Heron's Cove (13 page)

“I’ve never seen Dmitri’s Moscow house,” Emma said.

“I was only there once. It felt like a big old dungeon to me.” Natalie moved to the door, her pale hair a few tones darker in the dim light. “Time for a fresh cosmopolitan.”

Emma followed her back out to the elevator and up to the lounge. Colin, Dmitri and Ivan were laughing together at the bar. It was dark now, village lights sparkling in the clear night air, stars out over the ocean. As she crossed over to the men, Emma was aware of Colin’s smoky eyes on her. She had no idea what Dmitri and Ivan had been telling him, what he might have guessed about what she was doing aboard the
Nightingale
herself.

Natalie inhaled, then smiled widely and slipped in between Ivan and Dmitri. Dmitri kissed her on the cheek, then went back behind the bar to fix her another cosmopolitan.

Emma stood next to Colin. He watched her over the rim of his glass. “Another glass of champagne?” he asked.

“No, thanks.”

“I didn’t know you liked champagne.”

“It was what was offered,” she said.

“Your friend Ivan is armed.”

“I’m sure he has any required permits. He’s careful that way.”

Colin set his beer glass on the gleaming bar. “I’m armed, too. I’m an FBI agent. You are, too.”

“Think I need reminding?”

“You tell me.”

She ignored him and shifted her attention to Dmitri as he measured vodka for the cosmopolitan. “I should go, Dmitri, and give you and Natalie a chance to get reacquainted.”

“Did she show you the collection?”

“Just a brooch. It’s lovely.”

“But you didn’t tell her where it came from,” he said, dumping the vodka in a martini glass.

“It’s not up to me, even if I have your permission.”

He reached for fresh-cut limes. “I understand.” He glanced at Natalie, who was talking with Ivan, either not paying attention to Dmitri or pretending she wasn’t. He squeezed lime into the glass. “I’d hoped you might make this easier for me. Are you sure you can’t stay for dinner?”

“Not tonight. Another time, I hope. It’s good to see you again. Thanks for having me on board. It’s quite a yacht.”

“When will your grandfather and your brother return from Ireland?”

“Lucas should be back any day. My grandfather…” Emma smiled. “He’s heading to the southwest Irish coast to do some hiking. He’s starting in Killarney. Doesn’t that sound like the thing to do at eighty-one?”

Dmitri handed the drink to Natalie. She took a quick sip and smiled. “I think at eighty-one I’d want to be drinking cosmopolitans on the beach.”

“Or here,” Dmitri said, splashing vodka into a clean glass. “Such a spot, Emma. Wendell has a good life to return to in Heron’s Cove. What about you? Do you like the FBI?”

“It suits me.”

“More so than Sharpe Fine Art Recovery, or than being a nun?”

“Each had its own time in my life.”

“A sensible answer.” He set his drink on the bar and took her hands, kissed her on both cheeks. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I hope so,” Emma said, then thanked him, said good-night to Natalie and Ivan and started to leave.

She heard Dmitri offer Colin another beer. “A Coke would be great,” he said, making no move to follow her.

Emma continued on out.

Colin could find his own way home.

Not for one second had she forgotten she was an FBI agent, or, she thought, a Sharpe. She was both, and he had just gotten a full dose of what that meant.

And so had she.

10

EMMA PAUSED ON a small bridge that spanned a shallow cove next to the yacht club and marina. The cottage Tatiana Pavlova had rented was down on the water, tucked among a half-dozen small, shingled waterfront cottages and shops. The
Nightingale
was just out of sight from where Emma stood, but Tatiana would be able to see it from her cottage.

And anyone on board would be able to see her.

The lights inside the cottage were on but the blinds and curtains were pulled, as if she didn’t want to have anything to do with the world outside. Maybe she was sketching great blue herons, Emma thought, deciding against walking down to the cottage and knocking on the front door. Dmitri or Ivan could be watching her, or even Natalie. Emma didn’t want to draw attention to Tatiana for no good reason.

She crossed the bridge and continued down the quiet street toward the Sharpe house and the ocean. On a summer night, Heron’s Cove would be filled with people—tourists, second-home owners, locals. Most of the inns and restaurants were still open, but the high season was winding down.

The Sharpe house was dark except for a solitary light on in the kitchen. Emma went around back, and as she mounted the steps onto the porch, she saw that the kitchen door was open, as if it were a warm midsummer evening.

Colin materialized in the screen door and pushed it open. Emma smiled. “You rugged undercover types do like to live dangerously. What if I’d thought you were an intruder? I could have shot you.”

“You have more self-control than to shoot me.” He stepped back, letting her pass him into the kitchen. “I thought you’d stay for dinner with your Russian friends.”

“Natalie Warren isn’t Russian.”

“Dmitri Rusakov is. Ivan Alexander is. Most of the crew is. And Tatiana Pavlova. She is, too, even if she lives in London. I found her hiding in the hydrangeas in your backyard.” Colin shut the door; it was original to the house but would go in the renovations. “Is she safe?”

“From who, Colin? You, me, Dmitri, Ivan, one of the crew? Herself?”

“You tell me.”

“If Tatiana were afraid for her safety, would she stay alone in a cottage within sight of Dmitri’s yacht? Would she stay alone at all?”

“She didn’t want to be seen.”

Emma nodded. “I understand that.”

Colin went to the sink, pulled an empty pottery sugar pot and cream pitcher off an open shelf and placed them on the counter. “You’re going to need more boxes for all this kitchen stuff.”

“We got most of the food out already. My grandfather gave us a list of what items he wants to keep. The rest can go. We’ll donate whatever looks decent to a church yard sale.” Feeling chilly now, if only because of Colin’s mood, Emma crossed her arms over her chest. “I called you so that you wouldn’t have to come down here and walk into this situation without warning.”

“Situation?” He assessed her with those smoky eyes. “Finding you drinking expensive champagne on a Russian luxury yacht is a situation?”

She pulled open an upper cupboard filled with mismatched juice glasses, wineglasses and dessert bowls. She lifted out a stack of bowls and set them on the counter, quickly straightening them as they tilted and nearly toppled over. She could feel Colin’s eyes still on her.

“I can’t be in the dark, Emma,” he said. “About anything.”

She reached for more dishes. “You know most of what I know.”

“I don’t know who your source is.”

“I haven’t told you who my source is.” She grabbed three wineglasses by the stems. “There’s a difference, isn’t there?”

Edging closer to her, Colin took a stack of bowls from a high shelf and set them next to the wineglasses. “Did this same source tip you off about Vladimir Bulgov’s interest in Picasso?”

She grabbed more glasses. “No.”

“Do Bulgov and Dmitri Rusakov know each other?”

“I have no information one way or the other.”

“Meaning you don’t know,” he said, reaching for an old casserole dish.

“Do you know?” Emma asked.

“Rusakov wasn’t on my radar until his yacht turned up outside your back door. What about Ivan Alexander?” Colin set the casserole on the edge of the sink, his movements deliberate, controlled; the bruise on his forearm had deepened to shades of dark purple and blue. “Tell me about you and Ivan.”

“You two had yourselves a good chat,” she said coolly. “You probably know more about him than I do.”

“He says he got his start with Dmitri but he’s out on his own now. Works as a consultant when and if he feels like it. He’s loyal to Dmitri.”

“They’re friends,” Emma said.

With one hand, Colin took a half-dozen small, flowered dessert bowls from the shelf and set them next to hers. “Do you trust them?”

“Trust them in what way?”

He gave her a slight smile. “Spoken like an analyst. Dmitri’s the former Sharpe client you mentioned last night. When you said Tatiana Pavlova was worried about a collection that involved a former Sharpe client, I wasn’t thinking Russian tycoon.”

“It’s not unusual for a Sharpe Art Recovery client to be someone of means.”

“There’s ‘means’ and there’s billions.”

Emma raised an arm for more glassware, but her elbow struck Colin’s flowered dessert bowls and sent them clattering into the porcelain sink. None broke but she managed to startle herself. She took a deep breath, aware of Colin standing close to her, perhaps not quite trusting her—or at least her ability to handle Dmitri Rusakov and his reasons for being in Heron’s Cove.

And knowing, she thought, that she hadn’t told him everything.

She ignored the dishes in the sink and shut the cupboard door. “After I left the sisters and before I joined the FBI, I worked with my grandfather in Dublin. You know that. During that time, Dmitri Rusakov hired Sharpe Fine Art Recovery to help him figure out what happened to this collection. He’d had it with him in London. I flew there to meet with him.”

“Granddad’s idea, or yours?”

“His. I stayed in London for a few days—in a hotel.”

“As opposed to…”

“Dmitri’s London apartment.”

“He invited you to stay there?”

“It’s bigger than most houses. Dmitri’s a huge flirt, but there was never anything romantic between us.”

“What about you and Ivan?”

Emma pretended not to hear the question. “Dmitri’s main residence is in Moscow. It had been abandoned for years when he bought it. He was making a fortune in post–Soviet Russia but he wanted to do some of the renovation work himself. He took a crowbar to a wall and uncovered a wooden box filled with jewelry and decorative arts, each work inspired by some aspect of Russian folk tradition.”

“Some people have all the luck,” Colin said.

Emma held back a smile. “Dmitri wanted an outsider—a non-Russian—to have a look at his find. He hired Sharpe Fine Art Recovery. My grandfather went to Moscow. He was there for about a week. He says the collection is amazing. That it’s as if someone had stashed away bits and pieces of the Russian soul.”

“And it ended up with Dmitri Rusakov’s ex-wife in Arizona?”

“Apparently,” Emma said.

Colin lifted a small, misshapen dish Emma had made for her grandparents in a pottery class in fifth grade. Her grandfather had given specific instructions that the dish wasn’t to go into the garbage or off to a yard sale. Colin seemed to guess, and put it to one side on the counter.

“I gather that Renee Rusakov was quite a character,” he said. “What did she do, just walk off with this collection?”

“Basically, or at least that was my assessment when Dmitri asked us to look into its disappearance four years ago. I think Renee took it a piece or two at a time with her back to Tucson. She never gave up her house there. Dmitri didn’t believe it and sent me back to Dublin.” Emma shivered in a sudden cold draft. “Colin, this isn’t your problem.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “Why did your grandfather send you to London? Why didn’t he go himself?”

“I was learning the business. It made sense for me to go. It’s not as if there were any danger.”

Colin frowned. “You’re cold.” He adjusted the collar on her jacket, touched the back of his hand to her jaw. “Even your skin is cool.”

“No red nose, I hope.”

He smiled. “No red nose.”

“There’s no heat with the renovations.”

“It was hotter than hell in Florida. Unseasonably so, they tell me. I swore I wouldn’t complain about the cold until it’s at least ten below.” He threaded his fingers into her hair, then cupped the back of her head. “I have a lot of questions about you and your Russian friends, Emma.”

“I understand that. Give me time. Let me deal with them. You’re decompressing after a difficult experience.”

“A difficult experience?” He gave a short laugh and lowered his hand back to her side. “Sweetheart, kayaking against the wind in choppy water is a difficult experience. Escaping arms traffickers out to kill me was one hell of a tough night.” He walked over to the kitchen door and pulled his jacket off a peg. “How much of this does Yank know?”

“I called him the same time I called you. I told him all I know.”

“Did you tell him about you and Ivan?”

“There is no me and Ivan.” Emma stood back from the sink, warmer now. “Lucas is flying to London in the morning to see what he can learn about Tatiana Pavlova. He didn’t recognize her name. Neither did my grandfather.”

“Who does she think will steal the collection?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Rusakov wants it back?”

“He seems to, yes. I don’t think he wants to upset Natalie, though.”

“And Ivan?”

“I haven’t talked to him enough to know why he’s here, but I imagine it’s because Dmitri wants him here.”

“Ivan told me he’s here because of you.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “He did not. Go home, Colin. I’ll finish up here. We can talk tomorrow.”

“Where do you plan to sleep?”

“I’ll make a bed on the floor here. There are enough blankets lying around. I’ll be fine.”

“You could stay in a guest cabin on the
Nightingale.
”

She gave him a cool look. “Maybe I could, but I won’t.”

He glanced out at the dark waterfront. “Do you Sharpes have any normal friends?”

“I wouldn’t call Dmitri a friend.”

“Ivan?”

Emma sighed. “You’re relentless, Special Agent Donovan.”

He winked at her. “Might keep that in mind.”

She said nothing.

He shrugged on his jacket, left it unbuttoned. “Even if Vladimir Bulgov were a Russian schoolteacher and not an arms trafficker, I wouldn’t like having a Russian tycoon with a history with your family on a big damn yacht within spitting distance of your back porch.”