Colin was unsympathetic. “My baby brother and I probably just saved your life. Yuri’s and Boris’s, too. You’ve got some pissed-off bad guys on your tail. Now you’re going to tell me who they are.” He leaned forward. “Who’s your buyer, Pete?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Well, if saving your life isn’t enough, then because I’m a federal agent and it’ll be better for you if you do.”
He coughed, then yawned as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Natalie and these crazy Russians went after your family. I didn’t.”
“Emma talked to her brother in Ireland. Your guy there is under arrest. He’s talking.”
“I don’t have a guy in Ireland.”
“Yeah, you do. Another Russian. One of Yuri’s and Boris’s friends. We have their real names now. We’re learning more by the second. By ‘we’ I mean the FBI and my friends in the Maine State Police.”
“You don’t have to remind me you’re a fed.” Horner’s eyes were hard now, despite his obvious fatigue, his obvious disgust with himself. He hadn’t shaved since he had tried to kill Colin, or probably showered, either.
Colin glanced at Emma, but she didn’t give away anything she might be feeling. She would still be processing just how close her brother and grandfather had come to getting killed that day, too. Colin knew it would take time for him to process having poisoned cider delivered to his family.
In the call from Lucas Sharpe, Emma had also learned about Katya Rusakov and her tragic death.
Something Yank’s Vulcan mind meld with old Wendell Sharpe would have turned up.
Colin shifted back to Horner.
“My friend Finian Bracken will recognize you from the other night when you followed him.”
“So? I talked to a priest. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Colin supposed he had a point. “You went into the wrong business and you fell for the wrong woman.”
“Natalie was in Paris in April,” Emma said, as if on cue. “We figure she drove to London when you were there with Vladimir Bulgov. Is that when you two met?”
Horner gave Emma a strained smile. “Love at first sight.”
“She found out Dmitri Rusakov was in London and drove over,” Colin said. “You can do that now. Did she see him?”
“No. Ivan Alexander headed her off at the pass, so to speak, and persuaded her that wouldn’t be a good idea. I ran into her crying into her champagne at the hotel bar.”
“Sucked you right in,” Colin said.
“Oh, yeah. I fly planes. Your basic nobody. Natalie made me feel… Hell.” Horner coughed, fatalistic. “After Bulgov’s arrest, Natalie got the idea about picking up some of his loose ends, making a few bucks. I told her we had to wait for things to cool down.”
Colin stretched out his legs but there was nothing casual or nonchalant about how he felt. “You got the cart before the horse and started spending too much money. An expensive house in Florida. A woman with expensive tastes and big ideas.”
“I make good money flying planes.”
“Maybe, but with Bulgov’s arrest, you were out of a job. Maybe you missed the action of working for him.”
“Doesn’t mean I knew what all he was into. I thought I was flying rice and beans to feed the hungry and medicines to heal the sick.”
“Right,” Colin said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. “You found out about my alter ego’s orphaned weapons.”
“Yeah. That lying bastard.” Horner grinned but there was no humor in his eyes. “It felt like everything was starting to fall into place. Natalie says you’re the devil. I think she’s right.”
“You flew up here to meet her after I cleared out. Was that always your plan?”
He nodded. “Get the weapons from you. Meet her here.”
“She promised you money.”
“She thought she could get a bundle for the collection,” Horner said, matter-of-fact.
“Boris and Yuri believed her, too?”
“Sure. Why not? Her mother used to be married to Rusakov. She was a piece of work but he liked Natalie. What was the worst that could happen? He’d tell her to take a hike. She’d sell it to someone else. You and I had a deal. We weren’t in any big hurry.”
“Then our deal fell apart and suddenly you needed money fast,” Colin said. “There you were with no weapons and an anxious, impatient, dangerous buyer who wasn’t going to let you fail without consequences.”
Horner grimaced as if he were in physical pain. “I’d have been happy with whatever we could get for the collection, maybe bleeding Rusakov a little more, but Natalie wanted it all. She liked to think big, she said. She liked the action.” He sat back in his chair, as if they were discussing golf handicaps. “She’d tell me people often make the mistake of assuming she’s stupid and weak. That’s what her mother thought. Natalie sees herself as sensitive and intuitive.”
“Turns out she’s just like her mother,” Colin said.
“Yep. Obsessive, envious. She didn’t like it when I told her you weren’t a turncoat FBI agent and there were no weapons, that we’d have to start over. Then when you turned up here…” Horner shrugged. “Small world, huh?”
“I’d never met Natalie. You told her who I was.”
“She asked me to check into Emma Sharpe’s FBI guy. She went nuts when I told her who you were. Then she talked to you on the beach. Man, that was it. She wanted you to suffer. Nothing went her way once she got here. The collection, the Sharpes, Rusakov, Tatiana. You. She wanted revenge.”
“And you just went along with her,” Colin said.
“You’ve seen her. It’s like I drank poison myself. Like she put a spell on me.”
Colin gave no hint of the skepticism he felt. Pete Horner was an experienced pilot who had played a dangerous game for a long time. He knew what he was doing. He just hadn’t wanted to stop. He wanted it all: money, weapons, danger, adrenaline and Natalie.
“Could you think straight with her?” Horner asked ruefully. “I’ve never had a woman like that. I wanted to score, then retire to Florida with her….” He trailed off with a moan and blew out a breath. “She had other ideas. Spiraled out of control—”
“Bullshit, Horner.” Colin bolted up out of his chair. “You were thinking just fine when you tried to buy weapons from me at a cut rate and then decided to kill me. I’ll bet you were thinking just fine when you decided to help her kill Lucas and Wendell Sharpe and poison Finian Bracken and my family. What did you hope to gain?”
“Boris, Yuri and I had to go along with her or we got nothing, except maybe a bullet in the head from our unhappy buyer. Natalie…” Horner sighed, philosophical, his anger and entitlement turning into acceptance that he had grabbed for the brass ring and missed. “What does anyone gain by revenge? I told you, Natalie was in a rage. You turn out to be a federal agent. You escape. Then you show up here, sleeping with Emma Sharpe, who, come to find out, told Rusakov that his ex-wife stole the collection. Natalie was so sure she could get him to buy it from her.”
“She knew all along it came from him?” Colin asked.
“Suspected. Maybe more than suspected.”
“She’d charm him,” Emma said.
Horner directed a cool gaze at her. “Yeah. Like her mother had. Then Tatiana Pavlova shows up and your brother goes to London to check her out. Renee Rusakov always suspected there was a daughter, but Dmitri never would tell her the truth. Tatiana rejected her Rusakov inheritance—everything Natalie wants.” Horner, his cheeks red now with emotion, turned back to Colin. “Wouldn’t that get to you, Agent Donovan?”
Colin tried to wrap his head around that one. “Why would Natalie feel entitled to anything from Dmitri Rusakov? She was an adult when he and her mother married. He set her up financially. It’s not his fault she spent all the money.”
“You have to understand how she thinks.”
“No,” Colin said, “I really don’t. How did Natalie find out Tatiana was in Heron’s Cove?�
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“I told her,” Horner said quietly. “Words I’d like to take back.”
“You recognized Tatiana from when you were in London in April,” Emma said. “Vladimir Bulgov stopped at the Firebird Boutique and commissioned the nesting dolls from her.”
“Yeah. I knew Bulgov met with a Russian jeweler. I didn’t think anything of it until I came up here and saw her sneaking around. Natalie insisted I get Yuri to have one of his guys in London keep tabs on Lucas Sharpe and find out what he knew about Tatiana.”
“She already suspected Tatiana was Rusakov’s daughter,” Colin said.
Horner nodded. “I think so, too.”
Emma walked over to the table. “We found botulism in Tatiana’s cottage. You all planted it there.”
“Prove it,” Horner said.
Colin shrugged. “I’m sure we will.”
“A little botulism goes a long way,” Emma said, her eyes on Horner. “Did you get it for her, or did one of the Russians?”
Horner crossed his arms on his chest. “I’m not talking to you about botulism.”
Emma stood straight, and Colin noticed how the sunlight played on the honey highlights in her hair, caught the green of her eyes. But he turned to Horner. “Natalie must have had the botulism with her when she arrived in Heron’s Cove. That suggests she was planning to kill someone before she knew I was in the area.”
“Once she unraveled…” Horner sighed heavily. “There was no reasoning with her. I figured just let her do it, then move on.”
Colin shook his head. “Even if she’d succeeded in killing everyone who pissed her off, she still wouldn’t be satisfied.”
“No argument from me. She used to tell me her mother would draw in men, chew them up and spit them out when she had no more use for them. Rusakov was the first man to throw her out first. Natalie will never be free of her mother. She is her mother.”
Horner looked as if he could bang his head against a wall. Colin didn’t blame him.
“I want a deal. The guys you’re after are badasses. Why do you think Yuri, Boris and I went along with Natalie’s crazy scheme? We needed to keep these bastards happy. They want their weapons.”
“You should have stayed a pilot, Horner.”
“I know.” He gave another hollow, fatalistic laugh. “I don’t even like guns.”
26
“CLOSTRIDIUM BOTULINUM BACTERIA,” Matt Yankowski said as he swallowed some of the Talisker 18 year old that Finian Bracken had dropped off at Colin’s house in Rock Point, on the assumption that he would be having company. Yank stood in front of the cold fireplace. “It produces the deadliest toxins nature has to offer. A little over a pound is enough to kill every human being on the planet.” He glanced at Colin, also standing, also with a glass of Talisker. “It’s a good thing you Donovans are suspicious types. You’re rubbing off on Father Bracken. How did he take his near-poisoning?”
“Reasonably well. He wasn’t keen on the attack on Wendell and Lucas Sharpe at Bracken Distillers. Fin’s brother, Declan, was there. He doesn’t like thinking Declan could have been caught in the crossfire or dispatched as an unacceptable loose end.”
“‘Dispatched’? He said that?”
Colin almost smiled. “Fin’s word choice.”
After dropping off the Talisker, Finian had returned to St. Patrick’s for a church meeting but planned to be at Hurley’s later.
Colin didn’t know yet if he’d be there.
Yank seemed to sense his mood. “You’re a Donovan and Emma’s a Sharpe,” he said, splashing more Talisker in his glass. “That’s not going to change. It won’t matter if you go behind a desk or if you go on another deep-cover mission. Your worlds will collide again.”
Colin shook his head. “They won’t. I’m out.”
He polished off the last of his Scotch. It was smoky, spicy, with notes of burned heather and the taste of sea salt—at least according to Finian. Colin’s palate wasn’t that discerning yet. He didn’t know if it ever would be. He just liked what he liked.
And it beat thinking about his situation…how damn close his family, his Irish priest friend, Emma and her Russian friends had all come to dying earlier that day.
Because of him. His work.
It was late afternoon, already dark. Emma was still in Heron’s Cove with the FBI and Maine state police.
Horner had continued to talk. He was hoping to cut a deal, or he just didn’t care anymore now that the brass ring had slipped from his grasp. Boris and Yuri were in custody, not talking. They had served as fill-in bodyguards for Vladimir Bulgov from time to time but had never been part of his inner circle.
Their buyer was a violent paramilitary group based in the Southwest, primarily composed of mercenaries for drug cartels. Vladimir Bulgov had never done business with them. Yank had already pointed out that there would have been no finding them or stopping Horner if Colin hadn’t gone undercover again in October.
Mission accomplished. Time to move on.
“You need a break,” Yank said. “You’ve been overdue for a while.”
“I need a new life.” Colin lifted a duffel bag he’d packed in haste before Finian had arrived with the Talisker. “Help yourself to more Scotch and whatever’s in the fridge.”
“What are you going to do in Ireland?”
“I didn’t say—”
Yank nodded toward the kitchen. “I saw the ticket printout on the counter.”
“I have to get my head screwed on straight. The past few days…” Colin cleared his throat. “I should have leveled with my brothers.”
“You weren’t cleared to provide the kind of leveling you’re talking about, and they weren’t cleared to hear it. Hindsight can be a great teacher, but it can also be misleading, make us harder on ourselves than we need to be. Still…” Yank helped himself to more of the Talisker. “Makes sense to put an ocean between you and the Donovan clan after this mess. Not that they blame you for the attack on Andy, the poisoned cider, almost getting killed yourself.”
“I know that. It doesn’t mean I’m not responsible.”
“Take a break, then. Go to Ireland and drink whiskey and look for leprechauns. I said on Saturday morning before you even got back here that you need time.” Yank set his Scotch glass on the coffee table and stood straight, leveled his dark gaze on Colin. “Emma?”
Just hearing her name made Colin’s throat tighten. “She’s a Sharpe. You knew that when you recruited her.” He managed a smile. “Good luck with that.”
“We’ll see what’s what when you get back.”
“Mike’s got a boat on the Bold Coast. Captain Colin tours. Nice ring to it, isn’t there? Come up sometime. I’ll take you out to see the puffins.”
“What the hell’s a puffin?”
“It’s a bird, Yank.”
“And I’d have to take a boat ride to see one? Forget it. Crawling through the Nightingale, as fancy as it is, didn’t make me like boats any better.” He corked the bottle of Talisker. “I used to think Lucy and I were lifers. I don’t know that we are. Our marriage has always been conditional, and right now, she doesn’t like the conditions.”
“Give her time.”
“How much time?”
“As much as she needs.”
“You and Emma are lifers, Colin. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Lifers, Yank? Sounds like a prison sentence.”
“It means that you belong together. You’ll be together until you’re both sitting here by the fire drinking Bracken Distillers’ finest and recounting what happened the past few days as if it were yesterday.”
Colin walked over to the front door. It wasn’t like Matt Yankowski to get philosophical, to comment on one of his agents’ romantic life. But they’d been through a lot together over the past four years, and they’d become friends.
“I’m right,” Yank said.
He was, Colin realized. He and Emma belonged together. He just didn’t know if it was the right thing—for
her.
There was no question in his mind that it was right for him.
Yank sighed. “It’s been a rough couple of months, with Sister Joan’s murder and now this mess with Dmitri Rusakov, this collection, arms trafficking. See what happens after you’ve cleansed your soul or whatever it is you plan to do in Ireland.”
“Cleansed my soul?”
“You’re the one who’s friends with an Irish priest and sleeping with an ex-nun.”
Colin grinned and left. It was dusk, the air still and colder than he had expected.
Finian Bracken eased in next to him halfway to Hurley’s and walked with him the rest of the way. Yank, Colin knew, would go on to Heron’s Cove.
“I brought danger here,” Colin said without looking at Finian. “It wasn’t Emma. She was dealing with a spat over a Russian Art Nouveau collection. I was the one dealing with killers.”
Finian’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t Natalie Warren the one who came here with the collection, and isn’t she under arrest for poisoning those jugs of apple cider?”
“Only because she was mixed up with my killers.”
“You’re in no mood for a logical argument. I’ve emailed you directions to the cottage Sally and I renovated. The key is under the purple flowerpot.”
Colin slowed his pace and glanced at his Irish friend. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need somewhere quiet and beautiful to stay while you’re in Ireland.” Finian smiled. “I recognized the Aer Lingus shamrock when I dropped off the Talisker.”
“No secrets in this town.”
“So I’ve discovered. You’re welcome to stay at the cottage however long you’d like. If you get bored, there’s some work you could do around the place—”
“What kind of work?”
“Painting, tightening this and that. I’ve a short list. When’s your flight?”
“Tonight. If I don’t go now…” He looked up at the starlit sky, pictured himself on the southwest Irish coast. “Then I won’t go, and that’s not a good idea.”
“You haven’t told Emma?”
Colin shook his head without comment.
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