The Angel

by Carla Neggers

  tigate a homicide, I’m never thinking fairies did it. You’re not a detective, Keira. You don’t think like one. You don’t have the training.”

  “I didn’t get trapped because I was trying to be some­

  thing I’m not.”

  “No, I guess not.” When he looked at her this time, his eyes were filled with pain and worry. “How bad was it in that place?”

  Her throat caught. “Pretty bad.” She attempted a smile.

  “There were slugs.”

  Scoop made a face. “I hate slugs.” He nodded to his garden. “I had to go on the warpath against them during a rainy spell earlier this month. They were eating everyth­

  ing. What kind of slugs were in the ruin with you?”

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  “Black ones, about six inches—”

  He shuddered. “Stop. I can’t take it.”

  Even Abigail managed to grin at the prospect of Scoop Wisdom getting the creeps over slugs. “How did you learn about this story about the brothers and the fairies?”

  Bob lifted a package of preformed hamburger patties out of a cooler. “What difference does it make?” He ripped open the package and started laying patties on the grill. “Scoop, you got enough peas for all of us?”

  “More than enough,” he said.

  Abigail didn’t relent. “The story, Keira?”

  “Drop it,” Bob said.

  “I’m just asking a question, Bob. It’s not an interrogation.”

  But it was, Keira thought with sudden clarity. Abigail was in detective mode, and it was irritating Bob. His reaction struck Keira as out of proportion to the offense, and she suspected it had something to do with her mother’s trip to Ireland thirty years ago.

  “Never mind,” Abigail said quietly. “I’m sorry, Keira. You’ve had a long day—”

  “A woman who lives on the street where my uncle and mother grew up told me the story. Supposedly my mother looked for the village when she was in Ireland before I was born.”

  Her uncle was seething. “She went to a lot of places when she was in Ireland, and it was thirty years ago. Leave her alone.”

  Keira turned to Simon and tried to lighten the mood.

  “Now I could use rescuing.”

  “Nah.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “You’re three minutes from crawling out of this one on your own, too.”

  “Can you sketch this angel for us?” Abigail asked. “The dog, the ruin?”

  THE ANGEL

  203

  Keira didn’t bother to hide her relief at the slight change in subject. “I can try.”

  “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for drawing materials.”

  Abigail retreated into her apartment, returning in a few moments with a stack of printer paper and a mug of colored pencils, crayons and markers. “I know these aren’t the kind of supplies you’re used to—”

  “They’re fine. Thanks.”

  “It’ll help us visualize your experience, and it could jog your memory, produce some detail you haven’t thought of.”

  Keira picked through the mug, choosing a black finepoint felt-tip pen. “I don’t know if I can capture the moody beauty of that evening. My ancestors are from Ireland,” she said. “My great-great-grandfather O’Reilly came over during the famine years in the late 1840s. My grandmother was born in Ireland.”

  “But this wasn’t your first trip?” Abigail asked.

  “My fourth. Eddie O’Shea and his brothers have lived on the Beara Peninsula their entire lives. Their family goes back there hundreds of years. Being a basic tumbleweed myself, I’m drawn to that sense of place—that continuity of home.”

  Simon leaned forward over the table without crowding her. “Is Patsy McCarthy from the Beara Peninsula?”

  “No—another village in West Cork. Her grandfather worked in the copper mines. The copper veins drew ancient settlers—the ruin is up in the hills above a megalithic stone circle. Some people believe that’s fairy ground.”

  She stared at the blank page a moment, visualizing the Irish landscape, the hidden ruin, the ivy, the snarling dog. Had the dog snarled? Had he meant to harm her? Or was he just reacting to the dead sheep?

  “The sheep’s blood wasn’t there,” she whispered. “Not when I arrived.”

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  No one spoke, and she let her instincts lead her pen to the right spot on the paper. She drew quickly, but carefully, trying to get the details right without overfocusing on them. She put the pen down. She was aware of the burgers sizzling on the grill. Scoop had gone upstairs with his colander. Abigail was leaned back in her chair, Owen next to her, Bob still at the grill. Simon hadn’t moved.

  “I can’t believe I felt safe when someone was smearing the blood of a murdered sheep a few yards from me.” Keira looked at the two detectives and the two search-and-rescue experts. “Someone was there. I didn’t imagine the voice.”

  “But you still felt safe,” her uncle said, all the ferocity gone out of his voice now.

  “Afterward. Not at first. But afterward—in the dark.”

  She appraised her sketch. The basics were there. Dog, stream, gray stone, debris. The dead tree. At least a sense of the moody light. “Yes. I felt safe.”

  “What about the angel?” Abigail asked. “Can you draw it?”

  “Not as easily. I can draw what I saw—what I remember. It won’t have the kind of detail you’re probably looking for.”

  It took several false starts, several different pencils and markers, before she managed to draw an angel that even came close to what she’d seen that night. “I can’t…” She sighed. “It was more beautiful than this. Truly a work of art.”

  Bob leaned over her shoulder. “Patsy’s always liked her angels,” he said.

  Something in his voice made Keira look up, but he quickly returned to the grill. Scoop came down the back stairs with a bowl of steamed peas, and Abigail and Owen went inside and brought out a platter of paper plates, condi­

  ments, buns and a bowl overflowing with a green salad—

  a well-practiced ritual, Keira realized.

  THE ANGEL

  205 “Jet-lagged?” Simon asked, close to her. She remembered the feel of his thick thighs against her on the long flight across the Atlantic. “Very. The sheep is disturbing, Simon. Eddie O’Shea didn’t deserve to find such a horror. If I attracted whoever killed that poor animal to the village—”

  “You’re not responsible for what someone else does.”

  His clear, succinct words helped center her, but they didn’t chase away all her sense of guilt at Eddie’s grisly discovery. “It’s not a coincidence,” she said. “The story, my presence, the dead sheep.”

  “I don’t think so, either.”

  And the man who’d drowned, she thought. Was his death not a coincidence, either?

  “I’m going to see Patsy in the morning,” she said abruptly. Her uncle’s eyes were half-closed. “She’s an old woman, Keira.”

  “I know. I’ll be careful what I tell her. I don’t want to upset her. I just want to know if there’s some part of this story—some tidbit her grandfather told her that she hasn’t thought about in years—that could help make sense of things. Then I’ll talk to Colm Dermott.”

  “Are you planning to go back to Ireland?” Abigail asked.

  “I certainly hope to, but I’m not wild about staying in my cottage alone until I have a better fix on what’s going on. Maybe the Irish police will trace the dead sheep back to some hiker who has nothing to do with me.”

  Her comment was met with silence, which Keira took as skepticism—they all believed the poor mutilated sheep had everything to do with her own ordeal. With a sudden burst of energy, she reached for a bright green marker and drew a cheeky leprechaun on one of her discarded sheets.

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  Scoop Wisdom gave a mock shudder. “I don’t know, Keira. I think I’d rather run in
to a mean black dog coming out of the Irish mist than that little sucker.”

  Everyone laughed, but when dinner was served, Keira didn’t eat a bite.

 
  Beacon Hill

  Boston, Massachusetts

  9:00 p.m., EDT

  June 23

  As soon as Owen pulled in front of the Garrison house on Beacon Street, Keira grabbed her brocade bag from next to her on the backseat and leaped out, shutting the door behind her. Simon watched her charge for the front door.

  “She’s got a lot of energy for someone who’s been through what she has in the past few days.”

  “She could just be anxious to put some distance between you and her,” Owen said.

  “True enough.”

  “Simon—” Owen sighed, threw the car into Park.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Simon kept his eyes on Keira as she set her bag on the step and dug out her keys. If she locked him out, he could always ask Owen to let him in. It had been a torturous 208

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  flight. He’d done one damn Sudoku puzzle after another to stay awake. Whenever he’d dozed off, he’d ended up dreaming about making love to the woman next to him. He acknowledged he was restless. He was accustomed to search-and-rescue missions and changing time zones—

  to long flights, as well.

  So it had to be Keira. The mess she was in. Kissing her out in the windswept Irish countryside.

  “What about John March?” Owen asked.

  An image of the FBI director’s face wasn’t exactly how Simon wanted his memory of kissing Keira interrupted, but nothing he could do now. “What about him?”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “I left a message for him before I left London. Said I was off to rescue a damsel in distress.” Simon shrugged.

  “He hasn’t called back. The less you know about my business with March, Owen, the better. It hasn’t followed me back here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I don’t know if I should have called you in London after all.”

  Simon summoned his sense of humor from deep inside.

  “And spared me a night in an Irish cottage with our flaxenhaired fairy princess?”

  “Simon…I swear…” Owen sighed again. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “I’m about to carry my bag upstairs. How many flights up to the attic apartment with no phone?”

  “Three. The last one’s steep and narrow.” Owen added dryly, “Don’t trip.”

  Simon grabbed his own bag from the backseat, thanked Owen for the ride and, with a fresh burst of energy, headed for the elegant brick house, running up the steps and catching the front door just before it could shut tight.

  THE ANGEL

  209 Keira had a decent jump on him. He started after her, taking the stairs two and three at a time, but dropped his pace down to one. Owen hadn’t been kidding. The last flight of stairs in particular was steep and narrow, clearly not built for someone Simon’s size.

  When he reached the attic, he noted that Keira had left the front door slightly ajar. He took that as a positive sign.

  “You can come in,” she said, “but watch your head.”

  He had to duck to get through the door. The apartment had low, slanted ceilings, its open floor plan easing any sense of claustrophobia. A pine table doubled as a work space, an ar­

  rangement she’d duplicated at her Irish cottage. One edge of the table was lined with art supplies. Open shelves held books and additional supplies, and a desktop computer with a massive flat screen sat on a rickety-looking cart. A couch, a chair and a coffee table formed a small seating area in front of three windows that looked out on Boston Common.

  Simon plopped his bag onto the scuffed hardwood floor. Keira’s eyes were on him, serious. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Simon. I know I’ve had a bad time of it, but I don’t want to take advantage of your generosity.”

  “Tell me you want to stay here alone tonight in a way that I’ll believe.”

  “I didn’t—” She paused, obviously fighting to hang on to her self-control. “I didn’t expect the sheep. I keep thinking about that blood. And the shovel—my backpack. I feel terrible for Eddie.”

  “He strikes me as a man who’s seen a thing or two in his day.”

  “And he has his brothers and all those guys at the pub.”

  The thought seemed to cheer her somewhat. “My backpack turning up is odd. Maybe Scoop’s right and a hiker found it 210

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  and just dropped it off at the pub and went on his way. But maybe it was someone who knew exactly what it was and left it for Eddie—someone who wanted to remain anonymous. Last night, Simon, you mentioned a man you saw—”

  “You saw him, too, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “I had a strange conversation with him the night before I was trapped. Nothing ominous—just unusual. Like he knew things about me.”

  “A fairy prince?” Simon’s tone was only half lighthearted.

  “A hard-bitten looking one, if he is,” Keira said, almost managing a smile. “I’m not suggesting he’s involved, cer­

  tainly not that he’d brutalize a sheep.”

  “Seamus Harrigan seems competent. He’ll investi­

  gate—”

  “You’re right.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Simon said simply. She averted her eyes, and he could see that they’d filled with tears.

  His heart nearly stopped. “Keira…”

  “There’s one more piece of this—I don’t know where it fits, or even if it does fit. My mother came home from Ireland pregnant with me. She dropped out of college. She’s never talked about what happened. When I ask her about my father, she just—” Keira sucked in a breath, turned to him. “She tells me that my father was John Michael Sullivan. And he was. I know that. He adopted me after he and my mother were married when I was a year old. He died in a car accident when I was three, and I barely remember him.”

  “I’m sorry, Keira.”

  “By all accounts, he was a wonderful man. My uncle thought the world of him. He was an electrician—salt of the earth. The rock my mother needed.”

  THE ANGEL

  211 “You went to Ireland in search of your birth father?”

  “Yes and no.” All the tension and fear of the past few days seemed to have welled up inside her to the point of bursting. But she exhaled, blinking back any remaining tears. “I went because of Patsy’s story—the book I’m doing. But also because I thought I might find some answers, or at least make my peace with not having them. I had a happy childhood, Simon. My mother’s a loving, open woman, deeply committed to her faith. But over the past few years, she’s pulled further and further away from everyone and everything she knows.”

  “And you blame yourself?”

  “If this is what she wants, I can accept that. I just…” Keira raked her fingers through her hair, suddenly looking ex­

  hausted. “I keep thinking if I’d stayed closer to home, if I’d shown more interest in her life—”

  “Keira, don’t. You’re not responsible for your mother’s happiness.”

  “It’s one thing to know that—it’s another to feel it in your gut. The truth is, I’m not even sure she actually got pregnant when she was in Ireland.”

  “The monk in your story’s a hermit. Do you think he inspired your mother in some way?”

  She lifted her shoulders and let them fall in an exagger­

  ated shrug. “Who knows?”

  “So, I’m trying to picture your mother,” Simon said.

  “Does she look more like her brother or more like you?”

  Keira stared at him, and he thought he might have gone too far—but then he saw the spark in her eyes, the crack of a smile. “You’re impossible, Simon. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Laugh hard, live long—or at least w
ell.”

  He went over to her microscopic kitchenette and pulled 212

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  two glasses and a bottle of Jameson’s whiskey off an open shelf. Keira didn’t need him there. She had all those cops she could call on in a pinch, and she was smart, capable and resourceful—not such a flake after all.

  Maybe telling himself she was a flake was his own way of keeping his distance.

  Not that he was doing a good job of it, he thought as he set the glasses on the foot of counter space and opened the whiskey, splashed some into the glasses. He handed her a glass, watched her take a sip. “Keira, I want you to know that I don’t make a habit of kissing someone I’ve just rescued. Never mind if that someone quibbles about who did the rescuing. This morning—”

  “It seems like a million years ago, doesn’t it?”

  “Actually, no.”

  Color rose in her cheeks, but he decided it wasn’t from embarrassment. She was remembering their kiss, too.

  “Simon, I know you’re doing a favor for Owen—”

  “It’s gone beyond that, Keira.”

  “I suppose it has. I don’t even know that much about you, and—well, here we are.” She spun over to the table with her glass of whiskey, but didn’t sit down. “How did you get into search-and-rescue work?”

  “I started picking up skills in high school and college.”

  It was the truth as far as it went. “My father died when I was fourteen. Learning how to survive and to help other people in extreme conditions gave me something to do.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  “He was killed in the line of duty. He was a DEA agent.”

  “How awful. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  He shook his head. “Cousins, and my mother remarried not long after—a guy with three kids from a previous marriage.” He walked over to the table and picked up a book