Now You See Him

v1.5

July 2007

Prologue
 
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"They're going to kill him!" Caitlin Dugan pushed past Frances Neeley's partially open door into the Greenwich Village apartment.

Francey knew Caitlin better than she wanted to and was far too accustomed to her fits of melodrama. She simply continued toweling her hair, wishing she hadn't gone to the trouble of getting out of her bath to come face-to-face with Caitlin's hysteria. "What are you talking about?" she asked patiently, planting herself in Caitlin's way. She didn't want the woman to see the apartment, or it might precipitate an even greater crisis.

Her converted loft was set for seduction. Francey and her distant cousin Patrick Dugan were going to make love that night, after weeks and months of careful courtship. He'd finally been able to break down her resistance, her natural reluctance to surrender. And for some reason it had always seemed like a surrender. But finally, tonight, she was ready. Once Patrick returned from the demonstration they were going to celebrate in truly memorable style, he'd promised her, kissing her before he left. And she'd told herself that she'd waited long enough—if she really loved him, there was no reason to wait any longer. Was there?

But Caitlin was an oddly possessive sister, jealous where she had no moral, Catholic right to be. She wouldn't like the notion of Francey and Patrick going to bed together. She wouldn't like the notion of anyone coming close to her brother. And her expected protest would only strengthen Francey's lingering doubts.

But Caitlin was uninterested in either the apartment or Francey. '"They're going to kill Patrick!" she shrieked. "Did you talk to anybody? Tell them anything you shouldn't?" She grabbed the lapels of Francey's terry-cloth bathrobe in her sharp little hands, yanking at her. "Did you turn him in
, you traitorous bitch?"

Francey shoved her away, wiping the angry spittle off her face. "You must be absolutely crazy," she said, disgust and pity mixed. "I don't have the faintest idea what you're ranting about. You know as well as I do that Patrick's at the anti-British demonstrations while the Queen speaks at the UN And why aren't you there, for that matter? Don't you care about a free Ireland?"

"Don't give me that. Patrick hasn't gone to waste his time shouting slogans. The time for that passed decades ago. Why the hell do you think he borrowed your car? He wouldn't need a quick getaway from a simple demonstration." The green eyes in her narrow, pointed face were bright with contempt.

"What are you talking about?"

"Patrick's gone to kill that royal bitch. Then maybe they'll pay attention. But some dirty sneaking traitor has ratted on him, and he's going to be shot down like a dog."

Horror overcame Francey's shocked disbelief. "No!" she said, unable to push her doubt away. With sudden clarity, she realized that beneath Patrick's rich Irish charm was a streak of fanaticism that ran deeper than she'd ever wanted to admit. "But he's coming back here…"

"Of course he is," Caitlin scoffed. "He's coming back to screw you, get you to marry him and then get back into Ireland using you as a cover. You must have said something, told someone, you stupid idiot…"

"I didn't talk to anyone," she said numbly. This isn't happening, she thought, pulling the robe more tightly around her. It can't be…

"Get your clothes on."

"Why?"

"You're coming with me. Maybe we have a chance to save him. You love him, don't you?" she demanded, her voice full of contempt. "You were about to go to bed with him, you wanted to marry him and donate all your money to the bloody cause, didn't you? Get dressed!" she shrieked.

It took Francey less than two minutes to pull on jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, ignoring the silky lingerie she'd bought in preparation for tonight, ignoring the perfumed scent of her bathwater. Even if she hadn't wanted to go, she would have had no choice. Caitlin was fierce and dangerous, and Francey was no match for her kind of dirty street fighting.

She didn't recognize the car Caitlin had waiting outside. She didn't bother to ask where it came from—she didn't want to know the answer. They drove through the New York streets like any New Yorker—with speed and desperation. The streets surrounding the UN were blocked off, as usual, and Caitlin simply left the car standing in the middle of Forty-eighth Street, grabbing Francey's wrist and dragging her toward the huge modern complex of buildings.

They could hear the noise of the demonstration from a distance. There were television cameras everywhere, noise and light and confusion. In the swirling mass of angry demonstrators there was no sign of Patrick, no sign of his broad, smiling face, his charming green eyes, his warmth. He couldn't be a murderer, Francey thought. Caitlin must have been doing drugs. She must have finally flipped. She must…

"There he is," Caitlin breathed, stopping short, her Irish lilt rich with satisfaction. "They haven't seen him yet. There's still a chance."

Francey peered into the shifting crowds, squinting against the glare of the television lights amidst the mass of media equipment. "Where? I don't see him."

"Maybe we'll still be able to pull this off. Move over there and keep your mouth shut. We'll watch and see what happens."

The hard prick of a knife against her baggy sweatshirt left Francey with no choice but to go along. "He can't really mean to kill her?" she said, stumbling slightly as she searched for a thread of normalcy beneath all this horror.

"Oh, can't he just? And you'll get to witness it, or you'll get this between your ribs, and trust me, I've done it often enough to know what I'm doing. I'll make it deadly, and I'll make it hurt."

Francey didn't doubt her for one moment. "Aren't you going to try to warn him? He won't get away with it…"

"It won't matter. He'll die gloriously, a worthy death for any Irishman, to die for the cause."

"He's your brother, for God's sake! How can you watch him die?"

"He's not my brother. Oh, he's some sort of kin—all Dugans are related to each other. He's my lover, and has been since I was thirteen." Caitlin pushed her face against Francey, and there was a look of pure hatred on her pale, Celtic face. "It was my plan to have him seduce you and get all your wonderful American money. He was going to come to me afterward and tell me all the details."

Francey didn't move. "I don't believe you."

"Believe me. He's not your distant cousin, darlin'. He's not some charming Irish expatriate. He needs your money, he needs your protection, and he doesn't give a damn about the spawn of Sean Neeley and the rich American bitch he married. Screwing you was the frosting on the cake."

They were huddled against a building on First Avenue, across from the UN, across from the demonstration. The motorcade that was pulling up could signal only one thing, and the sudden increase in activity from the crowd, the television crews, and the security people was ominous.

"There he goes," Caitlin breathed, and if she hadn't said anything Francey would never have seen him. It happened so quickly. She could just make out Patrick, the lithe, strong body she'd ached for, blending in with the scaffolding on one of the light platforms. But no one else was looking in his direction, not even Caitlin, momentarily distracted by her anticipation. Everyone else was concentrating on the Queen's arrival.

It was Francey's only chance, and she took it without stopping to think. She shoved hard, knocking Caitlin off balance. The knife went skittering away on the sidewalk, and Caitlin's slender body went tumbling in front of a slow-moving limousine. But not slowly enough.

"Watch out!" Francey screamed, not sure who she was warning, Patrick or the security people, Caitlin or the driver of the limousine.

It didn't matter. Her call signaled the onset of a bloodbath. Patrick began spraying the crowded plaza with bullets, a look of monstrous delight on the face she'd thought she loved. He was so intent he didn't notice another figure climbing a scaffold near him until it was almost too late. Something must have alerted him, for he turned the gun in time to mow down the man who'd almost reached him. But not quite soon enough. As the man lay writhing on the scaffold his hand moved, and Patrick went plummeting off his own platform, into the crowd below. As he fell, Francey could see the blood spurting from the hole in the middle of his forehead, in his beautiful, soulless face.

She started screaming then, the sound swallowed up by the hysteria around her. She simply sank onto the sidewalk, wrapped her arms around her legs and continued to scream until her voice dried up, her mind shrank, and everything went mercifully blank.

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Francey let her long toes wriggle into the hot white sand. They were her one beauty, she thought dispassionately. How many people could say they had beautiful toes? And considering that she'd lived most of her life in chilly northern climates, few people had had the chance to appreciate the one gift nature had given her.

Here on the tiny island of St. Anne in the blue Caribbean she seldom wore shoes at all, and when she had to, she made to do with leather thongs. Still, no strange men were falling all over her, rhapsodizing about her toes. Which was just as well. She wasn't going to be ready to have any men falling all over her for quite a while. If ever.

She'd been lucky so far. In the time she'd been staying in her cousin's secluded villa, he'd sent very few people to intrude on her healing process. A couple of elderly women who'd just lost their husbands, a college student breaking away from drugs and an unhealthy relationship, a middle-aged woman facing cancer with remarkable courage. All broken birds, traveling to the peace and serenity of Daniel Travers's rambling colonial cottage. All of them eventually left, their healing processes begun. All but Francey, who stayed behind, walking alone in the sand, waiting for her own healing to start.

But today her luck had run out. Arriving on the evening flight from Boston was the first man Daniel had inflicted on her, and there was nothing Francey could do but accept with as much grace as she could muster. After all, she had no place else to go. At least, no place that she could face. The whitewashed walls of the villa, the wide boundaries of Daniel's land and private beaches, were all the world she cared to deal with. And if she had to share that world with another one of Daniel's charity cases, then share it she would.

It wasn't as if she weren't a charity case herself. Not financially, of course. Her personal fortune, while not in the league of Daniel Travers's, was respectable enough to keep her from having to worry. But emotionally she was as dependent as a welfare mother, and Daniel knew that.

Besides, the new arrival wasn't likely to make many demands. Michael Dowd was a semi-invalid from somewhere in the south of England, a man who was recovering from a near fatal auto crash. The hospitals had done the bulk of the work over the past few months. Now he just needed sunshine and rest, something the villa could easily provide. It was named Belle Reste for just that reason, and Francey could no more resent the intrusion than she could welcome it.

She would have to leave for the plane soon enough, using the absurd, pink-awninged Jeep Daniel had provided, but until then she was going to treasure the last moments of her solitude.

Maybe she should have pushed it. Maybe she should have forced herself to face the debacle her life had become, forced herself to deal with it. She'd been coasting on a mindless, dreamless breeze, the dark shadows left behind in New York. She'd thought there was no hurry, but Michael Dowd was about to prove otherwise. The presence of any man was going to force her to deal with things she would rather keep ignoring.