“For northern Virginia,” Colin said.
“For me, you jerk,” Yank muttered good-naturedly.
“She’d like you better if you’d set up your team in Washington instead of Boston.”
“Wasn’t an option.”
“It was, and Lucy knows it. You should quit being so stubborn and just admit you wanted to get out of Washington and do your thing away from the close scrutiny of the higher-ups at headquarters, and you didn’t care that she wanted to stay.”
“I did care.”
“All right. You put aside the fact that she wanted to stay and did what you wanted instead.”
Yank just shook his head. “When I want career and relationship advice from you, I’ll ask. Tell me about the Nightingale.”
Colin drank more of his beer. He was glad now he had skipped his Irish whiskey. He gave Yank a quick but thorough rundown of his visit aboard Dmitri Rusakov’s yacht.
“What are the dynamics between him and Emma?” Yank asked.
“He’s a ladies’ man. He assumes she’s half in love with him.”
“Is she?”
Colin shrugged. “It’s a hell of a yacht. You and I could combine our salaries and still not afford the Nightingale after a hundred lifetimes.”
“You’re talking about an ex-nun who once took a vow of poverty.”
“First vows. Not final vows.”
“Whatever. What about her and Ivan Alexander?”
“That’s a different story,” Colin said, now wishing for whiskey. “There’s an undercurrent there. More than an undercurrent. What do you know?”
“I know Alexander’s not a former Sharpe client or an art collector. He got rich working with Rusakov in the early days. He was just a kid out of the Soviet army. He took care of security. Now he does things on his own.”
“Like what?”
“He still keeps an eye on Rusakov’s enemies.”
“What’s Vladimir Bulgov to Rusakov—friend or enemy?”
“Maybe just the snake Alexander doesn’t want to bite his tycoon friend.”
Colin felt the cool night air seep through a window. That’s what I could do tomorrow, he thought. Caulk windows.
“Donovan? You with me?”
“Yeah, sorry. What do you know about Renee Warren Rusakov, Natalie Warren and Tatiana Pavlova?”
“Mostly blanks,” Yank said. “Renee’s the crazy ex-wife, Natalie’s the ignored, pretty daughter and I’ve never heard of Tatiana Pavlova.”
Colin stood and set his beer on the mantel, next to a framed picture of his first lobster boat. What would Emma have on a mantel? Framed pictures of the Sharpes with rich clients?
He pushed aside such thinking and watched Yank get stiffly to his feet, as if he’d been the one beat up by thugs two nights ago. “You should check out Rusakov’s yacht before you head back to Boston,” Colin said. “The Sharpes might not be anywhere near as rich as Dmitri Rusakov, but they sure know rich people.”
“That’s one aspect of who Emma is and what she brings to her job. Gas up your truck, Donovan. I want you in Boston in the morning. I’m headed back now. “
“I thought I was supposed to rest up after my close call in Florida.”
“You can meet with your new team, then go back to kayaking, drinking whiskey and doing whatever else you do up here.” Yank headed for the front door, then turned, adding, “Bring some of Hurley’s doughnuts.”
He shut the door quietly behind him, but Colin could feel Yank’s tension. It was understandable given the past forty-eight hours. Colin was feeling tense himself. He took his beer bottle back to the kitchen and set it in the sink, his bruises aching now. Boris, the younger of the two Russians, had dealt the first blow in the South Florida heat. He’d just been getting Colin’s attention, reminding him that his life was hanging by a thread and that thread could be cut anytime they chose.
Colin caught his reflection in the dark window above the sink. He looked like hell. No wonder Emma had sent him back to Rock Point.
Should have had whiskey.
He tore open the back door and headed out to his truck. Was Emma camped out on the floor of the Sharpe house? Settled into an elegant guest stateroom aboard the Nightingale?
Wherever she was, he wasn’t leaving her alone with the Russians.
* * *
When Colin arrived in Heron’s Cove, he parked in the lot next to the Sharpe house and walked around to the back, staying out of sight of the Nightingale.
Emma had left the kitchen door unlocked.
He went in, calling her name.
“I was about to lock up,” she said from the small back bedroom.
Colin leaned against what was left of the doorjamb. The room was gutted to the studs, but she was settled onto neatly folded blankets and quilts. “You don’t look as if you’re about to lock the door,” he said.
She raised her eyes to him. “Intruders aren’t usually a big problem in Heron’s Cove.”
“You look cozy,” he said, amused. “Floor’s hard?”
“Not too bad with the quilts.”
He noticed she had a book in her lap and had plugged in a carpenter’s lamp for light. “What are you reading?”
She held up the book. “Russian fables. I found it in one of the boxes in the attic I promised to go through.”
“The one marked Russian Tycoons the Sharpes Know.”
“Something like that.”
The light caught the ends of her honey-colored hair and brought out the green of her eyes. Her cheeks were rosy, as if she’d been caught up in her Russian fables, but it was probably due to the cold room. “I’ll lock up,” Colin said. “I’m not leaving you here alone. I don’t care if I have to make a mat for myself—”
“I can share mine,” she offered quietly.
He grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
He ducked back to the kitchen and flipped the flimsy lock on the back door. Not that he was worried about intruders in Heron’s Cove. He returned to the bedroom and settled in next to Emma, stretching out his legs. The floor was damn hard, even through the layers of blankets and quilts, which smelled like mothballs and had holes. Except for Emma, the Sharpes, Colin had discovered, were natural pack rats.
“I’m not sure how I feel about you choosing the floor over me,” he said. “We have a few things to work out, don’t we?”
She laid her Russian fables in her lap. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I parked in the lot next door and sneaked in through the back. Your reputation is safe with the Russians.”
She leaned against his upper arm and placed a hand on his upper thigh. “Colin…”
“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about us, or your friends aboard the Nightingale,” he said. “Read your fables. I’ll sleep.”
“I love you, Colin,” she said, sharing her blanket with him.
“I know, babe.” He slipped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, too.”
12
LUCAS SHARPE SLUNG his soft leather bag over one shoulder as his grandfather got behind the wheel of his little Ford, which he’d had since he had arrived in Ireland fifteen years ago. He wasn’t big on driving, which only added to Lucas’s misgivings about this hiking-in-the-Irish-hills adventure. Wendell adjusted the seat. Lucas, who was taller, had insisted on driving to the airport. He left the door open when they switched seats.
“Do you have everything?” Wendell asked.
Lucas nodded. “I’m good.”
“Then go on. I’ll be fine. I had espresso this morning to keep me awake on the road.”
The image of his grandfather dozing off behind the wheel was just what Lucas needed to envision before he boarded his flight to London. “Granddad, are you sure you don’t want to take the train?”
“The drive will do me good. I’ll be able to think without you badgering me.”
“I’m not badgering you. You know, you’re too old to rent a car in Ireland. The cutoff is s
eventy-five.”
“Then it’s a bloody good thing I own my own car, isn’t it?”
“Just be careful,” Lucas said.
Wendell’s look reminded Lucas of his younger sister. It was the look that suggested that she was being tolerant, but barely so. Annoyed, but unwilling to say so.
The two were so damn alike.
“I will be careful, Lucas,” his grandfather said. “I always am.”
“Enjoy this walkabout of yours.”
“I intend to.”
“Let me know if you remember anything else about the Rusakov collection,” Lucas said. “That’s why I write things down. I’m lucky I can remember the details of a case two weeks later, never mind twenty years.”
“I remember some things from twenty years ago—hell, sixty years ago—better than I remember what happened yesterday. Don’t think I’m senile.”
“I don’t, Granddad.” Lucas hoisted his bag higher onto his shoulder. “I should be as sharp as you are when I’m fifty let alone eighty-one. I think you’re stonewalling me is what I think.”
“Think what you want.”
It had always been that way between them, Lucas thought. They trusted each other and yet often butted heads. Not so with Wendell and Emma, but Lucas suspected that whatever their grandfather wasn’t saying about the Rusakov collection would be news to her, too.
“When will you get back to Dublin?” Lucas asked.
“When I’m done.”
“That leaves a lot of room—”
“Yes, it does. That’s the idea.” Wendell grunted. “The cops are giving us the hairy eyeball. I’ll be on my way. Let me know what happens in London.”
Lucas promised he would and shut the car door, then stood back as his grandfather pulled out into traffic. He really wasn’t that worried about Wendell driving across Ireland by himself. He had a good mind, decent reflexes, and he would be on a motorway most of the time.
No, Lucas thought, what worried him was his grandfather’s overall mood. The idea of him traipsing about the Irish hills on his own for an open-ended amount of time didn’t sit well, and neither did his evasiveness about Dmitri Rusakov and this collection that had resurfaced. Wendell Sharpe damn well remembered more than he was admitting.
Nothing to be done about it now.
Lucas headed into the airport. He had no trouble with security, and his flight for London took off on time. With his FBI agent sister asking, he felt compelled to look into Tatiana Pavlova himself, without involving his staff.
When he landed at Heathrow, he sprang for the expensive cab ride into the city. He’d opted to check into a hotel instead of bunking with his parents at the London apartment they’d rented for the year. He preferred to be on his own when he was working.
According to their website, the Firebird Boutique where Tatiana Pavlova worked was just a few blocks from his hotel in Mayfair. Emma would have chosen a small boutique hotel, but Lucas wanted the anonymity of the large, efficient chain hotel with its great location on Park Lane. He unpacked, freshened up and downed a bottle of water.
He was tempted to call his grandfather and see how he was getting on with his trip west but decided not to risk putting the old man over the edge by annoying the hell out of him. Emma had reacted more calmly to the idea of a personal retreat. Maybe it was the former nun in her. Lucas found the whole notion unnerving. Who would want to bang around all alone in the Irish hills for days on end? Any hills, for that matter? And at eighty-plus?
He glanced at his watch—11:00 a.m. If Emma had any pertinent new information, she would have emailed him overnight or left a voice mail. No point in calling her now. It was only six in Heron’s Cove.
Restless, fighting a vague but real sense of frustration and uneasiness, he set out on foot into the attractive streets of upscale Mayfair, crowded with Londoners and tourists on a perfect autumn late morning. He walked past expensive shops, embassies, homes and banks before turning onto a short, narrow shaded street and arriving at the small, ivy-colored stone building that housed the Firebird Boutique.
An understated, yet elegant, sign indicated that entry was by appointment only.
Lucas had an appointment.
A woman around his age opened the door. She had long, straight dark hair pulled off her angular face and wore a black suit with a white silk blouse and diamond earrings. “Welcome, Mr. Sharpe,” she said with a warm smile. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re younger than I expected.”
“You must have expected my grandfather, Wendell Sharpe. I’m Lucas Sharpe.”
“I see. Please, come in. My name is Ursula Finch. I’m the manager and creative director here at the Firebird. Did you just arrive in London?”
“This morning, from Dublin,” he said, keeping his background story simple.
“I hope you enjoy your stay, then.”
He entered the small showroom, at once sophisticated, high-end, artistic and charming. Two oval-shaped white tables with white leather-cushioned chairs were on opposite sides of the room, with a wood-and-glass cabinet on the back wall. He had already learned that the boutique’s signature works were inspired by fairy tales, folklore and legends. That by itself could explain Tatiana Pavlova’s interest in the Rusakov collection.
The walls were painted stark white, the only artwork a large oil painting on one wall, depicting a beautiful woman on a golden horse, a handsome man with a gray wolf and a firebird.
“It’s a scene from Ivan Tsarevich, The Firebird and Gray Wolf, a popular Russian fairy tale,” Ursula said when she noticed Lucas eyeing the painting. “Russian fairy tales and European fairy tales often have many similarities, but, of course, instead of kings, princes and princesses, Russian tales have tsars, tsareviches and tsarevnas. This painting is done with watercolor and ink on paper, modeled after the fairy-tale illustrations of the great nineteenth-century Russian artist Ivan Bilibin.”
“Whose work is it?” Lucas asked.
“One of our designers, Tatiana Pavlova, painted it. She’s multitalented.” Ursula smiled as she led him to one of the tables. “Tatiana can do anything she sets her mind to. Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, water?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
She gestured with one hand. “Please, have a seat. Your family business is well-known to us here at the Firebird. The art world is lucky to have you doing such work.”
Lucas sat in one of the cushioned chairs. “I learned all I know from my grandfather.”
“That’s decent of you to say.”
“And true,” he added.
“Tatiana is in America right now.” Ursula sat across from him; she looked uneasy if not exactly nervous. “She said she needed to go off on her own for a week or two to do some pure creative work. The timing’s not perfect, but it never is.”
“Do you know where in the U.S. she is?”
“New England, I think. It’ll be interesting to see what effect being in America has on her. I’d love to attract more American clients.” Ursula spread a black felt cloth on the white tabletop. “I thought you might like to start by seeing some of Tatiana’s work.”
Ursula showed him a perfume bottle, a picture frame and a pendant, each unique and yet each in a highly individual, distinctive style.
“Tatiana’s style is in the tradition of the great Russian designers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century,” Ursula said. “They’re her inspiration, but her artistry, creativity and craftsmanship are uniquely her own and, as you can see, nothing short of amazing. She is truly gifted. Right now she’s into birds that are popular in folklore. Firebirds, swans, nightingales.”
Lucas lifted the bejeweled perfume bottle. “Quite the luxury, isn’t it?”
“It’s a true marriage of art and craft, of the everyday and the extraordinary. Something as simple as a perfume bottle becomes a work of art that stands next to the finest in painting and sculpture.” Ursula touched a fingertip to the pendant, in the shape of a mythical firebird. “We’re all fo
nd of Fabergé’s cigarette cases, but they really are of another era, don’t you think?”
Lucas laughed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“But perfume never goes out of style,” she said, visibly relaxing. “Tatiana does all kinds of little boxes. They’re so clever. She always includes a surprise, much as Fabergé did with his legendary Imperial Easter eggs. She’s gained quite a following here in Great Britain. There’s a Russian spirit in her work that crosses over and is becoming very, very popular. It’s mystical, fanciful and quite beautiful.”
“How did you two connect?”
“We met at a show in Switzerland a little over three years ago. She was already working in London. Her talents and my ambitions were a perfect match. We started the Firebird together. She never wanted to get involved in the business. That’s what I do.”
“Does she ever go back to Russia?”
“Not since I’ve known her. Would you like to see her work studio?”
“That’d be great,” Lucas said, getting to his feet.
“She’ll have put away anything she doesn’t want seen yet. She’s careful about protecting work in progress. She doesn’t like to let it out into the world until she’s ready for it to be seen by someone besides herself. Some artists like to keep their work close to them until just the right moment. Others like input throughout the process.”
A slender, fair-haired young man came out from a back room, and Ursula left him with the perfume bottle, pendant and picture frame and led Lucas up an open flight of stairs to a small workroom, surprisingly simple and incredibly messy.
Ursula sighed. “Needless to say, no one touches a thing in here.”
Tatiana’s main workbench was chest-high and positioned so that when she was standing at it, or seated on her tall swivel chair, she would be able to see out the two windows that overlooked the street. Carts, pegs and shelves were filled with the tools of her trade, everything she needed to bring a work from inspiration to design to final product. Sketch pads, newspapers, books, magazines, computer printouts and who-knew-what-else were crammed into cubbies and stacked haphazardly on the floor.
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