The Mist (2 page)

"I wouldn't have taken you for a woman who likes to sleep in a tent," he said, with the barest hint of humor.

In fact, she thought, he was right. It would take more than a suspicious British spy to get her to sleep in a tent in any weather. Not that she hadn't, or couldn't, or wouldn't if she needed to--but she'd have to have good reason. Wind, rain, rocks, uneven ground, no indoor plumbing. She wasn't fussy, but she did like the basics.

She got to her feet. Her walking shoes, which she'd bought
before leaving Dublin that morning and scuffed up to make them look less new, had toes shaped like a duck's bill. They were ugly but comfortable and, supposedly, indestructible.

"The gale's dying down already." She tried her smile again on Davenport, but it had no visible effect. "I haven't heard the windows rattle in the last ten minutes."

"You're American. Where are you from?"

"Las Vegas." Arguably true, given her lifestyle. There was a Rush hotel in Las Vegas, and she'd spent a great deal of time there.

"Is this your first trip to Ireland?"

"No, but it's my first visit to the Beara Peninsula." Lizzie turned the book of folktales to the front-cover illustration of a lush, magical-looking glen with fairies frolicking in the green. "Keira Sullivan has a talent for painting places that people can believe, want to believe, are real. Do
you
believe in fairies, Lord Will?"

"It's just Will. I allow Eddie his fun. What's your name?"

She didn't want to get into names. "I should go," she said, slipping the book into her backpack and leaving enough euros on the table to cover her tab.

Will said nothing as she hoisted her pack onto one shoulder. The dog looked up at her with his big brown eyes, and she leaned over to him and whispered,
"Slan a fhagail ag duine."
Which, if she remembered correctly, was Irish for some kind of goodbye. She liked to think it was a phrase her Irish-born mother would have taught her if she'd lived.

The local men watched her from their tables, Eddie O'Shea from behind the bar, all of them accustomed, she thought, to the routines of their lives. Farm, sea, village, church, family. They'd all come up in the talk Lizzie had overheard. Her own life had few such routines, and she doubted Will Davenport's did, either.

She grabbed her jacket off the peg by the door and pulled it
on, zipping it up as the men at the tables roared with laughter at a story one was telling. Why not stay and sit by the fire for the evening and never mind why she'd come to Ireland and this tiny, out-of-the way village?

But that, of course, was impossible.

She headed outside. The wind and rain had eased, leaving behind a fine, persistent mist. She dug out her cell phone and saw she had two text messages from her cousin Jeremiah, the third-born of her Rush cousins. He worked at the Whitcomb, her family's hotel in Boston. He was tawny-haired, blue-eyed and good-looking and claimed, as his brothers did, that Lizzie had them wrapped around her little finger.

An exaggeration.

Jeremiah never used text shorthand. His first message read:

Cahill and March in Boston.

No Keira.

Lizzie read the message again to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Simon Cahill, a special agent with the FBI, and John March, the director of the FBI, were in Boston?

Why?

She'd run into Simon a half dozen times over the past year. He was a handsome, broad-shouldered bruiser of a man, a black-haired, green-eyed natural charmer who had persuaded Norman Estabrook that he was an ex-FBI agent with an ax to grind against March, his former boss.

Such, however, was not the case.

Had Simon already been on his way to Boston when she'd left for Ireland last night? Lizzie almost laughed out loud. Talk about ironic. She'd come to Ireland to convince Simon to do all he
could to keep Norman in custody and not to fall for his line about having stumbled into a network of violent criminals. He had meant every word of his threat against Simon and Director March. It wasn't just about vengeance, either. Norman was no longer willing to sit on the sidelines. He was itching to do something dramatic and violent himself.

Lizzie returned her phone to her jacket pocket and shivered in the chilly early evening air.

If Keira Sullivan hadn't gone to Boston with Simon, where was she now?

And why was Will Davenport here and so serious?

Lizzie smelled pipe smoke and noticed an old man in traditional farmer's clothes seated on the front bench of a wooden picnic table by the pub door. His face was deeply lined, his eyebrows bushy above steady eyes that were a clear, even fierce, blue. He held up his pipe, smoke curling into the mist. "You'll be wanting to go to the stone circle."

She eased her pack off her shoulder. "For what?"

"For what you're looking for, dearie."

"How do you know what I'm looking for?"

He pointed his pipe up the quiet street. "There. It's down the lane and up the hill. You'll find your way." His eyes, gleaming with intensity, fixed on her. "You always do, don't you, dearie?"

Steadying herself against a sudden gust of wind that blew up from the harbor at her back, Lizzie peered past the rows of brightly painted houses--fuchsia, blue, yellow, red, mustard, all a welcome antidote to the gray weather. She loved the unique light, the special feel of being back in Ireland.

But find her way to what?

When she turned to ask, the old man was gone.

Eddie O'Shea's springer spaniel wandered out of the pub and trotted up the village street in the direction the old man had pointed.

There was no one else about. A basket of flowers hung from a lamppost, swinging in the breeze, and Lizzie could identify with its drooping and dripping pink geraniums, purple petunias and sprays of lavender.

The dog paused and looked back at her, his tail wagging.

Lizzie could no longer smell the old farmer's pipe smoke in the damp air. If she'd been drinking Guinness instead of coffee she'd have been sure she conjured him up. As it was...she had no idea.

"All right," she called to the spaniel. "I'll follow you."

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland
5:50 p.m., IST
August 25

W
ill Davenport stabbed the toe of his shoe into the wet gravel in front of the small, traditional stone cottage where Keira was staying while Simon was in Boston. The cottage was situated on a narrow lane cut along an ancient wall that ran parallel to the bay and the mountains. A steady wind blew dark clouds across the rugged, barren hills that swept up from the harbor to the spine of the peninsula.

He had resisted the temptations of Eddie O'Shea's pub--a pint, a fire, camaraderie--and returned to his car, finding his way here. Rambling pink roses scented the damp, cool air as the remains of the storm pushed east across Ireland. To the north, across Kenmare Bay, he could see the jagged outlines of the McGilli-
cuddy Reeks of the Iveragh Peninsula, another finger of land that jutted into the Atlantic.

Keira's car was parked in the drive by the roses, and a light glowed in the cottage kitchen, but she hadn't come to the door when he'd knocked.

Was she having a bath, perhaps?

She had arrived in Ireland in June to paint and look into the Beara Peninsula origins of the folktale she'd heard in a South Boston kitchen. The
Slieve Mikish
--the Mikish Mountains--at the tip of the peninsula held rich veins of copper that had drawn settlers to the region thousands of years ago. Will had driven along Bantry Bay on the southern side of the peninsula, the weather deteriorating the closer he came to the Atlantic and Allihies. He'd talked to Simon briefly and had hoped to find Keira poking around among the skeletal remains of the long-abandoned Industrial Age mines scattered across the remote, starkly beautiful landscape. When he hadn't found her, he'd headed to the pub on Kenmare Bay, discovering not his friend's new love but a hiker with striking light green eyes and one of Keira's books.

Pushing back a nagging sense of worry, Will checked his BlackBerry and saw he had a message from Josie Goodwin, his assistant in London, who had arranged for his flight into Cork and the car that had awaited him.

Josie's words were straight to the point:

Estabrook free 9 AM MDT.

With a grimace at the unpleasant, if not unexpected, news, Will dialed Josie's number.

"I was about to call you," she said without preamble when she picked up. "I have more. Apparently Estabrook couldn't wait to
get off his ranch and left in his private plane immediately after signing his plea agreement. I gather he's never been one to sit still. He must be stir-crazy after two months."

"Did he go alone?"

"Yes."

"Then he kept his promise to provide authorities with all he knows about his drug-trafficking friends?"

"The Americans must be satisfied or they wouldn't have let him go free."

"Josie, the man threatened to kill Simon and Director March."

"He insists he was speaking metaphorically."

Someone who didn't know Josie well could miss her wry tone, but she and Will had worked together for the past three years. He didn't miss it. "Metaphorically," he said. "I'll have to remember that one."

"Ireland is a long way from Montana, Will. Estabrook has no history of violence, nor is he suspected of having been involved with his associates' violent crimes. Not that participating in the spread of the poison of illegal drugs isn't a kind of violence."

"I'm at Keira's cottage now," Will said. "Her car is here, but she's not. She must have gone for a walk."

"From what Simon's told me, she does love to walk. They're a remarkable pair, aren't they, Will? True love is a rare thing, but they've found it."

This time, Will heard wistfulness in Josie's voice. She was the thirty-eight-year-old single mother of a teenage son and a woman who had faced more than her share of heartbreak. She was also a capable, resourceful member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and Will trusted her without hesitation. She understood, as he did, that their lives and work ran more smoothly, more easily, unencumbered by romantic entanglements. She'd
learned her lesson the hard way through personal experience. He'd learned his by example.

Matters, he thought, for another day.

"Have you talked to Simon?" he asked.

"Briefly. He appreciates that you're in Ireland and Keira's not alone. He'd never have left her if he'd known Estabrook would be released. He and March had hoped they could keep him in custody."

Will resisted any comment on the FBI director. He and March had a history, not a good one. "A woman was at the pub just now, reading one of Keira's books. A hiker. Small, slim, light green eyes, black hair. American. Do you recognize the description?"

"Long hair, short hair?"

"I don't know. Long, I think. I only saw a few strands. The rest was under a red bandanna."

"Ah."

Will sighed. "She said she's from Las Vegas and is here hiking the Beara Way."

"Alone?"

"As far as I could tell, yes."

"Seems a lovely thing to do," Josie said. "But you don't believe her, do you, Will?"

He didn't hesitate. "No."

"You wouldn't be drawn to an Irish village where an ancient, magical stone angel was reportedly discovered in a ruin?"

"Josie..."

"I've jotted down the description and will see what I can learn. One never knows. Good luck finding Keira. Simon trusts you completely."

"I owe him, Josie."

"Yes, you do."

Will stared down through the gray mist and fog down toward
the harbor, remembering back two years to a tragic, violent eighteen hours in Afghanistan that ended with Simon Cahill saving his life. It was a debt they both understood could never be repaid--and yet Will kept trying. But it wasn't why he'd come to Ireland. He had come, simply, as a friend.

"Will," Josie added crisply, "Simon knows you're not some fop who spends all his time fishing and golfing. He's aware by now that you weren't in Afghanistan to catch butterflies."

She disconnected before Will could respond.

He shoved his BlackBerry into his coat pocket, but part of him was still back in Afghanistan, alone, dehydrated, bruised and bloodied, determined to stay alive for one reason: he owed the truth to the memory and the service of the two SAS soldiers--his friends--who had died at his side hours earlier on that long, violent night. At great risk to himself, with only an ax, a rope and his own brute strength at his disposal, Simon had come upon the bombed-out cave and freed Will. Together they then dug out the bodies of David Mears and Philip Billings, who had died because Will had trusted the wrong man.

Another friend.

Myles Fletcher.

Will made himself silently say the name of the man--the British military officer and intelligence agent--who had compromised their highly classified mission, only to be captured and dragged off by the very enemy fighters he had embraced as allies.

After reuniting Will with his SAS colleagues, Simon had returned to his own classified mission on behalf of the FBI. He had never asked for an explanation of Will's presence in the cave--or thanks for saving his life.

After two years, Myles Fletcher's remains had yet to be recovered. Presumably his terrorist allies had turned on him and killed
him after he'd served his purpose. There wasn't a shred of evidence that he was still alive, but Will wouldn't be satisfied until he had definitive proof.

The FBI had been onto a drug-trafficking and terrorism connection that had evaporated due to Will's failed mission. John March considered Will ultimately responsible for Myles's treachery.

Simon didn't blame Will for anything, but Will had discovered in their two years of friendship that little fazed Simon Cahill.

Except being on one side of the Atlantic while the woman he loved was on the other.

Will buttoned his coat and locked the memories back into their own tight compartment as he walked out to the lane in search of Keira.