Deadly Gift (33 page)

He could see it in Marni’s eyes. She wasn’t the kind of crazy that would make her do anything stupid. She was smart-crazy. She had planned this for years.

“Don’t bother with Amanda,” Caer pleaded. “Shoot
Marni
.”

Holding Amanda tightly against him, he felt her shivering body through the wet suit. He aimed the gun at Marni.

“You won’t take the chance,” Marni taunted.

“You have to kill her,” Caer said. Her eyes were brilliantly blue and pleading as they met his. “Zach, I’ve told you the truth. You’ve seen the birds. You have to save Sean. There’s a reason. I don’t know what it is, but Sean has to live out his natural lifespan. That’s why I’m here. Please, Zach. You have to believe me, believe what I’ve told you.
Everything
I’ve told you.”

He stared at Marni, who only laughed coldly.

“Shoot her, Zach,” Caer said again. “You have to believe me. Believe
in
me.”

“Drop the gun, Zach,” Marni said again, and pressed the knife harder against Caer’s neck. “See? I can make her bleed.”

And he knew. He couldn’t give up his weapon, not even if his heart was tearing as if the knife shimmering in Marni’s hand was slipping into his own flesh.

Because there was something…

Something in Caer’s eyes that spoke of truth and wisdom.

But she wasn’t a banshee.

Couldn’t be a banshee…

Could she?

The image of another knife flashed into his mind, a kitchen filleting knife, razor sharp, slicing through the air and into Caer’s back.

She had lived, had only been nicked. She had explained it away as coincidence, the knife hitting the wire of her bra, but…

Did it matter? There was no choice. They would all die, Sean, Kat, Tom, Clara, not only Caer, if he didn’t stop Marni.

“Zach, do it!” Caer cried.

“Don’t do it unless you want to see her bleed,” Marni taunted. “I’ll make her bleed just a little more now, just to prove it to you.”

His finger twitched, and the gun exploded, the knife slicing into Caer’s throat just as Marni caught the bullet in her forehead, pulling Caer to the deck with her as she fell.

Amanda began screaming hysterically. Zach thrust her away from him as he hurtled toward Caer, clutching her against his chest, searching frantically for something to stanch the flow of blood at her throat.

There was a roaring in his ears, and he looked up. The sky had gone black, but not from weather, he realized in shock. It was the birds, hundreds upon hundreds of birds, swooping down toward the deck.

Amanda continued to scream, her cries merging with those of the birds.

He held Caer, his hand over the wound at her throat as he tried to stop the bleeding. Then he saw. Her eyes were open, and she smiled slowly.

“Ah, Zach. I told you. She couldn’t kill me. It’s all right.”

He didn’t have a chance to reply. The darkness in the sky was taking shape. To his amazement, he heard something like thundering horses’ hooves.

“It’s the coach. The death coach,” she told him. Tears stung her eyes as she balanced herself against him and stood.

He lifted his hand as he rose with her and saw that the bleeding had stopped. He stared at her incredulously, wondering if he was hallucinating. He must be, because when he looked up…

He saw a coach in the sky, hovering over the boat and drawn by black horses with plumed headdresses.

“I have to go. I always told you that I’d have to go,” Caer said quietly. Then she pulled him close, pressed herself against him and touched her lips to his. She kissed him, and he tasted her tears as she whispered against his lips, “I love you.”

Then she jumped, as startled as he was when they suddenly heard a voice, rich with a very cheerful Irish accent, say, “No, my dear, ye need not be goin’.”

They spun around together. A woman had stepped from the coach. She had Bridey’s voice, but she wasn’t Bridey—and yet she was. It took Zach a long moment to realize that it
was
Bridey, but Bridey with the years peeled away, Bridey beautiful and young, dressed in a flowing black gown that waved around her in the breeze.

“Bridey?” Caer whispered. “But…I sent you on. I sent you to the emerald hills and fields, and the cottage in the woods, the light and—”

“Aye, but I couldna’ stay,” Bridey said, then turned to Zach. “A banshee is not evil, my boy, for ’tis her job to escort the good folk to the promise and rewards that await on the other side. But sometimes, like Caer here, she takes human form. And now our Caer has fallen in love with you, just as you have fallen in love with her, so I made arrangements, if you will, to take her place. So you see—” she turned to Caer “—you are free now to remain. I do na mind a bit taking your place, child. Indeed, I’m quite eager, and you must stay here and love Zach ’til the end of both your days. And as I was coming to see you anyway, I’ve been asked to see that these two go where they should, a place where no green fields await.”

“Two?” Caer said blankly.

“Aye, two.” Bridey lifted a hand and pointed.

Amanda O’Riley was lying on the deck, blood pouring from a head wound. Zach could only assume that she had panicked at the sight of the birds and had fallen, hitting her head on the rail on the way down.

“I must be goin’ now,” Bridey said. “Michael said to tell you that you did well, Caer. He’s proud of you. Ye’ll not be seein’ him again, so he said to warn ye that ye must be careful with that flesh and blood ye’ve been given, because from now on, a knife in the back or a blade against the throat, and ye’ll not be healing.”

“But—” Caer began.

“What the hell is going on here?” Zach whispered.

Bridey laughed with delight. “Ye’ve been given a gift. The gift of life,” she told him. “Caer’s life.”

A loud and terrible sound began to vibrate through the air. A wail, a scream, something both hollow and sharp, something that seemed to come from the sea and sky, carrying the threat of terror and doom. Darkness swirled around Marni and Amanda where they lay, and as he watched, their spirits rose from their bodies, rose and saw the dark shadows, like birds, like hundreds of black birds, sweeping around them.

They screamed. They frantically batted and scratched at the darkness, but the shadows consumed them and dragged them, kicking and screaming, to the waiting coach.

“Life is a gift. Appreciate it, and use it well, me lovelies,” Bridey said.

Then she turned, leaped atop the driver’s seat of the coach and waved.

Zach blinked, and the coach was gone.

The sea was calm, the sky brilliantly blue.

He looked at Caer and tried to speak, but couldn’t. He tried to touch her, and then, to his absolute embarrassment, he crashed to the deck, out cold.

He came to, still on the boat. Caer was bending over him, her eyes anxious, her Windbreaker bloodied, though the cut on her neck was already healing, and her hand strong on his. She offered him a tentative smile.

“What the hell happened?” he asked her.

“They’re dead, both of them. You shot Marni. Then the boat lurched, and Amanda crashed into the rail. She’s dead, too.”

“Sean, Kat, they were alive and—”

“And they’re going to be fine.”

He stared at her. “That’s what happened?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, his eyes searching her face, studying it, reading it.

“You
are
a banshee,” he said in awe.

“No more, but…aye, I was. Can you live with that knowledge?”

He pulled her to him, then realized that he must have been unconscious for a while, because there was all kinds of activity on the boat now. Policemen and medical personnel were everywhere, and he overheard someone, apparently from the bomb squad, saying that they’d disabled the device Marni had rigged up.

Zach slipped his arms around Caer’s neck and pulled her close, then kissed her lips very tenderly. “I don’t believe in banshees,” he whispered.

“Really?” She smiled teasingly. “Then maybe it was just a dream.”

“Life is a gift,” he said, smiling back. “And love is what we make of it.”

“‘T
he clue is left, the clue is right, follow the North Star tonight,’” Caer said, quoting Eddie, her eyes twinkling.

Christmas Day. So much had happened since she arrived, but still, Christmas had dawned, bringing the peace of the season with it. And for Zach, life had never held so much promise.

They were out on the
Sea Maiden.
They’d all nearly met their deaths there, but, as Caer had said, a boat couldn’t be bad, only people could be evil. When the day had dawned so beautifully, after the church bells had pealed and the carols had been sung, going out on the boat had seemed like the right thing to do.

They were all there together, celebrating the fact that they had survived. Sean was a widower again, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. In the end, his ego had suffered more than his heart had from finding out that the woman who had pretended to love him had only done so as part of a conspiracy to kill him.

And Kat had wisely refrained from saying, “I told you so” for having distrusted Amanda all along. Cal was along, too, still suffering from the aftereffects of concussion but relieved to have been forgiven for the actions of the wife who had deceived him as much as everybody else.

Tom and Clara were there, even though Clara had once said she would never set foot on a boat again. With everyone else determined to go, she had changed her mind, claiming she wasn’t about to spend Christmas away from the people she considered her family.

Jeremy and Rowenna were there, and Kendall, Aidan’s wife, had flown up so they could be together with the rest of the family for Christmas. They even had a baby on board, the next generation of Flynns, Aidan’s and Kendall’s son, Ian.

The others were all in the cabin at the moment, leaving Caer and Zach huddled together at the helm. It was crisp and cool, a stunning Christmas Day. The sea stretched out endlessly, smooth and calm. There was just enough breeze to fill the billowing sails. And it felt fine to be there, she thought, sharing the warmth of their bodies.

“Do you really think there are clues in Eddie’s poems?” Zach asked her.

“I do,” she said gravely.

“Do you know where the treasure is?” he asked her.

“No, but I know where the last clue is. At least, I think I do.”

“Where?”

“Right there.”

She was pointing at the wheel. There was a compass set into it. “The clue is left, the clue is right, follow the North Star tonight. Look at that compass. The
N
has a star above it.”

Zach stared at her. The compass could be removed, in case it needed to be repaired. He looked at her curiously, then unscrewed it.

And revealed a piece of paper.

“Another clue,” she said.

He nodded.

“‘Tick-tock, Banshee Rock, it’s twelve o’clock,’” he read.

“Eddie really wasn’t much of a poet,” she said ruefully, “but I wish I had known him anyway.”

“He was a great guy. And not such a bad poet.”

“Oh?”

He remembered the day on Cow Cay when, as Aidan had suggested, he had imprinted the layout of the island on his mind.

“He said everything he needed to say, and isn’t that what counts?”

He pulled out his cell phone, called Morrissey and told him to get people out to Cow Cay again. “Eddie never took the treasure off the island, he just shifted it. Whatever Nigel Bridgewater left, you’ll find it due north of Banshee Rock, probably in that copse of dead trees. Take metal detectors and start there.”

Zach hung up and smiled at Caer.

Her eyes widened. “You don’t want to go after the treasure yourself? You don’t think Sean wants to dig it up?”

He shook his head. “For one thing, it’s on state land, so it’s not up for grabs. For another, Sean will be happy if the world has the historical documents and the coins go to museums. We’ve both learned what real treasure is.”

“Oh?”

“Family,” he said. “And love.”

He took her into his arms and kissed her. “And you.”

From the cabin, they could hear Kat singing Christmas songs, and then the others joining in.

As the
Sea Maiden
sailed smoothly across the water, Zach and Caer were content simply to hold one another and know that life stretched before them.

The most amazing gift.