The Angel

by Carla Neggers

  “We’ll belt out some Irish songs together sometime,”

  Simon said, then winked at her. “You, me and the Clancy Brothers.”

  Keira started toward her mother. “Mum…”

  But Eileen Sullivan raised her bloodshot eyes to Simon.

  “Is your voice better than mine?”

  He grinned at her. “A wee bit, ma’am,” he said in his best Irish accent.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. The local and state police would be arriving soon, and Simon wouldn’t be sur­

  prised if a few Boston cops were thrown into the mix for good measure.

  He saw a glimmer of a smile from Eileen Sullivan as she turned to Keira. “I like his wit,” she said, then fainted in her daughter’s arms.

 
  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  8:00 p.m., EDT

  June 24

  Abigail showed her badge to the police officer posted at Liam Butler’s hospital room. Prosecutors were still debating whether to charge him with anything, but she doubted they would.

  It was late in the evening, the end of a very long day. Liam looked as if he was sleeping. The worst gash was in his abdomen, but no vital organs were seriously affected. The paramedics and doctors had intervened in time. They’d stopped the bleeding, given him blood and stitched him up. He was on pain medication, but what he needed most now, they said, was time to heal. He’d have scars from his ordeal, but otherwise he’d make a full recovery.

  Emotionally, Abigail didn’t know. He’d endured a horror few people had ever survived.

  And he’d made a lot of mistakes.

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  319 Only he wasn’t alone when it came to mistakes. What promised to be a thorough, painstaking investiga­

  tion had begun. Authorities in Boston, Cambridge and Ireland had already begun retracing Jay Augustine’s steps over the past few weeks and months, when he’d gone from being a respected fine art and antiques dealer to a killer handcuffed in the New Hampshire woods.

  Charlotte Augustine had already hired a lawyer and a spokesperson to manage media inquiries and to portray her as another of her husband’s victims.

  Maybe she was, but she hadn’t told the truth to the police, either.

  Abigail couldn’t tell if Liam was aware of her presence. His parents and brother would be arriving soon from Chicago. “Hey, Liam,” she said. “It’s Abigail Browning. Are you awake?”

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled without opening his eyes. She hadn’t expected any response. “Your folks will be here soon,” she said.

  This time he didn’t respond.

  Bob O’Reilly entered the room, jerking a thumb back toward the nurses’ station. “The nurses are worse than the Cambridge cops. I thought they were going to frisk me before they let me in here.”

  Abigail was heartened by the return of his wry sense of humor.

  He stood next to her at Liam’s bed. “Cambridge PD’s annoyed with you for not telling them about the devil room,” he said.

  “You didn’t tell them, either.”

  Bob shrugged. “Hell, I thought your guy tripped on his shoelaces.”

  “We’re still not sure he didn’t, figuratively speaking—

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  I realize he was wearing loafers. But it still could have been a freak accident.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Maybe we’ll learn more when the rest of the autopsy results come in. The medical examiner’s already taking a closer look at the pre­

  liminary results. You’d think there’d have been some obvious sign of a struggle.”

  “Maybe Victor thought he was up against a devil and didn’t struggle.”

  “Not a devil, Bob. The devil or one of his minions. There’s a distinction—”

  “One you don’t need to make.” Bob grimaced at the sight of the thin, bandaged kid in the bed. “At least Augustine didn’t slice and dice his brother-in-law the way he did that sheep in Ireland. What he had in mind for Keira and Eileen…”

  “Bob—”

  “It worked out,” he said. “That’s what counts.”

  “How’s your sister?”

  “She’ll be okay. The bastard didn’t lay a finger on Keira. She and that ax.” He shook his head. “She’s tougher than she looks, that one.”

  “And your daughters—”

  “I think Fi’s got a crush on Scoop. Something new to keep me awake nights.”

  Abigail smiled at Bob’s bravado. As far as she could see, there wasn’t an O’Reilly who wasn’t tough.

  “Augustine told people he was in New York the day Victor drowned.”

  “Yes, well, supposedly he was in New York when he was in Ireland, too.”

  “He wanted that angel—wanted to beat Keira to it. He knew he could get the Murphys to pay him a fortune for

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  321 it. Figured he could always take the money and disappear. Start up again under a new name.”

  “He and Charlotte have only been married two years,”

  Abigail said. “Who knows what we’ll find when we dig deeper into his past?”

  “Charlotte told Yarborough that she and Jay met after he found some of the pieces for her brother’s devil collec­

  tion. Didn’t mention that tidbit to you, did she?”

  Abigail shook her head. “Jay told us that day at Victor’s that he and Charlotte met over a Renaissance tapestry he’d helped Victor find. Did he hook up with Patsy through the Murphys, or vice versa?”

  Bob rubbed the back of his thick neck, his fatigue evident. Today had shaken him, Abigail thought. But she knew he wouldn’t stop until he had a solid sense of the time line of the past few weeks. What Jay Augustine had done. When. Why. How. All of it.

  “He turned up for the angel bazaar at Saint Ita’s,” Bob said. “I just came from there. Showed Father Palermo a picture of this maniac. Several dealers stopped by the bazaar looking for bargains—some figurine some poor old lady had squirreled away for years and didn’t realize was valuable. Palermo remembers Patsy and Augustine taking a shine to each other.”

  “He’s a manipulative son of a bitch,” Abigail said.

  “He befriended the Murphys. He and Charlotte are le­

  gitimate dealers—Billie and Jeanette had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. Patsy eventually figured out he was no good.” Bob dropped his hand from his neck and looked at Abigail, his cornflower-blue eyes filled with pain. “In the end, she knew.”

  “He loved it all. Patsy’s story and the possibility of finding a valuable Irish Celtic artifact. The tragedy of her 322

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  daughter’s death. Her killer’s bizarre death.” Abigail bit down on her lower lip to control a wave of emotion. “Keira. Her mother.”

  “Yeah,” Bob said. “He loved it all.”

  “Keira knows she had nothing to do with bringing him into Patsy’s life, doesn’t she?”

  “She knows. I’m just not sure how much that helps.”

  Liam’s eyes, swollen from his ordeal, opened, focused on the two detectives. “I should have told you…”

  Bob sighed at him. “Life’s full of should haves, kid.” He spoke as if he was just laying out an obvious truth. “Get used to it. You have a lot more mistakes ahead of you.”

  “Geez, Bob,” Abigail said, “remind me not to have you come visit if I’m ever in the hospital.”

  He glanced at her, obviously mystified. “What?” But he turned back to Liam. “Detective Browning and I are experi­

  enced investigators, and we took a house tour with Augus­

  tine. I should have known something was wrong when that twisted son of a bitch didn’t get the creeps in the devil room.”

  “Me, too,” Liam mumbled. “But Victor…”

  “Weird guy, but he was okay, huh?”

  Liam stirred, more conscious now. “Victor figured it out
. He knew what Jay was. I thought Jay was just hiding money and stealing from Charlotte. I got his log-in infor­

  mation for his accounts. Bank, credit card. Victor—he checked them out. He must have found something.”

  “Receipts for Jay’s tickets to Ireland, maybe,” Abigail said.

  “He didn’t tell me. That day…” Liam’s eyes closed, and he was clearly fading again. “He said he had the devil on his heels. I didn’t…I thought it was just…you know, Victor being Victor.”

  “Rest up, kid,” Bob said. “You’ll need your energy for

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  323 when you look for a new job. Nothing involving devils this time, okay?”

  Liam’s mouth twitched with humor. “Thanks.”

  Bob didn’t speak again until he and Abigail had exited the hospital and were outside in the warm, clear, beautiful June evening. “Yarborough’s still annoyed with you for being right about your drowning. Me, I’m getting used to the idea.”

  “No, you aren’t, and I don’t care. I wish I’d been wrong.”

  “Better to die tripping on a crack in the sidewalk than believing you’re being chased by the devil.”

  “We’ll prove Augustine was in Boston that night,”

  Abigail said.

  “Yeah, but the bastard had me beat,” Bob said, matter of fact. “Keira and Eileen are alive because of what they and Simon did, not because of what I did. I let my assump­

  tions drive my conclusions.”

  “Augustine had us both beat,” Abigail said.

  “I don’t know, though. Go back through the time line. We’d have had to be damn lucky to get ahead of Augus­

  tine any sooner than we did. Even if Butler had told us what he and Victor had been up to, he didn’t know that Augus­

  tine was a killer. We’re just a couple of detectives, Abigail. And we didn’t kill anyone.”

  She walked out to her car. Bob had parked right behind her. She got out her keys but didn’t step off the curb. “My father worked on the Deirdre McCarthy murder investigation.”

  “Yes, he did. Abigail—” He broke off, seemed to try to find the right words. “Deirdre’s death is something I got used to not talking about.”

  It was as close to an apology as she’d ever get from Bob O’Reilly. “You I can understand. You were just a kid yourself thirty years ago. But my father…”

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  “He’s not that much older than me. It was a tough in­

  vestigation. I didn’t know him that well, but you were a toddler when Deirdre was killed, Abigail.” Bob took a pack of gum from his pants pocket, tapped out a piece and gave it to her, then tapped one out for himself. “Why would your father tell you about an unspeakable act of violence that happened when you were still in diapers?”

  Abigail supposed he had a point, but she didn’t want to get into it. He’d had a hard enough day without taking on defend­

  ing her father. “Not me, Bob. I was out of diapers by then.”

  “No kidding? I thought my girls would be going to kin­

  dergarten in diapers.” He headed for his car, but stopped after a few yards and called back to her. “You’ll be a good mother, Abigail.”

  She pushed back a tug of emotion. “Yeah. I think so.”

  Two minutes later, she was in her car, tossing Bob’s stick of gum into her little trash bag. She didn’t chew gum that wasn’t sugar free, and he didn’t chew gum that was. She stuck her key in the ignition, pushing back her fatigue. She was on her way to the triple-decker she shared with Bob and Scoop—and Owen, she thought. Her eyes teared up, and suddenly she couldn’t wait to be home.

 
  Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

  9:00 p.m., EDT

  June 24

  Keira laid a handful of loose-leaf lettuce in Scoop’s dented colander. “I must really look like hell for you to let me in your garden.”

  He was picking lettuce a few feet down the row from her. The garden was his turf. He’d all but posted No Tres­

  passing signs. He smiled at her. “Tough for you to look like hell, Keira.”

  “It’s been a long day,” she said without further expla­

  nation.

  “Yeah. But working in the garden helps, doesn’t it? Puts life into perspective. I’ll wash the lettuce, toss it with this nice balsamic vinaigrette I whipped up.” He rolled back onto his heels. “Feeling better already, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” she said, standing up. “Thanks, Scoop. Thanks for everything.”

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  “You’re welcome, but I didn’t do a damn thing except listen to Fiona O’Reilly play harp for a couple hours—”

  “You got Madeleine and Jayne into protective custody, and you were the one who had to tell Bob about the pictures.”

  “Yeah. There was that.”

  The thought of the pictures—the thought of Jay Augus­

  tine stalking her cousins—made Keira sick to her stomach. She could only imagine how her uncle felt. But they were a ruse, a part of Augustine’s game. Fiona, Madeleine and Jayne were never his targets.

  “I didn’t ask enough questions around here,” Scoop said. “Bob and Abigail needed an objective voice, and I wasn’t there. They weren’t letting anyone in, given their crappy moods, but I should have forced myself in.”

  “We all did our best.” Keira brushed dirt off her hands as she got to her feet. “I guess that’s all we can ask of ourselves.”

  Scoop rose next to her with his colander. “Let this guy Cahill in, Keira. The two of you. It’s new, but it’s for real. That’s not one of the things I missed the past week.”

  His words took her by surprise. “Scoop—”

  But he’d already bolted for the stairs up to his apartment. Keira stepped out of the garden, carefully avoiding tramping on any of his tender plants. Scoop wasn’t easy to figure out, but none of them was—him, her uncle, Abigail. And Simon, she thought. He’d stayed at her side after he’d tackled Jay Augustine. The police had arrived within minutes. Augustine had gone silent by then, but Keira knew his cold stare would stay in her mind forever. But he was in police custody now. He couldn’t hurt anyone else. Simon was in Abigail’s kitchen with her and Bob. Talking cop talk, probably. Keira wanted to stay close to her mother, who’d given in to her brother’s wishes not to go back to her cabin. She’d had her wounds stitched up at a local hospital.

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  327 Augustine was, indeed, very good with knives. She was half asleep in an Adirondack chair now. It was her first visit to the triple-decker Bob had bought with his two colleagues.

  “Doing okay, Mum?” Keira asked her.

  She managed a small, reassuring smile. “Never better.”

  Owen walked out into the tiny yard with two tall glasses of iced tea, handing one to Keira and the other to her mother. Keira relished the normalcy of drinking iced tea on a warm summer night. “You knew Simon was FBI?”

  Owen nodded without hesitation. “I did.”

  “For how long?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “And you didn’t tell Abigail,” Keira said, making it a statement.

  “It turned into a bigger deal than it should have. Simon and I didn’t really become friends until recently. The Armenian earthquake in particular—he’s tireless. He’s also one of the bravest men I’ve ever known.”

  Keira smiled. “Scary almost, isn’t it?” But she couldn’t sustain any real humor and instead dropped into a chair at the table, drinking some of her tea. “In other words, you never expected for you and Simon and Abigail to become friends.”

  “Fast Rescue has a lot of volunteers.”

  “Do you know what he does with the FBI?”

  Owen looked uncomfortable. “Keira…”

  “I’m guessing he’s used his disaster-preparedness con­

  sulting as cover. I imagine he’s had to tell the BPD and state d
etectives who he is by now, if not the details. Is that going to cause him problems?”

  “Nothing he can’t handle, or so he tells me.” Owen pulled out a chair next to her and sat down. He could be exacting and intense, but he was also one of the kindest 328

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  men Keira had ever met. “Simon’s status was a confidence, not a secret.”

  “A distinction without a difference if you’re the one in the dark. I’m not talking about myself. I’m just getting to know Simon.” Never mind last night, she thought with a welcome surge of heat. “Abigail, though. Yikes. She must not be real pleased.”

  Owen shrugged, obviously not worried. “That’s one way to put it. I’ve known Simon long enough to say this, Keira. He’s the same man whether or not he’s wearing his badge.”

  She knew what he was saying—that there’d been no pre­

  tending this week. The man she’d met—the man she’d made love to, had fallen for so hard and fast—wasn’t part of an act. But she’d known that. “Badge, hell, Owen. I’m just glad he showed up when he did this afternoon. Otherwise I’d have had to do serious bodily harm to that cretin.”

  “I heard about your ax,” Owen said with a smile.

  “Splitter. Now that’s a distinction with a difference. An ax has a proper blade. If I’d had to tackle Augustine myself—” She stopped herself, not wanting to dive too deep into the bottomless ocean of might-have-beens. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just relieved I didn’t have to do more than I did.”

  “Which was enough.”

  “That whole deadly force thing is what bit me at the police academy. There’s usually one thing in particular that gets people who don’t make it through training, and that was mine.”

  “You dropped out. You didn’t flunk out—”

  “Another distinction without a difference.”

  “Maybe so. I’m not in law enforcement, but I know that the purpose of deadly force is to stop, not to kill.”