The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  "It's only me, then? Thank God."

  He rolled forward into her arms and Kate caught him, ignoring the lacquer-red stain that began spreading over her dress, burying its dappled autumn hues under a smear of rude color.

  The resort had a team of certified first responders on staff who took one look at Conor and radioed for an air transport. They packed the wound with sterile gauze while he remained stretched on the surface of the bridge with his head in Kate's lap, slipping in and out of a feverish doze.

  The back lawn became crowded with the curious and anxious and the hotel security team formed a protective zone in front of the bridge to keep all except a few family members at bay. Kate recognized the voices of her father and sister somewhere close by, but she kept her head bowed over Conor, focusing on every shallow sip of breath, willing him to take the next.

  When the Dartmouth Advance Response Team arrived they worked with undisguised urgency to stabilize Conor and transfer him to the helicopter. Seeing Kate's determination, they allowed her to climb aboard without argument.

  She was buckled into the seat opposite the flight nurse, a slender man with a military bearing who appeared fit for a tour of duty anywhere in the world. He secured the gurney and started oxygen before putting a stethoscope to Conor's chest.

  "No evidence of a lung puncture." He glanced at her. "Has he been sick? Sounds like pneumonia."

  "He's had it before. He also got TB last winter, in India." The nurse's eyes widened and Kate hurried to explain. "He got treatment, and the doctor said he was cured. TB can't come back, can it?"

  "Unlikely, if the drugs were effective and he followed the therapy correctly." The nurse gave her a reassuring smile.

  Police cars began arriving as they prepared for take-off and the sirens, screaming from all directions, added to the general chaos. The interior of the helicopter was an oasis of calm, the deafening sound of rotors reduced to a muted, rhythmic thump. Just before they lifted off, her sister Jeanette appeared and the pilot opened the door to allow her to pass through a canvas bag.

  "Your purse and a change of clothes, and Conor's jacket," she shouted over the roar. "I'll take care of Jigger. Call as soon as you can."

  Once they were airborne the frightening cyanotic tint around Conor's lips and nose receded as the oxygen took effect. A few minutes into the flight he came awake with a shudder. Fumbling with the oxygen mask he saw the nurse and flinched, immediately alert and agitated.

  "Try to relax. You're okay." The flight nurse tried to put the mask back in place but Conor knocked his hand away.

  "Who the fuck are you? Where's Kate?"

  "She's here on board, buddy. Sitting right behind you. We're in a—" he broke off as Conor bucked against the gurney's restraints, his struggles threatening to pull the IV from his arm. The flight nurse gave Kate a quick nod. "Switch seats. He needs to see you."

  Conor relaxed as soon as Kate was beside him. He remained silent for a moment then beckoned her closer, whispering into her ear between panting breaths. "We left a crime scene behind us, and we're the only ones who know what happened. The police will want to question us, and if they do my cover is blown. You have to tell Frank. As soon as you can. He’ll get his FBI friend to fix this. Abigail has the number. Can you do that?"

  "Of course. Just rest now."

  His burst of energy spent, Conor nodded, but his eyes filled as she kissed his cheek. "I was nearly too late. A minute longer and I’d have lost you." He traced a finger down her jaw and frowned. "You've got blood on your neck. Did he hurt you?"

  Kate stroked his face, trying to contain her own hysteria. "That's just more of yours. You ruined my party dress, too." She attempted a smile but couldn't manage one and dipped her head away from him. "Conor, I'm such an idiot and I'm so sorry. It seems obvious now, but I still don't understand. Very few people have been told about the money, most of my family doesn’t even know. My grandmother set up a trust fund for me after my grandfather died twenty years ago and when I turn thirty tomorrow, control of the entire portfolio shifts to me. The money came mostly from my great-grandfather. He invented something to do with refrigeration."

  "And made forty million dollars? He must have invented ice." Conor brushed a tear from her face, a wistful smile tugging at his lips. "Tomorrow’s your birthday. I wish I'd known."

  His eyes closed and his hand dropped weakly to his side. Kate rubbed away another tear, but more followed and she couldn't hold them all back. When Conor drifted off again she stopped trying. Across from her, the flight nurse looked undecided as to whether he should offer comfort or pretend not to notice. Kate turned to the window, giving them both some relief, and stared out at the black night surrounding them.

  "How could they have known?"

  She addressed the question in a whisper to her own pale reflection. The face looked so much like a stranger she half-expected it to speak, but it only stared back at her—a tear-stained apparition with no answers.

  She was separated from Conor as soon as they landed. The medical crew rolled him up a ramp and out of sight, leaving Kate on her own to find a restroom and deal with the blood-stained ruin of her dress. It took enormous amounts of soap and hot water, but once she was in the clean clothes Jeanette had provided in the canvas bag Kate felt a little less like Lady Macbeth and more like herself.

  She checked in with the ER staff and learned they would have no updates on Conor for a while. As required for violence-related injuries they had already reported his arrival to law enforcement, so she decided to put some distance between herself and any officers who might be on their way to investigate. She wandered out to the medical center's central mall—a soaring promenade of skylights and open balconies—and stopped in a quiet alcove outside the chapel to carry out Conor's instructions to contact Frank. As if anticipating her purpose, she suddenly heard her cell phone vibrating with an incoming call.

  The phone was at the bottom of her purse, and the purse had fallen to the bottom of the canvas bag, and all of this information became clear to Kate only after the phone had stopped ringing. She groaned after snagging it up from between her wallet and checkbook. The screen indicated she'd missed four other calls along with the most recent one—all of them from the inn's main number. She should have called hours ago to let Abigail know Conor had arrived safely at the hotel. Kate stabbed at the "call back" option, and when the phone was answered on the first ring she nearly wept at the comforting predictability of Abigail's worried rage.

  "Are you all right? Is Conor with you? What the hell is going on and why didn't you call earlier?"

  Kate took a deep breath, preparing to launch into the narrative, but then remembering, stopped. "Abigail, is it safe for us to talk on this line?"

  "It damn well better be," Abigail thundered. "Reginald Effingham from the British Embassy has torn apart every phone and light fixture and half of them still aren't working. He found some kind of satellite transmitter behind an electric socket in your office. Other than that he says the place is clean, and he's been climbing up my backside every ten minutes asking if I've received your 'coordinates'. So give them to me, right now."

  "We're at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center."

  Abigail's indignation evaporated in a gasp. "Oh dear God, honey. What's happened?"

  Kate forced the words past the pressure in her throat. "Someone shot Conor."

  "Someone shot him! Who? Where? How badly is he . . . hey!"

  The demand for details was abruptly cut off, followed by a muffled, heated argument for control of the phone. Abigail lost the battle, and the next voice on the line was young and British.

  "Mrs. Fitzpatrick? Reg Effingham here. Can you confirm whether or not Mr. McBride is alive at this moment?"

  "Confirm? I'm not . . . Yes. He's alive." Kate felt she'd somehow know if this wasn't true.

  "Excellent. Thank you for that. Bear with me."

  Kate heard him furiously typing on a computer keyboard. When he resumed, his reedy tone strain
ed for an obligatory note of sympathy. "I do apologize for being brusque, but it is imperative we keep our conversation brief and to the point. Describe the circumstances if you would, please."

  Kate provided a recap of the evening's events thus far, with Agent Effingham humming encouragements at each pause. When she'd finished he pounced with a number of follow-up questions.

  "Threat assessment, please. Are you safe in your present location?"

  "I guess so, yes." Uneasily, Kate scanned the empty alcove and hallway beyond. With her focus entirely on Conor she hadn't even considered the possibility of an additional threat.

  "Excellent. Anyone with you? Family members? Friends?"

  "No. They're all at the resort." Kate lowered her voice as two young women who appeared to be sisters emerged from the chapel. Their eyes, patient and sad, met hers and she gave them a nod of sympathy.

  "And has Mr. McBride—have either of you—been questioned by the police as yet?"

  "Not yet. Conor told me I should get in touch with Frank about that. He said—"

  "Yes, quite right. Excellent." Reg Effingham repeated this favored word in a preoccupied drawl and Kate could almost picture him, fresh-faced and self-assured, dutifully ticking through a checklist to pass on to his MI6 elders.

  "I'm not sure what's so ‘excellent,’ Mr. Effingham," she said coldly.

  "Of course not. Awfully sorry. Mrs. Fitzpatrick, please remain where you are and monitor your phone. I'll ring you back shortly." Without further ceremony the line went dead.

  Feeling like she'd been swung round the room and thrown against the wall, Kate at first obeyed the young man's directive literally, staring at her phone with fixed attention. As the minutes ticked by and the screen remained dark, her vise-like grip loosened. Not knowing where else to go she slipped inside the chapel and slumped down with the canvas bag at her feet—a frightened, bewildered refugee.

  The room was dim and empty, and well supplied with tissues. She sat staring at the stained glass window on the opposite wall, lightless against the black night sky, then lifted Conor's jacket from the bag and laid it across her knees.

  The first item she pulled from its pockets was a bone-handled jackknife. It was old, the decorative carving on its brass bolsters worn with age, as was the monogram "TDM" etched in an elegant script. She lifted the blade, which came up easily. The hinge was well oiled, the edge razor-sharp. She knew it instinctively, without an instant of doubt: his father's knife.

  Kate ran a finger over the handle, her breath catching in her throat, then placed the knife on the seat next to her. She continued to slowly empty the pockets, pausing over the ordinary bits and pieces that emerged, each with some unique characteristic clinging to it. A few plastic-wrapped maple candies from the bowl on the inn's front desk, reminding her of his astonished delight the first time he'd popped one into his mouth. A slip of paper with notes in his nearly illegible handwriting—slender looping swirls he described as “Catholic school penmanship gone heretical.” A receipt from the Copley Hospital pharmacy for the antibiotics he'd picked up that morning, which seemed like a hundred years ago.

  His slim nylon wallet came out last. She added it to the pile on the seat and looked at it all, this small tower of treasure. The mundane odds and ends evoked something she hadn't quite permitted herself to recognize, something that escaped now as a stammering epiphany, evenly balanced between confession and prayer.

  "I'm in love with this man. Don't take him from me."

  She put the jacket on and pulled it tight against her shoulders, trying to draw out and absorb whatever part of him still lingered in the fabric.

  21

  An hour later Kate’s phone lit up, and it’s buzzing vibrations quickly sent it skittering off the chair onto the floor. In the struggle to retrieve it from between the chair and the wall she nearly missed the call again, but Reginald Effingham was still there when she answered. After confirming she had no updates for him, he moved quickly to a solemn pronouncement worthy of Marley's Ghost.

  "Three visitors will be seeking you out at your location, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Expect the first two within the next few hours, and the third by morning."

  "Who are they?" Kate asked.

  "Friends," he replied, simply. "Friends concerned with ensuring the safety of Mr. McBride and yourself. Please meet them in the Emergency Room area."

  "What about the police? What should I tell them?"

  Agent Effingham prefaced his reply with a complacent hum. "That matter has been handled by Mr. Murdoch. I will relay your best wishes and the relevant information to your friends here, and I trust you will liaise with our associates who will arrive on scene shortly regarding further updates. All the best, then. Bye."

  Following his incongruously cheerful sign-off, a roar of protest sounded in the background before the line went dead, and Kate tried to imagine the unrest foaming at the other end of its severed connection. Unless Reginald Effingham possessed a more imposing physical presence than his voice suggested, he'd be lucky to survive this assignment.

  The ER waiting room had grown crowded in Kate's absence, and continued filling as the evening progressed. She did her best to follow the counsel of the hard-pressed staff—namely, to sit quietly and wait for the updates that began dribbling out from random sources.

  The injury had been evaluated by a specialist. A surgeon had sutured the wound. A pulmonologist had been called in for a consult. Conor was in transport to X-ray. Conor was in transport back from X-ray. The X-rays were being evaluated by a specialist.

  Although grateful for every kernel of news, and for the kindness of those who came forward to deliver these updates, Kate had no idea who any of them were, what they weren't telling her, or what roles they played in the backstage area they appeared from and returned to like characters in a play.

  After two hours of staggered bulletins she'd begun pacing the hallway, seconds away from punching the ward’s wall-mounted door opener and charging through, when a voice spoke behind her.

  "Are you Kate Fitzpatrick?"

  "Yes?"

  She spun around to face a man with a head full of curly brown hair in a blue oxford shirt and chinos—surely too young to be a doctor, but the lab coat with a photo ID clipped on indicated otherwise. He offered a smile and held out a hand.

  "Greg Burton. I'm one of the physicians on-call tonight. Sorry to keep you waiting so long. Do you want to sit down?"

  "Do I need to sit down?" Kate felt reduced to little more than a heartbeat. Its hammering rhythm throbbed everywhere. The doctor registered confusion.

  "No, you can stand. I mean, we don't have to sit down if you don't want to."

  "Let's sit down." Her legs collapsed like a folding ruler, and by a lucky chance Kate landed in a chair. "How is he?"

  "Better than when he got here. It appears to be a ricochet wound; the bullet carved a ten-inch furrow along his rib cage. Lucky angle. He did lose a fair amount of blood so we gave him a couple of pints after suturing the wound. He's in no danger from it, although he's experiencing pain as the local anesthetic wears off."

  The news should have come as a relief, but as Doctor Burton continued the report Kate took little comfort from his guarded tone.

  "I've consulted with his doctor in Vermont. We're running tests to be sure, but neither of us think we're dealing with a recurrence of TB. He does have a serious bacterial pneumonia in both lungs, complicated by residual scarring from past infections. The current organism resisted the initial antibiotic so we're trying a second line. We're going to monitor him in the ER overnight to make sure nothing develops to require transfer to the ICU. Do you have any questions?"

  None Kate dared to ask, and Dr. Burton correctly interpreted her silence.

  "I know this sounds scary, but we've got a good plan. I'm hoping for results in the next few hours. Conor is awake and breathing more comfortably. I can take you back if you're ready to see him? He's certainly anxious to see you."

  Kate had only been p
ermitted brief glimpses at the inner sanctum of the emergency ward, but the automated doors swung wide for her now with a wizardly flourish. Stepping through them was like lifting the cover from a beekeeper's hive, revealing the industrious colony beneath. The atmosphere was heavy with purpose and the pervasive odor of disinfectant, but sporadically lifted by laughter and the conversation of colleagues. The sights and smells collected around her, slowing her steps as she followed Dr. Burton further into the ward. Kate was surprised it had taken so long to register. She had lain in a place just like this six years ago, and by morning had known how much she'd lost. More than the memory, the dread of enduring another loss sent a convulsive shiver down her back. The doctor's voice continued as a fuzzed background noise.

  "I ordered pain medication but so far he's refused any. After you've had a chance to talk maybe you can persuade him. He needs to get some sleep." He pulled up at a doorway on his left and looked back, surprised to find her several yards behind him. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine." She hurried forward, thanking Dr. Burton before scooting past him. Behind the exam room curtain Conor lay in a bed propped to an upright angle, an intravenous tube in his right arm, the clear plastic oxygen cannula still in place under his nose. A sheet covered him up to the waist, and from the available evidence he wore nothing beneath. A pale green hospital gown, wadded together with a blanket, lay at the bottom of the bed. He looked haggard and feverish, but he was alive. Seeing her, his face brightened.

  "Finally. I was ready to crawl out of here and go find you myself."