The Whisper

THE WHISPER

Also by CARLA NEGGERS

COLD RIVER

THE MIST

BETRAYALS

COLD PURSUIT

TEMPTING FATE

THE ANGEL

ABANDON

CUT AND RUN

THE WIDOW

BREAKWATER

DARK SKY

THE RAPIDS

NIGHT'S LANDING

COLD RIDGE

THE HARBOR

STONEBROOK COTTAGE

THE CABIN

THE CARRIAGE HOUSE

THE WATERFALL

ON FIRE

KISS THE MOON

CLAIM THE CROWN

CARLA NEGGERS

THE WHISPER

For Leo

1

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland--late September

Scoop Wisdom opened his daypack, got out his water bottle and took a drink. He sat on a cold, damp rock inside the remains of the isolated Irish stone cottage where the long summer had started with a beautiful woman, a tale of magic and fairies--and a killer obsessed with his own ideas of good and evil.

The autumn equinox had passed. Summer was over. Scoop told himself it was a new beginning, but he had unfinished business. It'd been gnawing at him ever since he'd regained consciousness in his Boston hospital room a month ago, after a bomb blast had almost killed him.

He was healed. It was time to go home and get back to work. Be a cop again.

He set his water bottle back in his pack and zipped up the outer compartment. A solitary ray of sunshine penetrated the tangle of vines above him where once there'd been a thatched roof. He could hear the rush of the stream just outside the ruin.

And water splashing. Scoop shifted position on the rock, listening, but there was no doubt. Someone--or something--was tramping in the stream that wound down from the rocky, barren hills above Kenmare Bay. He hadn't seen anyone on his walk up from the cottage where he was staying on a quiet country lane.

He stood up. He could hear laughter now.

A woman's laughter.

Irish fairies, maybe? Out here on the southwest Irish coast, on the rugged Beara Peninsula, he could easily believe fairies were hiding in the greenery that grew thick on the banks of the stream.

He stepped over fallen rocks to the opening that had served as the only entrance to what once had been someone's home. He could feel a twinge of pain in his hip where shrapnel had cut deep when the bomb went off at the triple-decker he owned with Bob O'Reilly and Abigail Browning, two other Boston detectives. He had taken most of the blistering shards of metal and wood in the meatier parts of his back, shoulders, arms and legs, but one chunk had lodged in the base of his skull, making everyone nervous for a day or so. A millimeter this way or that, and he'd be dead instead of wondering if fairies were about to arrive at his Irish ruin for a visit.

He heard more water splashing and more female laughter.

"I know, I know." It was a woman, her tone amused, her accent American. "Of course I'd run into a big black dog up here in these particular hills."

In his two weeks in Ireland, Scoop had heard whispers about a large, fierce black dog occasionally turning up in the pastures above the small fishing and farming village. He'd seen only sheep and cows himself.

He peered into the gray mist. The morning sun was gone, at least for the moment. He'd learned to expect changeable weather. Brushed by the Gulf Stream, the climate of the Southwest was mild and wet, but he'd noticed on his walks that the flowers of summer were fading and the heather on the hills was turning brown.

"Ah." The woman again, still out of sight around a sharp bend in the stream. "You're coming with me, are you? I must be very close, then. Lead the way, my new friend."

The ruin was easy to miss amid the dense trees and under-growth on the banks of the stream. If he hadn't known where to look, Scoop would have gone right past it his first time out here.

A woman with wild, dark red hair ducked under the low-hanging branches of a gnarly tree. Ambling next to her in the shallow water was, indeed, a big black dog.

The woman looked straight at Scoop, and even in the gray light, he saw that she had bright blue eyes and freckles--a lot of freckles. She was slim and angular, her hair down to her shoulders, damp and tangled. She continued toward him, the dog staying close to her. She didn't seem particularly taken aback by finding a man standing in the doorway of the remote ruin. Scoop wouldn't blame her if she did. Even before the bomb blast, he had looked, according to friends and enemies alike, ferocious with his thick build, shaved head and general take-no-prisoners demeanor.

For sure, no one would mistake him for a leprechaun or a fairy prince.

Her left foot sank into a soft spot and almost ended up in the water. Mud stains came to the top of her wellies. "I saw footprints back there," she said cheerfully, pointing a slender hand in the direction she'd just come. "Since I've never run into a cow or a sheep that wears size-twelve shoes, I figured someone else was out here. A fine day for a walk, isn't it?"

"It is," Scoop said.

"I don't mind the outbreaks of rain." She tilted her head back, letting the mist collect on her face a moment, then smiled at him. "I don't do well in the sun."

Scoop stepped down from the threshold and nodded to the dog, still panting at her side. "Yours?"

"No, but he's a sweetheart. I suppose he could be aggressive if he or someone he cared about felt threatened."

A warning? Scoop noticed she wore a rain jacket the same shade of blue as her eyes and held an iPhone in one hand, perhaps keeping it available in case she needed to call for help. It would be easy to think it was still 1900 in this part of Ireland, but that would be a mistake. For one thing, the area had decent cell phone coverage.

"Looks as if you two have bonded."

"I think we have, indeed." She slipped the iPhone into a jacket pocket. "You're the detective who saved that girl's life when the bomb went off at your house in Boston last month--Wisdom, right? Detective Cyrus Wisdom?"

He was instantly on alert, but he kept his voice even. "Most people call me Scoop. And you would be?"

"Sophie--Sophie Malone. We have friends in common," she said, easing past him to the ruin. The dog stayed by the stream. "I'm from Boston originally. I'm an archaeologist."

"What kind of archaeologist?"

She smiled. "The barely employed kind. You're in Ireland to recuperate? I heard you were hurt pretty badly."

"I ended up here after attending a friend's wedding in Scotland a few weeks ago."

"Abigail Browning's wedding. She's the detective who was kidnapped when the bomb went off."

"I know who she is."

Sophie Malone seemed unfazed by his response. Abigail was still on her extended honeymoon with Owen Garrison, an international search-and-rescue expert with roots in Boston, Texas and Maine. Will Davenport had offered them his house in the Scottish Highlands for their long-awaited wedding, and they'd accepted, quickly gathering family and friends together in early September. Scoop, just out of the hospital, had had no intention of missing the ceremony.

"Wasn't it too soon for you to fly given your injuries?" Sophie asked.

"I got through it."

She studied him, her expression suggesting a focused, intelligent mind. He had on a sweatshirt and jeans, but she'd be able to see one of his uglier scars, a purple gash that started under his right ear and snaked around the back of his head. Finally she said, "It must be hard not to be in Boston with the various ongoing investigations. You have all the bad guys, though, right? They're either dead or under arrest--"

"I thought you said you were an archaeologist. How do you know all this?"

"I keep up with the news."

That, Scoop decided, wasn't the entire truth. He was very good--one of the best in the Boston Police Department--at detecting lies and deception, and if Sophie Malone wasn't exactly lying, she wasn't exactly telling the truth, either.

She placed her hand on the rough, gray stone of the ruin. "You know Keira Sullivan, don't you?"

Keira was the folklorist and artist who had discovered the ruin three months ago, on the night of the summer solstice. She was also Lieutenant Bob O'Reilly's niece. "I do, yes," Scoop said. "Is Keira one of the friends we have in common?"

"We've never met, actually." Sophie stepped up onto the crumbling threshold of the ruin. "This place has been abandoned for a long time."

"According to local villagers, the original occupants either died or emigrated during the Great Famine of the 1840s."

"That would make sense. This part of Ireland was hit hard by the famine and subsequent mass emigration. That's how my family ended up in the U.S. The Malone side." She glanced back at Scoop, a spark in her blue eyes. "Tell me, Detective Wisdom, do you believe fairies were here that night with Keira?"

Scoop didn't answer. Standing in front of an Irish ruin with a scary black dog and a smart, pretty redhead, he could believe just about anything. He took in his surroundings--the fine mist, the multiple shades of green, the rocks, the rush of the stream. His senses were heightened, as if Irish fairies had put a spell on him.

He had never been so in danger of falling in love at first sight.

He gave himself a mental shake. Was he out of his mind? He grinned at Sophie as she stepped down from the ruin. "You're not a fairy princess yourself, are you?"

She laughed. "That would be Keira. Artist, folklorist and fairy princess." Sophie's expression turned more serious. "She wasn't reckless coming out here alone, you know."

"Any more than you are being reckless now?"

"Or you," she countered, then nodded to the dog, who had flopped in the wet grass. "Besides, I have my new friend here. He doesn't appear to have any quarrel with you. He joined me when I got to the stream. He must be the same dog who helped Keira the night she was trapped here."

"You didn't read that in the papers," Scoop said.

"I live in Ireland," she said vaguely. She seemed more tentative now. "The man who was also here that night...the serial killer. Jay Augustine. He won't ever be in a position to hurt anyone else, will he?"

Scoop didn't answer at once. Just what was he to make of his visitor? Finally he said, "Augustine's in jail awaiting trial for first-degree murder. He has a good lawyer and he's not talking, but he's not going anywhere. He'll stay behind bars for the rest of his life."

Sophie's gaze settled on an uprooted tree off to one side of the ruin. "That's where he smeared the sheep's blood, isn't it?"

Scoop stiffened. "Okay, Sophie Malone. You know a few too many details. Who are you?"

"Sorry." She pushed her hands through her damp hair. "Being here makes what happened feel real and immediate. I didn't expect this intense a reaction. Keira and I both know Colm Dermott, the anthropologist organizing the conference on Irish folklore in April. It's in two parts, one in Cork and one in Boston."

"I know Colm. Is he the one who told you about the black dog?"

She nodded. "I ran into him last week in Cork. I've just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the university there. I hadn't paid much attention to what all went on out here and in Boston." She took a breath. "I'm glad Keira wasn't hurt."

"So am I."

Sophie looked up sharply, as if his tone had given away some unexpected, hidden feeling--which for all he knew it had--but she quickly turned back toward the cottage, mist glistening on her rain jacket and deep red hair. "Do you believe Keira really did see the stone angel that night?"

"Doesn't matter what I believe."

"You're very concrete, aren't you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "The story she was researching is so charming--three Irish brothers in a never-ending struggle with fairies over a stone angel. The brothers believe it'll bring them luck. The fairies believe it's one of their own turned to stone. Every three months, on the night of the solstice or the equinox, the angel appears on the hearth of a remote cottage in the hills above Kenmare Bay."

"The old woman who told the story to Keira in Boston--"

"Also told it to Jay Augustine, and he killed her," Sophie said, finishing for him. "Colm says when Keira came out here in search of this place she thought she might encounter a bit of fairy mischief. Maybe she even hoped she would. But a killer? It's too horrible to think about."

Scoop stood back, feeling the isolation of the old ruin. Except for the dog and the sheep up in the pastures above the stream, it was just him and the woman in front of him. How did he even know she was an archaeologist? Why should he believe a word she said?

"As many tombs and ruins as I've crawled through in my work, I'm not much on small spaces." She seemed to shrug off thoughts of blood and violence as she tugged her hood over her hair. "You can imagine contentious Irish brothers and trooping fairies out here, can't you? Keira's story is very special. I love tales of the wee folk."

"Believe in fairies, do you?"

"Some days more than others."

"So, Sophie Malone," Scoop said, "why are you here?"

"Fairies, a black dog and an ancient stone angel aren't reason enough?"

"Maybe, but they're not the whole story."

"Ah. We archaeologists can be very mysterious. We're also curious. I wanted to see the ruin for myself. You're a detective, Scoop. Okay if I call you Scoop?"

"Sure."

"You can understand curiosity, can't you?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

Her sudden, infectious smile reached to her eyes. "Ah. I can see you don't like coincidences. You want to know how we both decided to come here this morning. I didn't follow you, if that helps. I've never been subtle enough to follow people."

"But you weren't surprised to find me here," Scoop said.

"I wasn't, especially not after seeing those size-twelve footprints in the mud." She eased in next to the dog. "I'll be on my way."

"Are you heading straight back to the village?"

"Maybe." She patted the dog as he rose next to her. "I'll have to see where my new friend here leads me. Good to meet you, Detective." She smiled again. "Scoop. Maybe I'll see you in Boston sometime."

Scoop watched her and the big black dog duck back under the gnarly tree. She had a positive, energetic air about her. Nothing suggested she wasn't an archaeologist. Whoever she was, he'd bet she was the type who wouldn't let go once she got the bit in her teeth.

What bit did Sophie Malone have in her teeth? What, exactly, had brought her out here?

He slipped back into the ruin, smelling the damp stone and dirt. He reached for his backpack. This time he didn't notice any pain in his hip. As he slung his pack onto his shoulder, he peered through the gray, dim light at the hearth where Keira claimed to have seen the ancient stone angel as the ruin partially collapsed around her. When she finally climbed out the following morning, the angel was gone. Whatever the case, no one else had ever actually seen it.

Keira would only say she believed the angel was where it was meant to be.

Scoop pictured Sophie walking upstream with the black dog next to her, her red hair flying, her bright blue eyes, her slim hips--her smile.

Yep. Love at first sight.

"Damn," he muttered, adjusting the pack on his shoulder, feeling only a dull ache where once there'd been fiery pain.

Being in this place was definitely getting to him.

He headed back outside. The mist had subsided, and the sun was angling through the wet trees. He noticed Sophie's and the dog's footprints in the mud. She was right about the ongoing investigations in Boston, but she was wrong about one thing. They didn't have all the bad guys. The major players in the violence of the past three months were dead or under arrest, but there were still unanswered questions. In particular, Scoop wanted to know who had placed a crude explosive device under the gas grill on Abigail's first-floor back porch.

Even if it was a cop.

Even, he thought, if it was a friend.

He was an internal affairs detective, and two months ago, he'd launched a special investigation into the possible involvement of a member of the department with local thugs. His bomber?

Maybe, maybe not, but Scoop didn't much like the idea that another cop had almost blown him up.

He started back along the stream, Sophie's and the dog's footprints disappearing as the ground became drier, grassier. When the stream curved sharply downhill, he emerged from the trees into the open, rock-strewn green pasture high above the bay. A stiff, sudden breeze blew a few lingering raindrops into his face as he continued across the sheep-clipped grass. He came to a barbed-wire fence and climbed over it, jumping down onto the soft, moist ground. On his first hike up here two weeks ago, tackling the fence had caused significant pain, and he'd caught a still-healing wound on a barb, drawing blood. Now he was moving well and seldom felt any pain, and his scars were tougher.

A fat, woolly sheep appeared on the steep hillside above him. Scoop grinned. "Yeah, pal, it's me again."

The sheep stayed put. Scoop looked out across Kenmare Bay to the jagged outline of the Macgillicuddy Reeks on the much larger Iveragh Peninsula. He'd driven its famous Ring of Kerry and done a few hikes over there, but he'd spent most of his time in Ireland on the Beara.

He continued across the steep pasture to another fence. He climbed over it onto a dirt track that led straight downhill to the village. As he passed a Beware Of Bull sign tacked to a fence post, a movement caught his eye. He paused, squinting through the gray mist. Across the pasture, he saw a large black dog lope through the middle of an ancient stone circle and disappear into a stand of trees.

It had to be the same dog he'd seen with Sophie Malone.

The mysterious redheaded archaeologist was nowhere in sight, but Scoop knew--he couldn't explain how but he knew--he'd be seeing her again.

He smiled to himself. Maybe fairies had put a spell on him.

2

Kenmare, Southwest Ireland

Sophie didn't let down her guard until she reached Kenmare.

She drove straight to the town pier, parked and pried her fingers off the steering wheel. As if the black dog hadn't been enough to remind her she was out of her element on the Beara, she'd had to run into a suspicious, absolute stud of a Boston detective.

She exhaled, calming herself. Going out to Keira Sullivan's ruin would have been enough of a heart-pounding experience all by itself, without Scoop Wisdom. He was as tough, straightforward and no-nonsense as she'd expected from the accounts of the violence in Boston over the summer, but he'd looked as if he'd been awaiting the arrival of ghosts or fairies.

He'd gotten her instead.

And what was she?

She hadn't lied. She was an archaeologist. But she hadn't told him everything--not by far--and obviously he knew it.

Sophie got out of her little car and paused to watch a rainbow arc across the sky high above the bay. The yellow, orange, red and lavender-blue streaks deepened and brightened, tugging at her emotions. She'd miss Irish rainbows when she was back in Boston.

She shook off her sudden melancholy. She was leaving tomorrow, and her parents and twin sister were arriving in Kenmare later that afternoon for a send-off dinner. In the meantime, getting weepy over Irish rainbows wasn't on her ever-expanding to-do list.

She squinted out at the boats in the harbor. The Irish name for the village was Neidin, which translated as "little nest," an apt description for its location at the base of the Cork and Kerry mountains.

"Aha," she said aloud when she recognized Tim O'Donovan's rugged commercial fishing boat tied to the pier. The old boat looked as if it would sink before it got halfway out of the harbor, but she knew from experience that it could handle rough seas.

She spotted Tim by a post and waved to him. He was a tall, burly, Irish fisherman with a bushy, sand-colored beard and emerald-green eyes. He glanced in her direction, and even at a distance, she heard him groan. She could hardly blame him, given his unwitting involvement in her own strange experience on the Irish coast a year ago--months before Keira Sullivan's encounter with a serial killer.

Whispers in the dark. Blood-soaked branches. Celtic artifacts gone missing.

A woman--me, Sophie thought--left for dead in a cold, dank cave.

Suppressing a shudder, she made her way onto the concrete pier. Tim had managed to avoid her for months, but he wouldn't today. She moved fast, determined to get to him before he could jump into his boat and be off.

When she reached him, she made a stab at being conversational. "Hey, Tim, it's good to see you." She pointed up at the fading rainbow. "Did you notice the rainbow just now?"

"If you want me to take you to chase a pot of gold, the answer is no."

"I'm not chasing anything."

"You're always chasing something." He yanked on a thick rope with his callused hands and didn't look at her as he spoke in his heavy Kerry accent. "How are you, Sophie?"

"Doing great." It was close enough to the truth. "I gave up my apartment in Cork and moved into our family house in Kenmare. My parents and sister will be here later today. I've been here two weeks. I thought I'd run into you by now."

"Ah-huh."

"Have you been seeing to it I didn't?"

"Just doing my work."

"I've been back and forth to Cork and Dublin a fair amount. My father's family is originally from Kenmare. I've told you that, haven't I?"

"Along the way, yes." His tone suggested that playing on their common Irish roots would have no effect on him.

"Taryn's only staying for a night or two, but my folks will be here for at least a month."

"You're going back to Boston," Tim said.

"Ah, so you have been keeping tabs on me."

He glanced up at her. "Always."

She grinned at him. "You could at least try to look disappointed. We're friends, right?"

He let the thick rope go slack. "You're a dangerous friend to have, Sophie."

With the resurgent sunshine, she unzipped her jacket. "Yeah, well, you weren't the one who spent a frightening night in an Irish cave."

"Oh, no--no, I was the one who didn't talk you out of spending a night alone on an island no bigger than my boat. I was the one who left you there."

"The island is a lot bigger than your boat. Otherwise," she added, trying to sound lighthearted, "you'd have found me faster than you did."

"I was lucky to find you at all, never mind before you took your last breath." He gripped the rope tight again but made no move to untie it and get out of there. Still, he regarded her with open suspicion. "I'm not taking you back there. Don't ask me to."

"I'm not asking. That's not why I'm here. I don't want to go back." She fought off another involuntary shudder. "Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day."

Or maybe not ever, but she wasn't telling Tim that. Whether she was being stubborn or just had her pride, she didn't want him to think she was afraid to return to the tiny island off the Iveragh coast where she'd encountered...she wasn't sure what. She knew she'd almost died there.

"Do you still have nightmares?" he asked, less combative.

"Not as many. Do you?"

He grunted. "I never did have nightmares, but as you say, I wasn't the one--"

"That's right, you weren't, and I'm glad of that."

"I hear you finished your dissertation."

She nodded. "It's been signed, sealed, delivered, defended and approved."

"So it's Dr. Malone now, is it?" He seemed more relaxed, although still wary. "What will you be doing in Boston?"

"Mostly looking for a full-time job. I have a few things lined up that'll help pay the rent in the meantime."

Tim's skepticism was almost palpable. "What else?" he asked.

Sophie looked out at the water, dark blue under the clearing early-afternoon sky. Tim O'Donovan was no fool. "Did you know a Boston police detective's staying out on the Beara?"

"Sophie." Tim gave a resigned sigh. "You went to see Keira Sullivan's ruin, didn't you?"

"It makes sense. I'm an archaeologist. I've crawled through literally hundreds of ruins over the past ten years."

"This isn't just another ruin. It's where that Yank serial killer--" He stopped abruptly. "Ah, no. Sophie. Sophie, Sophie. You're not thinking he was responsible for what happened to you. Don't tell me that."

"Okay, I won't."

"Sophie."

"It doesn't matter what I think. He's in jail. He can't hurt me or anyone else."

"I never should have told you that story," Tim said quietly.

Sophie understood. Over Guinness and Irish music one evening a year ago, he had transfixed her with a tale he'd heard from a long-dead uncle who had served as a priest in a small village on the Iveragh Peninsula across Kenmare Bay. A coastal monastery, Viking raids, a secret hoard of pagan Celtic artifacts--how could she have resisted? For centuries--at least according to Tim--the story had been closely held by the priests in the village. It was a tangle of fancy, history, mythology and tradition--with, she'd suspected, a large dose of Tim's Guinness-buzzed Irish blarney.

"I was procrastinating," she said to him now. "That's why I started going out there. I was mentally exhausted, and I just wanted to go on a lark."

"A shopping spree in Dublin wouldn't have done the trick?"

"I never expected to find anything, or end up in a dark cave with spooky stuff happening around me. It wasn't a dream, Tim. It wasn't a hallucination."

"You were knocked on the head."

She sighed. She didn't remember how she'd been rendered unconscious--whether she'd accidentally hit her head scrambling to hide, or whether whoever had been on the island with her had smacked her with a rock. When she'd come to, it was pitch dark, cold and silent in the cave.

Tim unknotted the rope automatically, as he had since he'd been a boy. There were seven O'Donovans. He was the third eldest. "My mother prays for you every night," he said. "She's afraid it was black magic at work, or dark fairies--nothing of this world, that's for certain."

"Thank your mother for me."

"I try not to mention your name to her. I should never have told her what happened. She's the only one who knows--"

"It's okay, Tim."

They'd set off a year ago on a warm, clear late-September morning--Sophie remembered how calm the bay was, how excited she was. She'd had her iPhone and everything she needed for less than twenty-four hours on her own. Tim had returned to pick her up the following morning. When she wasn't at their rendezvous point, he'd set out on foot to look for her. At first he'd assumed she'd got herself sidetracked and was annoyed with her for delaying him. Then he'd found her backpack in a crevice near the cave. She remembered the panic in his voice when she'd heard him calling her, and the relief she'd felt knowing he was there and she would survive her ordeal.

Of course, he'd wanted to kill her himself when she'd crawled out of the cave.

He'd called the guards. By then, there was nothing for them to find. They believed, in spite of Sophie's academic credentials, that what she claimed to have seen and heard was the product of a concussion, dehydration, adrenaline, a touch of hypothermia and no small amount of imagination. They'd made it clear they thought both she and Tim were nuts. She for going out there, no matter how experienced and well prepared, he for letting her talk him into leaving her alone overnight on the thimble of an island.

"How long are you going to stay mad at me?" Sophie asked Tim now.

"Until I'm explaining myself before St. Peter, should he have me."

She smiled. "He'll have you because the devil won't."

He grinned back at her, a glint of humor in his green eyes. "True enough. Don't think I don't know why you're here, Sophie Malone. You want to know if anyone's asked me about you, and the answer is no."

"You're sure?"

"Oh, trust me, I'd remember."

"Keira Sullivan is romantically involved with an FBI agent--Simon Cahill--and her uncle's a Boston homicide detective."

"Bob O'Reilly," Tim said. "Yes, I know."

Sophie wasn't surprised. "They've both been out here this summer. There's the Boston detective out on the Beara now. Scoop Wisdom."

"None of them have looked me up. I fish, Sophie, and I play a little music. I stay away from trouble."

"I don't want to cause you any more problems."

Tim stood up straight and looked out at the sparkling harbor. "I believe you, Sophie. I do. I don't know how you hit your head, but I believe you found Celtic treasure. I believe you heard whispers, and I believe you saw hawthorn branches dipped in blood." He turned to her, as serious as she'd ever seen him. "I wish I could tell you who or what it was in that cave with you."

"I wish you could, too, Tim."

"They say the woman who hid the treasure died on the island."

If there ever were such a woman. No historical record existed of her that Sophie had been able to locate. Tim's story told of a woman fleeing to the island with her pagan treasure to escape Viking raids in the eighth century. Then again, he'd said, maybe it had been English raids in the seventeenth century, or maybe to trade for food for the starving in the famine years.

Hard facts were a little tough to pin down.

Sophie had no intention of arguing Irish tales with an Irishman, especially one who was still irritated with her for putting him through hell. She shivered in a sudden gust of wind, but she knew it wasn't the cold she was feeling. It was the lingering effects of that night a year ago.

Tim put a big hand on her shoulder. "Let go of what happened to you." His voice was quiet now. "Get on with your life."

"I am. Don't worry about me, okay?"

"Worry about you?" He laughed, hugging her to him. "I want to drown you in the bay. Dragging me to that barren rock. No sign of you when I came after you. There I was with you gone and nothing but the wind, the waves, the crying birds. I get chilled to the bone thinking about it."

Sophie couldn't help but smile. Tim was dramatic. She glanced up at the brightening sky, no hint left of the rainbow. "I wonder if it was sheep's blood on the branches I saw."

Tim was thoughtful. "It was sheep's blood at the Beara ruin."

"Yes, but Jay Augustine left that blood for Keira Sullivan to find, assuming she lived through the night. The blood and branches I saw disappeared. If I'd managed to get a few drops on me, it would have corroborated my story. The guards could have tested it--"

"Don't, Sophie. What's done is done."

She looked down at Tim's battered boat, bobbing in the rising tide. "We could put all this out of our minds for a while and go sightseeing for seals and puffins."

Tim obviously knew she wasn't serious. "You're playing with fire, Sophie," he said heavily. "You know you are."

"The guards must have a report in their files on what happened a year ago, and obviously they know about Keira's experience on the Beara. They haven't come to reinterview me. I just keep wondering if I missed something...." She didn't finish and instead shook off her questions and smiled at Tim. "Stay in touch, okay?"

"Sophie--"

"All will be well."

"Yes, it will be, please God," he said, watching her as she headed back down the pier.

"Oh, and Tim," she called cheerfully, turning back to him, "if you want to get anywhere with my sister, trim your beard and bone up on your Yeats."

He jumped into his boat, as comfortable at sea as he was on land. "'Tread softly because you tread on my dreams,'" he recited, crossing his hands over his heart. "'A pity beyond all telling is hid in the heart of love.'"

Sophie laughed, enjoying the moment. She saw he was laughing now, too, and she felt better as she walked to her car.

After their look around the island produced nothing--not even a drop of blood on the gray rock much less a bit of Celtic gold--the guards had asked her and Tim not to discuss the incident in the cave with anyone else, in order to avoid a rush of treasure hunters. She'd tried to put her experience behind her, even to the point of wondering if she, too, should just blame a concussion, dehydration, fatigue, isolation, overwork and imagination--if not ghosts and fairies, which, she suspected, deep down Tim believed were responsible for her ordeal.

Then last week, she'd pulled her head up from her work and had lunch with Colm Dermott, back in Cork on behalf of the folklore conference, and he'd told her about the violence in Boston over the summer. She'd been vaguely aware that Jay Augustine, a fine art and antiques dealer who had turned out to be a serial killer, had latched on to Keira's Irish story in June and finally was arrested, after trying to kill Keira and her mother. His violence and fascination with the devil and evil had inspired Norman Estabrook, a corrupt, ruthless billionaire, to act on his own violent impulses, which had led to the bomb blast in late August that had injured Scoop Wisdom and culminated in Estabrook's death on the coast of Maine.

Sophie couldn't shake the similarities of Keira's experience on the Beara to her own on the island. She had to know. Had Jay Augustine followed her a year ago and left her for dead? Had he made off with the artifacts--whatever their origin or authenticity--she'd seen in the cave? Without proper examination, she couldn't say for sure what they were, but she had a solid recollection of the pieces--a spun-bronze cauldron, gold brooches, torcs and bracelets, glass beads and bangles. She hadn't imagined them, even if Irish and American authorities had already reviewed her account of her night in the cave and decided it wasn't worth pursuing further.

She climbed into her car. She was tempted to head to the village and settle in her favorite pub for the rest of the day, but instead she got out her iPhone and dialed her brother Damian, an FBI agent in Washington, D.C.

"Hey, Damian," she said. "I was just watching an Irish rainbow and thought I'd call. Taryn's on her way, and Mom and Dad will be here in time for dinner and Irish music. We'll miss you."

"I'll be in Ireland in two weeks."

"I'll be in Boston then. I leave tomorrow. It's not as spur-of-the-moment as it sounds. I'm staying in Taryn's apartment on Beacon Hill. Doesn't that sound cozy?"

"What's going on, Sophie?"

"They teach you that in FBI school--how to turn someone saying 'cozy' into something suspicious? Never mind. I was just out on the Beara Peninsula where that serial killer struck. Would you know if he was involved in smuggling and selling stolen artifacts?"

Silence.

Sophie knew she'd struck a nerve but pretended to be oblivious. "Damian? Are you there? Are we still connected?"

"We're still connected. Any kind of stolen artifacts in mind?"

"Pagan Celtic."

"Why?"

"Because it's my area of expertise. Keira Sullivan's stone angel was Early Medieval Celtic from the sounds of it. I'm just curious if this Augustine character was into Celtic works in general."

"He was interested in killing people, Sophie."

She looked out at the pier, tourists gathering for a boat tour of the coast. "I get your point, Damian, but you know what I mean."

"You're the archaeologist. I'm the FBI agent. You tell me. Do you know anything about Celtic artifacts showing up on the black market?"

This time, she was the one who didn't answer.

"Sophie?"

"My battery's dying. I'll call you later."

She disconnected and dropped her phone back in her jacket pocket. As if putting herself on the radar of one law enforcement officer today wasn't good enough, she'd had to call her FBI agent brother. She started her car and let herself off the hook. Calling Damian made sense. He was assigned to FBI headquarters in Washington. He could find out just about anything.

She wondered if she'd have a better chance if she told him about her experience last year.

"Probably not," she whispered as she drove back down the quiet street. The Irish authorities already knew about the incident. If she told Damian, he'd look into it, and she didn't want to send him and the FBI off on some wild-goose chase if she were totally off target.

More to the point, he'd tell their parents, and why get them all worked up over what could be nothing?

She had a few hours before they arrived. Her sister would get there sooner. Sophie decided to forget missing Celtic artifacts and jailed serial killers for the moment and head to the house and cook, clean and do what she could to make her life look as if her family didn't need to worry about her.

3

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland

A wild hurling match was on the small television in the sole village pub. Scoop sat on a stool at the five-foot polished wood bar. He'd had soup and brown bread, then settled in with a Guinness during an afternoon shower. The peat fire was lit. The bartender's brown-and-white springer spaniel was asleep on the hearth.

Life could be worse.

"I miss my garden," he said to Eddie O'Shea, the wiry, energetic barman. In late June, Eddie had helped identify Jay Augustine as the man responsible for the sheep's blood up at Keira's ruin.

Eddie busied himself at the sink behind the bar. "Time to go home, is it?"

"Past time, probably. I might have some butternut squash I can save. The firefighters and paramedics trampled the hell out of my tomatoes and cauliflower. Of course," Scoop added with a grin, "they also saved my sorry life."

"And you saved Bob's daughter," Eddie said. He'd met Bob O'Reilly on Bob's trip to Ireland earlier in the summer. Bob'd had to see Keira's ruin, too. "A few tomatoes are a small price, don't you think?"

"No price at all." Scoop stared into his Guinness, but he was back in Boston on that hot summer afternoon, minutes before the bomb went off. Fiona O'Reilly, Bob's nineteen-year-old daughter, had dropped by to see her father. She was a harp player, as smart and as pretty as her cousin Keira and as stubborn as her father. "This wasn't Fiona's fight. She was an innocent bystander."

"Was it your fight?"

"Doesn't matter. It's my fight now." He thought of the special investigation back in Boston. Had his bomber been staring him in the face? Had he missed something? "I want to know who planted that bomb, Eddie. It could have been anyone. The meter-reader, the plumber, the mailman, a cab driver. Pigeons. Who knows?"

Eddie reached for Scoop's empty glass. "You go after police officers suspected of wrongdoing. Do you suspect it's a cop you're after?"

Scoop didn't respond, and Eddie didn't push him for an answer. Few of the handful of people in the pub seemed to be paying attention to the game on the television. Most were locals, but Scoop picked out a young couple who undoubtedly had come in on the bicycles he'd seen outside the pub. He could hear the pair chatting in German. They looked happy and carefree, but probably they weren't. There'd be issues back home--jobs, relatives, health issues. Something.

No one's life was simple.

Definitely time to go home. Maybe being back in Boston would jog his memory about the minutes, hours and even days before the bomb blast. After three weeks recuperating on the other side of the Atlantic, he hadn't produced a face, a name, an incident--a shred of a memory that would take him from the shadows of uncertainty to the identity of the person who had assembled the bomb and delivered it to the home of three detectives.

He'd have to face finding temporary housing when he returned to Boston. The triple-decker was badly burned and under repair. Bob O'Reilly was from Southie and knew carpenters, electricians and plumbers and was overseeing the work, but it'd be a while before any of them could move back in.

Scoop eased off the stool, left enough euros to cover the tab and headed back outside. The village was quiet, the sun shining again, glistening on the rain-soaked sidewalk. Brightly painted houses lined both sides of the street. He half expected Sophie Malone to walk up from the harbor.

It was eerie, that certainty that he hadn't seen the last of her.

He shook off his strange mood and turned onto a narrow lane that ran parallel to the bay, at the foot of the steep hills that formed the spine of the peninsula. A half-dozen brown cows meandered down the middle of the lane toward him. City cop though he was, Scoop had grown up in the country and didn't mind cows. He stepped close to an ancient stone wall and let them pass. As he continued down the lane, he tried to pay attention to the details around him and not get lost in his own thoughts. He noticed a half-dozen sheep in a pen and heard more sheep baaing up in the hills.

He came to the traditional stone cottage Keira had rented back in June and let him use the past two weeks. She'd come to Ireland to paint, walk, research her old story and delve into her Irish roots, but her summer hadn't worked out the way she'd meant it to. The cottage was just the sort of place he'd have expected her to stay. Getting blown against his compost bin and almost bleeding to death had helped him realize he could have fallen in love with her, but being here in Ireland had convinced him that he hadn't--that it wasn't meant to be.

Keira was meant for Simon Cahill, the bull of an FBI agent who'd come here to search for her when she'd gone missing in the Irish hills.

It'd been a hell of a summer, Scoop thought.

A massive rosebush dominated the otherwise prosaic front yard, its pink blossoms perking up in the sunshine. He noticed the kitchen door was partially open and immediately tensed, although more out of force of habit than any real alarm. He wasn't expecting company, and his rental car was the only vehicle in the gravel driveway. Most likely he simply hadn't shut the door properly when he'd left for the ruin that morning.

Wrong on all accounts, he observed as a man with medium brown hair eyed him from the small pine table where Keira had left an array of art supplies. He had several days' growth of beard and looked exhausted, if also intense and alert. He wore canvas pants and a lightweight leather jacket. "I never could draw worth a bloody damn." He spoke with a British accent. He leaned back in his chair and held up a sheet of paper with a crude pencil drawing. "What do you think?"

"Is it a sheep?"

"There you go. No. It's an Irish wolfhound."

"I was just kidding. I knew it was a dog." Scoop pulled off his jacket and set his backpack on the floor. "Myles Fletcher, right?"

"Right you are," Fletcher said matter-of-factly, setting his sketch back on the table. "Did you ever want to be an artist when you were a boy, Detective Wisdom?"

"Nope. Always wanted to be a cop. I bet you always wanted to be a spy."

The Brit grinned. "Simon Cahill warned me you were no-nonsense."

"You're SAS and British SIS. Secret Intelligence Service--MI6. James Bond's outfit."

"All right, then." Fletcher yawned, his gray eyes red-rimmed. Wherever he'd come from, he hadn't had much sleep. "You'll want to know why I'm here. I'll get straight to the point. I have information that a Boston police officer was involved in making and planting the explosive device that gave you those scars."

Scoop remained on his feet, silent, still.

"This police officer worked with the men who engineered the kidnapping of Abigail Browning. Smart businessman that he was, Norman Estabrook delegated the job. He wanted Abigail. He didn't care how he got her."

Scoop leaned against a counter. During Abigail's three-day ordeal, he had been in the hospital, out of commission. Fletcher's role in helping her wasn't common knowledge even in the police department, but Scoop had managed to piece together various tidbits and drag more out of his friends and colleagues in law enforcement. The Brit had latched on to a connection between drug traffickers and a terrorist cell and following their trail had taken him to American billionaire Norman Estabrook. For at least two years, no one, including Fletcher's own people back in London, knew Fletcher was even alive.

In the meantime, the FBI was onto Estabrook's association with the drug traffickers and had him under surveillance in the form of Simon Cahill. They arrested the hedge-fund billionaire in June. By late August, he was free again. He disappeared, and Myles Fletcher, still deep undercover, still on the trail of his terrorists, found himself in the middle of the angry, entitled billionaire's elaborate scheme to exact revenge on the FBI for his downfall. Estabrook's scheme included setting off a bomb as a diversion to kidnap Abigail, FBI Director John March's daughter, a Boston homicide detective and Scoop's friend.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Fletcher had done what he could to help Abigail. Once she was safe, he took off again.

Now he was sitting in an Irish cottage kitchen drawing pictures of dogs.

What a day, Scoop thought. First Sophie Malone, now Myles Fletcher.

A coincidence? Not a chance. "You wouldn't be here if the main thrust of your mission wasn't completed," Scoop said.

Fletcher shrugged. "I suspect your bad cop is someone you know," he said. "Someone you wouldn't think twice to have over for a pint or two."

"Any names?"

"No. Sorry." Fletcher stretched out his legs, looking, if possible, even more tired. "I've done no research on my own. My focus has been on other matters. This is your fight. You were injured in the blast, and you work in internal affairs. Even if you don't know this particular officer yourself, you'll have instincts about those who go bad."

"Where did you get this information?"

"Here and there," Fletcher said vaguely as he rose, visibly stiff. "It's my guess that these thugs, including your bad cop, were involved in other illegal activities in Boston, and that's how they hooked up with Norman Estabrook."

Scoop stood up from the counter but said nothing. The Brit was the one doing the talking.

Fletcher picked up a rust-colored pencil from the table. "But you were onto a connection between these thugs and a member of the department before Estabrook snatched Abigail, weren't you, Detective?"

Scoop thought a moment before he responded. "I had a few whispers. Nothing more."

"I imagine that's the truth, as far as it goes. Frustrating, when you know some but not enough..." Fletcher let it go at that. "I expect that you're very good at your job."

"So are you. You're more adept than most at lies and deception."

"That's why I'm alive, here, trying my hand at a sketch. Let's spare each other, then, shall we?" He ran his thumb over the sharp tip of the pencil. "I'm impressed with what Keira can do with colored pencils. I'd always thought they were for children, not working artists." He set the pencil back on the table and flipped through a stack of sketches Keira had started of various bucolic Irish scenes, pausing at one of a shovel laid across an old, muddy wheelbarrow in a garden. "I wouldn't mind living inside one of these pictures. A green pasture, a stream, prancing lambs. A beautiful fairy princess. What about you, Detective?"

"I grew up on a farm. I liked it, but I'm not nostalgic about that life. What else can you tell me?"

"There's a woman. An American archaeologist. She's been doing scholarly work in Ireland and Great Britain for the past several years."

"Sophie Malone," Scoop said.

Fletcher glanced at him, then continued, "You ran into her when she was here in the village earlier today, didn't you?"

"Yep. I did. Red hair, blue jacket. Had a big black dog with her and talked about the wee folk." Scoop picked up the pencil Fletcher had used and realized it was nearly the same shade as Sophie's hair. A deliberate choice on the Brit's part? "The dog wasn't hers. Want to tell me what's going on, Fletcher?"

"I wish I knew. I strongly suspect the men our dead billionaire hired were also involved with Jay Augustine. I don't know in what capacity."

Nothing legal, Scoop thought, but he said, "Augustine's a serial killer. Serial killers tend to be solitary."

"I'm not talking about his violence. Augustine was also a respected dealer in fine art and antiques."

"What's that got to do with Sophie Malone?"

Fletcher grinned suddenly. "I've no idea. As I said, I haven't done any research of my own. I suppose Augustine could have consulted her as an expert in his role as a legitimate dealer."

"Are you linking her to this bad cop?"

"I'm saying her name came up at the same time as the likelihood that a police officer constructed and planted the bomb that exploded at your house last month." Fletcher walked over to the front window, determined and focused but also obviously past being dead tired. "I wish I could be more helpful."

"Funny, you and Sophie Malone turning up here within a few hours of each other."

"Isn't it, though?" He nodded out the window. "Here we go. Just what we need."

For all Scoop knew, the big black dog was back with a troop of fairies.

Instead, FBI Special Agent Simon Cahill and Will Davenport--a British lord and another James Bond type--entered through the kitchen door. Casual, irreverent, black-haired Simon and wealthy, regal, fair-haired Will, both around Scoop's age, in their mid-thirties, were as different in appearance as they were in temperament and background, but they were close friends.

Right behind them was Josie Goodwin. She had on a sleek belted raincoat, her chin-length brown hair pulled back and her mouth set firmly as she shut the door behind her. She pretended to be Will's able assistant but was undoubtedly SIS herself. Scoop had met Josie and Will at Abigail's wedding at Davenport's country house in the Scottish Highlands. Josie, who was in her late thirties, had muttered over hors d'oeuvres at the reception that if she ever saw Myles Fletcher again, she would smother him with a pillow.

As far as Scoop knew, this was their first meeting since Fletcher had slipped undercover two years ago, leaving everyone he knew--including Josie Goodwin and Will Davenport--to think he was dead.

She entered the kitchen without a word and leaned against a counter. Strongly built and obviously well trained, she looked as if she'd have no problem dispatching even a hard-assed spy like Myles Fletcher.

Fletcher ignored her and directed his attention at the two men. "Simon. Will. It's good to see you." Finally he turned to Josie and winked at her. "Hello, love."

"Bastard," she said, then beamed a friendly smile at Scoop. "You're looking well, Detective. Much better than at Abigail's wedding. Some of your scars seem to be fading already."

"I feel fine," Scoop said. "I'm ready to get back to work."

Simon stood by the kitchen door, near Josie's position at the counter. "Moneypenny here wouldn't listen to good advice and stay in London. She had to follow us to Ireland."

She gave Simon a good-natured roll of her eyes.

Across the tiny cottage, Fletcher was at the front window again. "More company."

Scoop noticed Simon's expectant, troubled expression, but Will Davenport was more difficult to read. The kitchen door opened on a gust of wind, and flaxen-haired Keira Sullivan entered the cottage, followed in another half second by black-haired Lizzie Rush. They were both thirty, both coming to terms with the dramatic changes in their lives over the past summer. Lizzie was Will Davenport's new love, and however she and Keira had gotten to the little Irish village, it hadn't, obviously, been with either him or Simon. Scoop was trained in reading body language, but it didn't take an expert to detect the tension between the two pairs of lovers.

With a curt nod at Davenport, Keira swept past Simon and greeted Scoop with a kiss on the cheek. "This place agrees with you," she said, then, without waiting for an answer, turned to Josie. "Lizzie and I were in Dublin. It took a bit of doing on our part to figure out what was going on. I'm glad you could get here."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," Josie said dryly.

Fletcher returned to the table of art supplies. He looked less tired as he smiled at Keira. "Your charming cottage suddenly seems very small, indeed, doesn't it?"

"I have a feeling not for long," she said, no curtness to her now. Her breathing was shallow, her cornflower-blue eyes filled with fear and anticipation.

Something was up, Scoop thought, observing his half-dozen visitors.

Fletcher picked up the sketch he'd done and handed it to Keira, her hands trembling visibly as she took it. "Here you go," he said. "It's an Irish wolfhound. I think of him as a shape-shifter in the midst of going from man to dog. That explains the quirks in my rendition, don't you think?"

Josie Goodwin snorted from the kitchen. "So does being a bad artist."

"It's wonderful," Keira said, gracious as always.

Lizzie Rush walked over to the unlit stone fireplace and stood with her back to it. She was the director of concierge services for her family's fifteen boutique hotels, including in Dublin and Boston. She was small and black-haired, with light green eyes and an alertness about her that supported the rumors Scoop had heard that her father wasn't just a hotelier but also a spy who had taught his only child his tradecraft.

She was the one who'd called Bob O'Reilly with the split-second warning that a bomb was about to go off on Abigail's back porch.

Davenport, clad in an open trench coat, kept his focus on Fletcher, who had quietly moved away from to the front door. Without raising his voice, Will said, "Simon and I are going with you, Myles."

Fletcher pulled open the door and left without responding. The door shut with a thud behind him. Unless the departing Brit could shape-shift himself into a bird, Scoop figured Fletcher had a vehicle stashed nearby.

Davenport--well educated, well trained and very experienced--looked over at Lizzie, but he didn't smile or go to her, didn't speak, just tapped one finger to his lips and blew her a kiss, then turned and headed out after Fletcher.

"Damn Brits," Simon muttered, then shrugged at Josie. "Sorry, Moneypenny."

"I had much the same thought." She stood up from the counter and inhaled sharply as she nodded toward the front door. "You're going after them, aren't you?"

"Yes." There was no irreverence in Simon's manner now. He was deadly serious. He walked over to Keira by the table of art supplies and half-finished sketches and touched her long, pale hair. "Keira..."

"You have a job to do. Go do it. Stay safe. Keep your friends safe." She placed Fletcher's sketch back on the table and caught Simon's big hand in hers, no sign she was trembling now. "Come back to me soon."

Simon kissed her but said nothing more as he went after the two British spies.

Once the door shut behind him, Josie let her arms fall to her sides. "All right, then. They're off, and now it's just us girls again."

Scoop raised his eyebrows.

Her strain was evident even as she smiled at him. "Sorry, Detective."

"Honestly, Scoop," Keira said, attempting a laugh, "you look even more ferocious these days. Who'd ever know you adopted two stray cats?"

"The cats know," he said.

Tears shone in her eyes. "They must miss you."

"They're in good hands. Your cousins are taking care of them." Not Fiona but her two younger sisters, who lived with their mother--Bob O'Reilly's first wife. Scoop tried to keep his tone light. "Your uncle's having fits. Now Maddie and Jayne want him to adopt cats."

"I'm just glad yours survived the fire," Keira said quietly. "When are you going back to Boston?"

"Tomorrow," he said, deciding on the spot. First the mysterious archaeologist, now British spies and the FBI. Too much was going on for him to justify even one more day in Ireland. Answers weren't here, in Keira's idyllic cottage.

Lizzie sank onto the sofa where, in his first days at the cottage, Scoop had lain on his stomach for hours at a stretch, easing himself off medication and trying to remember anything that could help with the investigations back in Boston. She kicked out her legs and propped her feet up on a small coffee table. Although she was a hotel heiress accustomed to five-star surroundings, she didn't look out of place in the simple cottage. From what Scoop had seen of them, Lizzie Rush and Lord Davenport--who was accustomed to castles--were at home wherever they happened to find themselves.

"I have a room all set for you at our hotel in Boston anytime you want it," she told Scoop.

"That's very kind of you, Lizzie, but another detective's offered me his sleeper sofa."

"Who?" Keira asked, skeptical.

"Tom Yarborough."

She sputtered into incredulous laughter. "You two would kill each other."

Probably true. Yarborough was a homicide detective--Abigail's partner--and not an easy person on a good day. He hadn't had a good day in months.

"My family would love to have you at the Whitcomb," Lizzie said. "Consider it done, Scoop. I'll text Jeremiah and let him know."

Jeremiah Rush was the third eldest of Lizzie's four male Rush cousins. With her father frequently gone and her mother dead since she was an infant, she had practically grown up with them north of Boston.

"What about you three?" Scoop asked, taking in all three women with one look.

"We'll keep ourselves busy," Josie said. She opened up the refrigerator, giving an exaggerated shudder of disgust as she shut it again. "Rutabagas and beer do not a meal make."

"I've been eating mostly at the pub," Scoop said.

"Yes, well, one would hope."

He went over to the front window and looked out into the fading daylight. The weeks of healing--of being on medical leave, away from his job--finally were getting to him. He turned back to the women. "When did you all get here?"

"Just now," Keira said. "Lizzie and I came on our own."

"Chasing Will and Simon?"

Her cheeks turned a deep shade of pink, but Lizzie was the one who spoke. "Not chasing. Following. They tried to divert us with a few days of shopping in Dublin."

"Guess they had to give it a shot," Scoop said with a smile.

"I flew from London," Josie said. "I hired my own car at the airport."

"Were you following Will and Simon--or Myles?"

She walked briskly to the table Fletcher had vacated and gazed down at his drawing. "I don't know what you mean. I'm the trusted assistant of Will Davenport, the second son of a beloved marquess. Whatever else you're thinking is pure fancy."

Scoop didn't argue. What Josie Goodwin knew and how she knew it was a matter he preferred to leave to speculation. He shifted to Keira, staring blankly at a sketch she'd started of the tranquil village harbor.

"Do you know an archaeologist named Sophie Malone?" he asked abruptly.

"I've heard of her, yes," Keira said, perking up. "Absolutely. She's a very well respected archaeologist. She's volunteered to chair a panel on the Irish Iron Age at the folklore conference in April. The conference is shaping up to be quite an event. It's good to have something fun to focus on after this summer." She abandoned her sketch. "Was Dr. Malone here?"

Scoop nodded. "We ran into each other up at the ruin where you found your stone angel. She mentioned she'd talked to Professor Dermott. She didn't stay long. I could have scared her off."

"Not you, Scoop," Keira said, a welcome spark of humor in her eyes.

Lizzie lowered her feet to the floor and sat up straight, frowning at Keira and Scoop. "Did you say Sophie Malone?"

"What," Scoop said, "am I the last person to know who she is?"

"She worked at the pub at our Boston hotel when she was in college," Lizzie said, rising. "We're about the same age. I was in and out of town a lot at the time, but I remember her. We were both interested in all things Irish."

"Have you seen her since?"

"Not that I recall. She and her twin sister and their older brother were born here in Ireland. Their parents worked in Cork. I took special note, I suppose, because of my mother, who was Irish." Her tone softened. Shauna Morrigan Rush had died in Dublin under mysterious circumstances when Lizzie was a baby. "Strange, isn't it? The ripple effects of life."

Josie, who hadn't stirred during the exchange, picked up the electric kettle on the counter and lifted the lid as she shoved it under the faucet. "Sophie Malone's not another of John March's informal spies, is she?"

"Not that I know of," Lizzie said. For the better part of a year, she herself had anonymously provided the FBI director with information on Norman Estabrook, who had been a frequent guest at various Rush hotels.

Josie filled the kettle, then plugged it in and switched it on, her movements brisk, efficient. "You do have tea, don't you, Detective?"

"On the shelf above you."

She reached up and got down a tin of loose-leaf tea and set it on the counter, her casualness studied, as if she didn't dare go where her mind wanted to take her. "Did Myles happen to run into this Sophie Malone?" she asked without looking at Scoop.

"I don't think so, no."

She turned to him, her gaze direct and unflinching. "But he mentioned her, didn't he?"

"He had his reasons for coming here."

Josie opened the tin of tea. Scoop figured that even someone who wasn't trained in detecting lies and deception--which surely Josie Goodwin was--would guess he hadn't told all he knew. She didn't push him further. Keira and Lizzie eyed him but said nothing.

He retreated to the small bedroom and got his suitcase out of the closet. He had the bones of a plan. He'd head to the airport in Shannon and book the first flight he could get to Boston tomorrow.

He was packed in less than ten minutes. When he returned to the main room, Keira had torn off a fresh sheet of sketch paper and placed it in front of her on the pine table. She was staring at it as if she were trying to envision a pretty, happy scene--as if she'd had enough of violence, mystery and adventure and just wanted to hole up with her paints and colored pencils.

Lizzie Rush was back on the sofa, frowning, the spy in the making.

Josie lifted the lid on an old teapot and peered inside. "The tea's ready, but I gather you're not staying."

"No," Scoop said.

Her deep blue eyes narrowed slightly as she answered. "Safe travels, then."

"Jeremiah will be expecting you at the Whitcomb," Lizzie said.

Keira looked up from her blank page. "Tell my uncle not to worry about me."

Scoop smiled at her. "That's like telling the rain to stop falling in Ireland. It's just not going to happen."

As he headed out the side door, the three women didn't interrogate him or try to stop him. He didn't know whether they could guess what he was doing and approved, or if they just were resigned that he'd made up his mind and there'd be no stopping him.

Unlike Simon Cahill and Will Davenport, he had no one to kiss goodbye.

And no one waiting for his return to Boston.

Except his cats, unless they'd decided they preferred the company of Keira's young cousins.

4

Kenmare, Southwest Ireland

Sophie walked next to her twin sister, Taryn, enjoying the sounds of traditional Irish music drifting from Kenmare pubs on what had turned into a perfect September evening. One last downpour seemed to have done the trick. Fresh from London, Taryn wore slim jeans with flat-heeled black boots and a black sweater that came down to her knees. Although they were fraternal, not identical twins, Taryn also had red hair, but hers was two tones darker and wavier--and easier to manage, Sophie had decided when they were six, because Taryn always seemed to manage it. A few pins and clips, and she looked gorgeous. She had the lead in a new romantic comedy, but her first break had come performing Shakespeare in Boston. She was as dedicated to her acting career as Sophie had ever been to earning her doctorate, or Damian to becoming a federal agent.

With her afternoon of cleaning, cooking and thinking, Sophie had been in her hiking clothes, still encrusted with mud from her trek on the Beara Peninsula, when Taryn arrived. Taryn, however, had seemed unsurprised and hadn't asked what her sister had been up to. Sophie had quickly changed into jeans, a sweater and walking shoes. They'd set out on foot from their house to the lively village of bars, restaurants and shops.

Sophie paused at a hole-in-the-wall pub on a narrow side street. "Tim O'Donovan and his friends are playing here tonight," she said.

Taryn's expression didn't change. "How nice."

"Do you want to go in, or shall we choose another pub?"

"This one's fine."

Her sister's nonchalance was totally feigned, Sophie concluded as they entered the warm, noisy pub. A waiter led them to a table against the old brick wall. She and Taryn had done a Kenmare weekend in the spring, indulging themselves at an incredible bayside hotel spa and listening to traditional Irish music every night. Tim had swept them off for a boat ride--one that didn't go near the tiny island of Sophie's misadventure. He'd fallen hard for Taryn, and she for him, except she'd never admit as much, even to Sophie. An Irish fisherman didn't fit into Taryn's already complicated life.

Just a touch of spring fever, she'd said, flushed as she'd headed to London.

Tim had grumbled that he should have known better than to swoon over a woman who was an actress, an American and Sophie's twin. Sophie had met him two years ago when she'd spent part of the winter in Kenmare, working on her dissertation. Right from the start, she and Tim had been more like brother and sister. Not the case, she thought, with him and her twin sister.

Taryn peeled off her teal wool scarf; she'd wound it around her neck, making it look easy, sophisticated and sexy all at the same time. She had an unobstructed view of the small stage where Tim and his friends, who looked as if they'd just come from catching dinner, were setting up, but she carefully pretended not to notice them as she and Sophie each ordered a glass of Guinness.

"I spoke to Damian just before I arrived in Kenmare," Taryn said.

"I'm sure he wishes he could be here."

"You're not a credible liar, Sophie. I'm only slightly better because I'm an actor, but lying doesn't come easily to either of us. Damian said he talked to you earlier today. He sounded put out with you. Are you mixed up in some top-secret FBI investigation?" Even as Sophie thought she was suppressing any visible reaction, her sister gasped. "Sophie! I was just kidding, but you are mixed up in something."

"No, I'm not. I asked Damian about what's gone on in Boston this summer. That's all. It's natural I'd be curious."

Sophie had no intention of getting into her experience in the island cave a year ago. Taryn didn't know--unless Damian had decided to call the guards himself and had found out about it and told Taryn. Which Sophie doubted. She didn't like keeping secrets from her family, but they'd only worry if they knew, never mind that she'd promised the guards she wouldn't tell anyone.

"What did Damian tell you about Boston?"

"Nothing much."

"Sophie--"

Fortunately, their parents entered the pub and joined them at their table. They'd come straight from Dublin. James and Antonia Malone, Sophie thought with affection, were relishing their early retirement, diving into their love of storytelling, music, drama, art and exploring. Their twin daughters' red hair came from their mother, although the shade was unreliable since she'd started using a near-orange dye now to cover any gray. She was as tall as Taryn but had Sophie's sense of adventure. A lifelong New Englander, she'd met their father, the son of Irish immigrants, hiking on the Dingle Peninsula in college.

They'd been home in western Massachusetts during her brush with death last year. There was nothing they could do if she'd told them but worry. She'd returned to her work on her dissertation and tried to put the incident behind her.

Tim looked straight at Taryn and gave her a sexy smile as he put his fiddle to his chin. Then he and his friends launched into a rousing, pulse-pounding rendition of "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye." Their music was lively and authentic, the perfect counter to a stress-filled day.

Taryn sipped her Guinness, her attention riveted on the musicians. "They're really good, aren't they, Sophie?"

"Fantastic."

The compliment was sincere, but she hoped Tim wouldn't decide to join them on his break given their earlier talk on the pier. Of course he did, pulling over a low stool and plopping down. Sophie knew that was the risk she'd taken in choosing this particular pub. She trusted him not to tell her family about the island, but that didn't mean he wouldn't blab about her excursion to the Beara Peninsula that morning.

"The Malones return to our wee village," he said, grinning.

He obviously wasn't going to bring up anything awkward. Sophie tried not to look too relieved. Taryn smiled, but she was unusually quiet, letting her sister and parents carry on the conversation with Tim. Their parents had met him on a visit to Kenmare months before he'd fallen hard for Taryn--before he'd let Sophie talk him into dropping her off on the island.

They talked about music and hiking and weather, and he finally got up for his next set. His gaze settled briefly on Sophie, but it was enough. She got the message. He hated withholding information from her family, and he knew she was up to something.

"I head to Boston tomorrow," she said, pretending she hadn't already told him. "I'm staying at Taryn's apartment there."

He shifted to Taryn. "What about you? When do you go back to Boston?"

"For good? Not for a while. My play in London runs through October. After that, who knows? I'm waiting for word about a trip to New York. It could come anytime. I'll just be there for a few days, though."

"Do you have an audition?" he asked.

She lowered her eyes. "Something like that."

"I've a distant cousin in Boston." Tim gave Sophie a pointed look. "A firefighter."

His tone suggested he'd been doing some research of his own on the goings-on in Boston over the summer and the injured police detective staying on the Beara. Given their earlier conversation, Sophie wasn't surprised or irritated. If she could do it all over again, she'd never have gone out to the island a year ago. She wasn't even sure she'd have had lunch with Colm Dermott last week and listened to him relate what he knew about Keira Sullivan's unsettling night alone in the Irish wilds.

When Tim returned to the stage, James Malone eyed his two daughters with open skepticism. "When I was a working stiff in corporate America," he said, "I learned about subtext. I would say there was an encyclopedia of subtext in that exchange. Either of you want to tell me what just went on?"

Taryn, good actress though she was, floundered, but Sophie grinned at her father and held up her glass of Guinness. "You know these Irish men, Dad."

"That's my point," he muttered.

His wife elbowed him before he could say more and raised her own glass. "And to us poor women who love them."

Sophie laughed, relishing her time with her family. Her parents were having a ball with their retirement. Let it be that way for a long time, she thought, just as, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a lone man enter the pub. As a waiter led him to a small table, she was surprised to recognize Percy Carlisle, a wealthy Bostonian she hadn't seen in a year.

Taryn leaned close to Sophie. "What's he doing here?"

"I have no idea," Sophie said half under her breath. She left her drink on the table and quickly stood up, heading to his table. She dropped onto the chair across from him without waiting to be invited. "Hey, Percy. I didn't know you were in Ireland."

"I only arrived last night. Helen and I were in London."

"Is she here with you?"

He shook his head. "She's gone back to Boston."

A waiter appeared, and Percy ordered coffee, nothing else. He was in his early forties, dressed in a heavy wool cardigan and wide-wale corduroys that bagged on his lanky frame. He had inherited a family fortune and spent most of his time pursuing his interests in travel, art, music, history and genealogy. Sophie had run into him on occasion when she was a student in Boston and had done research at the Carlisle Museum. They'd gotten along without becoming real friends or, certainly, romantically involved. She hadn't seen him since she'd moved to Ireland to continue her studies--except briefly late last summer when he'd looked her up while he was visiting friends in Killarney.

"I was in the area and remembered your family has a house here," Percy said now. "I was on my way there when I saw you and your sister head in here. I was in the car--it took some time to park. I just came from Killarney National Park. For some reason, I'd never been. It's stunning, isn't it?"

"Sure is." Situated among clear lakes and forested hills, the park was as beautiful and inviting a setting as she could imagine. "I hiked the old Killarney road to Kenmare the other day."

"I wish Helen had been with me. She'd have loved it, but she has business in New York to clear up. She's giving up her job at the auction house there. It's a big change, but she's excited about it. We're moving into my family's house in Boston, did you know?"

"I hadn't heard, no."

"Helen's handling the transition. I've maintained the house since my father died, but I never thought I'd live there again." Percy's dark eyes lit up. "Helen is a ball of energy. I'm lucky to have her in my life."

"I look forward to meeting her."

Sophie smiled at his obvious happiness. He and Helen had been married only two months--the first marriage for both. His father--Percy Carlisle Sr.--had been an amateur archaeologist famous for taking off in search of lost treasure. Sophie remembered when he'd invited her into his office in the museum shortly before his death. He'd stood with her at a wall of photographs of his exploits and gone over each one, describing memories, enjoying himself. He'd acknowledged to Sophie that his only son wasn't nearly as adventurous. "Perhaps it's just as well," the old man had said.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. Her Guinness was making her head spin. Trekking out to the ruin on the Beara and meeting Scoop Wisdom--scarred, suspicious--had launched her back to her own trauma a year ago with an intensity that had left her off balance, on edge.

The waiter delivered Percy's coffee. He took a small sip, keeping the mug in one hand as he nodded to her parents and sister. "I saw Taryn when she played Ophelia in Boston a few years ago. She's quite amazing."

"That she is. She loves her work."

"Always a plus." He set his coffee on the scarred table. "Do you love your work, Sophie?"

"I do, yes."

"I've heard you're involved in the upcoming Boston-Cork conference on Irish folklore. Will that look good on your CV?"

"Sure, and it'll be interesting as well as fun."

"But it's unpaid," he said. "How are you managing these days?"

"Same as I did throughout graduate school."

"Tutoring, fellowships, teaching a class here and there?"

"Every job's a real job."

"I admire your attitude." He picked up his mug of coffee. "If there's ever anything I can do for you, Sophie, you've only to ask."

"Thanks. I appreciate it," she said. "I'm heading back to Boston tomorrow. I have a few leads on full-time work."

"Best of luck to you." Percy watched the musicians chat among themselves for a few moments. "I considered driving down to the village where Keira Sullivan says she found that stone angel."

His comment caught Sophie by surprise. "Do you know Keira?"

"Only by reputation. Everyone's still very shaken that Jay Augustine proved to be a killer." He seemed to wait for Sophie's reaction. She sat forward, but before she could say anything, he continued, "I wasn't friends with the Augustines or even close to it. I'd see them socially from time to time at various functions in New York and Boston. Charlotte Augustine's moved to Hawaii, did you know?"

"No," Sophie said.

"She's seeking a divorce. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for her to discover she was married to a murderer." Percy stared into his coffee. "The Boston police and the FBI interviewed me in July, not long after Augustine's arrest. I wanted you to know so that you don't get the wrong idea. It was routine. I'd done a few perfectly legitimate deals with him. The police talked to everyone who'd done business with him."

"That makes sense, don't you think?"

"Of course. I understood completely." Percy faced her again, his expression cool now, slightly supercilious. "What about you, Sophie? Did you have any dealings with Jay Augustine?"

"No, none." She tried to lighten her tone. "No money, remember?"

But he continued to look troubled and annoyed. "I'm a very careful, experienced collector, Sophie. Very few pieces available on the market today would interest me. My family...my father..." He broke off, sitting back. "Never mind. You probably know as much about my family's art collection as I do."

"I've never crawled through your attic--"

"We don't keep anything of value in the attic. We are familiar with the protocols for storing and preserving works of art."

Sophie sighed. "It was a joke, Percy." She noticed with relief that the musicians were about to get started again. "Did you buy from the Augustines or sell to them?"

"Both."

"What kind of--"

"Nothing that would interest you. Nothing Irish. Nothing Celtic."

"Percy," she said, ignoring his sarcasm, "why did you look me up last September?"

He frowned at her. "Last September? What are you talking about?"

She repeated her question.

"Just what I told you at the time," he said. "I knew you were studying in Ireland and had a house here in Kenmare. I was here playing golf with friends and decided to find you and say hello."

"No one put you up to it?"

"What? No. Believe it or not, Sophie, I'm perfectly capable of thinking for myself."

"That's not what I meant, and I think you know it. Percy, when you were here last year, did you find out that I was exploring--having myself a bit of an adventure between chapters of my dissertation?"

"Following in my father's footsteps?"

"Making my own."

"He never liked Ireland. He was far more interested in archaeological sites on the European mainland, in South America, Australia. However, to answer your question--I heard that you were chasing ghost and fairy stories with an Irish fisherman out here somewhere."

"Did you tell Jay Augustine?"

The color immediately drained from his face at her blunt question. "I didn't even see Jay Augustine." Percy stood up, his coffee barely touched. "I have to go. I just wanted to stop in and say hello. Enjoy your visit with your family, Sophie, and good luck finding full-time work. Don't forget to let me know if I can help."

"I'm sorry, Percy. I didn't mean to offend you."

"We should both forget this killer."

Sophie thought she heard genuine concern and regret in his voice, but she didn't know him well enough to be sure. "I've seen pictures of him. He looks so normal. I wonder what he's thinking now, locked up in his Boston jail cell. This has upset you, too, Percy. It would be weird if it didn't."

"Of course it's upset me."

She noticed Tim glowering at her. He wasn't aware that Percy Carlisle had looked her up out of the blue a year ago. She glanced at her family. Her father looked as if he were about to make up a reason to come over to Percy's table.

Tim and his friends started to play again, jumping right into their own mad rendition of "Irish Rover."

"You should get back to enjoying the evening." Percy withdrew his wallet and pulled out a few euros. "Stop by the house and meet Helen when you get back to Boston. We've hired a retired Boston police officer as our private security guard. I'll make sure he knows to expect you. I never would have considered such a move, but after this summer..."

"I understand," Sophie said.

He placed the euros on the table. "I know you do, Sophie. It's good to see you."

As he made his way through the crowd, he didn't seem to hear the music, and he left without a word to anyone. Sophie returned to her family. Her father frowned at her, but she picked up her Guinness and offered a toast, dodging his curiosity as they clapped and tapped their feet to the music. They finished their round of drinks and headed out together, Taryn blushing when Tim shouted out to her and blew them all a kiss. His friends hooted, diving into their next song.

Out on the street, the evening air was cool and clear, perfect for the walk back through the village. Sophie asked her parents about their plans for the next month--anything, she thought, to keep the conversation away from her visit with Percy Carlisle and her impending return to Boston. By the time they crossed the stone bridge above the falls, stars sparkled in the night sky. Sophie lingered, listening to the flow of the water over the rocks, pushing back her analytical side and letting herself feel the presence of her ancestors.

After a few moments, she and her sister and parents continued down the road to their house, situated on a hillside above an old stone wall and painted bright yellow. The interior was open and comfortable, decorated with colorful furnishings and art they'd all collected over the years. Sophie pleaded fatigue and an early start and bolted straight for the bedroom she and Taryn shared. It had twin beds, skylights and a small window with a view of the starlit bay. She undressed quickly and climbed into bed, fighting back tears at the prospect of leaving Ireland tomorrow.

Taryn sat on the edge of the bed across from her. "Sophie, are you okay?"

She pulled her duvet up to her chin. "Just a little distracted."

"There's something going on with you. I know there is." Taryn peeled off her scarf, the moonlight on her face as she studied her sister. "You haven't been yourself for weeks. Months, really."

"Taryn...don't go there. Please."

She kicked off her shoes. "Whatever's bothering you has to do with what's gone on in Boston, doesn't it? I swear I can feel you being pulled in that direction."

Sophie rolled onto her back and stared up at the skylight. "That's because you've had too much Guinness."

"Maybe." Taryn leaned back onto her elbows and sighed. "Do you ever think about chucking your career and opening an Irish inn?"

"And marrying an Irish fisherman who plays the fiddle?"

They both laughed. "Oh, Sophie. What a couple of romantics we are under our tough-redhead exteriors." But Taryn's light tone didn't last, and she sat up straight. "You'll be careful in Boston, won't you?"

For no reason at all, Sophie thought of solid, scarred Scoop Wisdom as he'd watched her at Keira Sullivan's ruin. Had the violence of the past summer started there, on the night of the summer solstice--or had it started a year ago, on a thimble of an island off the Iveragh Peninsula?

"Sophie?"

"Yes, Taryn," she whispered. "I'll be very careful."

5

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland

Nights on the Beara Peninsula were quiet but also incredibly dark, and Josie Goodwin found herself restless, frustrated and decidedly annoyed with her lot. As much as she liked Keira and Lizzie and enjoyed their company, she hated being left behind, stuck in a cottage in the Irish hills while Will, Simon and Myles were off doing...well, whatever they were doing.

She had few details. She'd learned early that morning that Myles was en route to Ireland and had alerted Will, who in turn had alerted Simon. In the month since Myles had again disappeared after helping to free Abigail Browning, he had continued to avoid communications with anyone in London. For the past two years, he'd sacrificed much to establish his cover as a rogue SAS officer and penetrate a deadly association between drug traffickers and a terrorist cell.

His cover was so deep, so impenetrable, that no one--not even Will Davenport--had known what Myles was up to. Josie and Will had believed Myles had been dragged off in a firefight in Afghanistan and killed--and not heroically at that. Killed by his terrorist friends after he had betrayed his colleagues to them.

But he hadn't been killed, and he hadn't betrayed anyone.

Now it was time he had help.

Josie resisted the temptation to pace. What she wanted to do was to return to London. But what could she do there?

Nothing more, she thought bitterly, than she could do right here.

With a heavy sigh, she surveyed the tidy room. Keira had lit a wood fire. Lizzie was washing up in the kitchen. Scoop Wisdom had left little evidence that he'd been here at all, never mind for two weeks. Josie walked over to the front window and looked out at the stars and half moon. She wondered if Myles would have let Norman Estabrook and his thugs kill Abigail before he risked compromising his own mission. He would never have considered such a dire option. He tackled problems head-on and went after the outcome he wanted--in that case, Abigail Browning free and safe, Norman Estabrook and his thugs dead or captured and he, a British agent, with the key information he needed to carry on his mission.

Josie could see Myles giving her one of his crooked, cocky grins. "No worries, love," he'd say.

She'd never met a man so certain he could achieve whatever he was after.

She raked a hand through her hair. How could she blame Myles for the risks he'd taken--for his courage, his sacrifices?

Because she bloody well could, she thought, forcing herself to smile at her two housemates--Lizzie in the kitchen, Keira heading for the bedroom. "You'd never know Scoop had ever been here, would you?"

"That's typical Scoop," Keira said. "You should see his apartment. He had to get rid of everything after the fire, but he likes living a stripped-down life. He doesn't need much more than a good colander for his garden harvest."

"I like how you say 'fire,'" Lizzie interjected. "It was a bomb."

Despite her blunt comment, Lizzie was an optimist by both nature and conviction and every bit Will Davenport's match. Josie had begun to doubt if he'd ever find the woman who was. Lizzie Rush not only knew her way around five-star hotels--she had taken on a billionaire and his professional thugs, and she'd held her own with Myles, Will, the FBI and the Boston police.

Lizzie was joining Keira and her young cousins and their detective father for tea on Christmas Eve at the Rush hotel in Dublin. They'd invited Josie. She just might chuck London for a few days and go at that.

Assuming she wasn't in prison for killing Myles Fletcher in his sleep.

Of course, that would require he avoid getting himself killed on his own first. Will and Simon had gone after him in part because they were convinced--as Josie was--that Myles was on the verge of getting himself killed. It had been a long, difficult, treacherous two years. He had done his share. Would he ever be able to return to a normal life? Would he even want to?

Josie refused to go down that particular road. For a time, she'd thought Myles was, finally, a man who understood her, and she'd thought she understood him--including the challenges of being involved with him.

Of loving him.

She smirked to herself. That had been madness, hadn't it? Fortunately, she had her son, Adrian. She'd gone outside before dark and called him. He'd had schoolwork to do. He was with his father, an accountant who hadn't been pleased at all when he'd seen through Josie's charade of a life. He hadn't wanted a wife who was an intelligence officer in any capacity, even if it was largely behind a desk. He wanted a normal life. Who could blame him?

Adrian adored Myles and had asked about him frequently in the initial months after his presumed death and betrayal. Josie had been prohibited from saying anything--that Myles was alive, dead, missing. And what had she known? Nothing, as it turned out. Just as well she'd stayed mum. Adrian had finally stopped asking, but only after telling Josie that he knew Myles would be back.

Keira carried an armload of blankets and sheets from the bedroom. "It'll be like a sleepover. Girls' night. We can have a pillow fight."

Lizzie paused at the sink, and she and Josie both gaped at Keira as if she'd lost her mind. Girls' night? A sleepover? A pillow fight?

"Don't look so shocked," Keira said with a laugh, dumping the linens in a heap on the sofa, her pale hair hanging in her face. "I've never been one for troops of girlfriends, I admit, but I do like having you both here. Two of us can share the bed and one can sleep on the sofa, or one in the bed, one on the sofa and one on a mat on the floor. It'll work."

"Of course it will," Lizzie said, smiling.

Josie angled Lizzie a sharp look. "If you polish that kettle for one more second, you'll rub a hole in it. What is it, Lizzie? What's on your mind?"

Lizzie dropped her cloth and abandoned the kettle. She stared out the dark window above the sink. "I was just thinking about Sophie Malone." She sighed and faced Josie again. "I'm forgetting something. I know I am, but I can't think what it is."

"Something important?" Josie asked.

"I hope not."

Keira sank onto the sofa next to her heap of linens. "Sophie's a Celtic archaeologist originally from Boston, and she's participating in the folklore conference. I can understand that she'd want to see the ruin. She just happened to pick a morning Scoop was there."

"Yes," Lizzie said, "but that doesn't mean that's all there is to it."

Josie stood by the fire, welcomed its warmth on her back. "These days, nothing is ever quite as it seems, is it?"

Keira fingered the hem of an inexpensive sheet. "Sophie got to Scoop, don't you think?"

"Is our Dr. Malone attractive?" Josie asked.

Keira blushed. "It's not that."

"Nonsense. It's always 'that.'"

Obviously preoccupied, Lizzie walked over to the pine table. "I didn't know Sophie that well when she worked at our hotel in Boston." She picked up a charcoal pencil from Keira's array of art supplies, then immediately set it down again. "I know I'm missing something. I'll remember, though."

Of that, Josie had no doubt. Both Lizzie and Keira had faced considerable danger and violence since June and had come out on the other side in good shape.

Josie hadn't faced anything more dangerous or violent than her e-mail In-box.

"Are you going back to London tomorrow?" Keira asked her.

"I've no idea what I'm doing tomorrow," Josie said, keeping any trace of bitterness out of her tone. "Today didn't go as I expected. Why should tomorrow?"

Lizzie, obviously as restless as Josie was, pushed aside Myles's pathetic Irish wolfhound drawing. "We can all drive to Dublin in the morning and have tea and scones at my family's hotel there," she said.

"You mean you want to talk to your cousin the doorman," Keira said. "See if he can help you remember whatever it is about Sophie Malone you think is escaping you."

Lizzie stood up straight. "We need to know exactly what her interest in your stone angel is."

"It's not my stone angel," Keira said quietly. "It belongs to Irish legend now."

Josie had noticed Keira struggle with her emotions since Simon's departure. The upheavals of the past three months had to be finally catching up with her. She'd encountered a brutal killer, fallen in love with an FBI agent and learned of family secrets--the mysterious circumstances of her own conception here on the Beara Peninsula, a terrible murder thirty years ago that had haunted her mother and uncle. Before she'd had a chance to absorb all that, her life was again disrupted when Norman Estabrook decided to exact revenge. He'd trusted Simon, never once thinking he was an undercover FBI agent. As payback for what Estabrook regarded as Simon's betrayal, he'd sent a killer after Keira. She and Lizzie had stopped him in the ancient stone circle just down the lane.

And now here we are again, Josie thought. Lizzie, hotelier and daughter of a spy. Keira, artist and folklorist. The two women were in love with dangerous men, and not a little dangerous themselves.

And me?

She was the enigmatic British spy, she thought with amusement and just a touch of bitterness. After Myles, she'd given up hope of having a normal relationship with a man.

Any relationship at the rate she'd been going for the past two years.

Now what? Myles was alive and he wasn't a traitor, but nothing would ever be the same between them. There was no going back to their lives prior to his supposed death and treachery. He'd made his choices.

Lizzie sighed, shaking her head. "Stop kidding yourself, Josie."

"What?"

"You're as in love with Myles Fletcher as ever."

"As ever? I've never been in love with him--"

Lizzie and even Keira burst into laughter. Josie suppressed a flicker of impatience. What did these two women know about her life? But she knew her mood had nothing to do with them and everything to do with those few minutes with Myles that afternoon. Being near him again after two years hadn't been what she'd expected. She could almost feel his mouth on hers, his hands on her--the path to ruin, that sort of thinking.

"All right, then," she said briskly. "It's late and I'm hungry. What shall we fix for supper?"

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. "You're blushing. A stiff-upper-lip MI6 agent--"

"I keep Will Davenport's calendar," she said with a mock sniff, "nothing more."

"Myles will come back to you," Keira said softly.

Josie snorted. First the bloody bastard had to live through the week. But she smiled and reached for her coat. "Shall we just head to the pub before Eddie O'Shea closes up for the night?"

Keira slipped on a long, thick sweater. "You're not going to tell us where Myles, Simon and Will have gone, are you, Josie?"

"You're assuming I know."

"They're not fishing in Scotland, that's for sure," Lizzie muttered.

She led the way out into the night. She looked as if she could have slept on bare rock in a gale and awakened fresh and ready to go. Josie found herself wanting to tell her new friends more about herself, but she knew she wouldn't. Let them wonder about the true nature of her work without any confirmation or elaboration from her. That she wanted to chat with them just proved how comfortable she was with these two women.

Quite scary, actually.

Discovering Myles wasn't dead or a traitor had thrown her off completely. She'd become so accustomed to shutting off any thought of him--any feeling. She couldn't bear thinking about him. Then all of a sudden...there he was, mixed up with a dangerous American billionaire and chasing terrorists.

He'd never expected to survive this mission. She'd seen that in his gray eyes just a few hours ago.

Couldn't she have found an easier man to love?

It was almost ten o'clock when they arrived at the pub. Eddie O'Shea was closing up, but he let them in and served them fish soup and warm brown bread that he said his no-account brother Patrick had made. Josie sat with Keira and Lizzie at a table by the peat fire, Eddie's springer spaniel sleeping soundly on the hearth.

"You look worried," Lizzie said.

Josie nibbled on one last bite of bread, liberally spread with Irish butter. "I have this terrible sense of foreboding." She realized what a ridiculous and unhelpful thing that was to say and attempted a smile to cover for herself. "Perhaps it's just due to an impending bad night on the sofa."

"Don't worry about Keira and me, all right? Do what you have to do." Lizzie leaned back, as at ease in the simple Irish pub as she was in one of her family's hotels--or Will Davenport's mansion in the Scottish Highlands. "Keira and I can check with Colm Dermott in Cork on our way to Dublin and ask him about Sophie. We'll be fine."

Josie had no doubt about their abilities, but they would also follow a lead if one came to them. They were curious about Scoop Wisdom's archaeologist. Just because he was a police officer who'd just recovered from serious injuries sustained in a bomb blast and just because Myles had been at Keira's cottage didn't mean there was any danger in asking questions about Sophie Malone.

Didn't mean there wasn't, either, Josie thought, tempted to order Irish whiskey to go with her soup and bread.

Keira twisted her hands together, as if they'd gone too long already without holding brushes and pencils. "It's not as if I don't have time to kill," she said wistfully. "I haven't a single image in my head to draw or paint."

Josie recognized her new friend's malaise for what it was--painter's block. Perhaps a trip to Cork and Dublin would be a good distraction. It certainly wasn't on the face of it unsafe, but as they headed out onto the dark, quiet lane, Josie couldn't suppress what she could only describe as a chill up her spine.

She blamed Myles Fletcher and wished she'd ordered that whiskey after all.

6

Shannon, Ireland

Scoop eased into the security line at Shannon Airport before the long flight back across the Atlantic. He'd stayed in a lousy hotel a few miles from the airport, its saving grace a full Irish breakfast that had helped chase off his bad dreams about scary dogs and mean fairies.

Definitely good to be heading home.

He spotted red hair about ten people ahead of him and immediately thought of Sophie Malone--not a reassuring sign of his state of mind before a seven-hour flight. He took another look, figuring he had to be wrong, but there she was--the redheaded archaeologist he'd met yesterday morning and a British spy had warned him about yesterday afternoon.

She grabbed a bin, turned and waved, smiling as if she'd expected to find him behind her in a line at the airport.

Scoop got through security and caught up with her in the busy duty-free shop. She wore slim black pants and a long dark gray sweater, a contrast to her muddy hiking clothes and bright blue rain jacket of yesterday. Her hair was pulled back but still had a wild look to it. He'd showered, shaved and put on his most comfortable khakis and lightweight sweater.

"We must be on the same flight," he said.

"Lucky us." She opened the glass door of a cooler and reached inside. "Water?"

"Yeah, thanks. Did you drive in this morning?"

She nodded. "My folks are staying in Kenmare. I took their rental car back, and they kept my car. They're taking off for a few days to hike the Kerry Way. Doesn't that sound idyllic?"

"You mean more idyllic than spending the day on a crowded flight across the Atlantic?"

"You have a wry sense of humor, Scoop," Sophie said, leading the way to the cash registers with two bottles of water. She'd bought the biggest size. "The headwinds add time to flying west. It's so much easier flying to Ireland than flying home from Ireland."

"You seem like an experienced traveler."

"I guess so. In some ways it feels as if I'm leaving home rather than going home."

Scoop reached for his wallet, but she shook her head, insisting on paying for both bottles of water herself. As she fished out euros, his cell phone vibrated in the front pocket of his carry-on pack. He stepped out of the line and took the call.

"According to one of Will's friends in London," Josie Goodwin said, "Sophie Malone is booked on the same flight to Boston as you are."

"So she is," Scoop said.

"Standing right there, is she?"

"Yep. What friend in London?"

"Lord Davenport knows all kinds. I also learned that Dr. Malone met just last week with an octogenarian expert in art theft."

"Is he another of Davenport's London friends?"

"Not exactly. Our octogenarian's name is Wendell Sharpe. He frequently consults with INTERPOL. He and Dr. Malone had tea at the Rush Hotel off St. Stephen's Green in Dublin. Odd coincidence, don't you think?"

"Not after yesterday. What did they discuss?"

"I don't know yet. She's a legitimate academic. Quite well respected. She recently completed her dissertation and a postdoctoral fellowship here in Ireland. Her field is the Celtic Iron Age, particularly in Ireland and Great Britain. She's an expert in Celtic visual arts."

"Does she like sugar in her tea?"

"Lemon," Josie said.

Scoop had no idea if she were kidding. "Who does she know in Ireland? Who are her friends here?"

"We're working on that."

"We?"

Josie sighed. "Keira has painter's block, and Lizzie's bored."

"They aren't law enforcement," Scoop said. "Or spies."

"Neither am I. I work for a British aristocrat. I plan his fishing and golf trips."

"Where are you three now?"

"Keira and Lizzie are en route to Dublin via Cork. I'm still at Keira's cottage."

Collecting reports from her spy friends, no doubt. Scoop noticed Sophie had finished paying for the water and was heading toward him. He had a sudden bad feeling about her--Myles's visit, what she was holding back. "Stay put," he told Josie. "Get Lizzie and Keira back there. You can all chase rainbows and drink Guinness."

"You can be quite annoying, can't you, Detective Wisdom?"

"What? I wouldn't mind chasing rainbows and drinking Guinness."

But Josie Goodwin had hung up.

Sophie joined him and handed him his bottle of water. "Try to drink every drop on the flight," she said, shoving her own bottle into an outer compartment of her shoulder bag. "It'll help."

"Mostly I was passed out on pain meds on my flight from Boston to Scotland." Except when he and Bob O'Reilly, who was in the seat next to him, had discussed how a bomb had ended up on Abigail's back porch. Scoop slid his phone back in his carry-on. "Guess who that call was about?"

"No idea."

Her body language indicated she knew exactly who. He tucked the huge water bottle into his pack. "It was about a certain Sophie Malone, Ph.D."

"Who would be calling about me?"

"A friend here in Ireland." Not a lie, technically, although he'd only met Josie Goodwin three weeks ago at Abigail's wedding. "I'm cautious these days."

"So you're checking me out?" She paused, narrowing those bright blue eyes on him. Her freckles didn't stand out as much in the artificial airport light. After a couple beats, she nodded thoughtfully. "All right. That makes sense. You're a detective who just went through an awful experience. I'm from Boston, I'm an archaeologist and I interrupted your visit to the ruin where a serial killer terrorized a friend of yours."

"Plus you're hiding something."

"Aren't we all?" She seemed unperturbed by his skepticism as she hoisted her bag back onto a slender shoulder, strands of red hair dropping into her face. "Where are you sitting?"

"Row 40."

"I'm way up front. Just as well, don't you think?" She smiled at him. "I have a feeling if I were any closer, I'd be a distraction."

Looking at her, all Scoop could think was that he had to get out of Ireland and back to his home turf. He let his gaze linger on her longer than was necessary, or wise, but she didn't seem to notice. It had to be the fairies. He was attracted to cops, prosecutors, the occasional crime lab technician. Not red-headed experts on the Iron Age.

"This friend who called," she said. "Is it Keira Sullivan?"

"Doesn't matter, does it?"

"Keira and I are going to be working together on the Boston-Cork conference, and Colm Dermott and I are colleagues. If you've planted ideas in their heads about my hiding something, I probably should know."

"Hell of a small world, isn't it? I didn't plant ideas in anyone's heads. I'm not here to screw things up for you. You seem like the type who needs to stay busy."

"I suppose I am. I suspect you are, too."

He grinned at her. "See? Something in common." They passed a rack of Irish souvenirs on their way out of the duty-free shop. "You didn't show up at that ruin yesterday just out of professional curiosity."

"And you know this how?"

"Instinct."

Her eyes sparked with challenge. "Ah."

He set his pack on an empty chair and didn't let her doubt faze him. "You have some kind of personal stake in what happened there. You volunteered for the conference. Why? Something to do with Jay Augustine? Did you do business with our jailed serial killer?"

"You've been away from your job a long time. I'm sure it'll be good to get back to work and have real cases to focus on."

"I have real cases now."

She didn't falter for even half a second. "Even better. It'll be good to get back to them full-time." She headed for the ladies' room and tossed him another smile as she pushed open the door. "See you at customs."

He sat down, but Sophie wandered off when she came out of the ladies' room and managed to avoid him until they boarded the plane. He had an aisle seat. She did, too. She wasn't way up front. She was seven rows ahead of him. Either she couldn't add, or lying was her way of telling him not to bug her on the flight.

He didn't bug her, but he kept an eye on her while he read a book and drank the water she'd bought him. It was a long, skin-crawling seven hours across the Atlantic. He had smart, pretty Sophie Malone a few rows in front of him, a four-year-old kicking his seat behind him and, directly across the aisle, two old women who talked for all but about six seconds of the flight. Sitting still had never been his long suit, and almost getting blown up in his own backyard hadn't helped his patience.

His conversations with Myles Fletcher and Josie Goodwin hadn't helped, either. Was Sophie onto something--deliberately or inadvertently--that would interest British intelligence? A professional, or even a personal, interest in Keira's ruin was one thing. Keeping secrets was another.

When the plane landed, Sophie jumped up and squeezed past a young couple with a toddler. If Scoop tried the same maneuver, he'd knock someone over, but she was slim, agile and much faster than anyone would expect just looking at her. She also had a big, friendly smile. Scoop was faster than he looked, but that was it. He wasn't slim or agile, and he certainly didn't have a big, friendly smile.

He wondered if being back on American soil would help him lose that fairy-spell, love-at-first-sight feeling. So far, not so good.

He caught up with her again at baggage claim. "Share a cab?" he asked as she lifted a backpack off the belt.

She hooked its strap onto one shoulder. "Oh--no, thanks." She motioned vaguely toward the exit. "Someone's picking me up."

Scoop didn't even have to be good at detecting lies to see through that one. Not that she was trying hard to hide that she wasn't telling the truth.

He could have taken the subway, too, but he went ahead and grabbed a cab.

He'd be seeing Sophie Malone again. It wasn't a question of if. It was a question of when and under what circumstances.

Scoop had the cab drop him off in Jamaica Plain. He stood in front of the triple-decker he owned with Bob O'Reilly and Abigail Browning. It was a freestanding, solid house, one of thousands of triple-deckers built in the early 1900s for immigrant workers. It had character. Abigail and Owen were due back soon from their honeymoon. Bob was working. He and some of the guys from the department had boarded up the windows with fresh plywood and strung yellow caution tape across the front porch.

Scoop had never figured his second-floor apartment would be the last place he owned, but he'd had no immediate plans to move. He, Bob and Abigail all hated that three police detectives had brought violence to their own neighborhood. Their street was semi-gentrified, with mature trees and well-kept gardens. There were young families with kids on bicycles, teenagers playing street hockey, professionals, old people.

Scoop unlocked the side gate, left his carry-on and duffel bag on the walk and headed to the postage-stamp of a backyard. The bomb had set off a fire on Abigail's first-floor back porch that burned straight through to her dining room. His porch, directly above hers, had also burned. The firefighters had gotten there fast and stopped the fire from spreading, but with the extensive smoke and water damage, the entire three-story house had to be gutted. Bob was in charge of figuring out what came next. It'd be a while before they could move back in.

Abigail planned to sell her place and move with Owen into a loft in the renovated waterfront building where the new headquarters of Fast Rescue, Owen's international search-and-rescue outfit, were being relocated from Austin. Bob had mentioned maybe he could take the top two floors and Scoop could move to Abigail's place. Sounded good to Scoop, but it'd involve redesigning and probably more money.

He squinted up at his boarded-up apartment. He'd done his mourning for any stuff he'd miss. Photographs, mostly, but his family had copies of a lot of them--nieces, nephews, birthday parties, holidays.

The air still tasted and smelled of charred wood and metal. He walked over to the edge of his vegetable garden. He'd been weeding when Fiona O'Reilly had arrived that day and offered to help him pick tomatoes.

That was what they'd been doing when the bomb went off. Picking tomatoes.

"Hell," he breathed, remembering.

The bomb had to have already been in place under Abigail's grill when they'd all gotten up that morning.

It was constructed with C4. Nasty stuff.

He, Bob, Abigail, Owen and Fiona had made lists of people they'd seen at the house in the days before the bomb. Everyone. Cops included.

Maybe especially cops, Scoop thought, sighing at the weeds that had taken over his garden. He could still see where firefighters and paramedics had trampled his neat rows in the rush to save his life and keep the fire from spreading to neighboring homes. He'd trampled a few gardens in his years as a police officer. He noticed a couple of ripe tomatoes and squatted down, pulling back the vines, but the tomatoes had sat in the dirt too long. The bottoms were rotted.

"What the hell," he said, "they'll make good compost."

He yanked up a few weeds, aware of the scars on his back, his shoulders, his arms. He'd grabbed Fiona, protecting her as best he could from the shards of metal and wood as he'd leaped with her for cover--the compost bin Bob and Abigail had moaned and groaned about when Scoop had been building it.

He got to his feet and looked up at the sky, as gray and drizzly as any he'd seen in Scotland and Ireland. He had no regrets about being back home.

He had a lot of work to do.

He headed back out to the gate, picked up his stuff and unlocked his car, sinking into the driver's seat. He'd have no problem readjusting to driving on the right. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. He looked as if he'd flown on the wing of the plane instead of in an aisle seat. He needed a good night's sleep.

Where? Should he take Lizzie Rush up on her offer to put him up at her family's five-star Boston hotel--the one where Sophie Malone used to work?

"Might as well," he said aloud, and started the car.

7

Boston, Massachusetts

Sophie's iPhone jingled, signaling an incoming text message. She'd texted Damian when she'd landed in Boston. She checked her screen as she emerged from her subway stop onto Boston Common. Her brother's response was about what she'd expected:

Nothing new. Go dig in the dirt.

She smiled. The Malones were known for not mincing words, Damian especially.

After the long flight, she welcomed the walk up to Beacon Hill. The narrow, familiar streets and black-shuttered town houses helped her to shake off the odd feeling that she was out of her element, on strange and unpredictable ground. She'd gone to college in Boston. She had friends there. It wasn't as if she'd just landed in a foreign country or a city where she didn't know anyone.

She descended steep, uneven stone steps to a black iron gate between two town houses. Since giving up her apartment in Cork, she'd felt uprooted, but unlike Scoop Wisdom and his detective friends, her homelessness was by choice and finances.

No one had blown up her house.

Using the keys Taryn had given her, Sophie unlocked the gate and went through a tunnel-like archway that opened into a small, secluded brick courtyard, one of Beacon Hill's many nooks and crannies. Passersby would never guess it was there. The owners of a graceful brick town house had converted part of their walk-out basement into an apartment, with its own entrance onto the courtyard. Taryn had rented it when she was performing Shakespeare in Boston and hadn't let go of it.

Sophie unlocked the door, painted a rich, dark green, and set her backpack on the floor of the small entry. The tiny apartment, with its cozy Beacon Hill atmosphere, suited Taryn's personality and unpredictable lifestyle. She'd sublet it to an actress friend for the summer, but she'd departed in early September for a role in Chattanooga.

Taryn had placed a round table by the full-size paned windows that looked onto the charming courtyard, where neighbors had set out pots of flowers. A perfunctory kitchen, with downsized appliances, occupied one windowless wall. On the opposite wall a low sectional anchored the seating area in front of a nonworking fireplace.

No cockroaches scurried on the hardwood floor, which Sophie took as a hopeful sign. She'd forgotten just how low the ceilings were. She wasn't claustrophobic, but she hadn't been wild about small, cramped spaces even before her brush with death in an Irish cave. Her experience at archaeological sites had forced her to learn how to deal with them.

She dragged her backpack into the bedroom, its sole window level with the street. She unpacked and, restless after her hours with a suspicious Boston detective behind her, dived into cleaning the apartment from top to bottom. She mopped, scrubbed, vacuumed, put fresh sheets on the bed, dug out clean towels and debated walking to the grocery for a few provisions. Taryn's actress friend had left mustard, salsa and carrots in the fridge and an unopened pint of vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Not terribly promising.

Sophie abandoned thoughts of food and instead changed into leggings and an oversize T-shirt and set out on a run, winding her way over to the Charles River Esplanade. It was early evening, gray but not raining. She didn't push hard. After three miles, she felt less jet-lagged, less a stranger in a strange land and slowed to an easy jog back up Beacon Hill.

She took a shower, slipped into a skirt, a sweater and flats and headed out again. She didn't feel like cooking. She wasn't even sure she felt like eating, but she walked down to Charles Street to the Whitcomb, the Rush family's Boston hotel.

Good-looking, tawny-haired Jeremiah Rush stood up from the antique reception desk in the lobby. "Sophie Malone!"

"Hey, Jeremiah. Long time."

He stepped out from behind the desk, his dark gray suit clearly expensive and fitting his lean frame perfectly. "I thought you might turn up. Lizzie called this morning and said you were on your way back to Boston."

"Lizzie? How did she know?"

"A Boston cop she ran into in Ireland," Jeremiah said, no sign he considered the call from his cousin odd. "She didn't go into detail."

"What's Lizzie doing in Ireland anyway?"

He grinned. "Who knows?"

"Did she ask you to report back should I turn up?"

"She did, indeed."

Sophie supposed she shouldn't be surprised to undergo a certain amount of scrutiny after she'd encountered Scoop Wisdom yesterday, but she hadn't expected Lizzie Rush to be on her case. Had the call he'd taken at the airport that morning been from her?

"It's great to see you, Sophie," Jeremiah said. "I hear it's Dr. Malone now. Congratulations."

"Thanks." She relaxed some. "It's good to see you, Jeremiah. I just got in."

"Guinness beckons, does it? It's on the house. I remember when you'd be doing homework on your break. You had more drive than I ever did in school. Have to celebrate your milestone, right?"

"Definitely. Thank you. Join me if you can get away from the desk."

"I will. Oh, and I should warn you." He lowered his voice, as if he were telling her something he shouldn't. "The cop who told Lizzie about you is staying here. Detective Wisdom. I just checked him in."

Sophie glanced at the stairs down to Morrigan's, the hotel's upscale Irish bar named for Lizzie's Irish mother. "Is he down there now?"

"Not at the moment. I thought since you're both just back from Ireland..." Jeremiah didn't finish. "I should know better than to try to figure out what all Lizzie's up to. Enjoy your drink."

Sophie thanked him again and trotted down the stairs. She sat at a high stool at the bar and ordered a glass of Guinness, watching the bartender, new since she'd worked there, go through the proper two-part process to pour it.

She'd taken just two sips when Scoop Wisdom descended the stairs, eased over to her and pointed to a table. He had on a dark sweater and dark khakis and looked as if he weren't struggling with jet lag at all. "Come sit with me."

Sophie set down her glass. "As in, you'll arrest me if I don't?"

"As in, we need to talk."

She wondered if Jeremiah had tipped Scoop off that she was on the premises, or if the man's cop instincts were just on over-drive where she was concerned. He walked over to a small table under a window that looked out on Charles Street, quiet on the dreary late-September night. Sophie took another quick sip of her Guinness, welcoming its strong, distinctive flavor. She left her glass behind when she went over to Scoop's table.

"Amazing," she said, sitting across from him. "Yesterday we met unexpectedly in an Irish ruin, this morning we run into each other at the airport and now here we are in a Boston pub. What're the odds?"

"Pretty good, I'd say."

She ignored his dry sarcasm. "It's after midnight in Ireland. Can you feel the time change?"

Scoop settled back in his chair. "What's your game, Sophie?"

He knew something. She could see it in his dark eyes as she decided on a response. He was an internal affairs detective, presumably especially good at telling when someone was dissembling. She wasn't good at spotting liars. She was good at doing the painstaking, detailed work of an archaeologist and curious by nature, but, as Damian had reminded her, a good education and a curious nature didn't make her a detective.

Which at least gave her an angle to try on Scoop. "No game," she said. "I'm just a curious person with a love for Ireland, archaeology and history. I'm borrowing my sister's apartment. I have a few odds and ends lined up to put food on the table, and I'm teaching a couple of college classes next semester while I set up interviews for a tenure-track position. I have a good lead on one here in Boston."

"Will your work with the Boston-Cork folklore help?"

"Sure. I'm looking forward to it. I have several people in mind already for my panel, but I'll be putting out a call for papers in the next day or two. It's an honor to work with Colm Dermott. He's brilliant. Everyone I know loves him." Sophie paused as a waiter placed what appeared to be a frosty glass of soda in front of Scoop. "Smart man, Detective Wisdom, staying away from alcohol in the middle of an interrogation."

"It's not an interrogation. If it were, you'd know."

"Hot lights? Thumbscrews?"

He gave her just the glimmer of a smile. "Tape recorder." He didn't touch his drink. "What else, Sophie?"

"A friend here in Boston offered me a job tutoring student athletes a few hours a week. Hockey players, mostly. Ever play hockey, Detective?"

"Yeah, I played hockey. Still do. You take the job?"

"I did. I can start as soon as I'm able."

"Good. Start tomorrow."

"You know, Scoop," Sophie said, "I don't take to being bossed around. Even my parents had a hard time telling me what to do when I was a kid. My sister, too. We're twins."

"Noncompliant personalities?"

"I think of us as independent. When we were kids, we'd go off on our own and explore the little Irish village outside Cork where we lived."

"Sounds to me as if your folks didn't watch you. Why were you living in Ireland?"

"My father was sent there by his company. My mother taught school."

He raised his glass. "You used to work here at Morrigan's as a student."

Sophie resisted the temptation to jump up and run. His scrutiny--his knowledge of her--was unsettling. "You've been checking me out. Has Lizzie Rush been helping? I'd run into her from time to time when I worked here. She was always very nice. All the Rushes are."

"She was a part of what went on in Boston this summer."

"That's what I hear."

He sipped his drink and set the glass back down, his gaze leveled on her. "A lot's gone on lately that involves Ireland and Boston."

Sophie nodded, trying not to stare at a thick, obviously fresh scar that started just above his collarbone and continued around to the back of his neck. She'd noticed it yesterday at the ruin. As scarred as he was, Scoop struck her as solid and competent--and impossible to kill. Yet if he'd been standing in the wrong place or hadn't reacted as he had, the bomb could have killed him instantly. The shrapnel that no doubt had caused the scar she saw now could have nicked an artery instead. He could have bled to death in his own backyard.

She didn't have visible scars from her night in the cave. She remembered Tim O'Donovan waving to her as he sailed off, leaving her on the island for the sixth time in as many weeks. This time, she wasn't just there for a day hike. She was staying overnight.

It hadn't occurred to her anyone would follow her out there.

She became aware that Scoop was watching her closely. "What's on your mind, Sophie?"

She made herself smile. "Dinner, actually. I didn't eat a bite on the plane."

"I cleaned my plate." She noticed a flicker of amusement in his eyes, but it didn't last. "You might just ease back from whatever you're up to and stick to your job hunting."

"You look for bad cops. Do you think one was involved in what happened to you?"

"Anyone in mind?"

"I don't know any police officers. Other than you." Technically, her statement was true. Her brother was an FBI agent, not a police officer. She leaned back in her chair and did her best to come across as casual, friendly and open, with nothing to hide. Telling him about the cave would only invite even more suspicion and difficult questions. "I figure we've bonded now that we've both encountered a mysterious big black dog in the Irish hills."

"Sophie, if you're meddling in a police investigation--"

"I'm not."

"If you have your own agenda, it amounts to the same thing."

"I don't have an agenda. At the moment I'm thinking I should have known better than to have alcohol when I'm jet-lagged and hungry."

"Drink's on me."

"Actually, it's on Jeremiah Rush. He was still in high school when I worked here. He and his three brothers and Lizzie all have had to learn the family business from the ground up. They're all hard workers."

"Okay, I get it," Scoop said. "You have good reason to be here. No axes to grind. Where can I find you, besides tutoring hockey players?"

"My sister's apartment is on Pinckney Street."

He withdrew his wallet, pulled out a business card and handed it to her. "Call me anytime, day or night, if you decide you want to tell me the rest."

"There is no--"

He held up a hand, stopping her. "Don't even try it with me. There's more, Sophie. There's a lot more."

She kept her mouth shut this time and got out of there.

When she reached the street, she knew she couldn't go back to the apartment right away. Her internal clock might still be set to Irish time, where it was after midnight, but she was too restless yet to sleep, read or work.

She walked past Morrigan's and felt Scoop Wisdom's eyes on her but refused to look down and see if he was, indeed, watching her.

Percy Carlisle's house was a few blocks away in Back Bay.

She'd head over there.

8

Scoop figured he could kill his jet lag by having a beer and a nice dinner or by taking a walk and following Sophie. When he saw her in the window, heading in the opposite direction from her sister's apartment, he decided on the walk.

He paid for his soda and received another call from Josie Goodwin as he started out. "Talk to me, Josie," he said. "What do you know? How's Ireland?"

"Lovely. I'm alone in a cottage in the dead of night with nothing but cows, sheep and the wind for company. I'm thinking of becoming a farmer."

"I have a single brother who's a farmer."

"Give him my number." She cleared her throat and continued briskly. "I have a tidbit of information that could prove useful...or not. We've discovered a cryptic report of a call to the Irish Garda by our archaeologist friend last September."

"How cryptic?"

"I have no details yet whatsoever. Apparently there wasn't a crime. For all I know, Dr. Malone asked the guards to clear a bat out of her bedroom."

"You can find out more?"

"Of course," she said airily. "In the meantime, Taryn Malone, Sophie's twin sister, is presently starring in a popular romantic comedy in London. She's an accomplished Shakespearean actress." Josie yawned, then added, "That's not terribly helpful, is it?"

"Everything's helpful at this point. Anything from Lizzie and Keira?"

"They've arrived safely in Dublin. They missed Colm Dermott in Cork."

"I'm glad you listened to my advice," Scoop said dryly.

"Did you think I would? Of course you didn't. You know, Scoop, our Dr. Malone could simply be a wildly curious academic with ties to Boston."

"These days, that by itself could get her into trouble." He turned down Beacon Street, spotting Sophie up ahead. "Anything more on the octogenarian expert in art theft?"

"Still working on that one."

Scoop sighed. He wasn't sure he should encourage Josie Goodwin--not that he needed to. "Thanks. Find out why Sophie called the guards last year. If you need any official help on your end--"

"With what? Looking into a woman because she ventured into an Irish pasture?"

"Put that way," Scoop said, "this all does sound crazy."

"But it's not, is it? Oh, listen to me. Next I'll be seeing fairies trooping in the hills." Josie sighed heavily. "As lovely as it is here, I'm not one for the countryside."

"Sweet dreams," Scoop said with a grin.

Josie muttered under her breath. He couldn't quite make out her words but they sounded impolite. When she disconnected, he picked up his pace, closing the gap between him and Sophie. He expected her to turn around and chew him out for following her, but she seemed unaware of his presence.

She approached an elegant Back Bay mansion that he recognized as the Boston home of Percy Carlisle. Carlisle's name had surfaced over the summer as one of Jay Augustine's wealthy customers in his role as a respected dealer in high-end antiques and works of art. As far as Scoop knew, none of Augustine's clients were under suspicion of any involvement with the man's violence.

A thin man in a baseball cap walked out to the street and greeted her.

It wasn't Percy Carlisle.

Scoop recognized Cliff Rafferty, a newly retired police officer, and, suddenly feeling protective of Sophie, fell in next to her. Rafferty dropped a cigarette onto the sidewalk and rubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. His last assignment with the department had been working security at the Augustine showroom in the South End in the weeks after Jay Augustine's arrest.

"Hey, Scoop," Rafferty said, "I didn't know you were back in town."

"I got in this afternoon. You're working for the Carlisles?"

Rafferty shrugged. He was in his mid-fifties, with leathery skin from his four-pack-a-day smoking habit. "It's a cushy private security gig. Who's your friend here?" He held up a hand and grinned at Sophie. "Wait. Let me guess. You're Sophie Malone, Mr. Carlisle's archaeologist friend. He left a message last night to expect you. Cliff Rafferty. Nice to meet you."

Sophie gave Scoop a sideways glance but made no move to step away from him. She smiled at Rafferty. "Nice to meet you, too. How did you recognize me?"

He pointed at her head. "Red hair." He grinned again, the corners of his eyes crinkling under the streetlight. "Plus I looked you up on the Internet. You're listed as a postdoctoral fellow on your university Web site. Your picture's right there." He nodded toward Scoop. "You know Detective Wisdom?"

"We were on the same flight from Ireland today."

Rafferty didn't look satisfied with her answer, but he turned to Scoop. "I went by your place after the bomb. It's a mess. Where you staying?"

"Hotel for now," Scoop said.

"At least that nutball billionaire can't try again. How's Abigail?"

"She and Owen are still on their honeymoon."

"That'll help her put this thing behind her. She's tough. She'll get right back on the job." He shifted his attention back to Sophie. "What can I do for you, Dr. Malone?"

"I was just getting some air after my flight," she said.

Rafferty made a face. "I hate flying."

"Have you ever been to Ireland?"

"Yeah, sure. I had to see the ancestral homeland, you know?"

"Is Helen Carlisle home?"

"She's inside," he said.

As he spoke, a tall, slender woman came out of the house, shutting the solid, black-painted door behind her and descending the steps to a brick walk. She joined them on the street. She wore a knee-length red sweater but she looked chilled. Scoop put her at around forty. She had pale blue eyes and thick dark hair that hung loose to her shoulders. If she had on any makeup, he couldn't tell. She was very attractive, but he liked standing close to disheveled Sophie. Across from him at Morrigan's, he'd noticed that she had a dimple in her left cheek when she smiled--not that he'd given her much reason to smile, coming down hard on her the way he had.

Being out of Ireland wasn't helping him with the fairy spell. He was as attracted to her now, even after Josie Goodwin's report, as when he'd first spotted her in the Irish greenery.

Rafferty made the introductions. "Mrs. Carlisle, Detective Cyrus Wisdom--Scoop to most of us--and Sophie Malone, the friend Mr. Carlisle mentioned would stop by. Scoop, Sophie, this is Helen Carlisle."

"What a pleasure to meet you both," Helen said. "Sophie, it's so good to finally meet you. Detective Wisdom, I'm honored to meet you. You're a hero. All of us in Boston are fortunate to have brave police officers such as yourself looking after us." She didn't pause long enough for Scoop to respond. "Cliff, I didn't realize you knew any of the officers involved in that awful explosion."

"I know them all," Rafferty said.

Helen Carlisle turned her attention to Sophie. "How was Percy last night?"

Sophie ran her fingertips along a black iron fence, her sweater and skirt askew at her hip. "Fine. I only saw him for a few minutes."

"I hated to leave him," Helen said. "I had business in New York--I just got back a little while ago--and I'm overseeing the renovations here at the house."

"Your husband's still in Ireland?" Scoop asked.

"I'm not sure where he is. He's off on one of his personal retreats. He warned me about them when we first got together. We're newlyweds, but we both had full lives before we were married. We try to respect that." She smiled pleasantly and wrapped her sweater more tightly around her. "I have plenty to do here. I keep hoping to discover a 'find' tucked away in a far corner of the attic or cellar. It'd be such fun to happen onto some long-forgotten artwork of real value. You must know that feeling, Sophie, as an archaeologist."

"I do," she said, shivering in a sudden spit of rain. "I shouldn't keep you, and jet lag's really hitting me all of a sudden."

"Thank you for stopping by. Come again. I imagine Percy will be back before too long." Helen turned to Scoop, raindrops glistening on the bright red wool of her sweater. "You, too, Detective--come again anytime."

She retreated back up the walk to the house. Rafferty watched her a moment before turning back to Scoop. "Augustine's arrest has made a lot of rich folks nervous. What an animal he turned out to be. The Carlisles had nothing to do with his violence. His dealings with them were strictly professional."

Scoop almost welcomed the cold drizzle. "You met the Carlisles when you worked security at the Augustine showroom?"

"Yeah. Cushy job, guarding paintings and statues. This new job's pretty cushy, too." He withdrew a pack of cigarettes and tapped out one. "See you when they hand out your commendation for bravery. Enjoy the limelight while you can." He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and nodded to Sophie. "Dr. Malone."

He went back up the walk. Sophie shivered again. "It's colder out than I expected. I can feel fall in the air."

Scoop resisted an impulse to slip an arm around her. "You must be about dead on your feet."

"You, too," she said, almost smiling.

"We're still on Irish time. I'll walk you back to your place."

"As far as the Whitcomb is fine."

"You're not very trusting, are you?"

She laughed, tucking her hands into her sweater pockets. "I got on the same plane with you, didn't I?" She glanced back at the Carlisle house, the front door shut, lights shining in the tall windows. "A bit different from Keira's Irish ruin, isn't it?"

Scoop shrugged. "Right now I'll settle for a bed and a blanket."

"Me, too," she said, then caught herself. "I mean--"

"It's okay. You're jet-lagged."

"Very jet-lagged," she said, almost falling against him as she started down the street.

Scoop walked alongside her to Charles Street. The rain stopped, but the wind picked up. She looked cold and tired, but she had the presence of mind not to go back into the hotel with him and instead continued on to her sister's apartment on her own.

A good thing, Scoop thought when he headed downstairs for a drink and a sandwich and found Bob O'Reilly at the bar.

"When I was in Ireland and couldn't sleep," Scoop said as he eased onto a high stool next to Bob, "I'd sit up with a book and listen to the sheep and cows in the hills. In another twenty years, maybe I'll retire there."

"In another twenty years," Bob said, "you'll be running the department."

"Nah. I'm no good at the politics."

Bob O'Reilly was a big, burly fifty-year-old divorced father of three daughters. The son of a cop, he'd wanted to be a homicide detective even before a young woman two doors down from where he grew up in South Boston was kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered. That was thirty years ago. He still carried a picture of Deirdre McCarthy in his wallet.

Deirdre's mother had told Keira the story about the three Irish brothers, the fairies and the stone angel that had taken her to the Beara Peninsula. But Patsy McCarthy had also told the story to Jay Augustine, believing he was a respected dealer interested in her collection of angel figurines--and he'd killed her. Keira and Simon had found her body.

Bob drank some of his beer. His curly red hair was a tone lighter and brighter than Sophie Malone's and touched with gray. Not good, Scoop told himself, that he was thinking about the shade of Sophie's hair.

He ordered a club sandwich and, following Sophie's lead, added a Guinness to go with it. "Lizzie Rush booked me a room here," he said. "She insisted."

"I'm in Keira's place up the street," Bob said. "I took the lace out of the windows, but it still feels like I'm a creep or something, sleeping in my niece's apartment."

Scoop's beer arrived. "Do you know Cliff Rafferty's working security for a rich couple in Back Bay?"

"Yeah," Bob said, "I do."

"The Carlisles. Know them?"

"Old-money Boston. I think it's just the son left now. He did some business with Augustine. The wife--I forget her name..."

"Helen," Scoop supplied.

Bob lifted his glass. "Yeah. Helen. She worked at an auction house in New York before she married Percy. There are no missing Carlisles or auction house workers or anyone else to tie Augustine to them."

"As a killer," Scoop said.

"As opposed to what?"

"What if he was involved in pushing stolen art?"

Bob set his glass down and sighed. "Don't complicate my life more than it already is, Scoop, all right?"

"Cliff Rafferty's been out to our place."

Bob didn't respond right away. Finally he pushed aside his glass as if Scoop had just ruined his evening. "Hell, Scoop, what are you doing? You'll make yourself crazy. You'll make me crazy. Anyone could have planted that bomb. You said it yourself. Norman Estabrook could have slipped a few bucks to the meter reader to stick it under Abigail's grill. Said it was a present. A surprise. Who knows?"

"Estabrook was caught up in Jay Augustine's obsession with evil. There could be a stronger connection between those two than we realize."

Bob's eyes--the same shade of blue as those of his three daughters and niece--narrowed on Scoop. "What's going on? What do you have?"

Scoop drank more of his Guinness, remembering evenings alone on the Beara Peninsula when he'd force himself not to speculate, not to lose himself in the possible scenarios and suspects. He and Bob weren't on the investigation. They couldn't be. They were personally involved.

Victims.

He hated that word.

"Nothing," he said finally. "Grasping at thin air. You ever run into an archaeologist named Sophie Malone? She used to work here."

Bob sighed. "Archaeologist, Scoop? What the hell?"

"We met in Ireland yesterday and ended up on the same plane back to Boston today. Just one of those things."

"Yeah. Imagine. That's the short version?"

Scoop nodded and looked at the sandwich placed in front of him. He'd lost his appetite.

"You need sleep," Bob said. "Jet lag makes me feel like I have dryer lint in my head. Keira had me try some scheme she read about on the Internet. Basically you don't eat for about twelve hours on the day you travel. You just drink a lot of water."

"Did it work?"

"I don't know. I didn't make it past four hours. Did you run into Keira in Ireland?"

It was a blatant ploy for more information, not that Scoop blamed him. "I saw her and Simon yesterday before I headed to the airport." He decided not to mention the Brits. "They're good."

"The fairy prince and princess," Bob said, only half joking.

"I could believe in fairies after going out to Keira's ruin."

"Cathartic being there, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." He almost could hear the dog splashing in the stream, Sophie's laughter. "Yeah, it was."

Bob scratched one side of his mouth, looking the experienced homicide detective he was. "I'm not an enemy, Scoop. What else happened in Ireland?"

"It rained a lot my last week there."

Bob stood up. "Go to bed."

"Your beer's on me."

"Yeah. Good. We'll talk tomorrow."

He thumped up the stairs. Morrigan's had emptied out. Scoop ate a few bites of his sandwich and drank more of his Guinness. It was true that anyone could have planted the bomb. The triple-decker had no alarm system. There wasn't much of a lock on the gate. There was often no one at home, although he, Bob and Abigail had unpredictable schedules--which could be a deterrent to some stranger walking out back with a pipe-bomb stuck under his shirt or hidden in a backpack.

Another cop could have found out their schedules.

Scoop gave up on his sandwich and took his beer upstairs with him. His room was on the third floor, small, understated, with upscale towels and bath products and a fussy little table that he could use as a desk. He didn't care. The water was hot and the bed had clean sheets. The rest didn't matter.

No question it beat Tom Yarborough's sofa bed.

Yarborough had been out to Jamaica Plain countless times as Abigail's partner, but Scoop couldn't see him planting the bomb. Too ambitious. Too by-the-book. If Yarborough had an axe to grind or was after some extra cash, he'd go all out--he wouldn't do one small job for a billionaire like Norman Estabrook.

Given the increasingly late hour in Ireland, Scoop texted Josie Goodwin instead of calling: Ask your friends about Percy Carlisle.

He didn't waste time typing more of an explanation. Josie would have no problem figuring out who Percy Carlisle was. Maybe she already knew.

As Scoop washed up, he got an answer from Ireland: Will do.

Obviously his new British friend wasn't sleeping, which didn't bode well for his own night. He returned to the bedroom and finally noticed the Whitcomb had a turndown service. The drapes were pulled, soft music was playing and chocolates were on his pillow.

Definitely better than Yarborough's sofa bed.

9

Sophie woke up to not so much as a coffee ground in the cupboards and decided she should have gone to the grocery last night instead of getting herself further under the suspicion of a Boston police officer. Never mind how sexy Scoop was, she thought as she headed through the archway and out to the street. She couldn't just blame jet lag for her reaction to him--she hadn't been jet-lagged on the Beara Peninsula.

The wee folk, then. She'd blame them.

She smiled, debating her immediate options. Breakfast on Charles Street and chance she'd run into Scoop? Hope she would? The sky had cleared overnight, and it was a bright, pleasant late-September morning, a perfect day to help her kick any lingering jet lag and adjust to being back in Boston.

"Hey, Sophie--Dr. Malone." Cliff Rafferty got out of a car just up her quiet, narrow street and shut the door. "I hope I didn't startle you. Mr. Carlisle--Percy--mentioned your sister has an apartment up here. It wasn't hard to get the address. You two look a lot alike." He gave Sophie an easy grin as he tossed a cigarette onto the street and approached her. "I looked her up on the Internet, too."

Sophie relaxed slightly. She'd slipped into jeans and a dark green long-sleeve top, not bothering with a sweater. "I'm borrowing her place until I figure out what comes next. What can I do for you, Mr. Rafferty?"

He looked up at a windowbox dripping with ivy on the town house behind them, then at her again. "Like being back in Boston?"

"So far, so good. It hasn't been a full day yet."

"Feels great being done with school, doesn't it? All those years of classes, papers, research, and now you finally have those initials after your name."

He had an engaging manner, but Sophie assumed he'd looked her up for a reason beyond cheerful chitchat. "It does feel great, but there are more classes, papers, and research ahead. If I'm lucky."

"At least you'll be paid more as a professor than as a student." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his lightweight jacket. He had on baggy jeans that were an inch too short and running shoes. "You and Scoop Wisdom last night. That took me by surprise. I gather you didn't just meet on your flight back to Ireland yesterday."

"Just about. I ran into him on the Beara Peninsula the day before."

Rafferty's gaze was distant now, reminding her that he'd been a police officer. "Scoop's quite the ladies' man. He seems taken with you."

"I wouldn't know about that," Sophie said, heat rushing to her cheeks.

"Bet you'll find out." Rafferty winked at her unexpectedly, then withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. "I need to talk to you. Not here. My place. I wrote down the address. Give me an hour."

Sophie folded up the paper. "I haven't had breakfast. Why don't we go for coffee? You can talk to me now."

"Nah. You come to me."

"What's this all about?"

"You're an expert in Celtic archaeology," he said. "I have something I want to show you. Get your opinion."

"Is it Celtic?"

"I don't know. If I knew..." He didn't finish, looking awkward now, even defensive. "I was a cop for thirty years. I might not have played things as straight and narrow as Scoop Wisdom would want, but I never hurt anyone."

"Can I bring someone with me?"

"Yeah, why not? Go find Scoop and ask him if he wants to go with you. See how far you get." He grinned at her, then raised his thin shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "Show up or don't. Your call. Just make it this morning. I'm working this afternoon."

He walked back to his car, got in and waved as he drove past her on the one-way street. Sophie watched him, trying to make sense of their conversation. Did he want to talk to her about stolen Celtic artifacts? His last assignment as a police officer had been working security at the Augustine showroom after Jay Augustine's arrest. He'd gone right from there to his job with the Carlisles.

Sophie headed back down the steps and through the gate and the archway into the secluded courtyard, dialing Taryn's number on her iPhone. Taryn picked up on the second ring, just as Sophie unlocked the apartment door. "Hey, Taryn," she said, "where's your car?"

"It's probably on Anderson or Myrtle, but it could be anywhere. I have a friend who moves it every ten days. Sophie, what's going on? You sound out of breath."

"That's because I'm walking fast."

"All right." Taryn didn't sound reassured. "I'm on my way back to London. If you need me, I'll be there."

"Thanks. What color's your car? I can't remember."

"Dark blue. It's a Mini--"

"That I remember," Sophie said with a smile, trying to sound less agitated. "All's well, Taryn. I'll be in touch."

Sophie disconnected and grabbed Taryn's car keys out of a drawer in the kitchen, then ducked back out to the street. She located the Mini in front of a small market on the next block. She still had time before meeting Rafferty and walked down to Cambridge Street--deliberately avoiding Charles Street and the Whitcomb Hotel--and got a coffee and a bagel. She ate the bagel on her way back up Beacon Hill and sipped her coffee as she unlocked the Mini and slid behind the wheel. It started right up.

Luckily she'd already set her coffee in the holder when Scoop Wisdom materialized by the passenger door. She hit a button to automatically roll down the window. "Good morning," she said. "Are you looking for me?"

"Uh-huh. Where are you off to?"

She didn't want to tell him, but she didn't want to lie, either. "Cliff Rafferty asked me to stop by his place."

Scoop opened the passenger door and got inside. "Talk."

"I don't want to be late."

"Then drive and talk. Or I'll drive and you can talk."

"It's my sister's car." Sophie noticed how close he was in the seat next to her. He had on a dark tan windbreaker, khakis and a chocolate-colored shirt that made his eyes seem deeper, richer. "Do you know where Rafferty lives?"

Scoop shook his head. "No."

She handed him the address. "I think I can figure out how to get there, but since you're a police officer--"

"I know the street."

She smiled. "Thought you might."

As she drove slowly down to Cambridge Street, Sophie told him about Rafferty's visit.

"You don't know what he has in mind," Scoop said.

"Neither do you. If he'd meant me any harm, he could have run me over going for coffee."

Scoop frowned at her, then shook his head. "I guess you can't be a shrinking violet digging up old bones."

"I generally don't dig up bones. My field is the Celtic Iron Age with a focus on Irish and British Celtic art."

"Such as?"

"Not necessarily 'art' as we think of it today."

"No sofa paintings?"

"No sofa paintings." She made her way to Commonwealth Avenue. Driving on the left had become natural for her in Ireland, but she readjusted quickly. "Think in terms of the art of everyday items--cauldrons, weapons, tools, jewelry."

"Is there a market for this stuff?"

"For the right collector, definitely, but there are rules for anything that's found during an excavation. I can't just pocket an Iron Age gold brooch and put it up on eBay."

"I read about that gold found in England by a guy with a metal detector."

"Yes, that's an amazing discovery. He unearthed a major hoard of early Anglo-Saxon gold and silver buried in a farmer's field in Staffordshire. It'll take years for archaeologists and historians to assess the objects. Most are articles of warfare. A true treasure."

"Who gets it?"

"Since it's over three hundred years old, it's been declared the property of the Crown."

"It'd be stealing if you tried to sneak artifacts out of Ireland?"

She wasn't sure he was asking a question, but said, "Undoubtedly, yes."

Scoop eased back in his seat as she drove past the sprawling campus of Boston University. "What happened to you in Ireland last year, Sophie?"

"You mean--"

"You called the Irish police."

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "What did you do, call the guards yourself over a Guinness last night? Why? What did I do to pop onto your radar?"

"I mentioned your name to friends in Ireland," he said.

She glanced over at him. "That's an incomplete answer."

"I'd get an F if you were grading me?"

"I'd hand your paper back and ask you to finish your answer," she said.

"That's because you would be the professor and I would be the student and therefore at your mercy. Right now--"

"It's the other way around. I'm at your mercy."

"We're just two friends talking in a very little car." He pointed at a throng of students about to cross from a Green Line MBTA stop on the track in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue. "Careful."

"I won't run anyone over," Sophie said, "and last year I got in over my head on an adventure."

"Treasure hunting?"

She shook her head. "I just told you that I don't treasure hunt."

"You didn't go off with a metal detector yourself?"

"Ireland has the strictest laws in the EU against metal detecting at possible archaeological sites. To answer your question, no, I did not go off with a metal detector."

She was aware of his dark eyes on her as they came to Allston. He directed her to Cliff Rafferty's street. She parked in front of a two-family brown-shingled house with a giant oak shading a small front yard, its roots breaking apart the sidewalk.

Scoop unfastened his seat belt. "Do you think Cliff wants to see you because you're an archaeologist or because you're friends with Percy Carlisle?"

"'Friends' is too strong."

"Were you two--"

"No," Sophie said quickly.

They got out of the car. "You and I aren't finished," Scoop said, going ahead of her to the front door.

Sophie mounted the steps behind him, checking the address Rafferty had scrawled on the slip of paper. "He's on the upper floor." She reached past Scoop's broad shoulders for the doorbell but noticed the door was slightly ajar. "He's expecting me. He probably doesn't want to come down to open up."

Scoop pushed the door open and called up the stairs. "Cliff? Scoop here with Sophie Malone. We're on our way up."

There was no answer. Sophie started up the steps, but Scoop put a hand on her hip and eased past her. She stayed behind him, observing that the injuries he'd sustained in the bomb blast didn't impede his ability to climb a flight of stairs.

When they came to the second-floor landing, Sophie took a sharp breath and grabbed Scoop by the upper arm, her gaze riveted on the French door. Three realistic-looking replicas of human skulls had been tacked to the frame, one on each side and one directly in the middle of the lintel.

"Scoop..."

He glanced at her. "Stay close to me."

She dropped her hand from his arm. "The ancient Celts revered the human head."

Scoop grimaced. "Yeah. Great." He tapped open the door and called into the apartment. "Hey, Cliff. I jumped in the car with our Dr. Malone here."

Again there was no answer.

They entered a narrow living room that ran across the front of the house. A sentimental Irish tune was playing softly in the background. Sophie realized it was coming from the flat-screen television. A DVD was running, displaying familiar scenes of Ireland--the Cliffs of Moher, the Healy Pass, a rainbow over a lush, green Irish pasture.

"Something bad has happened," Sophie said.

Scoop withdrew his weapon. She hadn't even noticed the holster under his jacket. He touched her hand. "Just stay close." He squeezed her fingers. "Real close. Got it?"

She nodded.

Staying in the middle of the room, they stepped onto a worn rug and walked past the coffee table. It was piled with rolls of coated wire, wire cutters, plastic-coated blasting caps and a block of what looked like wrapped clay but Sophie assumed was probably C4 or another type of explosive.

Bomb-making materials.

Just beyond the coffee table, yellow and red glass beads were scattered on the hardwood floor at the edge of the rugs. "Scoop, glass beads are often found in Celtic graves."

But she didn't go on. More skulls were arranged on the woodwork of the double-doorway between the living room and the adjoining dining room.

Scoop stopped in the doorway and turned to her, grim, controlled. "Don't look," he said.

It was too late. She could see Cliff Rafferty hanging from an exposed beam in the dining room. She recognized his too-short jeans, his scuffed running shoes, his jacket. She didn't want to look at his face but did. From his coloring, the position of his neck, his twisted features--there was no question he was dead.

The rope had been tied to a heavy-duty eye hook screwed into the beam.

Her breathing shallow, her heart racing, Sophie edged next to Scoop. A small, round dining room table had been pushed against the wall. More glass beads were scattered on the bare floor between the table and the hanging scene.

A cast-iron pot was positioned directly under Rafferty's feet. He could have used it to stand on--or had been forced to stand on it. Sophie leaned forward and saw the pot was filled with parts of a disassembled gun, each part damaged, as if the weapon had been systematically hammered and destroyed piece by piece. A police badge, also dented and distorted, had been placed on top of the gun parts.

Next to the pot, on the floor, were two halves of a crude torc fashioned out of twisted gold wire, obviously deliberately cut in half.

Sophie made herself exhale slowly through her mouth. "Scoop, these are ritualistic symbols--"

"I see. You can tell me what they mean later." His dark eyes held hers for an instant. "Don't touch anything and stay right with me. Got that, sweetheart? Right with me."

They checked the rest of the apartment--the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom--and headed out to the back porch, a robin perched on a nearby maple branch. Scoop dialed his BlackBerry. Sophie noticed even his hands weren't shaking. While he identified himself and gave his report, she watched the robin fly away and contemplated the grisly scene in the apartment behind her.

"Backup's on the way," Scoop said as he disconnected.

She stepped back into the kitchen. She was shaking now. She tried to stop but bit her lip, drawing blood. Rafferty's body was just out of view in the dining room. She controlled her emotion and said quietly, "He didn't kill himself."

"Why do you say that?"

She faced Scoop, his expression unchanged, nothing about him suggesting he was affected by the past few minutes--by the terrible death of a fellow police officer. "The pagan Celtic practices reenacted in the dining room and living room suggest ritual sacrifice, not suicide." She crossed her arms on her chest, trying to keep herself from shivering. She wasn't cold. In fact, quite the opposite. It was warm in the apartment. She saw that no windows were open. Had the killer shut them before setting to work? "Before you ask, no, I don't know anything for certain. This isn't an archaeological site. It's..." She didn't finish.

"Sophie, easy--you okay?"

"I didn't expect this."

"Try to remember everything Cliff said to you. Don't try to draw conclusions on your own. Just remember."

She forced herself to remain steady on her feet and focused on Scoop, his jaw set hard, nothing about him even close to relaxed. He was intense but under control. "I assume you saw the bomb-making materials on the coffee table," she said. "What if Rafferty asked me here to confess his involvement with the bomb at your house?"

"Trust me, Sophie. It won't help to speculate."

"Maybe his guilt was weighing on him, and he arranged a suicide that made sense to him." She felt a sting of pain on her mouth and realized she'd bit her lip. "Except I don't believe that, based on what I see and what he told me. He said he wanted my opinion on something."

"Something to do with archaeology or with the Carlisles?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't say. The glass beads, the skulls, the pot filled with smashed parts of a gun--the hanging itself--all could fit into some garbled, twisted notion of pagan Celtic rituals. I'm not talking about modern paganism--"

"It's okay, Sophie. This scene means whatever the person who arranged it wanted it to mean, whether it was Cliff or someone else."

Her gaze rested on toast crumbs on a plate in the stainless steel sink.

Scoop touched her arm. "Don't try to make sense of things right now. You're an archaeologist. You're used to looking at evidence. You know how to be objective. You know you can't just assume a piece of glass you find in the dirt is some ancient artifact. It could be part of a beer bottle some drunk tossed."

"I get your point." She pulled her gaze from the sink. "You're right. I shouldn't let myself be driven by assumptions and get tunnel vision. Do I stay here or--"

She broke off, suddenly overwhelmed by the stifling heat in the apartment, by the proximity of death.

She was gone, running out the back door, down the balcony steps. She didn't breathe until she was out on the street, just as she heard sirens and the first cruiser arrived.

10

Kenmare, Southwest Ireland

Josie paused to admire the view of Kenmare Bay from the front steps of the Malones' Irish holiday house and found herself yearning for a few weeks on her own, with nothing more pressing to think about than whether to spend the afternoon on a long walk in the hills or curled up with a book.

She'd missed Antonia and James Malone and Sophie's twin sister, Taryn.

Not a total waste of a trip, Josie thought, but it was close.

Keira and Lizzie had finally caught up with Colm Dermott in Dublin that morning. He'd told them he'd talked to Sophie recently. They'd discussed the panel she was doing at the folklore conference and a bit about the violence that had touched Keira and Lizzie--even him--over the summer. He hadn't taken Sophie's interest as anything but natural curiosity and her role as an archaeologist.

Otherwise, he was clueless about what she might be up to.

"Perhaps nothing," Josie said aloud, hopping off the steps.

She started down the steep hill to her car. She noticed a man standing on the edge of the quiet road and faltered, hoping her sleepless night had got the better of her and she'd conjured him up.

She wasn't that lucky.

The man in front of her car was, indeed, long-lost, treacherous, sexy-as-hell-itself Myles Fletcher.

Josie didn't say a word as she navigated a series of small puddles from an early-morning shower and collected her thoughts. When she came to the road, she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and suppressed, at least for the moment, any emotional reaction to his presence. "Will and Simon?" she asked crisply.

Myles opened the car door and dumped his rucksack in the back as if he had every right to do so. "They caught up with me and dinged me back here."

"Did they, now?"

He shrugged. "They're pursuing a different angle."

"A dangerous one?"

He grinned at her. "No more dangerous than me turning up here."

"You're compromised," she said, ignoring his irreverent humor. "Whoever you all are after now knows you're a British intelligence officer. That's why Will and Simon sent you away."

"I'm here because there's nothing more I can do. The next steps aren't up to me anymore." He stood in front of the open car door. "I arrived back in Ireland this morning and took the bus to Kenmare looking for you. I thought you could use my help."

"How did you know to find me here?"

"A fair guess."

Josie wasn't convinced. Myles would tell her what suited him. She went around and yanked open the driver's door with a bit more force than was necessary. "Is anyone after you?"

"Other than you, you mean?"

Whatever his particular way of going about things, she had no doubt Myles wouldn't be here now were he not confident he hadn't been followed. She didn't need to waste her breath telling him what they both already knew: His dangerous, solitary work over the past two years had secured critical information that Will and Simon--British intelligence and American FBI--could now use to finish the job.

In one brusque move, Josie climbed into the car and let Myles do whatever he meant to do.

He got in beside her. "It's just you and me, love."

"I have no illusions, Myles." She thrust the key into the ignition. "You're not here for me. Fasten your seat belt. I won't have you bloodied should I ram us into a tree."

He pulled his door shut and clicked on his seat belt, settling back comfortably in his seat. "Where are we going?"

"Doesn't matter, does it? I've already been to hell and back these past two years."

She could feel his gray eyes on her as she started the car. He hadn't shaved. He looked exhausted, irresistible and perfectly capable of slitting an odd throat or two if necessary. Why, she thought, hadn't she simply stayed in London? She had a great deal of freedom with her job, and certainly no one had sent her to Ireland to chase after an American archaeologist.

"Let me guess, then, love." Myles watched casually out his window as she pulled onto the road, maneuvering through a large puddle. "You're looking into the Irish life and times of Sophie Malone."

Josie groaned, nearly choking the engine. "There. I was right. You did provide Scoop Wisdom with information about her."

"Only her name."

"In what context? Not a good one, I imagine. And here he'd just seen her at Keira's ruin. No wonder Scoop wants to know all he can about her. It's not as easy as I'd hoped to find decent intel on her. Her sister's gone back to London. Her parents have trekked into the Irish hills with tents and rucksacks." Josie gave a mock shudder. "Will appreciates the charms of camping, but I do not. You, Myles?"

"I could do with a real bed," he said, just a bit of huskiness to his voice.

Well-trained intelligence officer that she was, Josie saw to it no color rose in her cheeks. "I met this morning with an Irish detective I know. Seamus Harrigan. Is he the one who told you I was in Kenmare?"

Myles closed his eyes and didn't answer.

"He's aware that the Malones own this house but only because he lives in Kenmare--not because of anything Sophie or her family has done."

"Did Seamus direct you here?"

"That's a bit too strong but I was able to fill in the blanks." She noticed Myles hadn't opened his eyes. "He wasn't pleased to hear from me, I have to say. Perfectly understandable. Three months ago we had Seamus crawling through a ruin in search of a serial killer. Last month we had him questioning a hired thug about a bombing and kidnapping in Boston."

"He was doing his job," Myles said with a yawn.

"Yes, that explains it, doesn't it?" Josie trod too hard on the gas and took a turn far more sharply and speedily than was necessary or safe, but she'd passed various defensive driving courses. Not that the Irish guards would accept that as a reason not to ticket her. She came to a stop and glanced over at Myles. He at least had his eyes half open now. "Sophie Malone was involved in some sort of incident a year ago. Seamus wasn't on the case but told me what he could."

"What sort of incident?"

"The bizarre sort with no evidence. Seamus gave me the name of a local fisherman. I'm off to find him now." She turned onto the main road back toward the village. "Does that sound too deadly dull for you, Myles?"

"A chat with an Irish fisherman would be a nice change of pace," he said, making himself comfortable. "You look tired. Would you like for me to drive?"

"No." She was immediately annoyed that he thought she looked tired when, of course, he was the reason for her bad night and he himself was clearly much worse off. "Are you even legal to drive these days?"

He yawned again, pushing back his seat to accommodate his long legs. He had dark shadows under his eyes, but she found him as rugged and sexy as ever. He gave her a quick smile. "You're a madwoman behind the wheel, love. Always have been."

"Would you like me to put you on a flight to London?"

"What would I do in London?"

"Go visit your mother. Two years, Myles. She hasn't known if you were alive or dead."

"No, she has. She's known."

"How? Carrier pigeon?"

He ignored her, and she continued over a small suspension bridge, then turned onto a side road just before the village center. Myles had always had an uncanny ability to push right past anything he didn't want to discuss.

She had no trouble finding parking by the town pier. As she got out of the car, a strong gust of wind buffeted her, but she found it refreshing. Just a few minutes in close proximity to Myles had her feeling hot and out of sorts. She struck off across the road without a word or a glance in her passenger's direction. She didn't want to think about him--where he'd come from, how long he planned to stay, where he planned to stay.

"I had a nice, calm life before you turned up again, Myles," she muttered, not sure he could hear her--not caring, either. She stepped onto the concrete pier, the wind worse there, and sighed. "A very nice, calm life."

He fell in easily next to her. "If you'd wanted a nice, calm life, you wouldn't have gone for a career in British intelligence."

"I must've landed in the wrong queue somehow. I thought I was signing up for church choir."

She saw the glimmer of a smile beneath his beard stubble and fatigue. He moved with no apparent concern that they might run into snipers, thugs, terrorists or madmen in quiet Kenmare. Of course if he were concerned, he would move with the same nonchalance.

Josie approached an old fisherman in a traditional Irish knit sweater that had seen years--decades, probably--of wear and asked him where she might find Tim O'Donovan. The fisherman gave her a suspicious look and pretended not to understand the question. She said, "We're friends with Sophie Malone."

The old man's suspicion eased. "Tim's due anytime, please God," he said in a heavy West Cork accent and headed down the pier toward the road.

"Let's wait here," Myles said, the sky and bay making his eyes seem a bluer gray. "The air feels good."

Josie took in a sharp breath. "You didn't expect to be alive today, did you?"

"Nor yesterday, either." He crooked his arm toward her and smiled. "Shall we watch the tide and pretend we're a pair of holiday lovers?"

"Damn you, Myles." She slipped her arm into his, welcoming his warmth. She leaned against him, just for a split second. "I hate you, you know."

He winked at her. "That's my girl."

Suddenly she wished they were tourists without a care beyond which lace shops to visit and which pub to pop into for a bite. He maintained an outward air that his two years undercover--alone, in constant danger--hadn't affected him, but Josie knew they had. She noticed a scar on his jaw under his right ear that hadn't been there when he'd gone off to Afghanistan.

"Did you tell yourself you'd died in that firefight?" she asked quietly. "Is that how you managed?"

"I focused on the job I was in a unique position to do."

"Should you have been killed, did you have a plan to get word to Will, at least, that you weren't a traitor?"

"All this talk of my demise, love." He grinned at her. "Should I be near deep water with you?"

His humor, she knew, was his way of deflecting her questions. He wasn't introspective. He was a man who lived in the present. "You could have let us help--"

"It was too big a risk. The people I was chasing would have won."

"Will they win yet, Myles?"

The wind caught the ends of his dark hair. "Not the ones I was chasing."

"Because they're dead," Josie said bluntly.

"There you go again."

But his lack of a denial meant she was right. "Will and Simon are after their friends and associates, aren't they?" she asked softly.

He brushed her fingertips with his and let that be his answer.

She could hardly breathe. "Are you free now? Safe?"

"I don't know, love." He angled her a wry look. "Will I be sleeping near you and a pillow tonight?"

She was tempted to elbow him off the pier, but a bearded man decades younger than the old fisherman ambled toward them. "I understand you're looking for me. What can I do for you?"

"You're Tim O'Donovan?" Josie asked with a smile.

No smile back. "I am."

"I'm Josie Goodwin. This is my friend Myles. We'd like to talk to you about a friend of yours."

"Sophie Malone," he said. "Seamus Harrigan told me you'd be looking for me. Sophie's gone back to Boston."

"What happened last year, Tim?" Myles asked.

Josie winced at his blunt question. Leave it to Myles to dive in before they'd reassured the Irishman. He'd never been one for subtlety. The wind blew hard, and she thought she felt raindrops but supposed it could have been saltwater. She shook off a sudden chill as O'Donovan crossed his muscled arms over his broad chest. He stood at the edge of the pier, his back to the water as if he had no worries about taking a wrong step. "Sophie's a restless soul, and she has a natural curiosity and an investigative mind. Put all that together..." He dropped his arms to his sides. "I suppose that's why she's an archaeologist and not a fisherman."

Myles leaned casually against a post. He had no apparent worries, either, about falling into the water. "What caught the attention of her restless soul, natural curiosity and investigative mind a year ago?"

The Irishman squinted out toward the mouth of the harbor. "A tale of invaders and treasure."

Josie gritted her teeth. "Well, that narrows things down nicely, doesn't it?"

O'Donovan rubbed the toe of his scuffed boot across a thick rope tied to a fishing boat that presumably belonged to him. Myles nodded at the battered boat. "Looks as if she's seen a gale or two. Did you take Sophie somewhere in her?"

"Many times. She's a serious scholar and game for anything. Have you met her?"

Myles shook his head, and Josie said, "What about you? How well do you know Dr. Malone?"

O'Donovan leveled emerald-green eyes on her. "What business is that of yours?"

"None," Josie said, and gave him a cheerful smile. "You seem protective of her. I can understand. Here's a woman far from home--"

"She was born in Cork. Her family owns a house here in Kenmare."

"All right, then. She's Irish born but her parents are American. She attended college in Boston and did graduate work in Ireland. Now she's returned to Boston. She's rather rootless, wouldn't you say?"

O'Donovan took in a breath and held it as if he didn't want to answer Josie's question but knew he would. Finally he exhaled and said, "I would, indeed."

"Is she reckless?" Myles asked.

"We say a person's reckless when things don't work out. When they do, we say that same person is brave."

"One can be both reckless and brave." Josie managed not to look at Myles, although she expected he knew she was talking about him, too. "I'd like to win your trust, Tim. Whatever happened to Sophie last year involved you and obviously troubles you."

Myles edged closer to Josie, for no apparent reason that she could discern. "Did Sophie talk you into searching for Celtic treasure?" he asked.

"No. She talked me into taking her to a small island down the bay so she could look into a story I'd told her."

Josie bit her lower lip. This was how Keira Sullivan's ordeal had started three months ago--with an old story. She'd been researching a book she was writing and illustrating, as well as dipping into her own complicated past.

"Would finding lost treasure help Sophie land a job?" Myles asked.

O'Donovan squatted down and started unlooping a thick rope from metal cleats, his fingers callused, his hands obviously very strong. "She says it's the opposite. She's a serious scholar. She's no treasure hunter. If she'd believed she'd find anything, she'd have called for a proper excavation."

"How often did you take her out to this island?"

"Five or six times. The last time, she discovered a cave and nearly didn't come out again."

He didn't elaborate, but Josie could see the regret in how he tore at the rope, how he'd bit off each word. "What happened, Tim?"

He shook his head. "Who's to say?"

"Why did she go out to this particular island?"

"She was writing her dissertation. She said exploring the island got her away from her work and helped clear her head." The muscles in his arms were visibly tensed, and he stood up again, the rope in hand. "On that last trip, she talked me into leaving her overnight. She'd never done such a thing. She had me believing she'd have a good time camping. She'd be safe. I left her there."

Myles had taken a few steps toward the middle of the wide pier, keeping quiet as he watched the fisherman. Josie didn't move. "Did she get hurt?" she asked softly. "Did someone follow her out there--"

"Talk to her." The fisherman tossed the rope down into his boat and moved to tackle the next line. Dark clouds had moved in overhead, the spits of raining turning to a steadier drizzle. He didn't seem to notice. "I wasn't there."

"Sophie could have wandered into a dangerous situation through no fault of her own," Josie said. "Or yours."

Myles narrowed his gray eyes on O'Donovan but made no move toward him. "You're worried that whatever happened to her isn't over."

"Maybe," he said, squatting down, pulling on a thick knot. "Again, I wasn't with her on the island. I only know what she's told me."

"And what's that?" Josie asked.

"She says she came across a cauldron of gold artifacts in the cave. She didn't have a chance to examine them before she heard whispers. At first she thought it was me--that I'd decided not to leave her out there after all and had come back."

"But it wasn't you," Myles said.

O'Donovan sighed heavily. "No, it wasn't. She saw branches smeared with blood--or what looked like blood--and she hid deeper in the cave. She hit her head somehow and lost consciousness. When she came to, there were no more whispers. I came for her the next day, as agreed. I had to look for her. By the time I found her, there was no sign anyone else had been on the island."

Josie shuddered. "Frightening. Was Sophie in the cave all night?"

"She was," Tim O'Donovan said tightly. "She believes whoever stole the cauldron left her for dead."

"Do you think she made up this story?" Myles asked.

"No, but that doesn't mean it happened the way she believes it did."

Myles frowned, the gray of his eyes now a deep slate. "Fairies? Ghosts? What are you suggesting?"

"As a boy, I heard tales the island's haunted. Sophie could have been pulled there by dark forces." Tim rose, shrugging his big shoulders. "The island's very small. It took me less than an hour to find her. She was hurt, cold, angry, afraid. She doesn't remember how she got her concussion. More than likely she experienced something she couldn't explain and hid for her life in that cave, and she's tried to make sense of what happened ever since."

"What about you?" Myles kept his gaze steady on the fisherman. "Did you sneak back to the island and steal this cauldron filled with gold? Fake the blood to frighten her, then take it with you to make her look less credible?"

Josie could have pushed Myles off the pier herself, but O'Donovan didn't seem to take offense. "I did not."

"You believed Sophie's story enough to call the guards," Josie said. "Did they look into boats that might have passed the island while Dr. Malone was there, anyone who might have heard her discuss her trips there, or this particular trip, or might have seen her--"

"Ask Seamus."

"Seamus said Sophie wasn't seriously hurt and there was no evidence a crime had been committed. Unintelligible whispers, blood and gold only she saw--the guards had nothing to go on."

"She survived, thanks be." O'Donovan abandoned the rope and rose again, his movements smooth for such a large man. "I don't even know you and here I've told you more than anyone else since that day. Do people always voluntarily tell you things, Josie Goodwin?"

She smiled. "Not always voluntarily."

He didn't smile back. "I wish I knew more." When Josie started to thank him, he cut her off. "Just see to it no harm comes to Sophie."

"We'll do our best."

Josie didn't know why she included Myles in her statement, but Tim O'Donovan nodded and said, "If there's anything I can do to help..."

"Call Seamus if you remember anything else about Sophie's experience on the island," Josie said.

He jumped down into his boat. The worsening conditions didn't seem to faze him. Myles started toward the road, and Josie lingered a moment, watching the fisherman go about his routines to set off down the bay, hoping she hadn't missed anything--even just a question that could help jog his memory.

She joined Myles at her car. She glanced back at the harbor, O'Donovan's boat chugging along in the wind and rain. "I've not the smallest urge to go to a tiny Irish island on my own."

"Would you go with someone else?" Myles asked as he climbed into the car.

Josie got behind the wheel again. "Not with you, Myles. The two of us alone in a car is enough tension for me, thank you."

"You're going to torture me forever, are you?"

"I haven't decided." She pulled off her damp coat, struggling with it, but he didn't offer his help. She must have looked as if she'd elbow him in the head if he did. She might, anyway. She balled up the coat and shoved it in back with his rucksack. "You could have trusted us, Myles. Will and me. If not me, then Will. If not Will, then me."

"It wasn't a question of trust," Myles said quietly, with none of his usual cockiness, "and to tell one of you what I was into was to tell the other. You both were emotionally compromised by our friendship. I couldn't take the chance."

Josie started the car. "Whether you could or couldn't, you didn't. Lizzie and Keira wouldn't wait two years for word on the fates of the men they care about."

"Do you think so, Josie?"

No, she thought. They'd wait forever. They'd wait until they knew for certain.

"Did you believe I was dead?"

"I'd hoped you'd lost your memory and opened a bake shop in Liverpool."

He laughed suddenly, unexpectedly, and at first she wanted to stop the car and kick him out the door, but she found herself laughing, too.

"Damn you, Myles. I suppose if you hadn't gone off--" She shook her head, abandoning her thought. "Never mind. I was going to say Will wouldn't have found Lizzie, but I don't believe that. I believe they were destined for each other."

"Josie Goodwin, the romantic?"

"Don't choke on your tongue, Myles. I'm a human being. A woman, believe it or not. Lizzie's the woman for Will. You've seen that for yourself, haven't you?"

"I have, indeed."

Josie felt a stiff wind buffet the small car. "Keira and Simon were destined for each other, too. You should see them together. He's an utter charmer--he does an amazing fake Irish accent and will argue with anyone over anything, and everyone still loves him." She turned on the windscreen wipers, the rain coming down hard now. "They'll both come back, won't they?"

"I'm sure of it."

"You're always sure. It's your nature."

"What Simon and Will are about needs to finish this way."

"Their way, you mean."

"And yours, Josie. Don't tell me you're not staying out of London for a reason. You don't want to have to answer a lot of questions about what Will and Simon are up to yourself." Myles leaned back in his seat. "Now we have this Sophie Malone and her mad island adventure."

"Nothing is ever simple with Will and Simon and their friends, is it?"

"As if it is with us?"

She came to a stop at the end of the road out to the pier and gave him a sideways glance. Those dove-gray eyes. The lines etched in his face. The hard edges that were Myles Fletcher. Of course she'd had to fall for him. How could she not have? But her life would have been so much less complicated these past few years if she hadn't.

He touched a finger to her lips. "Don't say anything more, love. Let's just keep sparring a while longer, shall we? I can't go where you want to go."

"Repressed bloody bastard," she said.

He looked relieved. "Where to next?"

"Dublin," Josie said without hesitation. "Sophie met with an art theft expert there. I'm developing a theory."

"She's after her missing artifacts."

"The whispers, the blood--she must be wondering if Jay Augustine was responsible for what happened to her in that cave. At least he's where he can't harm her or anyone else."

"Suppose he had help," Myles said quietly.

Josie gave him a sharp look, the chill back in her spine. "Myles--what do you know?"

"Drive on, love. It's a long way to Dublin."

11

Boston, Massachusetts

Bob O'Reilly shoved a hand through his hair as he stood on the cracked sidewalk in front of Cliff Rafferty's house and glared at Scoop. "You and your archaeologist haven't been back in town twenty-four hours, and you find a cop swinging from a beam in his dining room. Hell of a homecoming."

Scoop didn't blame him for being annoyed and frustrated, but his focus was on Sophie. She'd finished talking with two homicide detectives--who hadn't known Rafferty--and was in the shade of the oak tree at the edge of the walk. She'd stood up well to the pressures of the past couple hours. He had secured the scene before the first cruiser had arrived, but with the bomb-making materials in Rafferty's dining room, the FBI and ATF had rolled in right behind the BPD. The medical examiner was there. The crime lab. The district attorney's office. Onlookers from the neighborhood were behind yellow tape.

It was a mess.

"I could have stopped her from coming over here," Scoop said half to himself.

"How?" Bob asked, skeptical.

"I could have cited police business."

"She's a Ph.D. She'd have seen right through you and come anyway."

"I could have taken her car keys and flung them down a drain."

Bob rubbed the back of his neck, looking less irritated and agitated. "You didn't let her come out here alone. That's one thing, anyway."

"Yeah, Bob. Sure."

"So, Scoop," he said, "was Rafferty on your radar? You've been working on something. You were before this. Before the bomb."

"If I'd had anything on Rafferty, I'd have arrested him. He wouldn't be dead."

Bob had been a police officer for a very long time, and his eyes showed his experience as he narrowed them on Scoop. "You were onto a cop connection to local thugs before Norman Estabrook set his sights on Abigail. Those bastards who grabbed her had someone on the inside. You had that in mind when you looked at the lists we compiled of people who'd been to the house in the days before the bomb went off."

"Any ongoing special investigation changed the minute that bomb exploded and we became personally involved."

Bob ignored him. "Cliff's name get your attention?"

"There were a lot of names on those lists. There was no evidence."

"There's evidence now."

Scoop felt the warmth of the sun on his bare head. His exposed scars might as well have been on fire. "Unless it was planted."

"Another cop, Scoop?"

"I've been walking the Scottish and Irish hills for the past month. You tell me."

Sophie turned, her skin grayish as her bright blue eyes focused on him and Bob. Scoop wondered how much she'd overheard. As obviously shaken and disturbed by Rafferty's death as she was, she'd maintained her composure, answering questions, keeping any theories to herself unless asked.

Bob crooked a finger at her, and she came over to them. Strands of her dark red hair fell in her face, but she didn't seem to notice. He said, "Tell me how you ended up here."

She motioned toward Rafferty's front door. "I told the detectives--"

"Tell me."

She debated a moment, then nodded. "All right."

Scoop kept quiet, watching and listening as she spoke. She was precise, detailed and objective in her description of events. He could picture her in front of a university classroom or at an archaeological excavation--smart, professional--but he could sense her underlying emotions. Shock, revulsion, fear--and just the slightest hint, again, not so much of lies and deception but of incompleteness.

She was leaving out something.

"The skulls," Bob said. "What do they mean?"

"I can only tell you what I know, in general, about their significance to prehistoric Celts. They believed the head was the source of a person's strength and power. Warriors would decapitate enemies in battle and string the heads on their belts and around the necks of their horses."

"Okay. What about nailing skulls to a door?"

"The same. Heads tacked to the entry of homes were a status symbol. There was probably a ritualistic, magical purpose. The scene upstairs seems to be an attempt to create a sacred space, with the skulls marking the border between the physical and the spiritual world."

"Why?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what whoever tacked up those skulls had in mind. The supernatural was an ever-present force in the lives of the Celts. They made little distinction between gods and ordinary humans, the living and the dead. Gods could become men and men become gods."

Bob scratched the side of his mouth for a second, digesting Sophie's explanation. "What about the disassembled gun in the pot?"

"The broken weapon of the warrior."

"A police officer," Scoop interjected.

Sophie glanced at him, and he saw the strain in her eyes. But she stayed focused as she turned back to Bob. "Placing the pieces of the gun in the pot could be the killer's way of symbolically appropriating the power of the owner."

"We don't know yet Cliff was killed," Bob said. "He was retired. He didn't have any power."

"He had a gun. He had decades of experience as a police officer. He was a private security guard for a wealthy couple."

"Fair enough. The glass beads?"

"Glass beads are often found in Celtic graves. Torcs are, too, but in this case, the broken torc could identify a vanquished enemy. Then there's the manner of death." She took a breath and looked out at the street, as if just needing to see something normal. "Hanging and strangulation were used in conducting ritualistic human sacrifice."

Bob glanced at Scoop, then back at Sophie. "Great," he said without enthusiasm.

"Human remains aren't my area of expertise, but remarkably intact corpses have been discovered in the bogs of Europe. The anaerobic conditions preserve organic material. As it happens, the Celts often made votive offerings in wet places. I have colleagues who specialize in peatland archaeology."

"So bogs were a natural choice to dump a body?" Bob made a face. "What, you've examined murder victims from 300 B.C.?"

She gave him a small smile. "Not me personally. We now know there was never a pan-European Celtic culture with a central government. The Celts were a collection of warring tribes who shared a similar culture and language. We have only limited understanding of the practices I'm describing. The Celts didn't leave us with a written record. Theirs was an oral tradition."

"What do you go on, then?"

"The archaeological record and descriptions of contemporary Classical writers."

"The Romans?"

She nodded. "Ireland was never conquered by Rome, but the Celts of mainland Europe and Great Britain were. Obviously they were enemies, which undoubtedly colors Roman perceptions of the Celts. We also have ancient epic pagan tales written down by Early Medieval Irish monks. They're an important source, but, of course, they're a mix of fantasy, mythology, legend--"

"And a lot of BS, too, probably. I get it," Bob said. "One of the crime lab technicians is a pagan. Nicest, happiest person you'd ever want to meet."

"What I just witnessed has nothing to do with modern pagans or Celtic revivalists."

Bob nodded. "I get your point."

"Am I free to leave?" Sophie asked.

"Yeah, go on. We'll find you if we have more questions."

She glanced at Scoop, then headed straight for her car.

"Hell, Scoop," Bob said on a breath. "That's one creepy scene up there. So what were you thinking, coming out here with her?"

"I wasn't thinking I'd find Rafferty dead."

Just as Sophie reached the street, a car screeched to a stop. Frank Acosta, a robbery detective and Rafferty's former partner, jumped out, ducked under the crime-scene tape and charged in front of her, blocking her path to her sister's Mini.