by Anne Stuart
“I’d prefer to avoid the dead ones if I have a say in the matter.” She wanted to sound cool and tart. The words came out sounding faintly forlorn.
“This is Ireland, Annie. The dead from generations past are all around us.”
She wanted to make a face at him. “How reassuring.” She started toward the door. A cool, light mist was falling, and she already felt chilled. “Would you answer a question, James?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.
“Yes.”
“That simple? What if it’s not a question you want to answer?”
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
She believed him. For the first time she knew he would tell her no lies, and the thought was oddly terrifying. “How many people have you killed?”
It wasn’t what he had been expecting. “Do you really want an answer to that?”
She wasn’t so sure. “Yes,” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you. You can’t not know how many people you’ve killed in your life,” she protested.
“Believe me, Annie. If I knew I’d go mad.” He followed her out into the drizzle. “I’ll find us a pub where you can get something to eat, and then you can answer a few questions of your own.”
“A pub? For breakfast?” She couldn’t keep the doubt from her voice.
“Sweet Jesus, Annie, do you think I’m going to be drinking my breakfast? I can’t very well be keeping us alive if I’m drunk, now can I?”
“You have so far.” She half expected him to explode in rage. Instead he simply shrugged.
“True enough,” he said. “But things are going to be getting a little difficult from now on, and we need every advantage we can get.”
“From now on?” she echoed, looking at him in absolute horror.
“Trust me, Annie. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
To call the small city of Derrymore poor was to put it kindly. The streets were deserted in the bleak rain, the buildings derelict, with broken windows, sagging doors. The pub they found wasn’t much better, but inside it was dark and clean and warm, and praise God they had coffee.
He waited until she’d plowed through a huge fry-up, ignoring the grease, ignoring the horror and dark delight of the night before, simply concentrating on the need to fuel her body. James sat back and watched her, sipping interminable mugs of tea, barely touching his food.
“Don’t you need to eat as well?” she asked finally, when she’d managed to mop up every last bit of runny egg from her thick china plate.”
“No.”
His flat tone worried her. She looked up at him, and already she could see the hollows in his face, the bone structure. “Everyone needs to eat, James.”
“I’ll eat when this is over.”
“James …”
He sighed. “Annie, I do better without food. It fine-tunes my reflexes, makes me more observant, more wary. Trust me, our chances will be better if I don’t force myself to eat.” He leaned back, watching her. “Are you ready to answer a few questions?”
“About what?”
“Your father. About this missing picture of the martyred saint.”
“I already told you everything I know about it. It was there last time I visited him, a couple of weeks before he died. After his death it was gone. There was nothing else gone from the house, so I didn’t bother to report it to the police. It was just an old print. Maybe I should have.”
“It would have been a waste of time. I don’t think anyone stole it, I think Win hid it. I think he hid it here for some twisted reason of his own. But he wouldn’t have done it without leaving a clue. A message. I couldn’t find anything at all that would steer me in the right direction. It’s got to be you, Annie. He must have told you where he hid it.”
“Why would he do that? Why are you so certain it’s important? What if he simply dropped it on the marble floor and broke the glass? He could have taken it to be replaced, and then died before he could pick it up.”
“What was in the picture, Annie? Tell me again.”
“I don’t even remember that well. It was just a print of an old religious painting. Some early Christian martyr being eaten by snakes. I told him it was really unpleasant, but he said it amused him.”
“I imagine it did,” James muttered. “The question is, why did he have such a thing? He was an atheist, and he was scarcely the sort of man to collect things like that. He preferred more intangible things.”
“Like what?”
“Like people’s souls, Annie. He collected souls.”
She pushed away from the table. “I don’t want to hear this,” she said, but he’d already caught her wrist, catching her in mid-flight. She had no choice but to sit back down again.
“I don’t give a damn what you want to hear, Annie,” he said softly, the Irish in his voice. “It’s past the time of wanting, or me making any effort to spare your tender feelings.”
“I hadn’t noticed you making much of an effort before,” she said in a caustic voice.
His mouth curved in a mocking grin. “You’d be surprised. What did Win tell you about the painting? What do you remember?”
“We never discussed it.”
“Ever? Didn’t you think it was odd that he’d own such a thing?”
“My father was always unpredictable. He had a fondness for things Irish, which always surprised me, considering we don’t have a drop of Irish blood in us. I assumed it had some sentimental value for him.”
James cursed, a low, foul word. “Did you ever discuss Ireland?”
“No. Why should we?”
“Annie, I don’t give a shit why or how. He must have said something to you, anything that could give me a hint.”
A memory came rushing back with a shock. “He did,” she said.
He was still holding her wrist. She remembered him holding her wrists down against the bed last night, so she couldn’t put her arms around him. She looked down, half expecting to see bruises. But he hadn’t bruised her. Indeed, he hadn’t marked her at all. Except her soul.
Odd, she thought. If her father collected souls, it was only fitting that James take hers.
“What did he say, Annie?” James’s voice was a low, soothing croon, and his thumb caressed the sensitive inside of her wrist, hypnotizing her.
“It was the last time I saw him. I remember I thought it was peculiar at the time, but then, when he died, it just went completely out of my mind, and I forgot all about it.”
“What did he say, Annie?”
“We were sitting in his study drinking cognac. You know how father loved to be what he called ‘civilized’?”
“I know,” James said in an odd voice.
She closed her eyes, and she could see him as clearly as if watching a movie. Win sitting there in the Queen Anne chair, legs elegantly crossed, dressed in a perfect English wool suit, a snifter of brandy in his hand. The snifter was Waterford as well. He’d smiled at her benignly, and she’d basked in his approval, sipping her cognac with less enthusiasm but eager to please her demanding father.
“Do you still do needlework, Annie?” he’d asked out of the blue.
“Not much anymore,” she’d said, immediately determined to dig out one of her many half-finished projects from the attic of her house in Boston. “I was meaning to get back to it.”
“You might consider doing me a favor, my dear. There’s an old Irish blessing I’m particularly fond of. I thought you might make me a sampler of it, perhaps for my birthday. I realize the work is tedious, but it provides excellent self-discipline.”
“Christmas is sooner, Father,” she’d said. “It wouldn’t take me longer than that to do it. Providing it’s not a complete transcript of Joyce’s Ulysses.”
“I don’t like Joyce,” Win had said with a faint smile. “Too emotionally undisciplined for me.”
“Why don’t you write the saying down for me, and I’ll get to work on it when I get back to Bosto
n?”
Win shook his head. “Memorize it, my dear. That way it will come from the heart.”
It had seemed such an odd thing for him to say. “All right. What is it?”
“May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the rain fall gently upon your fields … and may you die in Ireland.”
She blinked. “That’s your favorite saying?”
“Repeat it, Annie,” he’d said, his voice oddly intent.
And she had, until she’d gotten every phrase right. Just as she repeated it for James McKinley as he watched her out of dark, unreadable eyes.
“That’s wrong,” James said, lighting a thick, unfiltered cigarette. He’d given up smoking when she was fifteen. “You’ve got two different sayings mixed up.”
“I don’t have them mixed up—Win did. That’s what he wanted me to embroider for him. I’d already started work on it when I got the call.”
“Always eager to please, weren’t you, Annie?” The words were faintly mocking. “What else would you have done for dear old Dad? Maybe he should have considered recruiting you.”
“There’s nothing wrong with trying to please your only parent,” she snapped back.
“Not if you have other interests in life as well. We won’t argue about it, Annie. Win owned you. You were his creature—you did and wore and thought exactly what he wanted. It must be strange to suddenly have to find out who you are at the age of twenty-seven.”
“Damn you …” she said, but he’d released her wrist, and his eyes were distant.
“May the road rise to meet you,” he murmured. “Sentimental crap. Why the hell would you think Win would really want that?”
“Because I didn’t think he’d have any reason to lie to me,” she shot back.
“Every word he told you was a lie. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine down upon you. Those go together. You can find them on tacky plaques in any tourist trap, covered with plastic shamrocks. But what the hell does the rest mean? That’s from something completely different.”
“Maybe he sent you here to die,” she said.
James looked at her over the curling cigarette smoke. “He sent you here as well, Annie.” He leaned back, stubbing out the cigarette. “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind—shit!”
He surged to his feet, tossing a handful of Irish money down on the table. “We’re out of here,” he said.
“I wanted another cup of coffee …” she protested. She didn’t. She just wanted to force a reaction out of him.
“Screw the bloody coffee.” He practically hauled her through the pub, out into the cold, stormy day. The rain had turned into tiny pellets of ice, stinging her face, and the heavy wool sweater he’d given her could do only so much in keeping the chill out.
“Where are we going?”
“May you die in Ireland,” James echoed bitterly. “He knew you’d come to me sooner or later. He knew I’d ask. It took me too damned long, but then, I thought even Win might balk at using his flesh and blood. I should have known that Win wouldn’t balk at anything.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shoved her under an abandoned doorway, pushing her up against the door. He was huge, sheltering her from the icy storm, menacing. “He knew you’d tell me sooner or later. He knew us both well enough. He figured sooner or later we’d be coming to Ireland to look for the picture.”
“What’s so damned important about the picture?” she demanded.
“I’m not the one who holds the answers, Annie. It’s in the picture. It’s the key to everything. To why your father was killed, to who betrayed him, to who is still running the program, following in his footsteps, playing his evil games. It’s the answer to who’s trying to kill me, and who’ll keep trying to kill you unless we take them out first.”
“You’re crazy, James …” she began, wishing she could believe it. She’d rather be trapped in this dismal town with a crazy man than believe the unbearable truth about her father.
“May you die in Ireland,” he said bitterly. “I did, Annie. I died in Ireland. I fucking died in an Irish prison twenty-two years ago. And he’s sending me back to that place to play his little game one last time. And he’s willing to sacrifice you too.”
He frightened her. Not for the first time he truly frightened her, with his fury, his mad eyes, his passion. She wanted to sink back against the hard wood door behind her, away from him, to deny everything he was saying in that terrible, unfamiliar Irish voice of his.
But she didn’t. She reached up and touched his face, cupping it gently in her hands. “Where is he sending us?” she asked quietly.
He stilled, the fury momentarily quieted. “Back to Highroad Prison, Annie. Not that there’s much left of it nowadays—it was closed down as a security risk in the early eighties, and a few unforgiving IRA soldiers decided to blow it apart for old time’s sake. That’s why he came to Ireland, Annie. To hide the painting in that one place.”
“But why?” His body was pressed up against hers, and she could feel the heat, the strength, flowing between them. Calming him. “Why would he go to all that trouble? Why not leave it where it was? Why not send it to me, or give it to Martin?”
“Because he knew me too well. He knew it was the one thing I’d avoided doing. Going back to that damned place. And he’s laughing at me in hell.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But you’re not alone. I’m with you. How far away is it?”
He jerked his head toward the hillside overlooking the little town. “Up there,” he said.
The stone ruins towered against the sky. She’d assumed it was an old castle, but now those walls held a more sinister meaning. “What are we waiting for?” she asked briskly.
“Night.” He rested his forehead against the door, taking a deep breath. “We’ll go up at dusk. I want to avoid having anyone follow us, and it’ll be easier in the dark.”
“Easier to get lost,” she said.
“I broke three men out of there before they put me in to die,” he said. “I can find my way.” He backed away, staring at her. “You don’t need to come with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can find you a safe house. I still have a few friends, connections in the county. That’s how I found the house in Derrymore. I can see that you’re safely settled before I go up there.”
“No way.”
“You’ll do as I tell you.”
“The hell I will.”
“Annie, we don’t need to fight this battle all over again. You agreed to abide by my rules—”
“I’m coming with you, James.” She waited for the argument. She waited for the cool, mocking anger, or the heated fury. She waited for reason, for threats, for flirtation, all designed to make her change her mind.
“All right,” he said abruptly. “You’ve come this far, you can come the rest of the way. But you’re not going to like it, Annie.”
“Like what? The ruins of a prison?”
“You aren’t going to like what we find there. The lost souls of hundreds of men who died for their cause. And the truth about your father.”
“I can handle the truth.”
His smile was cool and bitter. “Can you? We’ll see, Annie. We’ll see.”
Chapter Seventeen
Annie had never seen such a bleak, barren spot in her entire life. The rain had stopped just before sunset, and while the wind still whipped strongly across the landscape, the chill came from within.
She followed him up the overgrown road in the darkness, struggling to keep up with him. He’d hardly said a word to her during the entire day. He just kept moving them from place to place, from pub to pub, where he’d sit and drink mugs of tea and smoke cigarettes.
Until night had fallen, and he took her out into the gathering darkness, and they started toward the ruins at the top of the hill.
She stumbled on the rough ground, falling, but for once he seemed barely aware
of her. He just kept going, over the torn-up road, sure-footed, driven, and she’d scrambled to her feet and run after him, struggling to keep up.
When she reached the top of the plateau she stopped, searching for him among the broken walls, the dark piles of rubble. He was moving swiftly, and she was forgotten. She paused, glancing back over her shoulder. If any of James’s enemies, her enemies, were still after them, he would be too far away, too caught up in his quest, to save her. She opened her mouth to call after him, then stifled the need, the fear. There was no one around them this time—she’d learned to trust her instincts well enough.
She started after him, at a slower pace, careful over the broken piles of brick and mortar. The wind was howling across the heath, and she thought of his words. Of the countless men who’d died in this prison before time and anger had torn it down. Of the ghosts who still haunted the ruins.
When she was young, she’d seen an old Walt Disney movie about Ireland, and there’d been a banshee, wailing, calling to the dead, riding in the sky like a fiend from hell. It had always terrified her, and now the vision came back. Banshees, warning of an oncoming death. Didn’t the wind sound like a wailing voice?
James had disappeared from sight, and the panic that she’d been keeping at bay swamped her again. And then she saw him, bent down over the rubble, digging in the dirt.
When she reached him, he hadn’t moved. He knelt on the ground, with ruin all around him. And in his hand was a dark bundle wrapped in plastic.
It was at that moment that the moon rose, sending a chill, silvery glow over the landscape. He stared at the bundle in his hand, then slowly began to unwrap it.
“How did you know where to look?”
He barely seemed aware of her, and she wondered whether he even knew she was there. And then he spoke in a low, raw voice. “May you die in Ireland.” A tarnished silver frame lay in his hand, and a small black box fell to the ground beside it. He picked it up almost absently, and she realized it was a tiny tape recorder. “This is where my cell was, Annie. This is where I died. This is where I opened my eyes and saw your father looking down at me, and I thought he was the archangel Gabriel come to carry me to my eternal rest.” His voice was lightly mocking. “Little did I know he was Lucifer, the fallen one. The arch fiend.”