Carla Neggers, page 23
Emma understood Julianne’s volatile emotions. “Lunch sounds good,” she said, starting back up toward the round tower and their car.
Colin slung an arm over her shoulders. “Nothing like traipsing around in ancient ruins and old graves to work up an appetite.”
20
COLIN WARNED HIMSELF to be patient with Julianne as she flung off her seat belt and ran ahead of him into the cottage. He’d dropped off Emma at the hotel and then had driven Julianne up here to pack her things. Another night at the O’Byrne made sense to him. Less so to her. She wanted to stay at the cottage on her own. She’d made her case all the way up from the village. He’d finally realized that staying at the cottage wasn’t the point—normalcy was the point. She’d fallen silent on the drive back from Ardmore, and he should have guessed the events of recent days—weeks, even—were taking their toll and eroding her cheerful mood at lunch.
He got out of the car and followed her to the front door. The small bungalow did look inviting. The afternoon had turned warm and pleasant, with little wind and no sign of rain. The sea was quiet under a clear blue sky. Emma’s ewes were back at the fence, baaing, nudging each other as if he was the most exciting thing to come along all day.
No gardai in sight. They could still have a team out at the tip of Shepherd Head where Lindsey Hargreaves had died.
Julianne had left the door open. He went inside. “Go ahead,” she said, staring out the window by the dining table. “Have a look around. Satisfy yourself that everything’s fine.”
Colin remained by the open door. “At least stay at the hotel one more night. Then we can see what’s what in the morning.”
She threw up her hands. “Fine.”
“I’ll wait here while you pack up.”
“You don’t need to wait. I can carry my suitcase down the hill. No problem.”
He didn’t answer. Answering, he saw now, would only give her more fodder for fighting with him. Didn’t matter what he said.
She sniffled as she looked out the window at the impressive view. “I don’t blame you for Andy. I don’t even blame him.” She glanced at Colin, her cheeks flushed with obvious emotion. “I was stupid. It never was going to work between us.”
“You knew that going in, did you?”
“Yeah. I did. Andy did me a favor by dumping me. That’s what he said, too. ‘I’m doing you a favor, Jules.’ Sounds like him, doesn’t it?”
Colin shook his head. “Not answering that one, Julianne.”
“I know talking about this stuff makes you squirm. I planned to go to the grocery yesterday after my walk.” She went into the kitchen. She sounded calmer. Not as prickly. “I don’t think anything in my welcome basket is in danger of rotting.”
“No one will mind if it does.”
“Good point.” She stood still, one hand on the refrigerator. “Whoa. Colin.”
He heard the fear in her voice and bolted into the kitchen. She pointed at the mudroom. The back door to the cottage was partially open.
“Goldilocks moment,” Julianne said.
“Have you gone out this way?”
“I haven’t touched that door since I got here.”
Colin glanced at her. “Stay close to me.”
“Happily, but you’re not armed, are you?”
He winked. “Shh.”
He stepped into the mudroom. He saw no obvious sign the door had been forced open. There was a washer and dryer, white wire shelves with cleaning supplies, a vacuum, broom, mop. Nothing seemed amiss.
He opened the door the rest of the way and went outside. A strip of gravel along the back of the house gave way to green lawn and, in another ten yards, a post-and-wire fence. More sheep grazed in a rolling field.
To the left of the back door was a small shed that looked shut up tight. A gravel walk led around to the front of the bungalow.
“It was probably just the wind,” Julianne said from the threshold.
“Maybe,” Colin said. “Your landlord could have stopped by to check on the place and didn’t shut the door tightly. The wind was pretty stiff this morning. It could have blown the door open.”
“Yeah. I guess. Can we have a look at the rest of the cottage?”
He’d been thinking the same thing and returned to the kitchen with her. “Stay with me. Tell me if you see anything different from when you and Emma were here yesterday.”
“Sure. Don’t you want a broom or a kitchen knife or something to arm yourself?”
He grinned at her. “A broom, Julianne?”
Her eyes sparked. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“Never. Come on. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“I’m not worried about me. Honestly. I’m just freaked out in general.”
“I know, kid.”
She sighed at him. “Would it do any good if I told you I’m going to punch you next time you call me kid?”
He laughed. “Probably not.”
She stayed with him and didn’t say a word as they checked the two bedrooms and bathrooms. No one was hiding in a closet or under a bed, and the only indication he saw that anyone had been inside the cottage was the back door.
“Wait,” Julianne said, her face pale as they went back into the living room. “I shut the bedroom doors yesterday when Emma and I were here. I know I did.”
“Could Emma have opened them after that?”
“No.”
“What do you think happened, then?”
She took another quick breath. “It must have been the wind. Maybe I didn’t shut the doors as tightly as I thought. Then the wind blew them open. Happens all the time at Granny’s house. I never think twice about it.”
Colin glanced around the quiet cottage. “No windows are open.”
“The back door was open. Maybe that was enough. Maybe I left a window open, and Sean or his uncle saw it, came in and shut it, then left through the back.”
“We can ask them,” Colin said.
“It could be my imagination. Jet lag. Shock.” If possible, her face drained of more color, but she sighed and made an effort to smile. “Maybe it was one of Granny’s dark fairies.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. Grab your stuff. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”
“Are you going to report this to the police?”
“Report what, Julianne?”
She sighed again, looking tired now, even a little weepy. “I should have asked Lindsey more questions before I barreled into her life. I fell in love with the idea of coming to Ireland. Coastal Ireland is a whale and dolphin sanctuary and that’s my field of expertise.” Her eyes shone with tears. “It’s beautiful here. It’s exactly as I imagined. I know I can’t erase yesterday from my mind, but I hope at least what happened wasn’t the result of anything nefarious...” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry about all this, Colin. You and Emma—”
“Emma and I are fine. We’re glad we can be here for you.” He gave her a second, then grinned. “You just said ‘nefarious,’ didn’t you?”
She told him to go to hell and disappeared into her bedroom.
When they went back out to the car, he offered to carry her suitcase, but she said, “No, thanks, got it,” but at least didn’t argue about walking into the village with it. As she set it on the ground and opened the passenger door, Colin noticed Sean Murphy and his uncle ambling down the lane together.
“We just found the back door open,” Colin said when the two Irishmen reached him. “One of you?”
Paddy shook his head, and his garda nephew said, “It wasn’t one of us. We’ll have a look around. You’ll be at the hotel?”
“On our way there now,” Colin said.
“Good.”
“Anything on the autopsy?”
The Irish detective’s blue eyes were steady. “Broken neck. Her father knows.”
“Must have been a hell of a fall.”
Colin could see it was all he was getting. Sean Murphy said nothing as he started up the walk to the cottage.
Julianne didn’t object when Paddy Murphy offered to help get her purple suitcase into the back of the car. She thanked him, and he wished her a good day and caught up with his nephew.
Colin called her on it when he got behind the wheel, but she had no apology. “It’s not just the Irish accent,” she said. “Sean and his uncle are totally charming.”
“And I’m not?”
She gaped at him as if he’d turned shamrock-green. “Donovans are a lot of things, Colin, but charming? No. You are not charming.”
“Ask Emma. She thinks I’m charming.”
“Bet she doesn’t.”
He liked seeing the color in Julianne’s cheeks as he started the car, but he wanted to know why the back door to her cottage had been open. He couldn’t think what someone could have hoped to find there. Ten to one the door hadn’t been securely latched and a wind gust had popped it open—but like so much of the past few days, a hard-and-fast answer wouldn’t necessarily be easy to come by, or even possible.
* * *
Colin left Julianne in front of the fire in the bar lounge and went upstairs to find Emma. She’d left a note on the bed, in her neat handwriting, saying she was at the spa. “I’m having a massage. I need to think.”
He didn’t need to think. He needed to do something. He just didn’t know what—and that, typically, was when he tended to get into trouble and make mistakes.
He checked his messages. Nothing from Yank, or even his brothers. Just as well, but he still had no desire to go back downstairs and have tea and cookies with Julianne.
Then again, it beat pacing in his hotel room.
Julianne was having tea and scones. She was settled in front of the fire with a book on Irish country cooking open on her lap. She looked so damn young. Colin decided not to tell her so.
She looked up at him. “I’m glad you were at the cottage with me just now. I mean that. When I walked into the kitchen and saw that door—I didn’t think. I knew you were there and I yelled for you.”
“That’s what you should have done.”
“I don’t like seeing an open door and thinking something bad has happened. Here I am having tea and scones in Ireland as I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a little girl, and I keep thinking about Maine. It seems so far away.” She shifted her gaze to the low fire. “It is far away.”
Colin stood closer to the fire, welcoming its heat. “That was the point, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess. Seeing you and Emma huddled with Wendell Sharpe reminded me that you do this sort of thing all the time. I don’t. I’m writing a thesis on cetaceans.”
“It sounds like an interesting paper.”
“Thank you. It was nice of Emma’s grandfather to ask about it at lunch, even if it was only to give us something else to talk about besides Lindsey’s death and a ten-year-old art theft.”
“I think he was genuinely interested,” Colin said. “I know I was. Emma was, too.”
“I appreciate that. My self-esteem’s been kind of in the dumps lately.” She ran her fingertips over a photograph of a tempting array of Irish cheeses, but Colin could tell her mind wasn’t on cooking. She looked up at him again. “Do you think Emma made the right decision leaving her family business and joining the FBI?”
“It’s not for me to say, but she’s a top-notch agent.”
“Granny wants me to stay in Rock Point and teach biology at the high school. It’s a good option, but it’s not for me.”
“Ireland and far-off places call,” Colin said.
“I have other options—lots of them are a comfortable middle between staying in Rock Point and wandering to far-off places.”
“I imagine you have all kinds of options.”
“Andy does, too.”
“I’m not discussing my brother with you, Julianne.”
She gave him a half smile. “That’s the hard-ass Colin Donovan I know.” She closed her book on her lap. “I love having tea by the fire. I love being here. I never should have asked Lindsey to stay with me. What if she died because she went to check on the cottage? What if she’d still be alive if she’d stayed in Cork, or in Dublin with her father, or even at the field station with the divers?”
“Don’t do this to yourself. Lindsey’s death isn’t your fault.”
“I’ve never heard you so—I don’t know. Concerned about me.”
“I didn’t need to be concerned when you were ladling out chowder at Hurley’s.”
“You needed to be concerned when I started dating your brother,” she said.
Colin shook his head. “Still not going there, kid.”
She set aside her book and picked up her tea. “Sean Murphy told you how Lindsey died, didn’t he?”
“Julianne—”
“She broke her neck, right? I’m guessing death was quick, maybe instantaneous.”
He watched the fire a moment, noticed it had died to hot coals. He said, “That’s right.”
“Do you think she could have sustained that kind of catastrophic injury in a freak fall off the ledge? It’s a good drop, but I don’t know. I guess it’d be hard to tell from the autopsy if she was pushed.”
“I’m not a medical examiner,” Colin said.
“Neither am I, but we both grew up in Maine. People fall on the rocks all the time. How many end up breaking their necks? Some, I know, but...” She didn’t finish. “Can the medical examiner tell if she was killed first and then someone flung her body off the ledge?”
“Julianne...”
“I know. Gruesome talk over tea and scones. I wouldn’t have brought it up if there were other guests in here. I wonder where Lindsey’s father is.” She drank some of her tea and returned the cup to its saucer. “All right. I can see you’re not going to tell a non-FBI agent what you think. Will you miss being an FBI agent if you quit?”
“You’ve been talking to Emma.”
“Andy, actually. He thinks the past six months in particular have been tough on you. I told him you like it tough, but now I don’t know.” Julianne lifted her book back onto her lap. “Maybe it’s Emma. Her influence on you.”
Even worse than talking about his brother and high-impact falls with Julianne Maroney was talking about Emma. Colin moved back from the fire. “Try to rest. Have dinner tonight with Emma and me in the restaurant here.” He winked at her. “We’ll do fancy.”
“You have a tie?”
He grinned. “In my closet at home.”
“I can see the Donovans when you all dressed up in suits for my grandfather’s funeral. Colin, I swear I’m here just for the marine science and scones and walks on quaint lanes.”
“You don’t have to convince me. Do you have anything to wear to dinner that doesn’t involve mucking about in a tide pool?”
Some of her fight sparked in her hazel eyes. “You sound like Andy. You’re all rat bastards, you know. Handy in a fight but not that great at a candlelight dinner.”
“Hey, don’t sell us short.”
“Maybe the Sharpes are rubbing off on you.”
He ignored that last comment. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
She didn’t argue with him. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but she seemed stronger, more sure of herself, as he headed outside to the gardens.
He was walking past beds of pansies when Emma joined him. “I’m telling you,” she said, tucking her hand into his, “you would love the spa.”
“Think a deep-tissue massage would help me?” He squeezed her hand gently. “Am I too hard on people, Emma? The work I do on top of being a Donovan...”
“Where are you going with this, Colin?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“I don’t think so.” She knotted her fingers into his. “I’m getting to know you, don’t forget.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m the right man for a woman like you.”
“A woman like me. Are you referring to my being a Sharpe, an art crimes specialist, an FBI agent or an ex-nun?”
“All of the above.”
“I see.”
He had a feeling she did see. “I’ve pushed you hard, Emma. I know I can be rough on people. I know I look for all the sharp angles and dark corners. It’s not just my undercover work.”
“It’s who you are.” She eased her hand from his and slipped her arm around him. “Don’t soften your hard edges on my account. I like who you are. I like your honesty, your toughness, your instincts.” She put her head against his arm as they paused by a low rock wall, covered in moss, heather and died-back ferns. “And I love you.”
He held her close. “I love you, too, Emma. Always.”
“But you don’t think it’s enough, do you?”
“Emma...”
She smiled. “It’s okay. It’s a beautiful afternoon. We don’t have to get deep. Let’s just walk.” She lowered her arm and took his hand again. “You’ve got a big heart, Colin. All you Donovans do. I see that.”
“Even Mike?”
She laughed. “Especially Mike.”
* * *
They wandered through the O’Byrne gardens and down to the sea, tossing rocks into the tide, and when they returned to the terrace and saw David Hargreaves at a small table in the shadows, Colin felt Emma stiffen next to him. The intrusion of reality. The end of their short pretense that they were on a romantic getaway.
Hargreaves had a glass of white wine in front of him. His face was ashen, but he motioned with one hand and said, “Please join me.”
Emma pulled out a chair and sat down, but Colin remained standing, ready to excuse himself if she proved more able to deal with the grieving father and his relationship with his daughter. “We were in Ardmore this morning,” she said. “My grandfather met us there. We had lunch at the Cliff House Hotel. Is that where you stayed on Monday?”
He nodded. “It’s a wonderful place. It’s built into the side of a cliff. Every room has a view of Ardmore Bay. Lindsey’s mother would have loved it.” He picked up his glass. “Would you care for wine?”
Emma shook her head. “We’re having dinner here at the hotel soon. Do you have plans?”
