Irish Eyes (Stolen Hearts Romance) (6 page)

She raised her eyes to the imposing figure standing framed in the doorway. “I’m sorry, Craig wasn’t trying to make fun of you or your work. ”

“Fun? Maybe not. But you don’t need to be making any apologies for him not being won over by my charms too willingly, lovely Miss Reed.” Cameron’s features softened he moved toward her until he had lowered his head and his mouth was inches from her ear. His voice came low and intimate, as if sharing a secret with an old friend. “You see, while you’re trying to do the work of a hundred angels, your assistant is trying to do the work of only one… your guardian angel.”

“Look, Blarney Bill, don’t start any rumors going around about Julia and me.” Craig bristled, his bony shoulders taut. He dragged his fingers back through his hair. “I have a girlfriend, thank you very much. I’m just looking out for Julia.”

Cameron’s compelling green eyes shifted to meet the narrowed gaze of her assistant. Cameron tipped his head, acknowledging Craig’s behavior, perhaps even admiring it. “As well you should. You’ve already had one mishap with a counterfeit police officer. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice—”

“And bang, you’re dead.” Craig wound his arms over his chest. “That’s how serious this is, isn’t it, O’Dea?”

Julia stiffened. Cameron soothed her jangled nerves with a single, focused glance. “You’re safe with me, Miss Reed. Let me assure you of that.”

“But for how long?” Craig stubbed the toe of his shoe against the desk leg. “People have done some pretty awful things for a lot less than what’s in that safe. When this Shaughnessy comes looking for Julia, it won’t be to dance a little
jig”

“He’s already taken your nephew.” Emotion made Julia’s usually strong voice fade to a faraway whisper. Cameron had told her the quick story of how he had taken a leave of absence from his work to try to find the gold once and for all. When he and his twelve-year-old nephew had followed a very improbable clue, they stumbled onto the gold. After reburying the coins, Cameron had to find a better spot to call for police backup. Shaughnessy had been posing as a police officer all over the city to keep tabs on O’Dea and had apparently intercepted the dispatch request on a police scanner.

Julia cleared her throat and managed to speak a little louder. “He knows I’m a witness to kidnapping, even if he doesn’t realize I found the gold.”

“As I explained, Shaughnessy didn’t know we’d actually found the gold. I just asked for assistance of the police. I intended to get my nephew out of there, then post a guard as I dug the gold up again.”

“But—"Julia scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “What if Shaughnessy makes your nephew tell him?”

Pain and guilt flashed in Cameron’s green eyes at that suggestion. “He wouldn’t dare harm the boy.”

“But he might dare harm Julia,” Craig argued like a dog with a bone.

“Especially if he puts two and two together and concludes that I unearthed the coins.” She was thinking aloud more than giving voice to any fears. “It wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“Yeah. You did,” Craig muttered to the tall man dominating the room.

“Shaughnessy won’t get to Miss Reed.” Cameron’s voice rose with authority

“How can you be so sure?” Craig raised an eyebrow.

“Because I won’t let him.”

The hard, no-nonsense phrase hung in the air like the ring warning gunshot.

The three waited, each eyeing the other. No one wanted to break the brittle silence. The tension around them charged the dry air so that it felt as if one sound might set off a spark that could ignite an explosion of emotion.

Julia’s heartbeat throbbed in her temples and thudded in her ears. Her hands tangled in her lap, winding tighter and tighter together until her skin burned and her knuckles ached.

Cameron’s gaze held steady, unyielding.

Finally, she had to say something. “I have lived my life asking people to trust in my help, Mr. O’Dea. I think it’s time I show I can do what I ask of others.” She stood and faced him, her arms folding over her chest as if that could still her pounding heart. “Tell me what we have to do to get your nephew back safely.”

*

Shortly before noon, Cameron pulled his car up to the shelter again. Once he had obtained Julia’s cooperation in this adventure gone awry, he’d had to act fast. First he’d had to spirit away the gold and place it in a place both secret and secure. Only he and his direct supervisor knew the hideaway.

That made Julia useless to Michael as a guide to the treasure. Nothing he had learned about or sensed from Julia made him think she would reveal anything. But he also could not take the chance that she might give the location away by accident or out of some misplaced idea that her involvement could turn the tables for Devin.

Then, he’d had to gather all the information and equipment he would need for the mission. He’d already made one slip up going in unprepared. He would not be so careless again.
He rubbed his tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Sleep had evaded him last night. But then, he doubted he would rest much at all until Devin and that gold were safely where they belonged.

The car door let out a long metallic creak as he nudged it open with his shoulder. He’d hoped Julia would be waiting for him on the sidewalk outside St. Patrick’s. She’d promised to give him a full hour of her precious time to go over things with him in her office, with Craig Davis lurking about, no doubt.

That’s why Cameron had insisted they meet outside the shelter over lunch—an invitation he did not extend to her assistant.

Julia’s reticence to spend time alone with him had prompted him to include Devin’s mother in the meeting. It would be good for Fiona to get out instead of waiting and worrying on her own. It also saved him the trouble of repeating his plan separately to both women. Cameron checked his watch. If Julia didn’t show up in a couple of minutes, he’d have to go in and drag her away from the latest emergency good deed that she thought only she could attend to. He had to smile at her tenacity and go-get-’em attitude, but he wondered if she didn’t get weary trying to take on so much. And now he and his little family scandal had added to her workload.

He drummed his fingers on the roof of his sedan, tempted to march inside and tell Julia he didn’t need her help after all. The nerve-jangling trill of his phone kept him from doing it. He slid back behind the wheel and answered, “O’Dea here.”

“Uncle Cam?”

“Devin!” He gripped the phone receiver so hard edge cut into his palm. “Devin, lad, where are you?”

“Now, you know I can’t be lettin’ him tell you that, Cam, old man.”
Michael Shaughnessy’s voice dripped sarcasm and contempt even through the phone’s speaker.

The sound brought a weighted chill to the pit of Cameron’s stomach. “How did you get this number, Michael?”

“We called Mom first, Uncle Cam. She gave it to us. I hope it’s okay”

“Of course it’s okay” Shaughnessy chimed in. “Your Uncle Cam just loves hearing from you, son. Just as I’d love to hear from him. Especially if he has gold news…I mean
good
news… for me.”

“I’m telling you, Michael, if you harm one hair on the head of that boy—”

“I’m okay, Uncle Cam. Uncle Mike understands that I don’t know where the gold is and he isn’t pushing me to tell him anything.”

“I see.” The knot in his stomach eased a bit.

“It’s just like being on one of those fishing trips he used to take me on,” Devin chattered, oddly chipper. “Except no fish.”

“No fish?” Though his heart wasn’t in it, Cameron needed to find a way to comfort the boy, to make things seem under control. “That’s not so different from your usual fishing trips.”

Fishing trips. Cameron’s mind raced as the boy laughed at his lame joke. Was Devin giving him a hint as to their whereabouts? He made a mental note to have every nearby pond and camping area checked. Michael would not get too far from the gold at this stage, Cameron was sure.

“I just don’t want you to worry about me, Uncle Cam. Uncle Mike let me talk to Mom a long time and she knows I’m okay,” Devin went on.

“Devin, I want you to know, I will do everything I can to get you home to your Mom as soon as possible."

“Everything?” A slippery quality permeated Michael’s tone. “Does that include handing over what’s rightfully mine?”

Cameron clamped his jaw down so tight he could hear his back teeth grind together.

“Well, Cam?” Michael pushed.

“You know I don’t have the gold, Michael.” Not on him, at least.

“But when you get it—and that will be soon, I suspect—I wonder if you’d be willing to part with it in exchange for Devin’s safe return?”

Devin’s safe return. The evil implications pricked at Cameron’s imagination. “So that’s it, then. You’ve officially reduced yourself to threatening your own godson—the child you swore you would love and protect as your own flesh and blood. And for what, Michael? Money? Fulfillment of some legend based on a kind of twisted logic?”

“I would never hurt Devin. Never.”

Deep in his heart, Cameron trusted the vehemence of that claim. He had to cling to the hope that the Michael he had once known and loved like his own brother would keep that promise. He had to try to reach that man. “Then let Devin go, Michael. Keep this between you and me.”

“It can never just be between the two of us, Cam, and you know it. It’s for Devin I’m doing this, for his future.”

“Devin’s future does not lie in that gold.”

“I think otherwise, and when you find it—”

“If
I find it,” Cameron corrected.

“When
you find it. You will find it. I know you’re close now. That’s why, when I saw my opportunity to take Devin, I didn’t hesitate. I knew you were closing in on the treasure and I needed an edge. I didn’t do it to hurt the boy.”

“It hurts him to be away from his mother."

“Then find the gold so he can go home to her.” A detached frostiness tinged Michael’s words.

Cameron shuddered to realize that the corruption of his old friend had run so deep. “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

Michael laughed. “Just keep enjoying my little
fishing
expedition, I suppose.”

“Let Devin go,” he urged again, praying his appeal would not go unheeded.

“Find the gold.”

Cameron closed his eyes against the searing pain of his failure to touch the soul of his former friend.

“Oh, and Cam,” Michael added, his voice lowering, “I’ve been one step behind for a long time, old man. So don’t be too surprised if, just as you reach down to snatch up one of those beautiful golden coins, ’tis my shadow that falls across your back.”

And the call ended. Shadow across your back? It sounded like a threat. Michael was threatening him. Devin might be safe with the man, but was anyone else? Could Michael have sunk so low he would harm Cameron? And what danger was Julia in now? That would not stand. He had promised her that he would keep her safe. He had failed Devin, he would not fail Julia.

*

“Now I know how a worm feels when it’s dangling from a fishhook.”

“Quit squirming, lass, or you’ll know how a worm feels when it gets stuck on a fishhook.” Cameron closed the sharp pin into the latch then leaned back in the driver’s seat of his car to admire the small golden pin he’d placed on her sweater. “Besides, you’re not the bait in this little plan of mine, I am.”

“If I’m not the bait, then why are you tagging me like some animal about to be released into the wild?” She pressed her chin to her chest to get a glimpse of the pin.

“It’s just a tiny tracking device.” Cameron held the tracking receiver in the palm of his hand. A whisk and several muted clicks filled the air as he adjusted the high tech gizmo’s antenna. He pointed it toward the pin and a green light went berserk with blinking. He turned the wiggling sensor away from the pin and on came a steady red light. “Everything seems to be in order. Don’t worry.”

“An agent of Interpol is about to monitor my every movement just in case I fall into the clutches of some loony with leprechaun gold fever and you say don’t worry.” She batted her eyes at him. “Any other advice?”

The wind teased her long curls through the barely open car window. The brisk late-winter breeze brought a glow to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. Behind her, along the busy street outside his choice of restaurant, an honest to goodness Irish Pub in Covington, Kentucky, right across the river from Cincy. The noon lunch crowd shuffled and scurried in the bright sunlight, oblivious to the secret goings-on in the nondescript brown sedan.

Cameron did not feel such detachment. Already in his quest to clear his family name, he had placed an innocent loved one at risk—and that person had gotten snared in the process. He would not let Julia fall victim to his carelessness as Devin had.

An icy cold filled the bottom of his stomach, a gloomy fog shrouded his thoughts. Why hadn’t he sent Devin home first, then returned to see if they’d actually found the hiding spot of the gold? He told himself he hadn’t really believed the gold could lie in such an obvious place, but his heart knew that impatience had won out. Pride had won out. Even greed, not to possess the money, but to seize his goal at long last, had won out.