The Whisper f-4

by Carla Neggers

  Healy frowned. "Yes, for a few days. We played a bit of golf."

  "Did he mention his archaeologist friend then?" Josie asked.

  "I don't recall, to be honest. Something's wrong, isn't it?"

  "We hope not," she said, handing him a card. "My number and e-mail--please let us know if you hear from Percy, won't you?"

  He promised he would, and Josie thanked him and retreated back down the walk. Myles stepped in front of her and opened the car door for her. "Do I look as if I'd have run straight into it?"

  "I'm being chivalrous."

  "Oh. I don't think I've ever had anyone be chivalrous. It's rather nice." She smiled as she got into the passenger seat. "You'll shut the door next?"

  "I'll try not to get your foot."

  She checked her BlackBerry. She had a message from Will. No news in London. He and Simon were checking into Percy Carlisle's friends, acquaintances and activities there, as well as taking another, closer look at Jay Augustine's travels in Great Britain and Ireland. Undoubtedly Lizzie and Keira were deeply involved, too. They all wanted to know who could have been on the tiny island with Sophie Malone last September.

  Simon had suggested that Josie--Moneypenny, as he called her--work directly with the Irish guards, but to what end? She knew nothing they didn't.

  She had a message, too, from Adrian, all about his day at school. It made her smile and wish to be back home. She glanced at Myles. But everything had changed, hadn't it? Would she even be allowed to tell her son that his idol hadn't vanished into thin air?

  "Where to now?" Myles asked as he started the car.

  Scoop Wisdom had reported earlier that Sophie Malone had offered the use of her cottage to his "British sources" in Ireland.

  That would be Myles and me, Josie thought.

  "Back to Kenmare," she said.

  The interior of the Malone cottage was charming and quite chilly, and the moment Josie crossed the threshold, she knew she was lost. Myles eased an arm around her middle and kissed the top of her head. "Josie."

  All his anguish and pain came out in that one gesture, that one whisper. She'd kept hers in a tight ball inside her, refusing to acknowledge her feelings much less let them leak out and destroy her. She couldn't hold it in any longer. "Myles...I missed you so much."

  "I know, love. I'm sorry."

  "No, don't," she said. "Don't be sorry."

  In one motion, he caught her up into his arms as if she were a swooning fairy-tale princess and carried her upstairs, kicking open a door and laying her on a frighteningly cold bed. They hadn't lit a fire or turned on the heat.

  "We'll warm right up," he said, kissing her.

  Moonlight streamed through the window, striking his face. Josie held him fiercely and whispered how much she hated him, loved him, wanted him, and he let her get it all out before he kissed her again, taking his time. After that, she wasn't cold anymore. He lifted off her shirt, and she got his off, half expecting a different Myles underneath--new scars, new muscles. But she found that it didn't matter. She felt only the heat of his skin against hers.

  They made love slowly at first, as if it were all so momentous and one wrong move would doom them to perdition, but when he was inside her, Josie grabbed him by the hips and pulled him deeper into her. He moaned, his mouth finding hers in the dark as he drove into her. There was nothing slow about their lovemaking after that.

  Later, tucked under the duvet, holding on to him as she'd imagined alone in her bed night after night, Josie smiled. "I should have guessed this would happen when you opened the car door for me."

  He laughed. "You did guess."

  She laughed, too. "So I did."

  19

  Boston, Massachusetts

  When she arrived back on Beacon Hill, Sophie found the gate to the archway and courtyard unlocked and thought nothing of it as she shut it firmly behind her, locking it again. Her afternoon on her own had left her feeling more normal--determined, even, to back off from trying to find answers to last September herself. Cliff Rafferty and now Jay Augustine were dead. Percy Carlisle was still out of touch. She'd done what she could to figure out what was going on, and she'd told the police everything she knew.

  The police included Scoop, she reminded herself. Whatever attraction she felt toward him didn't change the fact that he was a police officer, as well as a victim of the spiral of violence over the past summer.

  The archway, which was unlit, felt cold and dank, reminding her of the cave. It was late afternoon and downright chilly, a sign of the short, frigid winter days ahead. She hadn't lived through a full-blown New England winter in several years. She decided she might as well look forward to a nor'easter, because one surely would blow through Boston before too long.

  The courtyard was much darker than she'd expected. The wind or a cat, or maybe even a squirrel, had blown over one of her mums--a white one. She crouched down to right it and stopped, her hand in midair, convinced she'd heard a rustling sound. There was no wind now, not even the stirring of a breeze.

  Sophie didn't breathe as she listened.

  She heard a whisper in the shadows by the landlords' stairs and shot to her feet. The door to her sister's apartment was shut tight, no sign anyone had broken in.

  She heard more whispers--or what sounded like whispers. A neighbor? Music?

  A cat yowled, startling her. She jumped back, her heart pounding. She couldn't see the cat but thought the yowl had come from under the stairs. Had the cat been spooked by the whispers, too?

  Enough, Sophie thought, and bolted back through the archway, digging out her iPhone and dialing Scoop's number as she headed through the gate and up the stairs to the street. She heard him pick up. "Are you near Beacon Hill?" she asked before he could speak.

  "I'm at the Whitcomb. What's wrong?"

  "I'm okay." She looked up and down the quiet street as she spoke but saw no one. "I heard something in the courtyard. Whispers. It could have been a cat--"

  "Where are you now?"

  "On the street."

  "Is anyone with you?"

  "No. I'm not worried. I just don't want to go back to the courtyard by myself."

  "I'm on my way."

  While she waited, Sophie peered down the steps through the open gate and archway, but she didn't see a neighbor, a cat, anything. She stood up straight and watched a young couple walk past her, holding hands. They exchanged a pleasant greeting, and as she watched them continue past her, she spotted Scoop making his way up the steep street, moving fast. She waved to him, wishing she could say with assurance the whispers were nothing, that no one had been out in the courtyard with her.

  "It was quicker to walk," he said when he reached her, slipping an arm around her as if it didn't occur to him to do anything else.

  "I could have mistaken--"

  "Either way, I'm glad you called me." He winked at her. "Better safe than bonked on the head, right? I'll take a look."

  "I'll go with you," she said. "Honestly, it could have been a cat."

  "That'd be good. I like cats."

  They went down the steps and through the archway back to the courtyard, quiet and still in the fading daylight. Scoop took a quick look around, but none of the neighbors that shared the courtyard had doors wide open or windows broken. No one was lurking behind a bench or under the stairs where Sophie had heard the cat.

  "Any other exits besides through the archway?" Scoop asked.

  "There's a skinny walk out to the street behind us. It has a locked gate. It's seldom used. I don't even have a key."

  "Hide under the stairs, then scoot out the back while you head through the archway." He shrugged, contemplating the situation. "It could work. Let's take a look at your apartment."

  The door was locked, not so much as a fresh scratch in the dark green paint. Scoop checked the windows. "Anything look different to you?"

  "No, nothing. If I hadn't heard the whispers..." Sophie pulled her sweater tightly around her, cold now. "I'm on edge."
>
  "Understandable," he said, glancing back at the pretty courtyard. "Did your sister give a key to anyone?"

  "I don't think so. The friend who was here over the summer returned her key and said she didn't make a copy."

  "Who else knows you're in Boston, staying here?"

  "My family. A few friends, the tutoring center. Colm Dermott knows. He probably told Eileen Sullivan."

  "The Carlisles," Scoop added.

  "I imagine just about everyone in the Boston Police Department knows, too."

  He plucked a wilted blossom off a yellow mum by the door. "It's a Harry Potter sort of place you've got here. Let's go inside and see if anyone paid you a visit while you were out."

  As she dug out her keys, a black-and-white shorthaired cat leaped out from under the stairs and landed on all fours by a small wrought-iron bench. "Hey, there," Sophie said, gently, keeping any tension out of her voice. "I haven't seen you before. Where are you from?"

  The cat arched its back and hissed, more out of fear, Sophie thought, than aggression. She hadn't seen the cat in her few days at the apartment. Scoop squatted down. "What's up, fella? Something spook you out here?"

  An older woman came out of another apartment across the courtyard. "There you are," she said, gathering the cat up into her arms. "I've been looking all over for you."

  Scoop stood up. "He's your cat?"

  She nodded. "He never gets out. I was washing windows. I turned my back and he was gone. At first I thought he was hiding in the house. Something must have startled him for him to have jumped out the window."

  "How long ago was this?" Scoop asked.

  "Maybe ten minutes. I'm so glad he's all right." She nuzzled the cat, who was purring now, clearly calmer. But the woman stiffened as she glanced from Scoop to Sophie and back again. "Is something wrong?"

  "It's okay," Scoop said. "Did you see or hear anything unusual out here in the courtyard?"

  "No, nothing. I've been here all day, too." The cat wriggled in her arms. "I should get him back inside."

  She returned to her apartment, and Sophie stuck her key in the lock. "Maybe it was just the cat," she said, pushing open the door.

  "And maybe what startled you is what startled the cat."

  They entered her apartment, which obviously hadn't been disturbed, but Scoop checked its entire four-hundred square feet, including the bedroom. Sophie had made the bed, put her clothes away, hadn't left out anything too personal--not that he'd care. He was looking for an intruder, not lace undies on the floor.

  Not that she even owned lace underwear.

  "I'll be fine here," she said when he returned to the main room. "I can use the dead bolt. Even if someone else has a key--"

  "If someone wants to get in here, they can get in. A brick through the window would do it. Who needs a key?"

  "I'm glad you're on our side," Sophie said dryly.

  He shrugged his big shoulders. "I'm just saying."

  They both were standing in the middle of the room as if they didn't quite know what to do with themselves now that the crisis--or whatever it was--had passed. "I'm sorry I got you up here."

  "Did you hear whispers or didn't you?"

  "I did."

  "Did you think someone was hiding in the courtyard?"

  She nodded, dropping onto a chair at the table.

  "The gate was unlocked," he said. "You did the right thing, Sophie. Don't second-guess yourself. Maybe someone in the neighborhood's reported a burglary, saw someone suspicious--" He stopped. "You get what I'm saying, right?"

  "I do. Thanks." She glanced out at the courtyard, dark now, cozy in the glow of lights from neighboring apartments. "Did you hear from your friends in Ireland?"

  Scoop stood by the chair across from her but didn't sit down. "They located the Healys in Killarney. Percy wasn't there. He stayed with them the night before he met you in Kenmare. Just him. Helen was already on her way back here."

  "It wasn't Percy who was just out there whispering in the courtyard, if that's what you're thinking. He's not..." Sophie hesitated, giving herself a moment to get her bearings before she said the wrong thing. "Percy's not the sort to sneak into a courtyard or follow someone to a remote island."

  "Unlike his father?"

  "His father could be impulsive and a little tyrannical at times, and he loved a good adventure. I didn't know him that well, as I've said, but I've never heard anything to suggest he was dishonest. If you're thinking there's some father-son rivalry at work here--"

  "I'm not thinking anything," Scoop said, still not sitting down.

  "I asked Wendell Sharpe if he thought Percy Sr. had arranged the break-in at the museum himself in order to steal the Winslow Homer painting--for the insurance. Wendell said no. The Carlisles have no money worries." Sophie rose suddenly, aware of Scoop's gaze on her--she felt as if she were hiding something when she wasn't. "Even if Percy Jr. feels he doesn't measure up to his father and has tried to find ways to prove himself, I don't believe he would frighten or hurt me."

  "A month ago I wouldn't have believed a police officer would place a bomb on the back porch of another police officer--of anyone--but it looks as if that's exactly what happened. It's called keeping an open mind, Sophie. Don't rule anyone or anything out until you know for sure."

  She knew he was right. She'd given herself the same lecture. "If Percy let himself be used, he'd be furious and embarrassed." She stared out the window, seeing her reflection. "If he did something stupid like get involved with a crooked art dealer who turned out to be a serial killer..." She didn't finish and smiled at Scoop. "Don't you just want to take a drive up to Vermont and go leaf-peeping?"

  He came around the table next to her. "Enough's enough, Sophie. It's crazy to stay here alone with what's been going on. Jeremiah Rush has an old crush on you. I'll bet he'll give you a break on a room." Scoop brushed a few strands of hair out of her face. His hands were steady, warm. "The alternative is for me to stay here with you."

  There was no separation of space in the tiny apartment and just one bed. The sofa that was too short for either of them.

  Which he had to know.

  "I shouldn't have left you up here last night," he said. "Did you even sleep?"

  "Not much. I'm not fooled, by the way. You want to keep an eye on me."

  "Ah-huh." He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her lightly, then stood up straight and grinned at her. "For a number of reasons."

  "You're going to regret that in about ten seconds."

  He laughed. "I doubt it."

  "I'll get my stuff."

  She retreated to the bedroom and pulled out her backpack. She was happy not to argue, even if a five-star boutique hotel wasn't in her budget. But what was she doing? She'd just sworn off getting herself deeper into this mess, and here she was, about to head off with a Boston detective--a man obsessed, understandably so, with finding out why a fellow police officer had been found dead yesterday amid bomb-making materials and dark Celtic symbols.

  Never mind head off with him. She'd just kissed him. Again.

  And not for the last time, she thought, gritting her teeth as she threw clothes together, including some prettier tops that Taryn had left behind.

  She went back out into the courtyard with Scoop. She slung her backpack over one shoulder and didn't even think to protest when he put a hand on her hip as they went back through the archway out to the street.

  20

  Without even trying, Scoop came up with a half-dozen reasons not to stay in the same hotel as Sophie, but he ignored them all as he stood with her in the elegant little lobby of the Whitcomb. Jeremiah Rush maintained a neutral expression behind his desk. "I have you on the third floor," he said, handing her a real key, not a flimsy key card. "You're down the hall from Detective Wisdom, as requested. Your room overlooks the back of the hotel, but I think you'll be pleased."

  "I'm sure I will be, Jeremiah," she said, smiling. "Thanks. I won't cause any trouble, I promise."

 
"Right. That was what Lizzie said last month, and I had cops and spies all through the place." The younger Rush shook his head. "I want to enjoy life. I have a golden retriever, friends and a good job. I don't need to kick butt like Lizzie, and her dad--" He stopped himself as if he'd gone too far, then leaned toward Sophie and whispered, "Uncle Harlan threatened to bug the lobby if we all didn't behave."

  Scoop grinned. "Good for him. What does he think of Will Davenport?"

  Jeremiah stood up straight and gave a long-suffering laugh. "You don't think he'd tell me, do you? Enjoy your stay, Sophie. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable."

  Scoop took the elevator up with her and walked with her down the hall to her room. He'd offered to carry her backpack a half-dozen times and finally had taken the hint that she was doing this herself and wasn't sure about any of it--the whispers, calling him, kissing him, now moving into the Whitcomb. As she unlocked the door to her room, he leaned against the wall and said, "You're thinking right now you never should have gone to check out Keira's ruin when you did."

  "It's not really her ruin, is it? She'd be the first to say so, I imagine. It belongs to the farmer who owns the pasture."

  "Not my point."

  Which she obviously knew, but she held open the door and said, "After you," as if she accepted that he'd have to see inside for himself, make sure she would be safe there.

  He went in, and she followed him and set her backpack on a rack, obviously used to being on her own, traveling. Feeling secure. She'd regained her composure, but her expression was still tight, tense, as she turned to him. "We'd have met on the plane," she said. "It would have been the same. Somehow, we'd be here right now even if I hadn't gone to the Beara when I did."

  "Are we talking fairy dust?"

  That brought a spark to her eyes, and she even managed a small laugh. "Maybe we are."

  Scoop stood at the window, aware of the shortening days. Where would he be come winter? Not here, he thought. Not at a five-star Boston hotel. Back at the triple-decker? On Yarborough's sofa bed? He glanced at Sophie and wondered where she'd be, but pushed aside his questions. "Tell me the rest about the cave," he said quietly, seeing immediately that he'd caught her by surprise. "Never mind the objective facts. I want to hear about the subjective parts. Don't be a scholar. Be someone alone on a tiny uninhabited island off the Irish coast."