“From interviewing possible suspects or rampaging through your files—both paper and computer?” Charlie asked.
“Augh.” Sharkey groaned. “Well, I suppose it was all in the line of duty. I don’t suppose you cleaned up after yourselves?”
“Aye, we did indeed,” Charlie assured him. Whether or not it would meet Sharkey’s tidiness standards, was another matter.
“Let’s see, what did we learn?” I said. “That your secret hiding spot is beneath your bottle of The Macallan 1939?”
“Och, you did not find it!”
“We did, but rest assured we did save you some.”
He groaned and shook his head. “The cost of having friends who care about you.”
“Aye, and now we know how truly wealthy you are,” Charlie said. ”Had I known sooner, I would have set my rates higher. In fact, I think I shall double them on my next bill.”
“And throw in the bottle of Scotch,” I said.
“Scotsman that you are,” Sharkey said, laughing heartily. “So, tell me, what else did you discover?”
I grinned. “That Moira still loathes you.”
“That’s not news,” Ella offered.
“And is now smitten with Malcolm,” Charlie threw in.
“Evelyn does still have a soft spot for you.”
“Not news either,” Ella said.
I continued. “Chantal lives abroad so we did not meet her. Aileen has tamed down her vocabulary—slightly—when she speaks of you. She’s occupied elsewhere. Besides studying to become a teacher—frightening thought—she is still trying to keep her brothers out of mischief. And she’s back working at the pub.”
“And she is smitten with Malcolm as well,” Charlie said.
Happily I shifted the conversation away from the women. “James Webb Junior, the contractor who sabotaged one of your building projects, is living in Spokane, working on overcoming his issues with his parents.” I turned to Charlie. “Who else?”
“Sean O’Malley is on the path to forgiveness,” he said.
“I must say I was surprised he was among your gang of rescuers.”
“Thanks to Charlie,” I said. “The lad appears to have come a long way. And your job in Canada, well, let’s just say, it might be a good idea to call them first thing tomorrow if you want to keep it.”
Sharkey said, “At this point, it’s the last thing I care about. So, you two have been busy. How did you finally put it together where I was?”
“The dogs,” I said.
“The dogs?”
“Aye, apparently after they were thrown overboard, they swam to Three Dog island aka Aurora Island. Jenny and her friends found them half starved. I met Rocky—the Australian shepherd mix—a few times, but it wasn’t until this morning that Jenny’s friend Sasha showed up with Whistler—the mutt. Or as Maureen calls him, the ugly one. I had thought Rocky looked familiar with that muckle head of his, but when I saw him next to Whistler, I realized where I had seen them. When they told me their friend Frankie had the third dog, a terrier, I was certain.”
“So those damned beasts saved me after all! And here I was complaining that they were worthless.”
“I did try to tip you off that time you called,” Sam said.
I smiled. “Unfortunately I thought you had forgotten that I’m a physicist and not a chemist. Happens often enough. But today when you told us Eddie had flown off to Ireland to see his family and to catch a Celtic-Rangers game, I knew he was being held here, and I realized you’d been trying to tell me something during that phone conversation as well.”
“I should hope so!” Sharkey said. “I figured if anyone knew that the Rangers and Celtic did not have a game now, let alone that they would be playing in Ireland, it would be the two of you.”
“Aye, that one was hard to miss,” I said.
“Well, I do think it’s time for us to get a wee bit of sleep. I’m sure you two are as exhausted as we are. The FBI will be here very early to question all of us. I’ll show you to the guest room.”
Although I was anxious to get back to Jenny, the thought of taking one of the smaller boats back to Anamcara in the dark and returning in the morning was not appealing, particularly with my sorry skills at the helm of a boat. Since it was too late to call her, I resisted the urge to hear her voice and to give her the good news about the dogs . . . and Sharkey, not that she had even known he was in danger.
“One more favor?” Sharkey asked as he guided us toward a guest room with two beds. “Can you take Sarai home with you in the morning? I’m sure you will not need to spend as much time answering questions as I will. Sam and Ella can drop the three of you off on their way home to Orcas.”
“Aye,” Charlie said. “I’m headed back to West Seattle. Sarai can come with us to Gael Island where my car is and I’ll drive her back to your house. Malcolm will be returning to Anamcara, I’m sure.”
“I do hope that means you’ve made progress in your relationship with Jenny.”
“Aye, it does at that.”
“Please Eddie,” we heard Sarai’s voice protesting his unilateral decision to send her home. “Please I to stay with you.”
“No, lassie,” he said. “I want a doctor to check out your wound.”
“It can wait I think.”
“Please, Sarai. For me.”
Reluctantly she nodded. “I go then with Mr. Charlie. But you come soon, yes?”
“I promise,” he said. “Assuming they didn’t damage it, I’ll come on the Innisfree tomorrow afternoon. I should warn you though. Maureen and Declan will be coming to the house as soon as I return. They’re anxious to see me.”
“This is good thing,” she said. “I understand they want see you. I too do.” Hopefully they would be so happy to see their father that they would forgive him his impending marriage.
I knew I would be asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. It had been an adventurous day, not the kind of adventurous that I particularly enjoyed. I was just glad it was over. We hadn’t found answers to all our questions, and we probably never would, but right now none of that seemed to matter.
Chapter 24
It was shortly after eleven when I pulled up to Jenny’s cottage. Thankfully the FBI agents had arrived on Tara at dawn and had debriefed Charlie and me first, releasing us with a guarantee to be in touch if they needed more information. I reached over and opened my glove compartment and pulled out the wee box inside. Too stiff to trot, I slowly climbed the porch stairs, tapped on the door, and turned the knob. The door opened just as Jenny leaped off the couch and bounded into my arms, Rocky close behind her.
“MacGregor! You’ve no idea how worried I was.”
“I am sorry, lass. I did not realize—”
Her fingers combed through my hair and strolled down my cheek, stopping at the nasty bruise I had incurred the day before. “What happened?”
I winced, less from physical pain and more from guilt for not having called and for having withheld information from her. “Just got into a wee tussle, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” She looked at me skeptically.
“All in good time, McNair. All in good time.”
Her glare was softened by the curvature of her smile. “Which translates as you still can’t tell me anything.”
“Which translates as I have other things on my mind right now.”
“Where’s Charlie?”
She had known he was with me. Of course. This was Jenny. “Safe. En route home.”
“Any bruises?”
“Aye, one to match mine. Not as bad. He’s shorter and better at getting out of the way than I am.”
She laughed that infectious laugh she has that could cause a man to smile for an entire week. “I’ve good news though.”
“And what might that be?”
“The dogs are yours to keep.”
She sighed an enormous sigh of relief and smiled up at me as she bent down to hug Rocky. “And just when I was thinking I would h
ave to get used to empty-nest syndrome for the fourth time.”
“Fourth time?”
“First Matthew, then Holly, then Josh—somewhat—and now Rocky.”
“Oh, aye, well I think I’ve a solution for you.”
“And what might that be?”
I was smiling at her, staring into her beautiful brown eyes, trying to see through to her thoughts. My mind flashed to Sharkey and how easily he had proposed to Sarai. But then I wasn’t Sharkey.
“Have someone move in with you. Someone who is wise enough to never leave.”
Her arms reached around my neck and she pulled me closer, pressing her lips to mine. Then she released me, took my hand, and led me up the stairs to her bedroom where she made love to me.
* * *
“So, are you going to tell me now what you and Charlie have been up to?” Jenny asked as she lay curled up in my arms on her living room couch, while I fed her blackberries that were freshly-picked from the garden and tossed Rocky an odd one now and then. “Obviously it involves Eddie.”
“Aye, indeed it does.” I sighed, not really wanting to talk about this right now, but knowing Jenny well enough to recognize that when she wanted to know something, she was not only persistent but obdurate.
“One thing first,” I said, reaching over to the chair beside the couch where I had put the necklace I had bought for her a few weeks ago. I handed her the box and waited anxiously for her reaction.
She frowned and I wondered if she had expected something else. I found myself hoping that she had expected a ring and was disappointed. While I may be an obtuse physicist, I knew better than to select a ring without her input. “MacGregor! It’s beautiful! But it looks expensive.”
Ah, so that was her objection. “You’re going to reject it because it’s expensive?”
“Did I say I was rejecting it?” She laughed, reaching up to string it around her neck where I clasped it for her.
I pulled her back into my arms.
“As beautiful as this necklace is, it’s not going to get you out of telling me your Sharkey adventure.” She pulled it away from her chest so she could admire it again, smiling as she did.
I groaned and released her. I gave her the condensed version, or at least I attempted to, but with her McNair detective brain, her questions forced me to exceed the time I had allotted the subject twice over.
“It sounds as if there are still many unanswered questions,” Jenny said.
“Aye, indeed there are. Did Mok come to see Sarai and discover Eddie owned an island or did he plant Sarai so he could gain access to Tara? Actually, we know the answer to that. He did know about Tara but how did he know of Eddie’s wealth and assets, Tara Island in particular? Who sent Eddie all those threats—the most recent ones in particular?” I shook my head. “I do not know if Charlie will let these questions go unanswered.”
“Probably not,” Jenny conceded. “Not only is he relentless, but obdurate as well.”
I chuckled. “Must get it from his daughter.”
Jenny rolled her eyes and grinned at me. “You must admit, MacGregor, you’ve been leading an exciting life.”
“Aye, it would appear so.”
“You really think you would be content living the island lifestyle?”
Ah, finally back to the subject that she had only responded to by taking me upstairs to her bed. Only. But, I had to admit, a verbal response would add to my satisfaction.
“And what exactly does living the island lifestyle entail?” If it meant curling up by the fire with Jenny; reading the newspaper across the kitchen table from Jenny; going for walks with Jenny and Rocky to the lighthouse and the island shore; if it meant preparing meals side by side with Jenny; if it meant sharing a life with Jenny, I would not only be content with the island lifestyle. I would embrace it.
She smiled up at me, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Well, for one, tending your vegetable garden.”
“I love fresh vegetables,” I said, pulling her back into my arms.
“It takes a bit more than that.”
“I love dirt.”
She laughed. “Sitting by the fire in the evening knitting or crocheting.”
“I can learn to knit and crochet with the best of them.”
“Painting or sculpting clay or pursuing some such artistic endeavor to keep from going stir crazy in the winter.”
“Have you forgotten that I’m a photographer, lassie?”
She gazed up at the photographs I’d framed for her that were hanging on the living room wall and smiled. “Baking scones?”
“Hmmm, something I’ve always wanted to learn.”
“Dipping your toe in the stream of spiritual counseling?”
“I can play the spiritual counselee very well, I am sure.”
“See, what did I tell you? You are perfect.”
Ah, the opening I had been waiting for. It was now or never. Time to confess to some of those flaws of which she was clearly unaware. “What is it you often tell me when you’re solving a crime, McNair? The one about things seeming different from how they really are?”
She pulled away from the comfort of my chest and sat up so she could look at me. “That things are often not as they seem?”
“Aye, that one. Is that Charlie 101?” I didn’t remember having learned it in his class.
“Actually my mother. And advanced Charlie.”
“Well, the same can be said for people.”
She gazed more intensely into my eyes. “What are you trying to say, MacGregor?”
I had the beautiful lassie fooled. It was no way to begin a new stage of our relationship. I needed to reveal the truth of who I was, not only for her sake but for my own.
I loved her. I did not want any misrepresentations getting in the way of a relationship I had waited twenty years to have. How to do it was the question? How to show her my flaws as she called them, without chasing her away? Did I begin with the rolled up socks or my marriage-gone-wrong?
Socks, I decided. If she could forgive that bad habit, she could forgive anything.
“I’m not perfect, darling,” I whispered as I tucked her safely into my arms again. “Aside from the snoring.”
She laughed that soft soothing laugh of hers. “I hope not.”
“I have some rather unpleasant habits, I’m afraid.”
“And what might those be?”
“I’m a wee bit of a slob, in case you haven’t noticed the stacks of papers I leave on my desk, on the kitchen table—”
“Coffee table—”
“Aye, dining room table—”
“And in your car.” So she had noticed.
“And I buy clothes without trying them on.” Ease her into the socks habit slowly, I thought. “And I have a tendency to sprawl across the bed. Too used to sleeping alone. And sometimes I even forget to comb my hair.”
She smiled, running her fingers through my thick hair that seemed to have its own preference of styles.
“Comes from being on my own for too long, I suppose.”
She laughed softly and kissed me on the cheek. “You never had the advantage of having a wife to teach you otherwise.”
I flinched. She noticed. Maybe it wouldn’t be the sock habit I disclosed first after all.
“What?” she whispered, looking me squarely in the eye.
I cleared my throat and lowered my voice as if that would soften the blow. “I was married once. A very long time ago.”
She shivered and I pulled the lap blanket her aunt had knit for her higher. “How did I not know this? How did Charlie not know this? Or did he?”
I shook my head. “It never came up.”
“Something that important?”
I sank back against the cushion behind me. “I suppose I was ashamed and preferred to avoid the subject.”
“Ashamed of a divorce?”
“The reason for it.”
“And what was the reason? What happened?”
“I moved t
o America. I came here to teach.”
“She could have come with you.”
“That was the plan. I came first to get established. She was going to follow a couple months later.”
“But?”
“She met someone.” I looked up from my hands that seemed to have clenched themselves together. “And so did I.”
“Oh,” was all she said. I waited for something profound or at least something revealing. Finally it came. It was a questioning look in her beautiful eyes, a look that revealed just a flicker of jealousy. I controlled my smile. “What happened to her? To the woman you met?”
“She got married.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My ex-wife didn’t really want to leave Scotland. As for me—it was my own fault for falling for someone who was engaged already.”
“You’re talking about—”
“Yes. You.”
“But nothing happened between us.”
“Enough happened to tell me I didn’t really love my wife. I couldn’t have felt that way about you if I had loved her. Enough happened that I didn’t try to keep my marriage together.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Her smile was slight, enough for me to cling to. Then she admitted, “Neither am I really. Tell me about it.”
“You’re certain you want to know?”
“I want to know everything.”
“About my marriage?”
“About you.”
“Why is that, lass?”
Her eyes closed for a moment. When they reopened I felt as if my worries were melting into oblivion. She loved me. The unconditional kind of love. “You love me,” I whispered.
“Of course, I do.”
“Not of course. Never of course.”
“No, I suppose love is not something we should ever take for granted.”
“No, it’s not.” I kissed her hard. It almost crossed the line into demanding but I stopped it. Desperation was not attractive in a man.
She placed a hand on my cheek, the comfort in those deep brown eyes just one of the things I fell in love with. “And you’re still beating yourself up for letting a relationship go after all these years?”
“I didn’t love her enough.”
“And you’re worried that you won’t love me enough?”
Saving Sharkey Page 28