Fatal Thrill

by Misty Evans

  Colton stayed in the tower, watching for Percy. Jon sent Shelby to look at Miles’ discovery, but Jaya could see he was torn between wanting to go himself and needing to stay with her to ensure her safety.

  She understood the feeling. While she itched to see what or who lay in that grave, she also needed to stay here and find out what she could about her family.

  With the fire going and the water ready for tea, chairs and stools were placed near the fireplace. The old man introduced those in the group, starting with the children. Three boys and two girls aging from three to sixteen, all of which belonged to two couples who appeared to be in their thirties and forties. The old man accepted a cup of tea that the woman named Kelli handed him. Kelli—the one who sold the tinctures in town Charlotte had told her about.

  “I’m Claude.” He motioned to the old woman in the wheelchair. “This is Neptune.”

  Neptune? Even with her tangle of scarves, layers of bracelets, and the tattoos on her wrists, she hardly looked like a new ager or hippie. “Who is your family?” she asked in her slow, accented speech.

  Kelli handed Jaya a cup of the brewed tea and Jaya thanked her. Rose hips, lavender, and mint teased her nose. Jaya took a sip and let the warmth spread down her throat and into her chest.

  She glanced at Jon, seated next to her and he nodded his encouragement. “I’m Jaya Hotti O’Sullivan,” she said. “My grandmother was a Barlow before she married Henry O’Sullivan. His family ran a distillery not far from here. My dad, Sean, was born there but the business went bankrupt around the time my dad was three and Grandpa moved the family to America. My parents met when they were both twelve on the reservation. Mom was Osage. Dad used to tell the story about her bringing him a blanket. His dad sold moonshine to the natives on the reservation and that winter, Grandpa decided Dad was old enough to help so he took him along. My dad had outgrown his winter coat and there was no money to buy a new one. He didn’t have gloves or a hat, and he was out on the open rez during freezing temps, while grandpa drank and partied it up with some of his customers. Mom brought him a blanket she’d made herself and wrapped it around his shoulders. They married the day she turned eighteen. She read palms and tarot cards, but she was most known for her natural remedies. She sold them locally until the FDA shut her down and she ended up with early-onset Alzheimer’s. My dad…well, he mostly did whatever he could get away with, continuing the family business of selling moonshine and chasing lost treasure. I have a brother, too, and Dad managed to lure him into hunting for the lost O’Sullivan cross. That’s why I’m here. My brother is in trouble because of my dad and that damn cross. I need help finding him—them.”

  As she spoke, she noticed the changes on the faces around her. Not on Neptune’s, but on Claude, Kelli, and the other adults. Even the older kids shot glances at their parents as if they held a secret.

  “Do you know something about my dad?” Or was it about the cross? Maybe they, like so many others in these parts, knew the story and curse that went with it that had been gossiped about for centuries.

  Neptune played with her stack of bracelets, sipped her tea, and stared at the fire. The flames leaped in the large stone fireplace as outside, rain continued to pour down. No one answered Jaya, all suddenly looking this way and that, avoiding her eyes.

  Seriously?

  She opened her mouth to start pushing them, when Jon touched her arm. “We’re not here to interfere with Sean’s plans,” he said, “or anyone else’s for that matter. All we want is to find Finn. Some bad people have kidnapped him and mean to do him harm. Even if you can just get a message to Sean and let him know, we’d appreciate it.”

  Claude screwed up his mouth like he’d sucked on a lemon and shot a questioning glance at Neptune. The old woman continued to stare at the flames. She took a deep breath and finally shifted her attention to Jaya.

  “Keanna had a powerful personality.” She lifted a finger, crooked with arthritis. “’Tis where you get it as well, I suspect.”

  “Keanna? My grandmother? You knew her?”

  The gnarled finger pointed at Neptune’s chest. “Mo deirfiúr.”

  “Sorry.” Jaya looked at Charlotte. “I don’t understand.”

  Charlotte smiled. “Keanna is her sister. Neptune must be your great aunt.”

  Yes! A bubble of laughter rose in her chest. “You’re my family?”

  Kelli smiled. Neptune sipped her tea. “Always determined, Keanna was. Courageous. Stubborn. Proud. All the Barlow traits.”

  Claude harrumphed, crossing his arms over his big belly. “Until she met Henry. That man was a right gobshite.”

  “You knew my grandfather?”

  Claude’s head bobbed reluctantly. “He changed her. Tempted her away from Neptune and the family.”

  “You labeled her outcast,” Jaya said, suddenly feeling protective about her grandmother, even though Keanna had died long before Jaya was born. “Because she fell in love and wanted a life outside the Gypsy way.”

  “Our parents…they depended on her,” Neptune said. Her eyes were glassy as they stared once more at the fire, as though she were seeing into the past. “I depended on her. Abandoned us, she did.”

  Kelli stepped forward, refreshing Neptune’s tea. “From what I understand, Keanna tended to resent authority and was…how should I put it? Impatient?”

  “About what?” Jon asked.

  “She wanted to bring the family into the modern age. She had these big ideas. She dreamed of moving to America. I think that may be why her and Henry got along so well. They thought they were going to create an empire in America. That life was just one big adventure.”

  Jaya sat back, processing. “So maybe it wasn’t just Grandpa who put all those crazy ideas in my father’s head about the lost cross.”

  “I saw him.” The sixteen-year-old boy named Neenan came forward out of the shadows, his gaze pinned on Jaya. “Your dhaid.”

  “You what?” Jaya came to her feet. “Where?”

  At that moment, Colton’s voice echoed in her ear. “Heads up. Percy the fecking prick is here.”

  Jon touched his comm. “Roger that. And park the snide commentary, already, will you?”

  Shelby and Miles rushed in from a side room, Shelby’s face grim and her wet hair plastered to her neck. “Good,” she said, “because we’re gonna need him.”

  Claude came to his feet like a rabbit about to bolt. “What is going on? Who are these people?” he demanded.

  “Friends,” Jon replied, just as the front doors swung open and the man who must have been Detective Maitland entered, soaked to the bone.

  Claude and the other Gypsies straightened, eyes going wide, and Jaya feared they might take off and run at the sight of the cop. She couldn’t blame them—she knew they were constantly harassed by the Garda, much like the homeless were in America.

  Claude grabbed Neptune’s wheelchair. The smallest of the children ran to hide behind Kelli’s legs.

  “Wait,” Jaya said before anyone could take off. She pointed at Detective Maitland. “Stay put. You’re not harassing these people.” Then she turned to Claude and Neptune. “Same goes for you—stay right where you are. No one’s going anywhere until you tell me about my dad.”

  Jon admired Jaya’s take-charge voice that echoed all the way to the rafters. Her finger, pointing at the various parties, was doing overtime.

  Percy held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not here to harass anyone.”

  Kelli broke the tension. “Good to see you, Percy John.”

  “Wait.” Jaya glanced back and forth. “You guys know each other?”

  Percy came forward, leaned over Neptune and kissed both of her cheeks. “Mhamo.”

  “That’s his grandmother,” Charlotte whispered conspiratorially.

  “Oh,” Jaya said. Then, “Oh! That means…”

  Kelli and Charlotte both nodded as Percy grinned at her. Kelli said, “Jaya O’Sullivan meet your second cousin, Percy John Maitland. We
keep trying to get him to change his given name to something more Gypsy-sounding, but his mother was a good English woman who loves Percy Shelley.”

  “Shelley is the finest lyric poet in the English language.” Percy was a big guy with a broad chest, muscular thighs, and thick arms. He stuck a hand out to Jaya. “You be Sean’s daughter?”

  She shook his hand, still a bit dazed, and nodded. “I am. Keanna was my grandmother.”

  It had to be a lot, meeting all these relatives, even though this is what she’d claimed to want. Jon felt her happiness inside his own chest. He’d had the same longing buried deep inside him, to know and be accepted by his extended family, for years.

  Jaya introduced Jon and then Miles and Charlotte. “And you’ve already met Shelby, I believe.”

  Percy nodded at Shelby, wiping water from his brow before speaking again to Jaya. “I didn’t realize you were here. I’m sorry I don’t have any news on Finn or your dad.”

  Jon placed a protective hand on Jaya’s lower back. “Some of the people after the cross have made threats against her. I’ve been trying to keep her secluded, but she was determined to see this place because of her connection to it.”

  “It’s rich with family history.”

  “It’s also got an unmarked grave in the cemetery,” Shelby said.

  Jaya’s breath hitched. “Is it…?”

  Miles shook his head. “The body is female.”

  “It’s pretty fresh,” Shelby said. She gave a tiny shudder. “But with the ground nearly frozen, it may have preserved the body.”

  Percy glanced around at his family. “Any ideas on who it might be?”

  Claude and Kelli shook their heads.

  “Neenan?” Jaya turned to the teenage boy. “You said you saw my dad. Here or somewhere else?”

  The kid blushed from his neck all the way to his bangs. “I’m not a hundred percent it was him, but there was a man in the graveyard a couple days ago. I saw him going into the crypt.”

  “The crypt?” Jon asked. “You mean that big family burial vault out there?”

  Neenan’s chin bobbed once. His eyes darted to Percy, then Kelli. “There’s a tunnel in it.”

  “Are you sure it was Sean?” Percy asked, not seeming surprised about the tunnel.

  One shoulder rose and fell. “It was after we found the money. Mhamo said the envelope had the O’Sullivan mark on it. That it was from Sean.”

  “Money?” Jaya and Jon asked at the same time.

  “Where did you find this money?” Percy asked.

  Claude filled them in. Twelve hundred dollars had been left in their RV on the front seat inside an envelope with the O’Sullivan crest crudely drawn on it. They’d heard through the Gypsy grapevine that Sean had been nosing around with his son, asking a lot of questions and meeting up with the man who’d bought the Blackrock castle.

  Percy accepted a cup of tea from Kelli, his big fingers struggling to squeeze into the handle. “The owner of Blackrock is a man named Mathew Fitzpatrick,” he explained to the Gypsies. “He was using the name Ferris as a cover. He’s—” Percy glanced at the small kids playing by the fireplace with some wooden toys and a couple dolls. “No longer with us.”

  The adults understood.

  Miles wiped a dribble of water from his forehead with his arm. “Where does the tunnel lead, kid?”

  Neeman, no longer blushing at being put on the spot, mimicked Jon’s stance. “The tunnel connects the vault underground to another at Blackrock.”

  “Smugglers have used the underground tunnels in these parts for years,” Percy informed them, “to move contraband in and out of Ireland. They run to the various ports and docks.”

  Jaya felt like things were finally coming together. “So if my dad was in league with Fitzpatrick, and they needed to smuggle the cross out of the country, maybe it was him you saw, Neenan.”

  “Makes sense,” Percy added. “But I’d like to know who we’ve got buried in the graveyard and if she has anything to do with Fitzpatrick’s murder or Sean’s disappearance.”

  “I’d like to know where my dad got twelve hundred dollars,” Jaya said, hands on hips. “And why Finn ended up in the hands of kidnappers.”

  Shelby picked a wet strand of hair off her cheek. “Just spitballing here, but what if an investor gave Sean upfront money for the cross, like a down payment, to find it. He did and then decided to double-cross this investor and paid Fitzpatrick to sneak him out of the country. That might be why Sean had that money and Finn ended up a hostage.”

  “Sean might also have known there would be multiple parties interested in that cross.” Percy paced a few feet away, tapping his fingers against his cup. “He could have tried to pit them against each other and one decided to take Finn hostage to make him ante up.”

  Jaya blew out a sigh, gaze dropping to the floor. “Sounds like him, but I can’t believe he’d bail and leave Finn behind. Although, I guess he’s left both of us like that before, so that shouldn’t surprise me.”

  Jon rubbed her shoulders, aching to pull her into his arms and reassure her, but she needed more than a hug right now. She needed facts. “Percy, do you have any contacts you can put pressure on who might know something about Fitzpatrick or Sean?”

  “Already working on it,” the detective assured him. “I put out feelers and I’m waiting on call backs from a few of my CIs. I’ll get someone here to exhume that body and tell us who it is.”

  Jon picked up the carpetbag and handed it to him. “I don’t think this is related, but there’s an old cell phone in here. You might check for prints and see if it boots up.”

  Claude reached out and took the bag before Percy could. “That’s been hidden here for years. Probably got nothin’ to do with the case.”

  Percy shrugged and took the bag. As he walked away to call his office, Jon’s phone buzzed.

  “It’s Beatrice,” he said to Jaya and the others. “Maybe she’s got an update.”

  He walked the other direction to find a quiet corner. “Hey, boss. We have a couple of theories about Sean and Fitzpatrick. Nothing solid yet, but I’m about to go for a tour of some underground burial vault and see if I can pick up Sean’s trail. I’ve still got nothing on Finn.”

  “Well, I do, but first, you need to know that the Vatican, Interpol, and French government are all aware of what’s happened and are tangled in this mess six ways from Sunday. Each entity, in one way or another, insist that you and your team stand down and leave Ireland.”

  It was a blow. Just bam, right to his solar plexus. Three major players with the resources to take his mission from ugly to downright perilous, had ordered his team out. “We can’t.”

  “The information about Finn might make you change your mind.”

  “You found him?”

  “Rory got a trace on the text message.”

  Jon’s spirits lifted a fraction. Jaya approached, brows tight with worry. “Where?”

  “It originated in a remote area of North Carolina.”

  “Not Ireland?”

  “It gets more interesting.”

  Jaya was whispering at him, wanting to know what Beatrice was saying, but he shook her off. His instincts were suddenly on high alert as if a bear were coming after him. “Why is that?”

  The next words out of her mouth were the last he expected to hear.

  13

  “Jon, what is it?” Jaya reached for him, the sudden paling of his face setting off warning bells in her head. Instantly, her stomach cramped and her grip tightened. “Is it Finn?”

  He nodded, then shook his head.

  Which was it?

  Jon tried to pull out of her grip, his mouth tense. “Are you sure?” he asked into the phone.

  “Is he alive?” Jaya demanded, hanging on to his jacket. “Jon!”

  Charlotte, Miles, and Shelby closed the distance. Shelby touched Jaya’s arm in a supportive gesture.

  “Hold on, boss.” Jon lowered the phone and placed it next to his che
st. His eyes had gone flat and seemed darker here in the shadows. “Rory traced the message sent from Finn’s phone to a place in North Carolina. That’s it. Give me a minute, J, and I’ll give you all the details, okay?”

  That’s it. She wasn’t buying it. The look on his face and his body language as he turned his back on her said different.

  “Finn has been in North Carolina this whole time?” Miles asked no one in particular. “What a fake out.”

  “Yeah,” Shelby said, facing Miles. “But did he go back to America on his own or did his kidnappers grab him there?”

  “What’s in North Carolina?” Charlotte asked. “Why there?”

  Why there, indeed. Jaya scanned her memories, coming up blank with anything that tied her dad or any of her family to that remote area of the country.

  Jon’s shoulders were pulled tight, his feet planted on the stone floor. Even without his Navy whites, he looked like he was standing at attention.

  “That makes no sense,” he said into his phone. “It’s just a coincidence.”

  What was? She waited impatiently, catching herself tapping her foot against the floor and forcing herself not to pace.

  Jon nodded as if Beatrice could see him. “We’ll be on the plane before evening, but I’d like to leave Miles and Charlotte here, Shelby too, if she can get an extension from the Bureau, to keep on top of the investigation into Sean and his whereabouts.”

  Beatrice must have given her okay. Jon said goodbye and disconnected, turning to look at Jaya.

  “Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?” Jaya asked.

  He looked away, eyes still flat, hard.

  She took a step toward him. “Jon, why did the kidnappers take Finn to North Carolina and why does that upset you so much?”

  “It’s nothing.” He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. “Looks like Finn’s in Thief River. That’s where the message originated.”