The Mist

Chapter 16

Dublin, Ireland

7:23 a.m., IST

August 26

The bedroom door was still shut when Lizzie awoke, the early morning sun finding its way through the sides of the room-darkening window shade. She slipped into comfortable slim black pants, a black top and her new flats and dabbed on just enough makeup to convince people she’d slept okay.

Making as little noise as possible, she went out into the hall and took the stairs down to the lobby. She smiled at the woman at the front desk, who was new, and headed for the hotel’s small street-level restaurant, its tables covered in Irish lace. Lizzie chose one on the back wall that had a view of the door out to the lobby. She ordered coffee and scones and chatted a moment with her waiter, a college student from Lithuania. Last night on the Beara Peninsula suddenly seemed surreal, and she half expected her cousin to wander in and act as if she’d just arrived from Boston and none of it had happened. Her fight in the stone circle, the bomb, Abigail Browning, Norman ’s disappearance…the fair-haired Brit asleep in her suite.

Lizzie could blame her delusions on jetlag and go shopping.

But as she spread her scone with butter and raspberry jam, her handsome suitemate, dressed in another deliciously soft-looking sweater, joined her at her table.

Without waiting for an invitation, he sat across from her. “My sister loves Dublin. I’ll have to ask her if she’s stayed here.”

“She’s a wedding dress designer in London. Arabella. It’s a pretty name. You have an older brother, too. Peter. He manages the family farm, that being a five-hundred-year-old estate in the north of England.”

“All of which,” Will said, marginally impressed, “you could find on the Internet.”

“In fact, I did.”

She’d also done a bit of spying on the Davenports herself when she was in London in early July, but she chose to keep that fact to herself. Will had sparked her interest after she’d learned Simon wasn’t ex-FBI after all and remembered the two men were friends.

Will’s pot of tea and a steaming scone arrived. For a man who had slept only a few hours, he looked remarkably alert. And serious, Lizzie thought.

He poured his tea. “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Lizzie. It’s time to stop.”

She reached for more jam. She’d combed her hair and pinned it back, but she suspected there were still knots in it. It’d been a long night on the sofa. “If you were going to sic the FBI or the guards on me,” she said, “you’d have done it by now.”

As he set the teapot down, she noticed a thin, straight four-inch scar on his hand, perhaps from a knife fight that hadn’t gone as well as hers had last night.

“You’re not the dilettante you’ve pretended to be,” he said, lifting his cup and taking a sip as he eyed her over the rim. “You didn’t learn your fighting skills from reading a handbook. Who taught you?”

“I frequently travel on my own, and I decided it would be smart to take self-defense classes. But I do have the SAS handbook.” She sat back. “You’re not smiling, Will.”

“I woke up worried about you.”

“Ah. Maybe I should have given you the sofa instead. I slept just fine. Nothing to worry about.” She slathered jam on a chunk of scone and indulged, relishing the sweet, rich taste. “It’ll be back to mesclun soon. You and Simon are obviously good friends, but that’s not why you followed me here.”

“Do you have friends, Lizzie?”

“You mean in addition to my four cousins and Norman?”

Will still didn’t smile. “Correct.”

“Yes, I have friends, although I’ve neglected most of them lately.” She leaned back and studied him as he placed his cup in its saucer and broke off a piece of his scone. “No jam, no butter? You’re an ascetic.”

“I wasn’t the one who engaged in hand-to-hand combat last night.”

“Combat? When you put it that way…” But Lizzie couldn’t maintain her light mood, feigned as it was. “I’m not that hungry, having had a full Irish breakfast at midnight. How long have you known Simon?”

Will deliberated a moment. “Two years.”

“ Norman got very curious when he found out Simon was hanging out with you in London. Did you know he was working undercover, or did you think he was a former FBI agent with a grudge against Director March?”

“Simon and I didn’t discuss Norman Estabrook.”

“Then MI6 isn’t interested in him?”

Will gave her a slight smile. “Very clever, Lizzie. What are your plans for today?”

“Defying jetlag. Past that, I don’t know.” She abandoned her scone for her coffee, not meeting his eye as she said, serious now, “I asked Michael Murphy about one of your countrymen last night. I saw your reaction, Will, and I think he’s why you’re here in Dublin. You know him, don’t you?”

“As I indicated,” he said, picking up his teacup again, “you’re playing a dangerous game.”

Lizzie didn’t relent. “Who is he?”

“A ghost.”

“Another spook?”

He sighed. “I never said…”

“You didn’t have to. This man showed up in Las Vegas a few days before Norman ’s arrest. Is he SAS? Special Branch? A fugitive?”

“He’s a killer. Eddie O’Shea ran into him on the Beara Peninsula last week. Simon and Keira weren’t there.”

Lizzie absorbed this new information and felt a sting of regret that Eddie and his brothers had had their quiet lives disrupted. But they seemed capable of handling anything. “Did this man arrange the attack on Keira?”

“Whatever he did, Lizzie, you must stay away from him. As capable as you are, you can’t best him. If you know anything about him, tell me now.”

“At least give me his name.”

Will steadied his gaze on her, the blue, green and gold of his eyes melding into a gleam of black. “His name is Myles.”

She stifled an involuntary gasp at the pain in his voice. “He’s your friend,” she said. “Will-”

“I haven’t seen the man you and Eddie O’Shea described myself.” His words were measured, everything about him under control. “I could be wrong.”

“We only talked for a few minutes. He joined me at the hotel bar and asked me for a bottle of water and…” Lizzie paused, remembering that strange encounter in Las Vegas. “He told me to behave.”

There was an edge of sadness to Will as he smiled. “That sounds like Myles. Had he and Estabrook already met?”

Lizzie nodded. “He-Myles, the Brit-went up to Norman in the middle of his poker game. No one else at the table seemed to know him. I couldn’t hear what he and Norman said to each other, but it seemed important. That’s one reason why I remember him.”

“There’s another reason?”

She didn’t look away but instead met Will’s gaze straight on. “I was trying to remember everything.”

“Why, Lizzie? This was before Estabrook’s arrest. Were you aware of his illegal activities?”

She smiled easily. “I should take the Fifth on that one. That’s the Fifth Amendment. Bill of Rights. U.S. Constitution-”

“Lizzie. We’re not discussing one of your hotel luxury excursions.”

Didn’t she know.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “That was patronizing.”

“I shouldn’t have gone vapid hotel heiress on you.”

“Which you’re not.”

“No, I’m not. Will, if your friend Myles is helping Norman exact his revenge, Abigail Browning is in serious trouble, isn’t she?”

“For the past two years, I’ve thought Myles was dead.”

“Until you heard me describe him last night. That’s why you let me leave, isn’t it? You didn’t want me stuck for hours with garda detectives. You wanted to talk to me yourself. Have you told the FBI?” But Will’s expression startled her, and she almost knocked over her coffee. “I see now. Simon, you, Myles. Comrades in arms?”

“You see too much, Lizzie.” Will lifted the teapot again and changed the subject as he refilled his cup. “What’s your relationship with Estabrook?”

She decided to answer. “He thinks I understand him.”

“Do you? Did he discuss his intentions for revenge with you?”

“Not specifically. I just happened to be with him in Montana when he threatened to kill Simon and Director March. I can’t always tell what’s bravado and fantasy with Norman and what he actually plans to do. He’s grandiose and, at the same time, very smart and very calculating. I’d hoped his lawyers and a brush with incarceration would straighten him out, and he’d accept that violent revenge was a fantasy. But I also doubted that would happen. He’s taken it on as his next death-defying challenge.”

Will settled back in his chair. “Lizzie…”

But she’d gone far enough. She gave him a bright smile. “All of a sudden, Lord Davenport, you look very much like a man who never puts jam and butter on his scones.” She noticed Justin in the doorway and waved to him. “You met my cousin Justin last night. I practically grew up with him and his three older brothers. My father traveled frequently. Still does.”

“Your mother-”

“My mother died when I was a baby. Ripple effects, Will.” Lizzie got to her feet, laid her napkin next her plate. “So much of life is about ripple effects. Drop a stone into a pond, and you don’t always know what and who will be affected as the ripples make their way across the water. Take your time with your tea. Justin will help you with whatever you need. I have a flight to catch.”

“Be careful, Lizzie.”

She beamed a smile at him. “I’m always careful.”

He didn’t move to get up. “I suspect we have different ideas about what that means.”

She was aware of him watching her as she walked across the restaurant to her cousin. “Run interference for me,” she said to him. “I need a head start on our Lord Davenport. You won’t be able to outmaneuver him, so don’t try. Just buy me some time.”

Justin straightened, obviously up to the job. “What if he’s scheduled to take the same flight as you to Boston?”

“No worries,” she said, heading for the lobby. “Lord Davenport will fly first-class. I’ll be in coach.”

Justin Rush, who bore a detectable resemblance to his cousin in the shape of his nose and eyes, sat across from Will and started telling family secrets.

A delaying tactic.

“Lizzie’s a worry,” the youngest Rush said. “From what my parents and older brothers tell me, she always has been. Whit’s the eldest. He’s named after our paternal grandmother, who was a Whitcomb. Then Harlan-Lizzie’s dad is a Harlan, too, named after our grandfather Rush, who talked our grandmother into converting her family home on Charles Street in Boston into a hotel.”

“Did it require much convincing?”

“Almost none. She’d discovered rats and roaches in the butler’s pantry.” Justin reddened. “There aren’t any there today, of course.”

“Of course,” Will said. “So it’s Whit, Harlan-then Lizzie?”

“That’s right. Then Jeremiah. I’m last.” He smiled, a charmer. “The baby.”

“I see.”

“Lizzie spent a lot of time with us and our grandmother Rush growing up, but she traveled with her father, too. Do you know she’s as good at five-card stud as she is at ordering wine in a five-star restaurant?”

“And she plays bridge,” Will said.

“By herself. She tell you it anchors her mind? Personally, a pint of Guinness does the job for me. How well do you know her?”

“We only met last night.”

“Where? Not Dublin, not from the state of her shoes, at least. Were you tramping through stone circles and fighting Irish bulls with her in West Cork?”

Will wondered when word of the attack on Keira would reach Justin Rush in Dublin, or if it had and he was just more adept at dissembling than his cousin. “I ran into her in a West Cork pub.”

Justin looked momentarily awkward and glanced toward the door, as if he hoped Lizzie would be there to take him off the hook. He turned back to Will. “Lizzie’s a free spirit, but she’s a hard worker, too. She’s worked at every one of our hotels just like the rest of us. She’s very good at her job. My dad would fire her if she wasn’t.”

“But she’s been on a bit of a hiatus this past year, hasn’t she?”

“Sort of.” The red spread to her young cousin’s neck. “She got mixed up with that cretin Norman Estabrook. I know it’s wrong of me, but I hope his plane-never mind. I won’t say it out loud.”

“Where does Lizzie’s father live? Boston?”

“Uncle Harlan avoids Boston whenever possible.”

“And Ireland, too, I gather,” Will said.

He noticed a wince of genuine discomfort as Justin’s expression softened. “It’s because of the memories.”

“Lizzie’s mother?”

Justin feigned great interest in a pepper grinder.

Will persisted. “What happened to her?”

“She died in a freak accident when Lizzie was a baby-here in Dublin, as a matter of fact. She was Irish herself. She was here to visit her family.”

“She came without Lizzie?”

He nodded.

“And without her husband?”

Another awkward nod. “It was eight years before I was born. She flew to Dublin for a five-day visit and tripped on a cobblestone on Temple Bar. She hit her head. They say she died instantly.” Justin cleared his throat and lifted his gaze from the pepper grinder. “Just one of those things.”

It didn’t sound like just one of those things, but Will could see Justin had said all he planned to say on the matter, and possibly all he knew. “Where does your uncle Harlan live, then, if not Boston?”

“His official residence is Las Vegas, but I doubt he’s there half the year. He’s on the board of the family biz, but he doesn’t have an active role these days. He spends most of his time traveling and gambling.”

“I understand Lizzie travels a great deal. Does she also gamble?”

“Not with money. She’s a risk-taker, but she’s tight with a buck. She’s debating whether to rent or tear down the old Rush family place in Maine. No one else wanted it, but she loves it-the location, anyway. The house itself is a wreck.” Justin Rush shrugged, clearly reluctant to share so much information about his cousin, but he had his marching orders and needed to hold Will’s interest and stall him. “Lizzie says it’s unpretentious.”

Will smiled, imagining Lizzie wringing costs out of a renovation project with carpenters and architects. She’d have her way. But he steered Justin back to the more immediate concerns at hand. “Do you know Norman Estabrook yourself?”

“I’ve met him. I carried his bags.”

“When he stayed here a year ago this past April,” Will said.

“What, do you know everything already?”

“Not at all. How did Mr. Estabrook strike you?”

“I didn’t really notice him. I was here on spring break. I had my hands full not to drop bags on the toes of hotel guests. I’ve improved since then. Mr. Estabrook had some adventure in the works-I think he hiked the Skelligs, but I’m not sure. He had quite an entourage with him. Ran me ragged.”

“Do you consider Lizzie part of his entourage?”

Justin looked slightly annoyed as well as protective. “Lizzie would never be part of anyone’s entourage.”

“But she was here then, in Dublin,” Will said.

“Yes. On her own-not with him. That’s when they met.” Justin picked up a crumb of his cousin’s abandoned scone. “They were never more than just friends. And if you’re going to ask if she has a boyfriend, I’m not going to tell you.”

His tone suggested she didn’t, which pleased Will more, undoubtedly, than was smart. “Do you remember anyone else from Mr. Estabrook’s entourage?”

“Nope.”

“Did he stay here again after that April visit?”

“Not that I know of.” Justin glanced down at his crumb, then up again, his eyes showing more maturity. “Is Lizzie in trouble?”

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

“She can kick butt with the best of them. She’s practiced on all of us. She bloodied my brother Jeremiah’s nose last New Year’s.”

“Your family was gathered for New Year’s? Where?”

“Vegas. All of us, including Uncle Harlan.”

“Your hotel’s very comfortable,” Will said, rising, “and you did your job. You delayed me.”

Justin got to his feet. “You wanted to learn more about Lizzie.”

Will saw the unease in the young Rush’s expression. “Justin, is your family worried about her?”

“Doesn’t much matter, does it? Lizzie thinks she’s on her own.”

Will had his own experience with worried family members left behind, but he was a professional officer. Lizzie Rush, clearly, was not. He said quietly, “I’m not going to hurt her.”

“But will you help her?”

“If I can. If she’ll let me.”

“Sometimes I think she likes living dangerously.”

“Perhaps she’s merely trying to do what she can to help with a difficult situation and leave her family out of it.” Will didn’t wait for a reply. “You’ve given your cousin sufficient time to get to the airport. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Justin. If you’re ever in London, look me up.”

He frowned, scrutinizing Will a moment, then sighed. “I don’t start work until later. Come on, I’ll drive you to the airport myself. You’re chasing Lizzie to Boston, right?”

“I already have a flight arranged.”

“Your own plane?”

Will didn’t answer.

“Oh, that’s good-you flying a private jet across the Atlantic and Lizzie stuck in coach with her deck of cards.” Justin laughed. “That’ll teach her to sneak off.”

En route to the airport, Will learned a few more tidbits. Lizzie’s full name was Elizabeth Brigid Rush. Her mother was born Shauna Morrigan. “There are family rumors about Aunt Shauna,” Justin said. “My brother Jeremiah is convinced she spied on the Boston Irish mob.”

“This was before she married your uncle?”

“Jeremiah thinks so. Who knows? There are family rumors about Uncle Harlan, too.” Justin grinned as he pulled into the airport. “Now I’ve gone too far. For all I know, you’re a British spy.”

Indeed, Will thought, deciding he liked Justin Rush.