Saint's Gate

by Carla Neggers

  “For what? Not getting blown up in your attic?”

  “For bringing this mess down on everyone—”

  “You focus on your job. Let me worry about any fallout.”

  He disconnected again, and Emma continued driving south, only faintly reassured.

  17

  BRACKEN’S BMW WAS IN FRONT OF HURLEY’S when Colin arrived back in Rock Point. He found the priest still at his favorite table overlooking the harbor. The soup dishes and the water and whiskey glasses had been removed, and he sat with a pot of tea. “This isn’t tea as I think of tea, but it’ll do. I have to say mass in the morning, and I have to do hospital visitations.”

  “Fin,” Colin said, forcing himself to sit down despite his restlessness, “I need you to tell me about Emma Sharpe.”

  “I think three might have been a crowd. I should have noticed sooner.” Bracken pointed at Colin. “You and Agent Sharpe. Sparks, my friend.”

  “You noticed.”

  “So you’re not denying it.”

  “Not to a priest.” Colin resisted more whiskey. His head was spinning enough as it was. “What do you know about her, Fin?”

  “How would I know anything about her, Colin?”

  “Emma hasn’t had a chance to have a privileged conversation with you. What you know is what you’ve figured out from talking to her. You can tell me.”

  Bracken’s dark blue eyes fastened on his friend across the table. “I noticed that your Emma is very knowledgeable about saints and religious matters.”

  “She’s an art expert and her grandfather and this Mother Linden were friends. The Sharpes and the Sisters of the Joyful Heart go way back.”

  “Yes, that’s true.”

  “That’s why Sister Joan called Emma.”

  Bracken didn’t respond and drank more of his tea.

  Colin sat back. “Fin?”

  He lifted the lid on his metal pot and sighed at the contents. “The water arrived lukewarm. I have to talk to the Hurleys. You can’t make proper tea with lukewarm water.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Colin asked.

  Bracken snapped the lid shut. “Would you care for whiskey, Colin?”

  “No. There’s some kind of bond between you and Emma.” He paused. “You two don’t know each other from Ireland, do you?”

  “We do not.”

  “It’s like you speak the same language.”

  Bracken pushed aside his mug. “It is, isn’t it?”

  Colin pictured Emma with Sister Cecilia that morning. He’d noticed her ease and familiarity with the language of the convent and convent life. Even when he’d climbed up the rocks after stranding his boat, he’d been struck by her natural, or what he’d taken to be natural, calm and centeredness.

  He remembered Yank’s comments about her. Her talk of saints and such with Bracken.

  “Whoa. Wait.” Colin almost sprang up from his chair. “Come on, Fin. Emma Sharpe was a nun?”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “I’m asking you. Am I lusting after a nun?”

  “I wouldn’t know about lusting, but it’s my guess Agent Sharpe is more familiar with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart than she has specifically let you know.”

  Colin worked a stiff muscle in his neck. “A nun.” He grimaced, then shuddered. “The boots and the gun on her hip threw me off.”

  Bracken smiled. “I have a feeling your Emma’s full of surprises.”

  “A bomb in her attic was enough of a surprise. All right, thanks, Fin. Enjoy your tea. I have to go.”

  “Disappearing again?”

  Colin pretended not to hear as he got to his feet and headed outside, welcoming the gust of cold wind off the harbor. He climbed back in his truck and drove up to his house.

  He called Matt Yankowski from the front steps. “Why didn’t you tell me Emma Sharpe had been one of the joyful sisters?” Colin gritted his teeth. “Damn, Yank. That’s a hell of a tidbit to leave out.”

  “She was a novice. She never made her final vows.”

  “Final vows? You know about final vows, Yank?”

  “I learned,” he said. “I figured it wasn’t my place to tell you. I didn’t want to prejudice you.”

  “You didn’t want to admit you’d recruited a nun.”

  “Emma’s not a nun now. She hasn’t been one in four years. I’ve learned to let go of my preconceived notions about nuns—”

  “Yank. I know you. We’ve worked together too long. I know how you think. You recruited Emma Sharpe because you thought she’d be good for the FBI and good for you. You’d recruit the devil if he could help you.”

  “That’s cynical even for you, Donovan.” Yank paused, then sighed. “Don’t you think she dresses well for an ex-nun? Prettier than what you’d expect, too? I mean, there go all the stereotypes.”

  “Was she wearing sensible shoes and one of those baggy tunics when you met her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hell, Yank. Damn.”

  “Why are you so nuts about this? What did you do, sleep with her?”

  “No—”

  “You’ve thought about it, though.”

  Still was thinking about it.

  “The nun thing was a whim. She was already doubting her religious vocation when I met her at the convent. She’s a Sharpe, and she’s a brilliant art detective in her own right. She’s broadened that experience with her work with the FBI. She’s a damn fine agent.”

  “Religious vocation.” Colin gritted his teeth yet again. “Emma knows the Sisters of the Joyful Heart well, then. The women there, how the order works, the layout of the convent. That’s valuable perspective for Maine CID. Do they know?”

  “She’s not supposed to hold back any pertinent information.”

  “She’s up to her eyeballs in this thing, Yank.” Despite his earlier dismissal with Bracken of any real danger, Colin felt it now. “That bomb would have gone off in the middle of the night. She would have been asleep downstairs. It’s an old house. Any fire would have spread fast. If she didn’t realize what was going on—”

  “She’d have burned up. We don’t know whoever planted the bomb realized she was there. We don’t know—”

  “I do.”

  “You and your gut,” Yank said heavily.

  Colin’s instincts and his determination to pay attention to them had gotten him into trouble with his contact agent more than once. “You’re looking into any Sharpe cases relate to saints, Vikings, Jack d’Auberville, Ainsley d’Auberville and Mother Superior Sarah Jane Linden?”

  “Mother Linden?”

  “She and Wendell Sharpe were friends.”

  “Great,” Yank said without enthusiasm.

  “I assume your team’s working this thing. Keep an eye on Lucas Sharpe, too. I’ll find Emma.”

  “Boston,” Yank said. “Waterfront. Nice apartment. I’ll text you the address.”

  Colin stopped at Lucas Sharpe’s house in Heron’s Cove. Lucas had just arrived in his own sleek BMW and motioned for Colin to follow him inside after he introduced himself. “I was at a gallery opening in Portsmouth. The police found me and told me what they could.” Lucas paused in the entry of the old house. “Emma’s left me a string of messages. I haven’t reached her yet. What can you tell me?”

  Colin filled him in and closely watched Lucas’s reaction.

  What he saw was a brother’s pure, unadulterated concern for his only sibling. “I should have checked the vault myself,” Lucas said, moving back toward the door. “Excuse me. I have to go see my sister.”

  “She’s gone to Boston.” Colin glanced around the house. It was smaller, simpler and older than he’d expected, and almost as empty as Wendell Sharpe’s house on the waterfront. “Your sister was a nun. Why?”

  Lucas’s gaze, his eyes green like his sister’s, was steady, observant. “Who are you again?”

  “Donovan. Colin Donovan. I’m from Rock Point.”

  “The Donovan brothers,” Lucas s
aid. “All right. What’s your interest?”

  “I’m the FBI agent Donovan brother.”

  “I see. All right. I never understood Emma’s decision to enter the convent, to be honest. We weren’t that religious growing up. I think she was caught up in romantic notions of what life at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart would be like. You’ve seen it up there—it’s a beautiful place.”

  “Was there a precipitating incident? A death, a heartbreak? A vision? A movie?” Colin wasn’t even sure why he wanted to know, but he didn’t stop. “Did she want to turn into Julie Andrews and run away with Christopher Plummer?”

  Lucas pulled off his overcoat and slung it over a side chair in the entry. There was no rug, just the worn pine-board floor. “Emma was a serious student and took right to the work of our family business.”

  “Your father’s disabled—”

  “I don’t think his accident had anything to do with her decision. One day she was in college. The next day she was up at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. It wasn’t that simple, but it seems like it looking back.” Lucas hesitated. “You should talk to her.”

  Colin heard the windows rattling in the gusty wind. “What about your grandfather?”

  “He’s semiretired. He’ll stay active in the business, but he’s closing his Dublin office. I have someone in mind to take over.”

  “Another Sharpe?”

  “No. My parents are likewise semiretired. They’re in London at the moment. We all call Heron’s Cove home.” Lucas stood back. “Is Emma all right?”

  “Do you worry about her?”

  “She’s my little sister. She’s got a Donovan on her ass. What do you think?”

  That was a good point. “What about your former girlfriend, Ainsley d’Auberville?”

  Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “I’m cooperating fully with law enforcement.”

  “I am law enforcement, ace,” Colin said.

  A Maine CID car rolled in. Colin didn’t take time for more questions. He had an ex-nun FBI agent to find.

  18

  EMMA ENTERED MATT YANKOWSKI’S CORNER office in the small, highly secure, unmarked brick building on Boston Harbor where he’d set up his unit. Three agents were at their desks, working on any connection between HIT’s investigations and the situation in Maine. Two other agents were working on the case itself—the murder of Sister Joan Mary Fabriani, the disappearance of a newly discovered Jack d’Auberville painting and now the discovery of a bomb in the attic of one of their own.

  The questions they were asking were the same ones Emma had been asking. Had this killer struck before? Did this killer have a particular interest in art involving saints, Vikings, the d’Aubervilles, the Sharpes or old Maine houses?

  They would treat this investigation like any other. Emma had answered a few crisp, focused questions about the past two days but no one commented on her years as a novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. Any personal curiosity or criticism of her reticence about a major part of her life would wait. She was the youngest member of the team. Yank had recruited her not just because of her expertise with art theft and recovery but also because of her international contacts, her family background and her time with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. He’d known everything there was to know about her and he’d wanted her here in Boston.

  Now he looked as if he knew that was a decision he could come to regret.

  “Does Colin Donovan work for you?” Emma asked him as she stood by a window, the blinds shut. “Is he one of your ghosts? I asked him, and he wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Then don’t expect me to tell you.”

  Yank didn’t get up from his leather chair. He wore a dark suit that he might have put on ten minutes ago instead of early that morning. He’d chosen Boston for his high-impact crime-fighting unit because he knew it and liked it, and because it was close to Washington but not too close. He’d never said he hated Washington, but Emma had always felt he did. His wife had stayed behind to sell their house in the northern Virginia suburbs. Emma had sensed tension between them but hadn’t asked. His desk, of course, was devoid of personal mementos. That was Yank.

  “Is Donovan working this case from a different angle?” Emma asked.

  “You.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Believe him.”

  She stayed on her feet, in front of a low, contemporary sofa stacked with files and reports. “He’s better at bombs and break-ins than I am.”

  “So is everyone else in this building,” Yank said, typically blunt. “It’s not why you’re here. You bring something else to the party.”

  “Donovan went back to Rock Point. I think his priest friend knows that I was a nun.”

  “Everyone here knows. Did you notice any change in them? Did anyone leave holy water on your desk? People don’t care, Emma. You care.”

  It was different with Colin, she thought, remembering their kiss—which wasn’t anything she planned on discussing with Yank. “You put Donovan on me, Yank. Why? I can take care of myself. I train constantly and I’m in good shape.” She glared at him. “You still think of me as a nun, don’t you?”

  Yank tilted back his chair and lifted his feet to the edge of his neat desk. “The question is do you think of yourself as a nun? Sister Joan’s death stirred up your past for you. I can see it, Emma. You aren’t reverting to your joyful heart of old, are you?”

  “Don’t make fun of the sisters, Yank.”

  “I’m not. I’m serious. They’re a joyful lot. They’re dedicated to what they do. You were, too, at one time.” He crossed his ankles, but nothing about his demeanor was casual. “I’m asking you if your personal involvement in whatever is going on in Heron’s Cove is a problem.”

  “I have a job to do.”

  “Even you and Colin Donovan together couldn’t have saved Sister Joan.”

  “Because I stayed at the gate. He’d have followed her through the meditation garden.”

  “Sister Joan was caught by surprise. If you’d followed her, you’d have been caught by surprise, too. Same with Colin. Same with you and Colin. There was no reason to expect a killer.” Yank’s eyes were hard. “You’re an FBI agent, Emma. You’re not a nun anymore.”

  “I know that.”

  “Colin Donovan at a loose end is more dangerous than Colin Donovan on a mission,” Yank said.

  “Is there any chance he could have placed that bomb?”

  “No, but you should consider everything. Trust me, he is.”

  “Does he think I could have killed Sister Joan? Yank, do you think—”

  Yank dropped his feet to the carpeted floor and rose. “You wouldn’t be here if I did. Donovan’s an independent SOB but he’s on our side.”

  “I’m flying to Dublin tomorrow. I’ve had plans to see my grandfather for weeks. Now it’s imperative.” She paused. “And I want to look into Finian Bracken. What do you know about him?”

  Yank frowned. “Irish priest. Colin’s friend.”

  “Colin’s in so deep he can’t really have friends, can he?”

  “I haven’t said anything about him.”

  “There’s something about Father Bracken…I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

  “We’re on this thing,” Yank said. “You’re not alone. Don’t think you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I took the liberty of sending someone through your apartment to make sure there’s no bomb there. Hope you don’t mind.”

  It wouldn’t have mattered if she did, but she was glad Detective Renkow had warned her.

  “Donovan’s on the way to your place. I gave him the address. Let him in. He can keep you from getting killed.”

  “I don’t need his help.”

  “Did I ask what you need? You’re shorter. You take the sofa. Give him the bed.”

  “I don’t have a sofa.”

  “Oh. Well. Work it out.”

  “I’m not taking him to Ireland with me,” she said, and walked out of Matt
Yankowski’s office.

  Emma’s tiny one-bedroom apartment had decent parking and a grocery store within easy walking distance, two major pluses in Boston. It was freshly redone with exposed brick and windows overlooking a marina. She had to buy more furniture. She’d never had much and had left most of it for the ATF agent who’d taken over her apartment in Washington when she’d joined Yank’s unit.

  She finally reached Lucas. He’d spoken to the police. He had no memory of the Sunniva painting. He hadn’t been in the attic in years but had planned to clear it out before renovations got under way. Unlike Emma, who’d adored painting and hanging out with her grandfather as a child, Lucas hadn’t gotten interested in Sharpe Fine Art Recovery until after college.

  He’d never been interested in saints.

  Emma promised to stay in close touch and disconnected. She wandered into the galley kitchen. She wasn’t hungry; she didn’t even want tea.

  Her still life of apples looked cheerful but also rather lame on the wall.

  “Yank would probably think they’re pears,” she said, forcing herself to smile.

  Maybe she should take the painting down before Colin got there.

  Maybe Colin wouldn’t come.

  She raked a hand through her hair. What would she do if he did come?

  Before she could produce an answer, he was on her intercom, and she buzzed him in.

  Yank’s orders, she told herself.

  “The BPD will tow my truck,” Colin said as he walked in, looking even bigger in her small apartment. “Do you have a visitor’s card?”

  “You’ll be fine for a few minutes.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not staying just a few minutes. You know that, Emma.”

  “Yank made a mistake putting you on my tail.”

  “He’s worried about you.” Colin got out his phone. “I’ll text him to make sure I don’t get towed.”

  Emma stood stiffly as he keyed in his message. He had to have figured out she’d been a nun. Was he toying with her, waiting for the moment to pounce? Or was she overreacting, and he didn’t care?

  When he finished and slid his phone back in his pocket, she shook her head at him. “No way. You’re not staying. I don’t care if Yank ordered you to keep an eye on me. It won’t be the first order you ignored.”