Heron's Cove

by Carla Neggers

  Given how messy she was, Lucas couldn’t tell if the place had been ransacked, but he saw no indication of a break-in or intruder. He supposed Ursula Finch could have slipped the keys to someone else, or had a look around before giving them to him, but he didn’t really think so. She seemed torn between wanting to help Tatiana and wanting to keep anything she was into from harming their upscale boutique.

  He lowered the desk’s drop-front, sketch pads, loose papers and envelopes falling out, as if she’d had them out and shut them up inside without putting them away first. The open cubbies were all likewise stuffed and overflowing.

  Lucas grimaced. It would take hours to go through everything just in the desk.

  He closed it and checked the bedroom, big enough for a small lamp table and a double bed with a slender, white-painted four-poster iron frame. The bed, surprisingly, was neatly made. The coverlet was white, with white lace-edged pillows and one decorative pillow with a cheerful red heart stitched against a white background. Chubby Russian nesting dolls were lined up in a row on the windowsill.

  Lucas noted the stack of magazines and books on the small table, the heap of laundry on the floor at the foot of the bed. He peeked in the closet—lots of oranges, rusts, deep blues and turquoise, almost no black, and a gigantic mess.

  He shut the door and checked the bathroom. A pedestal sink was covered in bottles and tubes, white towels hung haphazardly from a single bar and a family of rubber ducks was lined up on the edge of the tub.

  How could a woman who had rubber ducks be a danger to anyone?

  Lucas returned to the living room and crossed into the separate kitchen. Sunlight streamed through a filmy curtain on a double window overlooking the street. The cabinets, countertops and walls were white, the towels and pot holders were red, complemented by framed illustrations of Russian fairy tales next to copper-bottomed pots on hooks.

  The top of the farmhouse table was buried under computer printouts of internet articles. Lucas flipped through them, stiffening as he saw they were all on either Dmitri Rusakov or Vladimir Bulgov, including one from the Los Angeles Times on Bulgov’s arrest in June on multiple charges.

  Lucas thought of the visit from the Russian that Ursula Finch had mentioned. Had one of Vladimir Bulgov’s men come to warn Tatiana? Talk to her about his arrest? Threaten her?

  Who the hell was she? Bulgov’s ex-lover, a friend, a relative—one of the Russian arms trafficker’s many enemies?

  Where did Dmitri Rusakov fit in? The printouts on him were mostly about his energy businesses and lifestyle. As far as Lucas could see, the Russian tycoon hadn’t been arrested and wasn’t under suspicion for any criminal conduct. Some of his business decisions were controversial, and he was often at odds with Russian politicians.

  Lucas dug through more of the papers on the table. Maybe Tatiana had her own axes to grind with her compatriots.

  He came to a sketch pad and opened it, discovering pencil drawings of Russian nesting dolls in Tatiana’s unique style. She had jotted notes about colors and materials, but it was the scrawl at the bottom of one of the drawings, underlined several times, that caught Lucas’s attention: Vladimir Bulgov wants them by July 1!!!!!

  It was as if she were giving herself a little goose to make sure she finished the nesting dolls on time.

  Vladimir Bulgov was under arrest in the U.S. and living in a federal cell on July 1.

  So when had he commissioned Tatiana Pavlova to create a set of Russian nesting dolls?

  Damn good question, Lucas thought as he shut the sketch pad.

  He locked up and took the stairs back down to the main floor, then walked toward his hotel. Did Ursula Finch know about Tatiana’s work for Bulgov? Had Ursula given Lucas the key to her apartment hoping that he would find out on his own, without her having to tell him?

  He decided to make a detour to the Firebird Boutique. He was so preoccupied with what he found in Tatiana’s apartment that he forgot to check to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He paused at a busy corner and looked around him.

  Just down the street, a man with a shaved head stopped and crouched down, as if to check a loose shoelace. He was in a suit and looked more like a banker than a thug, but Lucas was convinced it was the same man he had seen outside the pub and then at his hotel. He couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face without drawing attention to himself.

  Lucas put his hand on his phone, ready to call the London police if he needed to, and abruptly crossed the street, dodging a cab, the driver swearing at him through an open window.

  Maintaining his brisk pace, Lucas zigzagged through a small park, then ducked down another street. He glanced behind him but didn’t see the man he had spotted—or anyone else—following him.

  He passed upscale Mayfair shops he didn’t recognize. He hoped he wasn’t getting himself lost, but he had a decent sense of direction and ended up at the Firebird—without, he was fairly certain, a tail.

  Ursula Finch opened the door herself but didn’t seem that happy to see him. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” she said. “Have you been to Tatiana’s apartment?”

  “Just coming from there.” He handed her the keys as he followed her into the elegant showroom. “Vladimir Bulgov commissioned Tatiana to do a set of Russian nesting dolls. Did you know?”

  “Yes,” Ursula said, her voice clipped.

  “Is he a Firebird client?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” She was emphatic as she stood behind the desk. “It was a onetime private arrangement between him and Tatiana.”

  “You okayed it?”

  Ursula gave a tight nod. “I’m sure Tatiana had no idea at the time that he was—well, a gangster. I didn’t, but I didn’t like him from the start. People say he’s charming but he rubbed me the wrong way. He came here with bodyguards. Not unusual among our very wealthy clients, but they were…” She hesitated, working a simple silver ring on her finger. “I don’t think they wanted to be here, or wanted him here. It wasn’t anything they said. Just a feeling.”

  “Why nesting dolls?”

  “I don’t know. Tatiana never explained and I didn’t ask. It wasn’t any of my business.”

  “Did she work on them here? Did she finish them?”

  Ursula exhaled, avoiding Lucas’s eye as she traced a finger across the gleaming desktop, obviously just to have something to do. “Yes. Tatiana worked on them here, and she finished them. They’re incredible—some of her best work. Mr. Bulgov never came for them, of course, since he was arrested.”

  “Had Tatiana finished the dolls before his arrest?”

  “I think so, yes. They’re locked away in her studio.”

  “When was he last here?” Lucas asked.

  “In April. I looked up the date last night.” She raised her gaze to him. “In case you asked.”

  “You had to let me find out on my own.”

  “It’s unsettling. Telling you myself would make me feel more involved, and I’m not. Not really.” She straightened, getting some of her starchy demeanor back. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Lucas thought he did. “I know this is difficult for you, Ursula, but I need to understand what’s going on.”

  She seemed slightly less uncomfortable and defensive. “You’d like to think you’d sniff out a dog like that, wouldn’t you? Tatiana is a designer, Lucas. She’s not mixed up with Russian or any other organized crime. I can’t imagine she even knows anything about weapons, except maybe Russian medieval swords and such.”

  From his quick search of Tatiana’s apartment, Lucas couldn’t imagine she was criminally involved with arms traffickers, either.

  Ursula scowled, took a step back from the desk. “One would think the FBI is more concerned with Bulgov’s interest in shoulder-fired missiles than in Russian nesting dolls.”

  “What about Dmitri Rusakov?” Lucas asked. “Did Tatiana have anything to do with him?”

  “I know nothing about him, I’m afraid. Except who he is. He’s
not a client, and he wasn’t with Mr. Bulgov when he came to see Tatiana, at least not that I know of.”

  Lucas nodded toward the back room. “I’d like to go up and take another look at her studio,” he said, not making it a question.

  Ursula sighed, then reluctantly led him up to the messy creative room where Tatiana Pavlova spent much of her time.

  “I’m going to take a closer look,” Lucas said, a hand on the edge of her main worktable.

  “Do what you have to do.” Ursula crossed her arms and paced, clearly impatient, even nervous—and annoyed. “I believe in Tatiana. I hope that whatever you find will help ease your suspicion of her.”

  “I’m not suspicious. I just need to know what’s going on.”

  “I don’t like feeling like a snitch.”

  “Understood.”

  Lucas glanced at the messy worktable, no idea of where to begin. Then he noticed a pendant in the shape of a nightingale on top of a small lacquered box, as if it were perched there. It sparkled with clusters of gleaming gems.

  He lifted the nightingale between two fingers and turned to Ursula. “Is this genuine?”

  Ursula lowered her arms to her sides as she frowned at the pendant. “I’ve always assumed it’s a replica.”

  “It’d be worth quite a lot if it’s real,” he said.

  “More than Tatiana could afford on her own,” Ursula added.

  “Did you ever talk to her about it?”

  “No. It didn’t occur to me, and she never mentioned it. We both have our interests, and fortunately we’re always very busy with our work. Why? Is the nightingale significant for some reason?”

  Nightingale was the name of Dmitri Rusakov’s yacht, Lucas thought as he carefully set the pendant aside. The lacquered box had a removable rather than a hinged lid. It was stuck, but he managed to get it off without breaking it and set it next to the nightingale.

  Inside the box was a single, faded color photograph.

  Using the pads of his fingers, Lucas lifted out the photograph, held it in the light by the window for a better look.

  A man, a woman and a small child were standing in front of a black-iron fence in the snow, all three of them bundled up against a cold winter, smiling at the camera.

  Lucas showed the photograph to Ursula. “Do you recognize these people?”

  She shook her head. “Not straight off. It’s not a recent picture, is it?”

  “I don’t think so, no. Could the girl be Tatiana?”

  Ursula seemed reluctant to take a closer look. “It must be her, wouldn’t you say?”

  Lucas didn’t push her and placed the photograph flat on the table, next to the nightingale. He took out his iPhone and snapped several shots of both items.

  He slipped his iPhone in his jacket and turned to Ursula. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Ursula, but you need to take extra safety precautions until you hear back from me with an all clear. If you even think you’re being followed or watched, call the police.”

  She went pale but nodded. “All right. Don’t worry about me. Worry about Tatiana. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m sending the pictures I just took to my sister. She’s with the FBI. She’s in Heron’s Cove with Tatiana.”

  “Are you staying in London?”

  “I’m catching the first flight I can back to Ireland.”

  “You want to talk to your grandfather,” Ursula said.

  Lucas managed a smile. “You have good instincts.”

  They returned to the showroom and she walked to the door with him. “I’ll call Tatiana later,” she said, then managed a small smile. “Thank you for looking after her.”

  “If you remember anything else—”

  “I’ll call you.”

  He was positive no one followed him back to his hotel, but he made sure he wasn’t alone on the elevator up to his room. He collected his bag, checked out and grabbed a cab.

  His first call was to his parents. He told them to look out for themselves. “One wrong look from anyone,” he said, “and you call the police.”

  “Lucas?” his father asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think Granddad knows something he’s not supposed to know.”

  “He knows a lot of things he’s not supposed to know. It’s the nature of the work he does.”

  Lucas immediately regretted the urgency in his voice. Stress always made his father’s pain worse. “I know, Dad. Don’t worry.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “I’ve got a call in to him.” The truth was he had only a vague idea of where his grandfather was. “Emma and I will figure out what’s going on. Stay in touch.”

  He disconnected, glanced at his watch. Still early in Maine. He emailed Emma the photos he’d taken in Tatiana’s studio and a note about the nesting dolls. After he hit Send, he gripped his phone, stifling a surge of anxiety. If the nightingale pendant was part of the Rusakov collection, how the hell had Tatiana Pavlova ended up with it?

  Lucas sat back, impatient, hating the long drive to Heathrow. He’d get there just in time for his flight to Cork.

  21

  KEVIN DONOVAN STOOD at Hurley’s back window, pointing his coffee mug. “What’s Julianne doing down there?”

  Colin and Mike both got to their feet and went to the window, standing on either side of their youngest brother, in his Maine marine patrol uniform. Directly below them, Julianne Maroney was marching through the mud, her hair flying with the early-morning breeze, the incoming tide oozing under her L.L.Bean boots.

  “She looks pissed,” Mike said.

  Kevin nodded. “I’ll bet Andy stood her up.”

  The three brothers had met for breakfast, assuming Andy was either out with his lobster boat or with Julianne. Colin still had no food in the house. He was on his way to Heron’s Cove. Emma was already there. When he left his house, she was picking fallen orange maple leaves off the dew-soaked windshield of her car. For a fleeting moment, he felt as if they were an ordinary couple heading to work. Colin wasn’t sure what a normal life looked like for him anymore. He wasn’t sure “normal life” and Emma Sharpe fit in the same sentence, but he couldn’t imagine not having her as a part of whatever came next for him.

  Not that “normal life” and Colin Donovan fit in the same sentence, either.

  Julianne disappeared out of view. He took a last sip of his coffee and set the mug back on the table. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  “You’re the risk-taker of the family,” Mike said with a grin.

  Colin started to reach for his wallet but Kevin shook his head. “Go. Least we can do is buy you breakfast since you chose the short straw.” He grinned, too. “Good luck.”

  Colin headed out, pulling on his canvas jacket. The light morning fog had cleared, the bright, brisk October day just the sort he had dreamed about the past month. He noticed Andy’s lobster boat at its mooring thirty yards out from the main pier in the small, horseshoe-shaped harbor.

  So his brother wasn’t out checking his traps.

  Julianne’s boot prints trailed across the gray mud still exposed by the tide, which hadn’t yet reached under Hurley’s floorboards. Colin stepped into the mud, keeping to the right of Julianne’s trail and out of the incoming tide. He figured Mike and Kevin were watching. He continued past the restaurant, then out of its view as he angled back above the tide line.

  Hurley’s was at his back now. Up ahead, just at the natural curve of the harbor, a small dock jutted into the water next to a boathouse that John Hurley used for his prized Boston whaler. The weathered-shingle exterior was covered with old lobster buoys.

  Julianne stood at the end of the dock, next to a stack of lobster pots. She was leaning over, hands on her hips as she peered at several pots that had fallen into the shallow water. Out past the boathouse, bobbing in the rising tide, was the Julianne, the bone of contention between her and Andy Donovan—if not the only bone of contention.

  Colin waved to her. “Hey, Jul
ianne, how’s it going?”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. He had noticed his brother’s truck in Hurley’s parking lot. Andy could have gone off with a friend on another boat, or he could have gotten distracted and was off helping someone. He had to see to any lobsters he had caught but he didn’t punch a time clock.

  Colin debated leaving Julianne to her mood, but she shifted, leaning even more over the edge of the dock, then yelled. “Andy!” She jerked upright. “Colin, help!”

  He was already bolting across the mud, stones and threads of wet seaweed. “Hang on, Julianne,” he called to her. “Don’t move.”

  She ignored him and jumped into the water at the tip of the dock. An incoming swell hit her at the knees, but she stayed on her feet. She grabbed one of the fallen lobster pots, tossed it into the mud so that the tide wouldn’t drag it back to her.

  “It’s Andy,” she yelled. “He’s not moving.”

  Colin charged into the water, taking in a breath at the jolt of cold as a wave rolled past his calves, then out again, sucking sand and tiny stones with it. Julianne shifted, and he saw Andy, wedged facedown between the lobster pots and one of the dock mooring posts. His arms were splayed out at his shoulders, his head turned so that his right cheek was in the mud. The dark blue shirt he wore was soaked through, his lower body already partially submerged in the tide.

  His legs appeared to be hung up under the dock.

  Julianne dropped onto her knees in the rising water. “He’s breathing. He’s got a big bump behind his ear.”

  “Go,” Colin said. “Kevin’s at Hurley’s. He can get an ambulance out here.”

  “We can’t wait. The tide’s coming in. He’ll drown. And he has hypothermia. You can see his lips are purple. We need to get him out of the water.”

  “I know.” Colin took her by the shoulders. “Julianne. Get Kevin. Now.”

  She nodded, stood. Water had soaked into her baggy, hip-length wool sweater, its pale gray matching the color of her face. “He moved our meeting later. He texted me last night. When I got down here and didn’t see him, I was so mad—” She broke off. “I’ll be right back.”

  Colin squatted down by Andy’s shoulders and saw that Julianne was right and his brother was suffering from at least mild hypothermia. He was semiconscious, trying to speak. Colin placed a hand on his brother’s arm. “It’s okay, Andy. We’ll get you warm and dry. How’re your legs? Can you move them for me?”