternoon. Maybe his evening. Maybe his entire Irish excursion. All it took was the mention of Oliver York.

“I’m getting an instant headache,” Colin said.

“I live to give the FBI headaches,” Sean said, his natural humor intact. “Where are you?”

“Killarney.”

“Meet me at the Bracken distillery in two hours.”

The Irish detective clicked off. Colin slid his phone back in his jacket. He’d alerted Sean to his presence in Ireland as a professional courtesy, but he wasn’t there on FBI business. He was there to plan his honeymoon. He’d put it off for weeks—months—while he focused on his latest deep-cover mission. He’d been to four countries, coordinating with other federal agencies and local authorities as he chased down an arsenal of shoulder-fired missiles and other goodies that had ended up in the wrong hands. He’d posed as a rogue buyer. The weapons were secured. The bad guys were on the run or under arrest in the USA, and he was in Ireland, looking at rhododendrons.

He walked across the soft grass of an expansive lawn to a walkway and got out his phone again. The early sunshine had given way to gray clouds but no rain yet. He’d didn’t mind. He’d been in hot places. The cool, damp Irish weather was perfect.

He hit the number for Matt Yankowski.

Yank answered on the first ring. “I thought you were taking a couple of days to decompress.”

“That was the plan. I’m walking past flowers right now. I think they’re lavender. I don’t know, though. They’re purple.”

Silence. “What?” Yank asked finally.

“I’m at Muckross House. It’s a part of Killarney National Park. Mansion, gardens, views of one of the famous lakes of Killarney. Didn’t you visit here when you were in Ireland last fall?”

“No.”

“Just proving I was decompressing.”

“Was,” Yank noted.

“Sean Murphy is on his way.”

Yank sighed. “Because Oliver York is in Ireland.”

“Emma?”

“They talked earlier.”

Colin stood by a bench among the flower beds along the attractive walkway. “What do I need to know before Sean gets here?”

Yank filled him in on Gordon Wheelock’s visit that morning with a certain Special Agent Emma Sharpe. “Do you know Wheelock?” Yank asked as he finished.

“By reputation. Legend.”

“A retired agent attending a London party a few days before the Sharpe open house isn’t cause for alarm in and of itself. I don’t like throwing in Oliver York, MI5 and rumors about stolen ancient artifacts, but no point in getting riled up until we know more. Gordy Wheelock and I never got along, but I respected him. I don’t want to see him hurt himself.”

“I hear you,” Colin said.

“Emma’s following up with him. In the meantime, if I were Detective Garda Murphy, and you and Oliver York showed up in my country at the same time, I’d want to talk to you, too. We have no reason to suspect York wasn’t on the level when he told Emma he was in Ireland to see her grandfather and stopped in Declan’s Cross on a whim.”

“All innocence,” Colin said, skeptical.

Yank grunted. “There’s nothing innocent about Oliver York. When he was eight, yes. Now? No.”

“If he’s gone back to London and I decide I need to talk to him after I meet with Sean?”

“Go. I hate to pull you away from the lavender, though.”

“Maybe it’s mint. Mint’s purple, isn’t it? The rhododendrons are impressive. They’re not the invasive kind. Emma explained the difference when we were here last fall.”

“Well, don’t explain it to me. Stay in touch.”

Yank disconnected, and Colin continued on the walk to the cafeteria in a newer building next to the sprawling Victorian mansion. He hadn’t done the mansion tour but he’d read the tour guide. All that stuck was that it had sixty-five rooms and the gardens had been expanded ahead of a visit from Queen Victoria in 1861.

He’d rather be thinking about Queen Victoria’s long-ago visit to Ireland than Oliver York and whatever he was up to now.

Especially if it involved the Sharpes.

Colin went into the modern cafeteria, got rhubarb crumble and a coffee and sat at a small table by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens. It wasn’t crowded. He wished he had Emma with him. She knew her flowers from her time as Sister Brigid. He hadn’t been in touch with her in weeks, out of necessity. He’d promised he would be home in time for their wedding. Beyond that...she knew little about where he’d been, what he’d done.

Yank had told him she was on her way to Maine for the Sharpe open house.

A fine drizzle started and the afternoon turned grayer as Colin drank his coffee and ate his crumble. He wondered what he’d be doing now if he’d decided on a Scottish honeymoon instead of an Irish one. His throat tightened, and he could feel his fatigue clawing at him, his frustration that his forty-eight-hour break in Ireland had gone to hell.

He got up abruptly and went back out into the gardens, and he kept going until he reached a narrow path into the woods. The drizzle let up, and he stood on a rock outcropping above the gray, quiet lake. He breathed in the mist and let the silence envelop him. He saw himself here in a few weeks with his bride at his side, and he knew he was in the right place. And that it would happen—their wedding, their life together.

* * *

Two hours later, Colin wasn’t settling into a cozy Irish pub for the evening, as he’d anticipated when he’d gotten up that morning, but was standing in the cluttered office at Bracken Distillers, where Mary Bracken, the youngest of the five Bracken siblings, organized her distillery tours. Sean Murphy was pacing in front of a glass partition that looked out on the main floor. He’d just arrived and wanted to stay on his feet after his mad dash, as he called it, from Declan’s Cross to the east.

Declan Bracken, a good-looking Irishman in his late thirties, co-founder with his twin brother, Finian, of the distillery, sat on a tall wooden stool next to a worktable. He was silent and grim-faced. Understandable, perhaps, with an American FBI agent and a Dublin-based garda detective on the premises.

Sean reported on his stop in Declan’s Cross and his conversation with Mary ahead of her drive to Dublin and her morning flight to Boston. Colin wasn’t surprised anymore by anything Oliver York did, but Sean’s mention of Claudia Deverell got his attention. According to Yank, she’d been at the London party on Sunday.

Declan confirmed what Mary had told Sean in Declan’s Cross. “Mary told me about Claudia Deverell’s visit last week. I didn’t meet her myself. She told Mary the connection between Fin and you lot helped her decide on Bracken Distillers for her whiskey tour.”

You lot. Not much Colin could say to that. He’d let the two Irishmen interpret the silence. So far, Colin thought he was doing a good job of looking both competent and uninformed given the encounter between Irish Mary Bracken and English Oliver York in a small Irish village—by itself, not a matter for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Sean said, addressing Declan.

Declan hesitated, glancing at Colin and then again at Sean before giving a curt nod. “I’ll be just outside,” he said as he retreated, shutting the solid wood door behind him.

Colin took a seat on the stool Declan had vacated and eyed Sean. “You know I’m here to plan my Irish honeymoon, right? For real. No games.”

“When exactly did you arrive?”

“Late Tuesday. I spent yesterday catching up on sleep at Fin’s cottage in the Kerry hills.”

Sean had an ambivalent look about him, as if he already regretted this meeting. “You’re not in Ireland because of Oliver York, then?”

Colin winced. “No, I’m not. Honeymoon, Sean. Oliver wasn’t on my mind at all. Trust me.”

“I’ve made your headache worse,” Sean said with a quick smile. “I got one, too, when Kitty texted me that Oliver was in Declan’s Cross. He’d already left by the time I could get there.”

Colin listened closely as Sean provided a few more details about Mary Bracken’s encounter with the mysterious English mythologist up by the church ruin and old crosses above the tiny, picturesque village. Sean knew as well as Colin did that Oliver was an accomplished, unrepentant art thief who’d begun his larcenous career on the south Irish coast, but Sean also knew, as did Colin, there was nothing he, the FBI or Scotland Yard could do about it.

Or would do, maybe, given Oliver’s unique skills and contacts.

“I was due a visit to Declan’s Cross,” Sean said. “I only wanted a casual word with Oliver. I have no actionable reason to limit his movements in Ireland or to detain him. Then Mary told me about meeting him, and about this Deverell woman.”

“You don’t think Claudia Deverell’s distillery tour and Oliver’s visit to Declan’s Cross are a coincidence?”

Sean didn’t hesitate. “No.”

Colin noted the bottles of Bracken Distillers whiskey lined up on a shelf, including the award-winning fifteen-year-old single malt that Finian Bracken had casked himself, before tragedy had changed his destiny. One rainy night after his arrival in southern Maine a year ago, he’d told Colin that drinking the rare peated expression and its nonpeated counterpart was like reaching into the past and touching the man he’d once been.

It wasn’t difficult for Colin to picture his friend here as a young man, working night and day, shoulder to shoulder with his twin brother, to convert the abandoned seventeenth-century distillery just outside Killarney into a modern enterprise. Tilters at windmills, Finian said he and Declan had called themselves.

“Do you know this Deverell woman?” Sean asked, bringing Colin back to the late spring evening and the business at hand.

He shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Her relationship with the Sharpes?”

Colin debated for a fraction of a second. “Her family on her mother’s side has a house up the street in Heron’s Cove. I don’t know any details.”

Sean pounced. “But you do know more,” he said.

Colin saw no need to respond. He and Sean had met in Declan’s Cross last fall, over a murder that had involved both the Sharpes and the Donovans, at least on the periphery. While in the tiny Irish village, Colin had learned about a serial art thief who’d first struck the O’Byrne house ten years earlier and had been taunting the FBI and the Sharpes ever since.

Sean resumed pacing in the small, rustic office. He finally stopped at a large wall calendar of the month of May, almost every day filled with penciled notes in what Colin assumed was Mary Bracken’s handwriting. “York’s untouchable,” Sean said, turning from the ragged calendar. “It’s impossible now to arrest him for the thefts in Declan’s Cross.” The Irish detective sucked in a breath. “I don’t need to tell you what he’s doing these days.”

Working with MI5. No, Sean didn’t need to spell it out. “Did York come to Ireland alone?” Colin asked.

“Apparently, yes,” Sean said. “I’m checking. Are you certain you’re in Ireland only because of your honeymoon?”

“I’m being straight with you, Sean. That’s it. That’s why I’m here. Fin offered me use of his cottage and that’s where I’ve been until this afternoon.”

“I know the place,” Sean said.

Colin remembered that the detective’s friendship with Finian Bracken went back to the deaths almost eight years ago of Finian’s wife and two young daughters. Finian had been working here at the distillery, expecting to join his family on a sailing holiday. Before he could, a rogue wave capsized their boat. Sally Bracken and little Kathleen and Mary had all drowned.

“You didn’t sound surprised I was in Ireland. Did Fin warn you I was coming, or do you have my name flagged so you’re notified when I enter the country?”

Sean shrugged. “I spoke with Fin earlier.”

Colin didn’t blame his fellow law enforcement officer for the incomplete answer.

“Fin wasn’t concerned about Mary’s trip to Maine until I mentioned Oliver York,” Sean added. “But he knows her. She’s stubborn. She won’t change her plans.”

“Stubbornness is a Bracken trait,” Colin said with a sigh. “Fin knows I’m here arranging my honeymoon but I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else. I’m keeping it a secret, especially from Emma. It’s a surprise. I want for us to visit Ireland as if we’re a pair of regular tourists.”

“You don’t want your friends pestering you on your honeymoon,” Sean said, with the first hint of real amusement since he’d greeted Colin in the distillery parking lot.

Colin grinned. “That, too.”

“Well, your secret is safe with me. Where did you fly in from?”

“Rome.”

“Via Hell, I expect. I’m glad you’re safe, Colin.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t elaborate on his whereabouts prior to Rome, and he knew Sean wouldn’t ask, as a professional, whatever his suspicions. “I planned to stay in Ireland through Saturday and head back on Sunday.”

“The Sharpe open house is on Saturday.” Sean cocked an eyebrow. “Or is that why you’re here instead of in Maine?”

“It’s a Sharpe thing. I don’t need to be there.” Colin didn’t know that Emma needed to be there, either. “I imagine Fin’s invited.”

“He’s bringing Mary. She’s looking forward to it.”

Colin could hear his friend’s ambivalence. Happy for Mary to visit her brother and have a harmless adventure or two. Uncertain about her leaving Ireland and her safe world at Bracken Distillers. “I wasn’t sure Wendell Sharpe would ever return to Maine,” Colin said, deliberately lightening his tone. “But he’s there. He wanted to be at the open house.”

“That’s something, then.” Sean stared out at the quiet main floor. “You’re reconsidering your plans, aren’t you, Special Agent Donovan?”

Colin stood up from the stool. Yesterday’s sleep had helped with some of the raw edges of his fatigue, but not enough. “I’m thinking about jumping on a flight to London and going to see Oliver.”

The detective turned to him with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I’ll bet you were,” Colin said. “You know, Oliver has a standing offer for me to stay in the guest suite at his London apartment.”

Sean groaned. “Dear heaven. You aren’t considering—”

“Not a chance. Just thought you’d appreciate a taste of how hard my job is.”

“A sense of humor helps. Oliver York’s a character, I’ll say that. Quite the charming rogue, and a past I wouldn’t wish on anyone.” Sean glanced at his watch and stood abruptly. “Come. If we hurry, I can put you on a flight to London out of Kerry airport tonight.”

“On what, a carrier pigeon?”

“It’s a small airport but it offers several nonstop flights a day to London.” Sean moved toward the door. “You have your bag?”

“In my car, which is a rental, by the way.”

“I’ll take care of it. We want you on that flight.”

“The thing about living on an island,” Colin said, tugging open the door, “you have to fly or take a boat to get most anywhere.”

“Fortunately, everything I need is here,” Sean said.

They went out into the main room of the bustling distillery. It was medium-sized, not one of the huge, well-known Irish distilleries but not one of the small start-ups, either. The Bracken brothers had gotten their start before the explosion in independent distilleries and had established a brand known for excellence.

Declan Bracken was waiting for them, and Sean explained that Colin was off to London, a last-minute change of plans. Declan looked as if he had a dozen questions, but he simply nodded and wished Colin a safe flight and a quick return to Ireland. Colin thanked him but noticed Sean was almost to the front entrance.

“When will you be planning your honeymoon?” Colin asked as he caught up with the detective.

A quick smile. “As soon as I can talk Kitty into marrying me.”

“Have you proposed to her yet?”

“I’m getting there. She’s not sure she believes in marriage anymore. That’s what she says.”

“There’s never been a woman who’s played hard-to-get like Kitty O’Byrne, has there?”

Sean grunted. “She’s not playing.”

But the pair couldn’t hide from themselves or anyone else how deeply in love they were. Colin wondered if people had the same thought about Emma and him, but he put that out of his mind as he grabbed his duffel bag and tossed it in the back of Sean’s car. Two minutes later, they were on their way to Farranfore, the small village between Tralee and Shannon where the Kerry County airport was located. A fine mist had collected on the windshield and the early evening light shone on the twisting road back through Killarney.

“Mary Bracken doesn’t live in the world you and I do, Special Agent Donovan,” Sean said, driving one-handed.

“I know, Sean. Fin knows, too.”

“She’s had a devil of a time since Sally and the girls died and Fin turned to the priesthood. Now he’s left Ireland altogether and she’s afraid he won’t be back.”

“Father Callaghan is due to return to Rock Point from his sabbatical in a few weeks,” Colin said.

Sean glanced at him, looking troubled. “Is he?”

“Do you have information to the contrary?”

“No, but Fin dodges the question when I ask him what he plans to do when he returns to Ireland. But that’s a problem for another day. I wouldn’t describe Mary as naive, but she thinks the best of people. I don’t like that Oliver York intercepted her in Declan’s Cross. It feels planned to me.”

“He plans his heists. I don’t know if he plans much else.” Colin watched out his window as the car sped through rolling fields. “I’ll talk to him. I appreciate the heads-up.”

“I’m sorry I took you away from your honeymoon planning.”

“The honeymoon isn’t what matters.”

“True enough.”

Sean pulled into the parking lot of the small airport. The mist was now a soft rain. “Good thing I’m not a nervous flier,” Colin muttered. “Have you ever flown out of here?”

“Oh, yes. Of course.”

“On what?”

The Irishman grinned. “You don’t want to know.”

“Funny, Sean.”

“No worries. You’ll be on a real plane.”

Colin grabbed his duffel bag out of the back of the car and headed into the terminal. Sure enough, a reasonable-sized plane was on the tarmac. He’d purchased a ticket on the twenty-minute drive from the distillery. The rain wouldn’t cause any delays. He’d be at Oliver York’s London apartment within a couple of hours.

* * *

With a few minutes to spare, Colin stood by the windows in the small terminal and watched the rain. His undercover assignment had turned out to be more complex and dangerous than anyone had expected. He’d been looking forward to taking a couple of days to relax, dust off the stink and plan his honeymoon before he headed home. He disliked not being in touch with his fair-haired fiancée. That Emma understood he had a job to do didn’t make it easier, but it did make it bearable.

She had a job to do, too. He’d had a taste of her work last summer, a couple of months before they’d met, when information from an unnamed art crimes specialist had helped him locate and arrest a major illegal arms dealer who happened to be in Los Angeles to indulge his passion for Picasso.

Colin dug out his phone and texted Yank. London it is. Then he stared at his screen for a split second and texted Emma. I just had a visit from Sean Murphy.

Her response came within seconds. You’re in Ireland?

Kerry Airport. Didn’t know there was one.

We drove past it. Easy to miss. Coming, going, staying?

On my way to London to see our English friend.

Colin tried to picture her reaction, where she was—her. He could almost see her warm, deep green eyes. Her answer finally came on his screen. Does that explain your visit from Sean?

Yes. Talk to Yank.

Will do. On my way to Maine. I’m having lunch tomorrow with your mother.

Good luck. You’ll need it. I learned my best interrogation techniques from her.

Ha. Safe travels. Love you.

You, too, babe.

Colin started to slide his phone back into his jacket pocket but saw he had a response from Yank: Your garda friend has a call in to me.

That was quick. He’s good but you’ll be okay.

Colin could almost see Yank’s roll of the eyes but his flight was being called. He got out his boarding pass. Bad enough Oliver York was on the radar again, but if a retired FBI agent was stirring up trouble and if that trouble involved MI5, Colin wouldn’t be surprised if a few agents met him at Heathrow. Then it would be a long night of explaining—but explaining what?

He gritted his teeth. He would find out what he could in London and go from there.

It was a short hop to London. He’d get his head sorted out before he arrived. He wanted to know the truth about why Oliver had been in Declan’s Cross and what he knew about Claudia Deverell and her tour of Bracken Distillers, and about Gordy Wheelock—and what, if anything, they had to do with a dead archaeologist and stolen ancient mosaics. And if there was any connection to the Sharpe Fine Art Recovery open house on Saturday in Heron’s Cove, Maine.

“And with Emma,” Colin said under his breath as he headed through the rain to the waiting plane.

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