Heron's Cove (33 page)

Horner looked as if he could bang his head against a wall. Colin didn’t blame him.

“I want a deal. The guys you’re after are badasses. Why do you think Yuri, Boris and I went along with Natalie’s crazy scheme? We needed to keep these bastards happy. They want their weapons.”

“You should have stayed a pilot, Horner.”

“I know.” He gave another hollow, fatalistic laugh. “I don’t even like guns.”

26

“CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM BACTERIA,” Matt Yankowski said as he swallowed some of the Talisker 18 year old that Finian Bracken had dropped off at Colin’s house in Rock Point, on the assumption that he would be having company. Yank stood in front of the cold fireplace. “It produces the deadliest toxins nature has to offer. A little over a pound is enough to kill every human being on the planet.” He glanced at Colin, also standing, also with a glass of Talisker. “It’s a good thing you Donovans are suspicious types. You’re rubbing off on Father Bracken. How did he take his near-poisoning?”

“Reasonably well. He wasn’t keen on the attack on Wendell and Lucas Sharpe at Bracken Distillers. Fin’s brother, Declan, was there. He doesn’t like thinking Declan could have been caught in the crossfire or dispatched as an unacceptable loose end.”

“‘Dispatched’? He said that?”

Colin almost smiled. “Fin’s word choice.”

After dropping off the Talisker, Finian had returned to St. Patrick’s for a church meeting but planned to be at Hurley’s later.

Colin didn’t know yet if he’d be there.

Yank seemed to sense his mood. “You’re a Donovan and Emma’s a Sharpe,” he said, splashing more Talisker in his glass. “That’s not going to change. It won’t matter if you go behind a desk or if you go on another deep-cover mission. Your worlds will collide again.”

Colin shook his head. “They won’t. I’m out.”

He polished off the last of his Scotch. It was smoky, spicy, with notes of burned heather and the taste of sea salt—at least according to Finian. Colin’s palate wasn’t that discerning yet. He didn’t know if it ever would be. He just liked what he liked.

And it beat thinking about his situation…how damn close his family, his Irish priest friend, Emma and her Russian friends had all come to dying earlier that day.

Because of him. His work.

It was late afternoon, already dark. Emma was still in Heron’s Cove with the FBI and Maine state police.

Horner had continued to talk. He was hoping to cut a deal, or he just didn’t care anymore now that the brass ring had slipped from his grasp. Boris and Yuri were in custody, not talking. They had served as fill-in bodyguards for Vladimir Bulgov from time to time but had never been part of his inner circle.

Their buyer was a violent paramilitary group based in the Southwest, primarily composed of mercenaries for drug cartels. Vladimir Bulgov had never done business with them. Yank had already pointed out that there would have been no finding them or stopping Horner if Colin hadn’t gone undercover again in October.

Mission accomplished. Time to move on.

“You need a break,” Yank said. “You’ve been overdue for a while.”

“I need a new life.” Colin lifted a duffel bag he’d packed in haste before Finian had arrived with the Talisker. “Help yourself to more Scotch and whatever’s in the fridge.”

“What are you going to do in Ireland?”

“I didn’t say—”

Yank nodded toward the kitchen. “I saw the ticket printout on the counter.”

“I have to get my head screwed on straight. The past few days…” Colin cleared his throat. “I should have leveled with my brothers.”

“You weren’t cleared to provide the kind of leveling you’re talking about, and they weren’t cleared to hear it. Hindsight can be a great teacher, but it can also be misleading, make us harder on ourselves than we need to be. Still…” Yank helped himself to more of the Talisker. “Makes sense to put an ocean between you and the Donovan clan after this mess. Not that they blame you for the attack on Andy, the poisoned cider, almost getting killed yourself.”

“I know that. It doesn’t mean I’m not responsible.”

“Take a break, then. Go to Ireland and drink whiskey and look for leprechauns. I said on Saturday morning before you even got back here that you need time.” Yank set his Scotch glass on the coffee table and stood straight, leveled his dark gaze on Colin. “Emma?”

Just hearing her name made Colin’s throat tighten. “She’s a Sharpe. You knew that when you recruited her.” He managed a smile. “Good luck with that.”

“We’ll see what’s what when you get back.”

“Mike’s got a boat on the Bold Coast. Captain Colin tours. Nice ring to it, isn’t there? Come up sometime. I’ll take you out to see the puffins.”

“What the hell’s a puffin?”

“It’s a bird, Yank.”

“And I’d have to take a boat ride to see one? Forget it. Crawling through the
Nightingale,
as fancy as it is, didn’t make me like boats any better.” He corked the bottle of Talisker. “I used to think Lucy and I were lifers. I don’t know that we are. Our marriage has always been conditional, and right now, she doesn’t like the conditions.”

“Give her time.”

“How much time?”

“As much as she needs.”

“You and Emma are lifers, Colin. You just don’t know it yet.”

“Lifers, Yank? Sounds like a prison sentence.”

“It means that you belong together. You’ll be together until you’re both sitting here by the fire drinking Bracken Distillers’ finest and recounting what happened the past few days as if it were yesterday.”

Colin walked over to the front door. It wasn’t like Matt Yankowski to get philosophical, to comment on one of his agents’ romantic life. But they’d been through a lot together over the past four years, and they’d become friends.

“I’m right,” Yank said.

He was, Colin realized. He and Emma belonged together. He just didn’t know if it was the right thing—for her.

There was no question in his mind that it was right for him.

Yank sighed. “It’s been a rough couple of months, with Sister Joan’s murder and now this mess with Dmitri Rusakov, this collection, arms trafficking. See what happens after you’ve cleansed your soul or whatever it is you plan to do in Ireland.”

“Cleansed my soul?”

“You’re the one who’s friends with an Irish priest and sleeping with an ex-nun.”

Colin grinned and left. It was dusk, the air still and colder than he had expected.

Finian Bracken eased in next to him halfway to Hurley’s and walked with him the rest of the way. Yank, Colin knew, would go on to Heron’s Cove.

“I brought danger here,” Colin said without looking at Finian. “It wasn’t Emma. She was dealing with a spat over a Russian Art Nouveau collection. I was the one dealing with killers.”

Finian’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t Natalie Warren the one who came here with the collection, and isn’t she under arrest for poisoning those jugs of apple cider?”

“Only because she was mixed up with my killers.”

“You’re in no mood for a logical argument. I’ve emailed you directions to the cottage Sally and I renovated. The key is under the purple flowerpot.”

Colin slowed his pace and glanced at his Irish friend. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you need somewhere quiet and beautiful to stay while you’re in Ireland.” Finian smiled. “I recognized the Aer Lingus shamrock when I dropped off the Talisker.”

“No secrets in this town.”

“So I’ve discovered. You’re welcome to stay at the cottage however long you’d like. If you get bored, there’s some work you could do around the place—”

“What kind of work?”

“Painting, tightening this and that. I’ve a short list. When’s your flight?”

“Tonight. If I don’t go now…” He looked up at the starlit sky, pictured himself on the southwest Irish coast. “Then I won’t go, and that’s not a good idea.”

“You haven’t told Emma?”

Colin shook his head without comment.

“She will find you, Colin, but not through me,” Finian said. “I will keep your confidence.”

When they reached the waterfront, Finian went into Hurley’s alone while Colin walked down to the docks, the tide rising but barely making a sound. He could hear his brothers’ laughter. Andy wasn’t cleared to drink whiskey yet but he was there.

Colin felt the pressure in his chest, the tightness of emotion. He had a great family. He was damn lucky.

He walked out to the end of the pier and dialed Emma. She didn’t pick up. She was still holed up with her colleagues, or maybe Yank had arrived. He waited for her voice mail, shut his eyes at the sound of her voice.

“I have to go away for a while,” he said. “I’ll be in touch. I love you, babe.”

He didn’t know what else to say.

When he walked back to Hurley’s, Mike was waiting by the steps. “Come on. I’ve got my truck. I’ll give you a ride to wherever you’re going.”

“Ireland.”

His older brother’s mouth twitched in something like a smile. “To the airport, then.”

“You hate the city.”

“I’ll be back on the Bold Coast soon. Let’s go, brother.” As they started across the parking lot, Mike glanced at Colin. “We don’t have to talk on the way.”

“Suits me.”

“I thought it might.”

* * *

Matt Yankowski was waiting on the back porch of the Sharpe house when Emma walked up from the pier where she had been looking at the stars sprinkling a dark, clear sky. The
Nightingale
was still moored at the yacht club, its owner and crew recovering in the hospital.

“I like the cabinets you picked out,” Yank said, nodding toward the kitchen.

She sank onto the rail. “Don’t try to make me laugh.”

“I’m not. I’m serious. I figure I have a stake in how this place turns out now that I’ve had a tac team go through here searching for poisons and such.” He stood at the rail next to her, facing the water. “How are your brother and grandfather?”

“I called again a couple of hours ago. They were in the middle of a whiskey tasting with Declan Bracken. They’re okay.” She took a breath. “How are things in Rock Point?”

“Does anything ever change there?”

“You have to know what to look for,” she said with a smile.

“Colin sometimes makes quick decisions,” Yank said without looking at her. “He goes with his gut, which doesn’t usually let him down.”

Emma eased off the rail. Her side ached where Yuri had hit her, and she flashed on running her fingertips along Colin’s much-worse bruises. She felt heat rush to her cheeks and was glad for the cool air and darkness, especially with Yank watching her.

“Colin’s trying to make it to Boston in time to catch a flight to Ireland,” she said.

Yank raised his eyebrows. “He called you?”

“Well, yes and no, but I have my sources.” She smiled. “Mike Donovan texted me.”

“Not Father Bracken?”

“He’s sworn to secrecy.”

“No guilt in that grin of yours, Emma. I think you have these Donovan brothers beat.”

“Or vice versa, maybe.”

Yank looked down toward the
Nightingale,
partially lit against the dark night. “Your pal Ivan took off before the police and ambulance arrived at Tatiana Pavlova’s cottage.” Yank shifted his gaze back to Emma. “He made sure she would be okay first.”

“He hadn’t drunk any of the poisoned cider.”

“Either that or he keeps botulism antitoxin in his wallet.”

Emma wouldn’t be surprised if he did. “I’ve been going over everything in my mind, and we both know that none of this would have happened if the arts crimes expert on your team wasn’t a Sharpe.”

“Colin said the same thing about himself. You knew Dmitri Rusakov before Colin ever went undercover. Colin would have been killed or rounded up smaller players or taken longer and more arms would have ended up in the wrong hands if I hadn’t gone to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart and met you that day four years ago.”

“Did you know back then that there was a Sharpe-Rusakov connection?”

“I don’t remember if I knew then or found out, but I knew before you went to London to look into the disappearance of this Rusakov collection. I don’t have a crystal ball, Emma. I just pick good people. Your connections coupled with your knowledge, experience and temperament make you a valuable agent.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“A lot of fish in the Sharpe sea,” he said.

“You put in a line—through me—and see what you catch.”

He sighed. “I wish it were that simple, or that easy. Don’t start turning into a cynic, Emma. It’s not your nature. Your fresh, open look at the world—at your work—is an asset, not a liability.”

She angled him a smile. “Does that mean I’m not fired?”

“Why would I fire you?”

“For being a Sharpe,” she said without hesitation.

He shook his head as if he had no clue what she was talking about.

Emma crossed her arms against a cool breeze off the water. “What about Colin? What’s next for him?”

Yank grimaced. “That’s what he needs to decide on this trip to Ireland. He needs to get his head screwed on straight. It’s hard to do with you around.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“It’s the way it is.”

She didn’t argue with him. “Natalie hooked up with some dangerous men. At first she thought she was just falling for a sexy pilot. After Bulgov’s arrest, when she realized Pete Horner and his Russian friends could pick up the pieces of their boss’s arms trafficking network, she couldn’t resist.”

“She thought she could handle them,” Yank said.

“The real question was whether they could handle her. They wanted Colin’s orphaned weapons—”

“Which didn’t exist.”

Emma nodded. “And they’d have killed him either way.” She paused, but Yank made no comment; she felt another breeze as she continued. “Natalie wanted Dmitri to buy the collection back from her, but that money became essential once Colin escaped. They needed it to buy weapons and keep their buyers happy, get their foothold as illegal arms merchants.”

“She was drawn to the danger, glamor and sexiness of her idea of arms trafficking,” Yank said, thoughtful. “She wanted to be a player and she used what leverage she had available to her.”