Heron's Cove (25 page)

“Don’t think about belonging, perhaps, and think instead about making a place for yourself.”

Emma didn’t seem to hear him. “I found Sister Joan. I was at the convent when she was killed. Now Dmitri Rusakov is in Heron’s Cove. Maybe I should go back there.” She kept her gaze fixed on the starlit docks. “Colin needs a chance to decompress.”

“What if he’s saying the same about you?”

“I don’t need to decompress.”

“Don’t you, Emma? You went straight from your ordeal with Sister Joan’s death to Colin’s…situation.” Finian corked the Auchentoshan. “You’ve had a fair amount of stress in recent weeks.”

“I’m an FBI agent, Fin. I’m trained to deal with stress.”

“And Colin isn’t?”

“He is, but it’s different. Trust me when I say he needs to decompress.”

“He thinks you’re hiding something about your relationship with the Russians aboard this yacht in Heron’s Cove. He didn’t tell me as much, but I can see it.”

She took a roll from the basket and broke it open. “I don’t know, I might wish my secrets were as juicy as all that. I’m an ex-nun, remember?”

“You have work secrets, personal secrets, family secrets. I came to the priesthood already in my thirties, a widower, a man who’d known love. You were just a teenager when you became a postulant.”

“I was in college, living at home. I didn’t move into the convent until I made my first vows as a novice.”

“You were drawn to the focus and containment of convent life. I suspect you were drawn to the FBI for similar reasons. You know who you are in each of those environments. You know what’s expected of you. Life with Colin…” Finian shrugged, half smiled. “I expect it’s messier.”

Emma smiled back at him. “You could say that.” She poured some water and drank it down. “I’m not driving after even just a few sips of this stuff.”

“I see that Mike’s left Colin alone on the docks. I’ll clean up here.”

“Fin…Father Bracken…”

He patted her hand. “Fin is perfect. I’m your friend, Emma. That’s all.”

“It’s a lot. Thank you.”

He finished the small amount of whiskey he had poured for himself as Emma left for the evening. Then he cleaned up and said good-night to the Hurley’s staff. He didn’t see Julianne Maroney. Diners had dwindled to just a few watching a football match at the bar. Finian had concluded early on that he would never follow American football. The game made little sense to him. He preferred Irish hurling and Gaelic football.

The cold air took him by surprise, but he appreciated it after the clams, whiskey, Donovans and Emma, not to mention Julianne Maroney. He descended the steps from the rustic restaurant to the small parking lot. He had allowed himself to overdramatize his brief conversation with the man the other night and then his supposed sighting of him that morning. Finian knew it wasn’t just Colin’s work, his absence, the days of worry among his family and friends that had him on edge. To place blame solely on the Donovans—and Emma—was a disservice to them, and ultimately, he thought, dishonest.

The truth was, his doubts about his role in Rock Point had also contributed to his reaction to the man in the black jacket the other night and again that morning. The newness of life in a small Maine fishing village and his work in the parish had worn off since his arrival in June. He felt foreign and out of place, and more than that, he felt useless. He could never belong in Rock Point the way the Donovans did. He could never follow his own advice to Emma and make a place for himself there. He would always stand apart.

“Bean holes,” he muttered.

But he reminded himself that he wasn’t in Rock Point to belong. He looked up at the sky and saw scattered stars, as sparkling and as bright as any wish he had ever had, and he remembered his faith and his purpose. He laughed to himself, welcoming the prospect of the cold walk back to the rectory.

Mike Donovan rolled up out of the shadows by his truck. “Come on, Father. I’ll give you a ride home.”

Home.
Finian never referred to the rectory as home. It was always “back to the rectory” or “back to St. Patrick’s” for him. Home was Ireland. Home was his and Sally’s cottage in the Iveragh hills.

Perhaps that was another part of why he had latched onto the FBI dramas.

He smiled at Mike. “Are you keeping watch on me, my friend?”

“Yep.” He motioned to the truck. “Climb in.”

“One does always know where one stands with a Donovan.” Finian got into the truck, as spotless as he would have expected of a man as intentional and controlled as Mike Donovan. “I noticed you didn’t overimbibe this evening.”

“Never do,” Mike said, starting the old truck. “You wouldn’t have these whiskey tastings if any of us did. Although if I were Colin, I might curl up with a bottle for a few days. You saw his bruises?”

“I did see them,” Finian said.

“He didn’t get them running into a desk in Washington. I think these Russian gangsters got hold of him. You read about the arrest of Vladimir Bulgov? He ran an international arms trafficking network. I think Colin was in on that.”

Mike pulled out onto the quiet street and drove up to St. Patrick’s with more speed and twists and turns than Finian believed was necessary. The rattling truck didn’t inspire confidence, either.

He held on to the door handle. “Colin hasn’t told you the real nature of his work with the FBI, has he?”

“Nope. He won’t. He’s loosening up some, seeing how we’ve figured it out on our own, but not much. I guess it’s good he can talk to Emma about what happened.” Mike paused, then said, “Think I’m too hard on her, Father?”

“What matters is what you think,” Finian said, dodging that one.

“She’s tougher than she looks. Tougher than you might think, given her background.”

“As a religious sister or as a Sharpe?”

Mike didn’t hesitate. “Both.”

“You might consider the strength it takes to embrace the life of a religious sister.”

“Poverty, chastity and obedience? Poverty I could do. The other two? Nope. Not for me.”

“You’re thinking of these vows in narrow terms.”

“I’m sure I am,” Mike said with a grin.

When Mike pulled in front of the dark church and rectory, Finian suddenly wished he had left on more lights. Any lights, for that matter.

“Thank you for the lift,” he said, opening the truck door. “And thank you again for your help digging bean holes earlier today.”

“Bean holes and tulips.” Mike gave a mock shudder. “I gotta get back up north.”

Finian laughed as he climbed out of the truck, expecting Mike to go on his way. Instead, he got out, too.

He nodded to the small church and rectory. “I’ll take a look around.”

“That’s not necessary. I’m sure I exaggerated—”

“I’ll feel better,” Mike said.

Finian realized further protest would get him nowhere and went with Mike, checking all the doors to the church and both the front and back door to the rectory. They discovered nothing more treacherous than a note from a parishioner with a list of pies being donated for the bean-hole supper. Finian had no idea what the eldest Donovan would do if they had found something amiss, or an intruder hiding in the shrubs, but suspected he was in good hands. In any event, all was well.

“Keep a light on at the front door and back door,” Mike said as they returned to his truck. “And lock up.”

“I will. Thank you, Mike.”

“Anytime.” The dark night brought out the angles of his face so that he looked even more ferocious. “If you get spooked, give a yell. My folks put me up in a room with cross-stitch samplers and rose wallpaper. The other rooms are either occupied or they’re working on them. I wouldn’t mind camping out on your sofa.”

Finian bit back a smile and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you again.”

“No worries.”

Mike got back in his truck and drove off. Finian shivered in the chilly air and went into the rectory, realizing he was in much better spirits than when the evening had started. He thought of his visit with elderly Franny Maroney and smiled, marveling at how two people could look at something with such different eyes. He had convinced himself he had done more harm than good in visiting her, but she had been satisfied, perhaps now on the road to reconciliation with God over her husband’s death.

Then again, Julianne Maroney could have told him what he wanted to hear. But he thought of her banging the water pitcher on the table and scowling at Andy Donovan, and he doubted that it was in her nature to do anything but call things as she saw them.

Finian took a mystery by an Irish writer upstairs with him. He wanted a touch of home. He would take a bath and read into the evening, putting aside any thought of an intruder wandering the streets of Rock Point and Heron’s Cove.

19

EMMA SAT ON a comfortable chair at an angle in front of Colin’s fireplace. His house was warmer, already felt lived-in again. On the walk up from the harbor, he had told her about Finian Bracken’s stranger. Even if Finian had called the local police immediately, they would have needed some luck to find the man who’d approached him, given the vague description. And what would they have done if they had found him? He had merely talked to a priest on a public street.

The description didn’t fit Ivan, at least. Less certain was whether it fit any of the men who had tried to kill Colin in Fort Lauderdale.

Emma could feel his tension as he built a fire, down on one knee. Withdrawing from an undercover mission under the best of circumstances was difficult. In September, he had come home to Sister Joan’s murder. Now, he had come home to more complications from Emma’s past.

“Horner, Yuri and Boris didn’t just disappear,” she said. “We’ll find them. They know you’re not getting them weapons. They know the FBI’s looking for them.”

He struck a wooden match to the kindling. “Are they more afraid of us or of a disappointed buyer? I was taking them to a garage we had under surveillance, playing what came next by ear—”

“You wouldn’t have arrested them until you had their buyer.”

“Not a chance. And I want to know who’s bankrolling them. Their operation is amateurish, opportunistic.”

“That doesn’t make it less lethal,” Emma said.

Colin glanced up at her. “They’re killers. I got away but the next poor bastard they want to shoot and throw overboard might not.”

“I know. We all want the same thing.” She heard a crackle as the fire took hold. “Pete Horner and his men know you’re a federal agent, but they don’t know your name, where you live.”

Colin stood and shut the brass-edged glass fireplace doors. “Would your friend Ivan tell them?”

Emma gave up any pretense with him, too. “Ivan doesn’t tell anyone much.”

“Did he break into Natalie Warren’s house?”

“We should focus on Pete Horner.”

“I am.” Colin watched the fire spread from the rolled-up newspapers to the kindling sticks, the flames reflected in the brass trim of the doors. “I don’t like leaving a mission unfinished.”

“No one’s left anything unfinished. We’re making progress. It just feels slow.”

“You didn’t come across Bulgov’s name when you investigated the disappearance of the Rusakov collection four years ago?”

Emma shook her head. “My grandfather and I were convinced Renee Rusakov had taken it from Dmitri. It was up to Dmitri to decide what to do about it.”

“A personal matter,” Colin said.

“Exactly.”

She eased off the chair and sat on the floor in front of the fire. She stretched out her legs, her boots still on. She was tempted to take them off but wasn’t sure she would be staying.

Colin remained on his feet, staring at the fire.

“I love this time of year,” she said. “The leaves falling, the nights turning cool. It’ll be Thanksgiving before we know it.”

He pulled his gaze from the fire, as if he were making a conscious effort to focus on something besides the missing arms traffickers. “Where are you spending Thanksgiving?” he asked, sitting next to her on the floor.

“I don’t know yet. We used to always spend Thanksgiving in Heron’s Cove. If it wasn’t too icy, we’d walk on the rocks together, check out tide pools and watch the birds. My father can’t do that anymore, with his back. He and my mother are in London for the year, and Granddad’s in Dublin. He hasn’t been back to Heron’s Cove in ages.” Emma realized Colin had moved very close to her, their hips almost touching. “What about you?”

“I’ve spent every Thanksgiving in Rock Point.”

“You were piecing together Bulgov’s network last year.”

“We didn’t zero in on him as our primary target until spring. I was on the outer fringes of his network at Thanksgiving.” Colin studied the fire a moment. “Bulgov’s a charmer. A lethal, amoral charmer.”

“But he’s talking,” Emma said, half speculating.

“Not enough.”

“What’s Pete Horner like?”

“He’s a devil-may-care pilot who’s bounced around for years and saw his chance at the brass ring when Bulgov was arrested.”

“He thought you were an easy route to weapons.” Emma, too, found herself staring at the flames. “He and his Russian friends decide it’s too risky to trust a turncoat FBI agent and try to kill you. Instead you escape, and then you come home to Dmitri Rusakov and this wild tale about a Russian Art Nouveau collection.”

“That’s it in a nutshell.”

Emma felt the heat from the fire. “Colin…I don’t want to complicate your life because I’m a Sharpe.”

“Too late,” he said lightly, then glanced around the small room with its dark wood ceiling beams, white walls and deep neutral furnishings. “My folks will have us all to the inn for Thanksgiving, but I could do a decent gathering here. This isn’t a bad room.”

“It’s a great room,” Emma said.

“How would you decorate it? What color would you paint the walls?”

“You know that sort of thing doesn’t matter to me—”

“It matters to me. What you want. Who you are.” He turned to her, the fire reflected in the smoke-gray of his eyes. “You won’t be able to stay in Heron’s Cove once renovations pick up. It’s hard enough to stay there now. You know the house won’t be the same once it’s finished.”