Rival's Break

by Carla Neggers

  “Good outcome.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You and Oliver heading out?”

  She nodded. “We need to find Georgina, Kevin.”

  “Nick Lothian and Richie Hillier have gone to find her. Different directions. The Fannings want to make sure she’s back in time to meet her car.”

  “They’re starting to see her as trouble,” Emma said.

  Kevin glanced at the painting in its plastic. “Not without reason.”

  Ginny came onto the porch. Emma left Kevin to explain the situation and went with Oliver through the kitchen and out to the front offices, so different from when young Wendell Sharpe had set up his art detective business in the front room. He’d been married then, and he and his wife had raised their son here. Emma noticed a framed picture of them on the front wall where her grandfather had his desk. The place was changed—modern, state-of-the-art, even the upstairs bedrooms given over to office space—and yet, in many ways, it was the same.

  Oliver frowned at her from the front steps. “Emma?”

  “On my way.”

  * * *

  Emma took the scenic coastal route to Rock Point, past large summer homes and classic rockbound Maine coast. Oliver stared out the passenger window. “It’s a beautiful day for a run. I’d go this way if I were Georgina.”

  “Do you run?”

  “Only when I have to get away from something or someone.” But his cheekiness fell flat, and he added, “I’ll keep an eye out for her, don’t worry.”

  “Did you know you were following Jeremy when you headed to Boston, or did you really think you’d be enjoying fall foliage with Henrietta?”

  “I knew it wasn’t an ordinary visit with friends.” He glanced sideways at her. “Then nothing is ordinary with you and Colin, is it? Or with our Father Bracken, for that matter.”

  Emma made no comment. She didn’t point out he’d played a role in complicating their lives the past year.

  He turned to the window again. “I’d like to take you through everything. Something that seems trivial to me might not to you. And I want the timeline clear in my head. I want to be sure Jeremy isn’t playing us—not just Henrietta and me. You and Colin, too.” He paused. “Maybe especially Colin.”

  “Because of their friendship,” Emma said, not making it a question. “Okay. Talk to me.”

  “I hadn’t spoken with Jeremy in several weeks when he found me at Claridge’s a week ago Saturday. He had an agenda, but he always does—and he doesn’t share it with me, ever. I understand he can’t. But this was different.”

  “How so?”

  “From the start, it felt personal. He sat across from me while I was having breakfast and asked me to speak with Robin Masterson.” Oliver watched as they passed a jogger, a rail-thin middle-aged man in shorts and a tank. “He asked. That should have been my first clue. Jeremy doesn’t ask.”

  “When had you arrived in London?”

  “The night before. I stayed at my apartment. I’m selling it, did I tell you? It’s the right time. I’m not the little boy who saw his parents killed there. I can let it go. It needs to take on the energy of a new family. With its posh Mayfair address, I’ll do well. Henrietta says I can do what I want with the profits, but she has farm improvements in mind.” He waved a hand. “No matter.”

  “If selling the apartment is right for you, that’s what counts, I think,” Emma said.

  He looked at her, his green eyes soft with emotion. Thirty years ago, he’d witnessed his parents’ murder in the apartment’s library. “Thank you.”

  “Does Jeremy know you’re putting it on the market?”

  “Jeremy knows everything. He stayed perhaps five minutes at breakfast. He didn’t have so much as a cup of tea. He was his curt, no-nonsense self.” Oliver kept his gaze on the sea, not a hint of fog even out on the horizon. “He asked me not to discuss his request with Henrietta.”

  “Where was she?” Emma asked.

  “At her aunt’s old house in the Cotswolds, digging dahlias and sorting through Freddy Balfour’s opera collection. When Jeremy left Claridge’s, I knew I was to meet with Robin Masterson, a retired scientist interested in mythology, and I wasn’t to tell Henrietta.”

  Emma slowed to cross a narrow stone bridge. “Did Jeremy tell you Robin was interested in poisons?”

  “No. He remained vague. Maintaining plausible deniability, perhaps.”

  Or he hadn’t known. “Did he tell you Robin was a chemical weapons expert?”

  “He did not. Again, he kept it vague. ‘Retired scientist.’ He did tell me Robin knew him as an art consultant named William Hornsby. I got the impression Robin was aware Jeremy is with MI5, but we didn’t go there. The Voldemort approach.”

  Emma smiled. Oliver and his MI5 handler did have an interesting relationship. “Did you walk to the gallery straight from your breakfast?”

  “I took a long walk in St. James’s Park first. Then I walked over. I got there about fifteen minutes ahead of Robin Masterson.”

  “Did you have a description of him, or did he have your name?”

  “Jeremy—Hornsby, so-called—had given him my name. He told me Robin’s daughter might arrive with him.”

  “Who else was at the gallery?” Emma asked.

  “The owners. It was early, quiet. Georgina only stayed a few minutes, but I got the impression it was longer than either she or her father expected.”

  “Because of the Aoife O’Byrne paintings,” Emma said.

  “It was love at first sight for Georgina.” Oliver stared out his window, watching the crashing waves as he spoke. “Her father seemed utterly delighted. If she’s responsible for these unpleasant sketches, one can see why he’d be pleased she was struck by Aoife’s Irish landscapes. I can see a father wanting to encourage an interest in paintings of woodlands, rainbows and the sea—not trite in Aoife’s hand, mind you—instead of death art.”

  “We don’t know she did those sketches, Oliver.”

  “No, I suppose not. In any event, I said hello to her but that was the extent of our contact.”

  “Did you mention you know Aoife?”

  “No, we didn’t discuss her work. It never occurred to me her father would buy one of her paintings, and certainly not go all the way to Dublin for it. Georgina left, and Robin and I had our chat over pints. He didn’t strike me as suicidal, but then again we now know he kept lethal mushrooms in his fridge. But he was a neurotoxicologist and an experienced forager, so maybe it wasn’t a big deal to him.”

  “Compared to sarin, I suppose.”

  He turned and again stared out the window. “After Robin left, Jeremy stopped at the pub but only for a few minutes, not long enough to stop dripping. I didn’t give it much thought. It felt like he’d done a good turn for an eccentric friend.”

  “Did you see Robin or Georgina after that?” Emma asked.

  “No. I left London and drove to the farm the following afternoon. Henrietta wasn’t there. I took Alfred for a good walk, and Martin and I had dinner at the village pub and whiskey by the fire.” Oliver was silent a moment. “I’ve come to trust and admire Jeremy, Emma. I appreciate the enormous burden he has in his work, and the sacrifices and contributions he’s made to keep people safe from the worst imaginable threats.”

  The coastal road ended, and Emma turned onto the main road into Rock Point. “But?”

  “But Colin and I have a better chance of becoming friends than Jeremy and I do. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s had the goods on me for years and was waiting for the right moment to pounce so I would do his bidding.”

  “That’s the closest you’ve come to admitting to being our art thief.”

  “Your what?” He glanced at her long enough to give her a sly smile. “I didn’t say what goods. I could have slept with his wife for all you know. Have you ever met her?”

  “I�
�ve only just met Jeremy.”

  “He and Colin are friends as well as colleagues. Interesting, isn’t it? A taste of what it’s like to appreciate someone and yet...” He sighed, thoughtful. “I don’t know if Jeremy’s crossed any lines he shouldn’t, but his connection to Robin Masterson and his daughter transcends his MI5 work. I’m sure of it. Now Robin’s dead of mushroom poisoning and Jeremy’s recovering from mushroom poisoning, and we have a painting depicting mushrooms—if delightful ones—and these strange sketches. Given his background, if Robin wanted to kill himself, why use deadly mushrooms?”

  At first Emma didn’t realize Oliver had paused because he was waiting for her to respond, not just collecting his thoughts. “I don’t know, Oliver.”

  “Would you tell me if you did know?”

  “If I could. But I don’t know.” Emma picked up her speed now that they were on a less twisty road. “What about Henrietta’s behavior this past week?”

  “She disappeared. No details. She finally turned up at the farm on Thursday and told me to pack for Maine. We left on Friday. We spent the night in Boston and drove up here on Saturday.”

  “Were you two in touch before Thursday?”

  “No. I knew she was doing MI5 work.”

  “When did you find out Robin was sick?”

  “Yesterday at the hospital with Henrietta and the dreadful tea. The same time you did.”

  Emma realized her grip had tightened on the wheel and deliberately loosened it. “I see.”

  “I think she suspected Jeremy had posed as Robin to buy the painting from Aoife and had gone a bit off the grid. I knew she was chewing on something. Everything runs through her head. It’s her nature. She considers every possibility, no matter how barmy, and does it at lightning speed, so it doesn’t impede her. She’s not the type to get bogged down.”

  “She didn’t speak with Aoife in Dublin,” Emma pointed out.

  Oliver cracked his window, letting in a bit of autumn air. “She didn’t need to, did she? She confirmed somehow it had been Jeremy in Dublin, not Robin, and she decided to find him. Your grandfather wasn’t involved, was he?”

  “He says he wasn’t.”

  Oliver snorted. “Well, that convinced me.”

  Emma couldn’t always tell when Oliver was being dramatic, sincere or deflecting and redirecting. “If the yacht mushroom poisoning was intentional—and that’s a huge leap at this point—it doesn’t appear intended to maim or kill anyone, just cause sickness, chaos, perhaps a tarnishing of Georgina’s reputation as a chef.”

  “Unless the perpetrator got the wrong mushrooms.”

  “We don’t know there is a perpetrator, Oliver. That’s why it’s dangerous to jump too far ahead of the facts.”

  She didn’t know if he’d heard her. “I tell you, Emma, there was nothing in my conversation with Robin that led me to suspect anything terrible was about to happen. It was an intellectual discussion, prompted by his fascination with wild plants, his profession and his newfound freedom as a pensioner. He didn’t strike me as a man about to kill himself or worried he was about to be killed.”

  “It’s easy to go down that road,” Emma said. “I urge you to resist, Oliver.”

  He heaved a sigh and sank back against his car seat. “I assumed Jeremy chose the gallery for Robin and me to meet because it was convenient for me. Now that I think about it, that’s absurd on my part. Jeremy’s never done anything simply because it was convenient for me. What if he chose the gallery because he wanted Georgina to see Aoife’s work?”

  “Was it new to Robin as well as to her?”

  “If it wasn’t, he did a good job faking it.” Oliver considered a moment. “How does Henrietta strike you?”

  “I don’t know her well enough to say.”

  “She’s been unusually pensive lately,” he said, answering his own question. “She says her grandfather’s opera records have her thinking about the past. Freddy Balfour died when she was five. She’s considering writing a book about him, did she tell you? Posey’s house and garden are on her mind, too. Maybe she’s thinking of dumping me. I’m not the usual sort of bloke, you know?”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  He smiled. “Staying out of it, are you? Now you sound like Colin. Do you two ever think about quitting the FBI and living in Rock Point full-time? I suppose it’s not necessarily quieter. There’s a poison victim in the rectory and a missing painting, an unsettling sketch and likely toxic mushrooms at your family’s place of business.”

  They came to Rock Point. Emma turned onto a side street that would take them to the rectory.

  “Henrietta and I have known each other since childhood,” Oliver said. “We’re sharing a wonderful life together at the moment. But she’s a part of Jeremy’s world, Emma. I’m not suggesting he’s out to cause harm, but she trusts him in a way I don’t and never will.”

  “Maybe because they have a professional history and she knows things you don’t.”

  He grinned unexpectedly. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “I appreciate your taking me through this past week from your perspective. If you think of anything else—”

  “Do you suppose Jeremy is the one who’s been worried about what Georgina is up to?”

  “He and her father have known each other a long time,” Emma said.

  “He has enemies. Robin must have had enemies. What if that’s what this week’s been about? Enemies who want to exploit Georgina, use her...” He moaned, half to himself. “My head’s spinning. Henrietta wouldn’t be fazed. She’d be ten steps ahead of me.” He paused. “Maybe Jeremy just wanted to give Georgina that painting to make her father look good to her.”

  Emma slowed for an intersection, not far from St. Patrick’s rectory. “You see now why speculating is dangerous.”

  “One rabbit trail leads to another and another.”

  “What’s your gut say, Oliver?”

  “It stopped talking to me when you and Colin discovered Oliver Fairbairn is my pseudonym for my Hollywood consulting work. If not for that, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “I don’t know about that. You and Henrietta grew up together. She was MI5 before Colin and I ever met you. How far back does she go with Jeremy? Do you know?”

  “Far enough.”

  Emma didn’t push him for further explanation as she navigated the quiet residential roads to the rectory, and, she hoped, some answers.

  21

  Finian was at the kitchen table with his laptop when Colin entered the rectory through the back door. Henrietta hovered by the sink, arms crossed on her chest, impatient, frustrated. “He’s chatting with Ireland,” she said, nodding to Finian.

  Colin stood behind Finian, saw that Aoife O’Byrne was on the screen, with Wendell and Lucas Sharpe on either side of her. Colin recognized the bar lounge at the O’Byrne House Hotel. Aoife had her hair pulled back, and her vivid blue eyes focused on Finian. “Do you have a photo of the man you believe posed as Robin Masterson?”

  “I don’t, I’m afraid,” Finian said.

  Henrietta glanced at Colin. He could see she was tempted to drag Jeremy out of his sickbed so Aoife could take a good look at him, but Colin didn’t think she’d actually do it. Henrietta already knew Jeremy had gone to Dublin and bought the painting. But Aoife wanted to be certain she hadn’t got it wrong. Sean Murphy, no doubt lurking off camera, would, too. The two Sharpes—hard to say.

  Colin produced a headshot of Jeremy on his phone and held it up to the screen. One couldn’t be too careful in making assumptions with his MI5 colleagues.

  Aoife nodded. “Yes. That’s the man who bought the painting. I’m positive.”

  Colin didn’t lower the photo. “Wendell? Lucas? Have you seen this man?”

  Aoife stood back, allowing them a closer view of the image on the screen. Both
men shook their heads. “I’ve never seen him before,” Lucas said. “Granddad?”

  “No. Never. I’d remember a face like that.”

  It wasn’t the best photo. Jeremy could, when it suited him, meld into a crowd, and even pass himself off as an art consultant. Aoife, Lucas and Wendell explained they hadn’t recognized Robin Masterson, the man in the photo Sean had shown them.

  Finian sat still in his seat, dressed in his clerical garb. He looked drawn and tired, as if he couldn’t believe he’d dragged his friends in Declan’s Cross into another mess. He hadn’t, of course. Jeremy had posed as Robin Masterson in Dublin before he’d shown up in Rock Point, and Aoife hadn’t known Henrietta had walked past her studio. Wendell had, and maybe if his son hadn’t just died he’d have wondered if something was up and notified Emma, at least—but he hadn’t.

  Colin decided he needed to throttle back the intensity in the room. “You’re looking good, Wendell,” he said.

  “Nothing like walking the Irish hills to nourish the soul.”

  The old man sometimes talked like that, Colin had learned. But Wendell did look good, a relief given the tragic loss of his only son. Colin wanted to get to Ireland and see him, but he was glad Emma had gotten out there...that she and Wendell had walked those Irish hills.

  Aoife smiled pleasantly. “Lucas tells me it’s bean-hole-supper season there, Finian.”

  “We’re getting ready for one this weekend. It’s a busy time with the foliage at its peak. Then things quiet down a bit before the holidays.”

  “You do have a knack for staying busy. Maybe I’ll get to one of those bean-hole suppers one day.”

  “You’d love it,” Finian said.

  Colin winced at his friend’s awkwardness. Finian was usually amiable and quick-witted, but he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere than on a video chat with his friends in Ireland. It had to be his relationship with Aoife. Unfinished business there, Colin thought.