Declan's Cross. Carla Neggers

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      “A spa,” Colin said, as if he were translating a foreign language.

      “I bet it offers a couple’s massage.”

      “Dream on, Emma.”

      She grinned. “I think you’d enjoy a hot stone massage.”

      “I’d rather have you heat up my stones, Special Agent Sharpe.”

      “You’re hopeless.” She tightened her hold on him, her grin gone now. “Massages are good for demon fighting.”

      He wasn’t going to be distracted by talk of his demons. He drew her against him. “What’s good for extracting Sharpe secrets?”

      “There are secrets and there are confidences, and there are things I just can’t tell you.” She broke away from him and grabbed a black-iron poker, stirred the fire. “I wish I had a fireplace in my apartment in Boston.”

      “Emma.”

      She turned, and now the hot flames deepened the green of her eyes. “It was a great hike today, but I smell like dried mud, sweat and sheep dung.”

      “Just mud,” he said.

      “Such a gentleman. I’ve no regrets. I love hiking the Irish hills.”

      Still trying to change the subject, or at least delay telling him what was going on. He wasn’t easily put off. “Roaming the Irish hills is different from figuring out what drives people to steal art. Is Declan’s Cross the scene of an art heist the Sharpes investigated?”

      Emma sank onto a bright blue-and-white rug in front of the fireplace, kicked off her shoes and tucked her knees under her chin as she stared at the flames. “It’s the scene of an art heist we’re still investigating.”

      Colin remained on his feet. He was restless, but he knew he had to be patient. An unsolved art theft was right up Emma’s alley as both a Sharpe and an FBI agent. “What was stolen?” he asked.

      “Three Irish landscape paintings and an unusual Celtic cross.” She still didn’t look up from the fire. “They were stolen from the O’Byrne House ten years ago, on a dark November night much like tonight.”

      “Your grandfather investigated?”

      “Not at first. Not until after another theft in Amsterdam six months later.”

      “The work of the same thief?”

      “We believe so, yes. He’s struck at least eight more times since then. London, Paris, Oslo, Venice, San Francisco, Dallas, Brussels and Prague.”

      “A different city each time?”

      “Yes.”

      “Patterns?”

      She hesitated, then said, “Some.”

      She didn’t go on. Colin sat next to her, feeling the warmth of the slow-burning fire, her intensity. “Declan’s Cross was his first hit?”

      “We believe so, yes. It’s also the smallest location, and the only one in Ireland.”

      “Any viable leads?”

      “Almost none.”

      “And of all the cute Irish villages, Julianne picks this one. Okay. I get it. You want to make sure her choice of Declan’s Cross doesn’t have anything to do with your thief.”

      “I have no reason to suspect it does. We can scoot over there tomorrow, welcome Julianne to Ireland, spend the night in a romantic Irish hotel and then get out of the way and let her enjoy her stay.”

      “Without a Donovan breathing down her neck,” Colin added.

      “If she’s making this trip in part to get over Andy...then, yes, she deserves to be Donovan-free.”

      Colin stretched out his legs. “All right. Let’s check out Declan’s Cross and see what Julianne’s up to. If it’s just whales and dolphins, you’re on for that couple’s massage.”

      “You jest now, but wait until you’ve had one.”

      “Jest.” He smiled at her. “I don’t know if I’ve ever used jest in a sentence.”

      “Making fun of me, are you?”

      She didn’t look at all worried. “Never.” He edged closer to her. “What were you like four years ago when you were working with old Wendell in Dublin?”

      “Not as good with a gun for one thing.”

      “Quantico changed you.”

      “I learned new things there, most certainly. Did it change you?”

      He shrugged. “Not that much.”

      “You were in law enforcement before you entered the academy. I wasn’t. My grandfather can’t break the law, but he doesn’t have to follow the same rules we do.”

      “In other words, he doesn’t care about prosecuting this thief. He just cares about catching him.”

      “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

      “You’re a complex woman of many interests. I’m a simple man of limited interests. Whiskey, sex and—” Colin grinned at her. “I can get by on whiskey and sex for some time.”

      “That can be arranged.”

      “Good.” He lowered his mouth to hers. “No more questions, Emma. No more thinking. Not tonight.”

      3

      JULIANNE MARONEY WAS half in love with Father Bracken and totally in love with Andy Donovan, and that, she thought, was reason enough to head to Ireland. She grabbed a coffeepot and headed across the dining room to Father Bracken’s table. It was a dreary afternoon in southern Maine, and she was wrapping up her shift at Hurley’s, a popular, rustic restaurant on Rock Point harbor.

      This time tomorrow, she’d be in Declan’s Cross on the south Irish coast.

      She’d accepted a marine biology internship in Cork, but it didn’t start until January. Impatient, going crazy, she’d jumped when opportunity had knocked last week in the shape of Lindsey Hargreaves, a diver, a marine science enthusiast and a member of the family that had founded the prestigious Hargreaves Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

      Impulsive, maybe, but Julianne didn’t care. She was packed. Her flight to Shannon left tonight.

      She arrived at Father Bracken’s table overlooking the harbor. “Not much of a view today, Father,” she said, refilling his mug. “Gray rain, gray sky, gray ocean.”

      He smiled up at her. “I’m Irish. Wet weather doesn’t bother me.”

      He’d ordered СКАЧАТЬ