Deadly Gift

by Heather Graham

  “I should be with my father,” Kat said softly.

  “But you’re with me,” Bridey said, and smiled. “And blessed I am, child. Zach will bring Sean home, and he’ll get to the bottom of whatever is going on here, I promise you.”

  But Bridey knew. He would not find Eddie. At least, not alive.

  She had seen the dark coach, and the plumed black horses.

  Eddie was dead.

  And the coach of Death was still thundering down on them.

  2

  “You should see it at Christmas,” Sean O’Riley said, and his eyes were bright, despite his weakened state as he lay in his hospital bed. “We’re on the coast, so there’s no guarantee of snow, but it’s crisp and cool, always, and the breeze comes just right, and it’s just beautiful.”

  Caer smiled, impressed by the old man’s vigor. Being assigned to him had been a pleasure. He still sported a cap of thick silver-white hair, and he was watching her with eyes as bright a blue as the sky over Tara itself. If Sean O’Riley said that the weather at Christmas was crisp and cool, it probably meant people froze their buns off. She liked him, liked hearing the story of his life. He had been born here in Dublin, in the very hospital where he now lay, but home to him now was across the Atlantic Ocean. A city called Newport, in Rhode Island, known for fierce weather, including crippling nor’easters. He hadn’t even been back in Ireland a day before he’d been rushed to the hospital, but already, a bit of a brogue was returning to his speech, even after the years he’d been gone.

  “I’m sure Newport is lovely,” she told him.

  He nodded, satisfied by her agreement, then winced slightly, adjusting himself on the bed.

  He had a strong constitution and had gone quickly from ICU to a regular room. Dr. Morton, the internal-medicine specialist, suspected some kind of food poisoning, but Sean had eaten the same meals at the same places as his wife, and an inspection at the restaurant where they’d dined had turned up no bacterial contaminants. Amanda remained fine. In fact, she was at the hotel spa right now, having declared that she needed a massage to ease the tension that had filled her because of Sean’s illness.

  Sean was seventy-six.

  Amanda was thirty-one.

  That made her stomach forty-five years younger than Sean’s, so perhaps that had helped her. Then again, the doctors weren’t sure what had brought Sean to the hospital. They had checked his heart—which was healthy—and performed scans, and they had no real answers. They were pleased with his progress, but he was weak as a kitten right now. The kind of pain he’d endured had put tremendous pressure on his heart, and that had nearly taken his life. But as to what had caused that pain, they still had no good answer.

  “It’s been good to come back to Ireland,” he said quietly, then smiled in realization of how strange that must sound. “Despite…this.” He gestured to include his hospital room and all the monitors still hooked up to him. “We saw a terrific production of Brendan Behan’s ‘The Hostage’ at the Abbey Theatre. A matinee, luckily.”

  “You haven’t been back since you moved to the U.S.? Fifty years ago?” Caer asked.

  He shook his head, and he looked at her, but it was as if he were looking back in time. “Caer,” he said, pronouncing her name correctly, “kyre.” “It’s so easy to get caught up in life, so you plan to do things, but…well, at least I made it back at last. But,” he said, and wagged a finger at her, “you’ve never been to the United States, have you, young lady?”

  “No,” she admitted, smiling. “No, I haven’t. I tend to be busy right here.”

  “Nurses are always in demand,” he said.

  She felt a bit guilty as she replied, “Yes, nurses are always in demand.”

  “Used to be, we had tons of Irish nurses and Irish priests in the U.S., but they say that the economy here has gotten so good that they don’t need to come over to find work anymore.”

  “I never thought about it. I’ve always had plenty of work here,” she said.

  “Well, someday you must come to the States. And not just New York or California, either. Take Rhode Island, you take Rhode Island, now. We have a wealth of beauty and culture and history. I went over because my grandfather died and my father wanted to stay here. I understood how he felt—even shared his feelings, to be honest—but my grandfather had built a magnificent house and begun a business that someone needed to take over and make it into a solid, profitable enterprise. So I did. And when I saw where the house sat, atop a cliff, high above the water, with the wind whipping up sweet and wild, well, I knew it was the home I wanted. Here…the world is progressing, and it’s right for Dublin, but in Newport I found the past, somehow. When I’m not on the water, I’m following the trail of one Revolutionary fellow or another. Ever hear of Nigel Bridgewater?”

  “Who?” Caer said.

  Sean laughed. “No, of course not. You’d have learned Irish history in school. Besides, Nigel died too quickly to have made it into most of the history books. He was a great patriot, though, sailing out in secret one night with a delivery for the Continental army. He was young, just twenty-six, and they said he could navigate the sometimes-treacherous seas of New England like a fish. But he was caught, and executed by the British. Anyway, for years, Eddie—he’s been my partner practically since the beginning—and I have tried to follow his trail. Apparently he knew the British were hot on his heels, and he managed to hide not just some of his treasure—funds collected for the struggling patriots—but also dispatches, letters that named names and would have led many of his fellow patriots to the gallows for spying. Maybe it sounds silly, I’ve always loved tracking a good historical mystery.”

  He looked up at her, and she stared into his eyes and assessed what she saw: a man who had spent a lifetime working hard, a man with zest and energy, an all-around good guy.

  His gaze turned inward then, and he said, clearly upset, “I’ve got to get out of here—got to get home. Right away.”

  Caer looked at him curiously and asked gently, “I know I don’t understand your business, but why do you feel you have to get home so quickly? You do understand that you’ll be taking a chance, right? The doctors still haven’t figured out what made you so sick.”

  “Why do I have to get back?” he asked, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Eddie is missing.”

  “Your partner,” she said.

  “One of my partners,” he said gruffly. “There’s Cal, too, but he’s young and hasn’t been with us that long. But Eddie…Eddie joined me right after I moved to the States and helped me modernize the business. We added year-round dinner cruises, and he worked like a son of a gun right beside me to handle all the business we added. He lived in the little house out back—well, little by Newport standards—and we worked like dogs, maintaining the boats, captaining them, doing the paperwork at night.” He grinned wryly and went on.

  “Eddie…he lived my dreams with me. A lot of people thought I was crazy—still do, but I’m rich now, so I get to be eccentric—but I study the past, and Eddie and I…we’ve followed Bridgewater’s trail. He was heading south with dispatches for the Continental Congress and a hold full of English coins, and he managed to hide both before the British caught up to him. He was hanged without ever giving up the secret of where he had stashed everything. There’s bravery for you. You see, I don’t think he was just holding out on the money. Like I said, I think the papers he was carrying would have condemned some of his fellow patriots, so he died in silence. I mean, that was honor. Real honor. I’ve always dreamed of discovering just where he hid that cache, and maybe even writing a book about it.” He laughed suddenly. “Listen to me. I’m just a rambling old man, taking advantage of a beautiful young woman who has no choice but to sit and listen to me.”

  “No, this is fascinating,” she assured him.

  “But you have other patients,” he reminded her.

  “The floor is well staffed. I’m all right, really. Trust me, if someone wants me, they’ll find
me.”

  His story was fascinating. She liked him, and she enjoyed sitting with him. She wasn’t quite sure why he had wanted to acquire a wife like Amanda, but then again, who was she to judge?

  “I’m worried about Eddie,” he said, and there was a deep sadness in his eyes. Then he saw her watching and tried to make himself look strong again, but he couldn’t hide his troubled thoughts. “…I have a bad feeling something’s happened to him, and I owe it to him to find out the truth,” he said firmly. “They’ve found the boat—and no sign of Eddie, I have to get back. I should have known something was wrong when everyone was there to see us off—except Eddie. He never missed a party, and he’d promised he would be there…. Something must have happened. Maybe he’s in hiding.”

  “In hiding? Why?”

  Sean waved a hand weakly. “Who knows? I just know I have to get home, though I’ll bet I won’t find a nurse like you back there.”

  Silently, she agreed. No, he would never find another nurse quite like her. Deciding she needed to change the subject—now—she said, “Tell me about your family.”

  “Family. It’s really all that matters in the end,” he said softly.

  She felt a tug of emotion at her heart. She felt a strange ache to belong to someone’s family and be spoken of with such love. She’d never really known a family.

  “They were what called me back,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  He glanced up at her sheepishly. “It was strange, when they brought me here—to the hospital, I mean. I suppose I was dreaming, but I felt like I was a boy in the hills again. I’d forgotten how right they are when they call this the Emerald Isle. The wind was blowing, setting up a real howl. And I was running back to the cottage where I grew up, like I was a kid going home. I heard someone—I think it was my mother—singing an old Irish song, crooning in the old Gaelic. The sun seemed to be setting. There were bursts of light, and shadows falling, but I didn’t feel scared of them, even though I knew I should. It was beautiful, and I felt like I could run forever…but then I heard my daughter’s voice, and suddenly I was aware that I was in the hospital, and that I had to fight, had to live. I had to live because I had to go home. To my daughter.”

  “Ah,” Caer said.

  “Caer?”

  She started, looking up.

  Michael was standing in the doorway, summoning her. He was in a white lab coat with the name “Dr. Michael Haven” embroidered on the pocket.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Sean.

  “Oh, Lord, forgive me. I have taken up too much of your time,” Sean told her.

  “No, no, it’s all right,” she said as she rose, then smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’ll be back.”

  “And glad of it I’ll be, lass,” he told her.

  Her smile deepened; he was sinking back into a few Irish cadences in his speech.

  “I’ll just talk to the family a bit,” he told her, and nodded toward the picture at his bedside.

  She had to laugh, though looking at the happy grouping made her feel…as if she were definitely missing out. In the photo, Sean had his arm around a beautiful young woman in her early twenties, who looked up at him with all a daughter’s adoration of her father. Then came a woman—his wife, but not the girl’s mother. Sean had told her that his first wife had passed away. His new wife was only a few years older than his daughter. On the other side of Sean were three tall—and, she had to admit, handsome—men, all clearly related to one another. Brothers, Sean had said. An old woman sat in a chair in front of the rest. Bridey, Sean’s aunt, who lived with him.

  Bridey had the same bright blue eyes as Sean and his daughter. Her expression held a mixture of wisdom, kindness and compassion. Caer knew she would love Bridey, were she ever to meet the woman.

  But it was the brother standing closest to Sean who never failed to attract her attention.

  She figured that he had to be about six-two, and his hair was a light auburn. His eyes were direct and seemed to look right out at Caer. Every time she found herself staring at the picture, she was startled to feel a little tug at her heartstrings; she was sure she’d never seen such eyes before. They weren’t blue, weren’t green. They were the true aqua of the Caribbean, startling against his tanned features, arresting, piercing, and even, despite being only a photograph, assessing.

  She had thought at first that he was Sean’s son-in-law, but he’d told her no, the Flynn boys were like the sons he’d never had.

  “He’s on his way here,” Sean told her now.

  “Pardon?” Caer drew her eyes away from the picture, embarrassed that she’d been caught staring.

  “Zach Flynn,” Sean said. “Kat convinced him I need an escort home.” He sighed dispiritedly. “We look like a nice family in that shot, huh? Not quite so, I’m afraid. You marry a younger woman, and everyone thinks she’s a gold digger. Who would have thought I’d spend my golden years trying to be a peacekeeper?”

  “Well, I’m sure things will work out for the best,” she said. Which was a crock, she knew, but most of what people said in the hospital was a crock. It went with the territory.

  “Caer?”

  She heard her name again. Michael. She should have followed him by now, she realized.

  “Excuse me,” she said again to Sean, and left.

  Michael was heading down the hall, and she quickly followed him.

  He stepped into an office, waiting for her to join him. As soon as she did, he closed the door. She felt him at her back—not a comfortable feeling.

  He walked around and stood behind the desk. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing?” she demanded, determined not to let him put her on the defensive.

  “Just what I said—what are you doing?”

  “Talking to Sean O’Riley,” she said.

  “You’re supposed to be observing, trying to find out what’s going on.”

  “Well, if I’m trying to find out what’s going on, talking to him seems like a good strategy to me,” she said flatly.

  He shook his head and began pacing, running his fingers through his hair, glancing at her with irritation.

  “You’re getting too emotionally involved.”

  “I am not!” she protested.

  “Excuse me. I am the one in charge here,” he told her.

  She fell silent.

  “All right. You’ll have to go to America with him,” Michael said. “You can be his private nurse.”

  “What?” she gasped, stunned. She worked here. In Dublin. She always had.

  “I…don’t want to go to America. There’s plenty of work for me here, and I don’t have a passport. I don’t even have any nursing credentials.”

  Michael waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll take care of everything you need.” He reached into a nearby bookcase, grabbed a huge volume and tossed it to her.

  “What’s that?”

  “A nursing manual. Start studying.”

  “But—”

  “Start studying. You’re going to America. Remember, there are rules in the Agency, and I’m in charge.”

  She knew there was resentment in her eyes.

  “What’s your problem with America?” he asked her, aggravated.

  What was her problem?

  She inhaled. She didn’t know. Maybe it was…

  The man.

  The man with the sea-colored eyes. He would be going to America with them.

  Something about his stare unnerved her, even in a photograph. She couldn’t imagine facing it in real life.

  He would find her out.

  She told herself not to be ridiculous.

  Besides, hadn’t Sean just said that he was coming here?

  So she was going to have to face those eyes no matter what.

  Michael must have thought her silence meant she was still objecting to his order. “Caer, you are going,” he said with patience—and authority.

  She forced a smile. “Can’
t wait,” she told him.

  “Caer,” Michael said softly, “something’s wrong. Someone is after his life. This is serious.”

  “I know,” she replied, her voice equally quiet.

  Resigned. No, not resigned. She just didn’t have a choice. Michael really did call the shots.

  “Hey, it’s the Christmas season, and the Americans go all out to celebrate,” he told her.

  Michael would know. He had been just about everywhere.

  “Yeah, great. Ho, ho, ho,” she said.

  “Go on, I have arrangements to make,” he told her.

  “Sure. I have some affairs left to handle here, as well,” she told him tightly, as she walked to the door.

  “Routine,” he said.

  “Routine does not negate the importance of any assignment,” she said, and glanced at her watch. She had a matter to handle now that she considered just as important as any other.

  Even Sean, no matter how much she liked the man.

  “Caer,” Michael said, as she turned to leave.

  She paused at the door, her back to him. “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t forget the nursing book. There’s an envelope there, as well.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’ll want to go shopping for your trip, after all,” he said.

  “You can just bet I’ll shop.”

  He appeared amused rather than threatened by her words. “Do your worst. Or your best,” he told her. “This could be a great vacation for you, if you just look at it that way. Oh, and Merry Christmas,” he said pleasantly.

  She went back for the book and her travel allowance. With one last evil glare at him, she left the office, closing the door behind her.

  America.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. Sean O’Riley was in danger, and she had to find out why, and from whom. And she had to stop whoever it was from causing him any further harm.

  As she moved away from the door, she realized that the soft music playing in the hallway was a Christmas melody.