“It would have to contain the last of your stolen art for me to come to your farm.”
“Emma, Emma.”
“We’re still missing the two Dutch landscapes you stole in Amsterdam.” She kept her tone even, without any hint of hostility, sarcasm or cajoling. “I would fly to England to get those works back to their rightful owner.”
“I wish I could help.”
“That’s a start. We’re also missing the unsigned landscape you stole in Declan’s Cross, but I doubt you’ll ever return it since it’s a fair guess it’s an early work by Aoife O’Byrne. You’re familiar with Declan’s Cross, Oliver. It’s the tiny village on the south Irish coast where you launched your stint as an art thief.”
“I’m familiar with Declan’s Cross. It’s quite a charming hamlet.”
“Aoife’s missing landscape depicts the three crosses on the headland in Declan’s Cross where you hid after stealing from her uncle. The painting has personal value for you, but you still should return it.”
Oliver peered at her. “You look happy but preoccupied, Emma. I can understand you have much on your mind. When you do come to England again, you must bring Special Agent Donovan with you. Are you two inviting me to your wedding?”
Emma smiled. “No.”
“Pity. Your Colin isn’t hovering in the background, is he?”
“No, he isn’t. Anything else, Oliver?”
“I’m reading a new book on the early Irish saints. Would you like me to send it to you when I finish? Did you study Saint Patrick, Saint Declan and the like when you were a nun? You must have studied Saint Brigid since that was your name as a novice.”
Her grandfather must have told him. She knew she hadn’t. “Good night, Oliver.”
“The farm is stunning in the spring, which, happily, comes to the Cotswolds earlier than it does in your part of the world. You and Colin can walk in the countryside to your hearts’ content. We can all have English tea and scones together.”
“Only if there’s clotted cream to go with them.”
“Absolutely. It will be homemade, whipped from cream from our own dairy cows. We’ll have our gooseberry jam, made with wild berries picked on the farm, although not by me. Monotonous, repetitive tasks like berry-picking tend to make my mind go to other things.”
“Like plotting your next art heist?”
“By all means, cling to your theory that I’m your art thief. I won’t try to dissuade you.” He waggled a finger at her. “Your nose is red, too, Emma.” He sat back with a mysterious smile. “As cold as it is there, you’ll enjoy my present all the more.”
She didn’t want any presents from Oliver York, but she wasn’t arguing with him.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening,” he said. “Shall I give Father Bracken your best?”
Emma wasn’t enthusiastic about Oliver meeting the Bracken brothers for a drink, much less inviting Finian to the Cotswolds, but there was nothing she could do about it. “Please do,” she said.
Oliver clicked off and the screen went blank.
He wouldn’t send valuable stolen art from England to Maine, and he wouldn’t send it to her.
Would he?
Emma opened a file on her laptop and brought up photographs of art stolen over the past decade by the same unidentified thief—from homes, businesses and museums in Ireland, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Venice, Prague, Oslo, San Francisco and Dallas. After each heist, the thief sent Wendell Sharpe a small, polished stone inscribed with a Celtic cross. Emma had worked on the case even before she became an FBI agent.
There was no proof Oliver York was their thief, but there also was no doubt.
Emma wasn’t unsympathetic to the torment he’d endured as a young boy and undoubtedly still carried with him, but she was careful not to get sucked into it as rationalization for his stealing and taunting—for his crimes. After she and her grandfather had figured out Oliver was their thief in November, the stolen artwork started turning up, each piece back in the hands of its rightful owner, with nothing to trace its theft or its return to Oliver York.
What, Emma wondered, was returning the art costing Oliver?
What would he do now to relieve the sense of helplessness and the terrible pain he had suffered as a child?
She let her gaze linger on the photos of the two missing Dutch landscapes, small oil paintings done by lesser-known seventeenth-century artists. They were valuable but not as valuable as a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh would have been. Oliver tended to stay away from art that would have attracted worldwide headlines. The Amsterdam museum that owned the landscapes had left the spaces empty where they had hung for decades.
Oliver needed to return them. Then Emma could think about his pain.
She shut her laptop and went into her tiny kitchen. She didn’t want to go out again, but she had little in her refrigerator. She was digging out vegetables and hummus when her phone dinged.
Oliver again.
I forgot to tell you. Our agent spoke to a woman in the park.
They knew each other?
I’m certain. They looked like they were arguing.
Did you speak with her?
No. Is she FBI?
Emma resisted getting him back on the phone.
Go enjoy a whiskey with Fr. Bracken and forget about FBI agents.
Ah, Emma. I never forget about you lot.
She responded with a smile icon and resumed collecting her dinner. As she took her plate into the living room, her gaze settled on a photo of her and Colin together in Ireland last fall. Framing it had been her idea. He didn’t think of such things. She set her plate on the coffee table and eased onto the couch as she touched a finger to his chin, as if he were with her. He was solid and confident, a man who relied on his instincts and his training. On Monday, he had packed his duffel bag and headed to the airport, saying he had meetings in Washington and would be in touch.
All very sudden and mysterious.
Colin wasn’t a natural fit for HIT, but he’d managed to make a place for himself once Yank had shoehorned him onto his team in October. Colin contributed to complex investigations with the eye of a seasoned undercover agent and the gut instincts of someone who had faced sustained, real danger in the field.
Emma hadn’t thought his meetings involved HIT until that morning, when Yank had left for Washington with no explanation beyond “meetings.” It was possible his trip had nothing to do with Colin’s trip, but what were the odds?
Given Colin’s absence, she supposed she didn’t need to spend two nights on her own at the convent. She could stay here in Boston and contemplate her life. But her current life wasn’t the reason she had arranged for her mini retreat with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.
It was her past that was driving her to return, briefly, to the sisters.
Ever since the first of the year, she kept seeing herself walking through the convent gates as a teenager, thinking she would never have another home. It was as if she were looking at a stranger, someone outside herself—a different person altogether from the woman she was now, or even the child she had been before the thought of becoming “Sister Brigid” had gripped her.
Emma wiggled the diamond engagement ring Colin had placed on her finger in Dublin. Was he even in Washington? For four years, he had told his family he worked at a desk at FBI headquarters.
Such was not the case.
While tempting and inevitable, speculating, she knew, wouldn’t answer any of her questions. She’d waited for Colin before. She would now, for however long was necessary. She had her work, and her retreat.
Not to mention lunch on Saturday in Maine with his mother.
Emma smiled and pulled out her phone again, flipping to her photo of her wedding dress.
It was a great dress. Perfect for an early June wedding on the Maine coast.
“Not any wedding,” she said. “My wedding.”
To Colin Donovan.
She slipped her phone back into her coat pocket. She w
ould call him later about Oliver York. If he could talk to her, he would. If he couldn’t, they would talk later.
And wherever he was—whatever he was up to—he would come back to her.
3
The Bold Coast, Maine
Wednesday, 7:00 p.m., EST
It took Mike Donovan a full three seconds before he realized the buzzing he heard was his cell phone. He wasn’t used to having a phone. He picked it up from the counter where he’d left it while he chopped garlic. He’d been up since five, when he had pulled on jeans, a heavy flannel shirt, a vest, wool socks and L.L.Bean boots and headed outside. The temperature was in the double digits. He could get work done.
He answered his phone without checking the screen to see who was calling. Before he could get in a word, his mother spoke. “No one’s hurt or been arrested,” she said.
“That’s good. What’s up?”
She launched into something about a visitor. Some guy. Mike couldn’t make it all out. The connection was weak. It was dark at his cabin on a remote stretch of the Maine coast down east of Acadia National Park. The Bold Coast, it was called, named for its dramatic cliffs and tides. His mother was in Rock Point, his hometown in southern Maine.
“You run an inn,” he said. “What’s wrong with visitors?”
“This wasn’t a guest. It was one of your army buddies.”
He heard the urgency in her voice. Married to a police officer, now retired, and the mother of four adult sons, Rosemary Donovan wasn’t prone to overstating her case.
Mike stood at his front window. The evening air was still and dark, stars glittering on waves of undisturbed snow and the ocean, quiet and starlit past the marsh across from his cabin. He’d worked outside most of the day and had planned to spend the evening alone by the fire, reading a book. He owned a television but didn’t watch it much. He liked his life but it was new to him compared to the army. Three years into it instead of ten.
“What army buddy?” he asked finally.
“Jamie Mason. Do you know him?”
Retired army, none better at logistics support. “I know him. When did he stop by?”
“Just now. I offered him coffee, but he said no, he had things to do.”
“Pop’s there?”
“No. I’m here alone. Your father’s at Hurley’s having a drink with your brothers.”
Andy and Kevin, Mike thought. Not Colin. Colin had told them he was in Washington, but he could be anywhere. Their folks would like all four sons in town having a drink at Hurley’s.
Mike turned from the window back to his kitchen area. “You let this guy in?”
“Of course. It’s cold outside.”
It wasn’t that cold for Maine in February. “Just because he said he’s a friend doesn’t mean he is one.”
“Oh, stop, Mike. I didn’t call you for a lecture. He left a message for you. I wrote it down. I have it right here. Hang on a sec.” She paused, and Mike could hear her shuffling through papers. He pictured her in the old sea captain’s house that she and his father had converted into an inn in Rock Point, four hours by car down the coast. “Got it. He said to tell you that Reed Cooper is on his way to Maine from London. He’s meeting with a small group at the Plum Tree Inn. He wants you to join them. You know the Plum Tree, don’t you, Mike? It’s just up the road from here. I thought it was closed for the season.”
“I know it.”
“What do these men want with you, Mike?” his mother asked, as if suddenly realizing she had reason to be suspicious.
“Reed has started his own private contract security firm. Cooper Global Security.”
“Oh.”
Mike heard the apprehension in her voice. He scooped up chopped garlic and tossed it into his frying pan. Jamie Mason wouldn’t be one of Reed’s operators. More likely Mason would be running the office, probably with his wife, Serena, also retired army.
“Did Mason say anything else?” Mike asked.
“He gave me a few more names. I wrote them down, too. My mind’s a sieve these days. Let me see. One’s a woman’s name, I remember that.” Another long pause, more paper shuffling. “Here we go. Buddy Whidmore, Ted Kavanagh and Naomi MacBride. Mr. Mason says he expects them to be at the Plum Tree in addition to Reed Cooper.”
Mike absorbed the silence of his isolated stretch of the Atlantic coast. The snow blanketing the evergreens that dominated the woods on three sides of his cabin muffled any sounds. He could hear, faintly, the wash of the incoming tide. Sixty years ago, his grandfather, his mother’s father, a Rock Point harbormaster, had built the cabin as a getaway. He had never lived up here full-time. Mike had since leaving the army.
“Mike? Are you still there?”
“Still here.”
“Who are these people?”
“I knew them when I was in the army.”
“Were any of them with the Special Forces?” his mother asked.
“Reed and Jamie. Kavanagh was with the FBI. At least he was then. I don’t know if he’s retired or quit.”
“Does Colin know him?”
“I’ve never mentioned Kavanagh to Colin. No reason to.”
A moment’s silence. “What about the other two?” his mother asked finally.
Mike set his paring knife in the scratched stainless-steel sink, but he was seeing Naomi’s smile. “Civilian.” He tried to keep any tension out of his voice. “Buddy’s a tech guy. Naomi was with the State Department.”
“A diplomat?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“I don’t understand why they would come to Maine in February. The Plum Tree must have given them a good deal or something.”
“If I knew what was going on, I’d tell you.”
She didn’t respond at once. He wasn’t sure how well she could hear him, but he figured she wasn’t going to gripe about the lousy connection. It was better than nothing. She had been after him for months to get a cell phone rather than to rely on the landline at the general store.
“I hope these people aren’t a problem for you,” she said.
“They’re not. I’m glad you called. What are you and Pop up to this weekend?”
“Emma is heading up here tomorrow afternoon. She’s staying at the convent for two nights, and I’m taking her to lunch on Saturday. She’ll be on her own. I’m looking forward to spending some time with her. I’ve never had a daughter, and Emma will be my first daughter-in-law.”
Mike smiled, despite his tension. His mother’s tone said “it’s about time” even if she would never utter those words out loud. He doubted she’d ever imagined one of her sons marrying a woman like Emma Sharpe. An FBI agent, maybe. But an FBI agent who was also a member of a family of renowned art detectives? An ex-nun? Mike, the eldest, had put aside his own doubts about Emma in the months since Colin, the second-born Donovan, had met her, fallen for her and asked her to marry him.
“Mike...” His mother hesitated. “This Reed Cooper...”
“It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Have a good time with Emma.”
When she disconnected, Mike could tell she wasn’t satisfied. She might not be able to put her finger on exactly why, but she had well-honed instincts after all this time. Her four sons had been in plenty of jams—and she was well aware she didn’t know about all of them and there were likely more to come. Mike was ex-army living out on the Bold Coast as a wilderness guide and outfitter. Colin was an FBI agent based in Boston. Andy was a lobsterman. Kevin was a Maine state marine patrol officer.
Frank Donovan, their father, would just tell his wife, “The boys know what they’re doing.”
Sometimes it was true. Not always.
Mike stepped outside onto the porch. He had his grandfather’s old wooden canoe turned over on a rack. It needed work. Winter was a good time to fix things that the busy warm-weather months didn’t allow time for. He had the occasional backcountry skier or snowshoe group request his skills as a wilderness guide and outfitter, but not many people were intere
sted in a trek along the icebound cliffs of the Bold Coast in the dead of winter.
Even in summer, he seldom had company. On a cold February night, he might see a white-tailed deer or a moose, but otherwise he had his spot in paradise to himself. His clients never came to his place, winter or summer. He would meet them at the general store in the village a few miles down the road. Some of them would ask, “Hey, Mike, where do you live?” He would say, “On the coast,” as if it could be anywhere on Maine’s more than three thousand miles of coastline.
The sun first hit the Continental United States on the Bold Coast, and he liked to be up for it, no matter what time. It was noticeably earlier now that it was late February. That morning the ocean had glowed with shades of deep orange, red and purple. Now it reflected the night sky of sparkling stars and a quarter moon.
He breathed in the salt-tinged air and listened to the tide wash over ice, rocks and sand. He liked to tell himself this place wasn’t an escape, as it had been for his grandfather. He lived here.
His mother wanted him to get a dog. Dogs are good company, she would tell him.
His father had been more direct: There must be women up there.
If his parents guessed there had been a woman during their firstborn’s time in the army, they didn’t say.
Mike had no photos of Naomi MacBride.
He didn’t need any. Every inch of her was etched in his mind forever. He could see her wide smile and dark, wild, curly hair. He could hear her laughter—she had an indomitable sense of humor—and he could feel her skin, hot and smooth, under his hands.
He turned away from the water and walked back to his cabin.
* * *
An ancient Vermont Castings woodstove served as the cabin’s sole source of heat. It had to be tended, but Mike had people who could do that for him when he was away. He might like his solitude but that didn’t mean he was without friends.
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