Harbor Island - Carla Neggers

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The wind picked up, blowing a few stray, brown fallen leaves on the sidewalk. Colin pictured Emma on windswept Bristol Island, alone with a dead woman with a cross in her hand identical to the ones a serial art thief had been sending to Wendell Sharpe for ten years.

      “You’re not having a great day, Agent Sharpe,” he said.

      She almost smiled. “You could say that. Rachel must have helped herself to Aoife’s cross last night and then called me this morning. Aoife has my number. She says she had it out on her desk last night, too. Rachel could have jotted it down or memorized it when she swiped the cross.”

      “Did whoever shot her know she had the cross and didn’t care?” Colin stopped on the wide sidewalk. “Or know but didn’t have time to grab it without shooting you, too?” He gritted his teeth, not liking any of the possibilities. “Why did Rachel steal this cross? Only a handful of people know it’s the signature of a serial art thief. She wasn’t one of them.”

      “Neither is Aoife. She knows only that it is similar to her uncle’s stolen cross.”

      “Could Rachel have thought it was Aoife’s work?”

      “Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

      They walked to a light and crossed Arlington to the Public Garden. Colin wasn’t one for a lot of pondering and analyzing, but he also wasn’t one for jumping to conclusions ahead of the facts. Rachel’s killer needed to be identified and apprehended. The role of the Declan’s Cross thief—if any—in her death needed to be sorted out. The lines were blurred between the jobs of the Boston Police Department, the FBI and the Sharpes.

      Not that blurred, Colin thought.

      The BPD had the lead in the homicide investigation. The FBI had the lead in the investigation into the thief. They would coordinate their efforts as appropriate.

      The Sharpes of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery were private citizens.

      More fallen leaves blew alongside the Public Garden’s Victorian black-iron fence.

      “Rachel stole the cross and called you,” Colin said. “Why?”

      “My guess? She believed she knew who sent it.”

      “Our thief.”

      “That’s right,” Emma said quietly. “Our thief.”

       6

      Dublin, Ireland

      Matt Yankowski parked in front of what he hoped was Aoife O’Byrne’s building on the Liffey River in Dublin. Somehow, he’d managed to navigate Dublin’s maze of streets without veering into the wrong lane or the wrong direction down a one-way street. It was a bleak November evening, early by Irish standards. He turned off the engine and wipers, wondering if he should have stayed at Wendell Sharpe’s place and left Aoife O’Byrne to the Irish police. An Garda Síochána. Guardians of the Peace. The garda, or gardai—or just the guards.

      A popular Irish artist in the middle of a homicide investigation in Boston.

      The gardai wouldn’t like it.

      Hell, he didn’t like it, either.

      He got out of his little rental car and buttoned his overcoat against the cold mist. So far, the only positive of his day was that his red Micra hadn’t fallen to pieces on the drive from the southwest Irish coast to Dublin that morning. In fact, it was growing on him. It did a decent job handling any size Irish road—including roads he didn’t consider roads—and, given its size, made his occasional lapse about driving on the left slightly less terrifying.

      Since arriving in Ireland earlier in the week, he’d imagined exploring back roads with Lucy, no agenda, no idea where they would have their next meal or spend the night. It’d been a long time since they’d left room for that kind of spontaneity in their lives.

      “A long time,” he said under his breath.

      After Colin’s report earlier that day, Yank had called Lucy’s sister, who lived in Georgetown. The two sisters had gone to Paris together in October. Yank had suspected Sherry had been stoking Lucy’s fears and resentments about moving to Boston, but she’d been pleasant on the phone. “I don’t need to check your house for Lucy, Matt. She’s gone to Boston. She wanted to surprise you. I take it you’re not there?”

      “I’m in Ireland.”

      Sherry had sighed. “Did you tell her you were going to Ireland?”

      “That’s why I’ve been trying to reach her. I didn’t expect to stay this long.”

      “And you wonder—” Sherry had broken off. “Never mind.”

      “She’s in a snit, you think?”

      “Wouldn’t you be?”

      He’d disconnected without answering. He’d tried Lucy’s cell phone again and left another voice mail. “It’s me, Luce. At least let me know you’re okay. Call, text, send a carrier pigeon. Whatever works for you.”

      That had been four hours ago.

      Still no response.

      She was carrying her snit too far. He wouldn’t give her much longer before he sounded the alarm. It wasn’t easy to be objective, but if one of his agents came to him with the same story, he wouldn’t care if the wife was sticking it to the husband for being a jerk. He would want to find her.

      A man approached him on the sidewalk. Wavy black hair, blue eyes, a mix of Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson about him. He had to be Sean Murphy, a garda detective with a family farm in tiny Declan’s Cross. He’d been in the thick of the events there last week, and he’d agreed to meet Yank at Aoife O’Byrne’s studio.

      “Matt Yankowski,” Yank said. “Thanks for coming, Detective.”

      The two men shook hands. “I’m sorry about this woman’s death in Boston,” Murphy said. “It’s good to hear Emma wasn’t hurt. How is she?”

      “Annoying the Boston police. That’s not hard to do right now. I’ve already had a chat with an irate lieutenant in homicide.”

      “Ah, yes. So have I. The lieutenant was reluctant to share information but delighted to have me talk. I suppose I’d have done the same in his position.” Murphy nodded toward the unprepossessing stone building behind them. “Shall we?”

      It was an informal meeting—a senior garda detective and a senior FBI agent having a look at the art studio and apartment of a prominent Irish painter, sculptor and jeweler who had found herself in the middle of a Boston homicide investigation. Yank hadn’t met Aoife O’Byrne, but Sean Murphy knew her from her and her sister’s visits to their uncle’s country house in Declan’s Cross. According to Emma and Colin, though, it was Aoife’s sister, Kitty, who’d caught the Irishman’s eye as a teenager. The two had had something of a star-crossed relationship ever since. Kitty had gone on to marry another man, but they divorced and she eventually moved to Declan’s Cross to transform her uncle’s house into a thriving boutique hotel. Sean had devoted himself to his career, rising up through the garda ranks. Then early this past summer, he’d landed at his family farm in Declan’s Cross for a long recuperation from injuries he’d sustained in an ambush. Kitty was there with her teenage son and her newly opened hotel.

      “I gather you’re back on the job?” Yank asked.

      The garda detective shrugged. “It was time. Declan’s Cross isn’t that far from Dublin, and it isn’t going anywhere.” He winked at Yank. “Neither is Kitty O’Byrne.”

      A way of saying this time he and Kitty would make things work.

      Hope for Lucy and me, too, maybe, Yank thought irritably as he followed Murphy into the building. There was no doorman or security guard. “I know Ireland has a low crime rate,” Yank said,

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