Heron's Cove (17 page)

Lucas smiled. “Have you been doing any driving in London?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said with a grunt. “Traffic’s terrible. We’re enjoying our year in London but look forward to going home.”

“It’ll be good to have you back when the time comes.” Lucas started to order another beer but decided against it. “Were you aware that Matt Yankowski talked to Emma four years ago when she was still at the convent?”

His mother sighed, shaking her head. “She never said. That’s not unusual for Emma. We weren’t convinced she would ever make her final vows but we tried not to pressure her one way or the other. We would have respected her choice if she had. The FBI…” She grimaced. “The FBI was a surprise in its own way almost as much as the convent was. But that’s in the past. I’m just glad she’s based in Boston now, closer to home.”

Lucas had long suspected that his father’s pain was worse in Heron’s Cove. He would never admit it, but his hometown was a reminder of what he had lost, the costs of his injury to himself and his family. Timothy Sharpe, Lucas knew, blamed himself, at least in part, for Emma’s decision to enter the convent. It was too simplistic to think that she had embraced a religious life because she couldn’t face the reality of their father’s injury and rehabilitation. Her time with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart had been a journey of faith for her, deeply personal…and it was over.

She was Special Agent Sharpe now.

His mother changed the subject. “How’s your grandfather?” she asked.

“He should be settling into a pub in Killarney by now.”

“Killarney?” His father frowned in surprise. “What’s he doing there?”

So Wendell Sharpe hadn’t told his son and daughter-in-law about his “walkabout” and instead had left the job to Lucas.

He decided to order that second beer after all.

His parents took the news of Wendell’s solo trip into the southwest Irish hills better than Lucas had expected. They were more amused and pleased than worried. He felt like a wet blanket.

“You wait, Lucas,” his father said. “When you’re eighty and can go off on a hike on your own, you won’t want your grandson fretting you’ve sunk into a depression.”

“What if he has?”

“Then the Irish hills are just what he needs.”

They headed out together, Lucas noticing his father’s limp, the ashen color around his mouth, the dark circles under his eyes and the pinched look that he got whenever his pain was flaring up. No one mentioned it. They had all learned a long time ago to let him take the lead and define what he needed.

“We’ll take a cab back,” his father said in a low voice.

Once they were on their way, Lucas walked back to his hotel. The perfect day had turned gray, with a fine mist falling. He didn’t mind. He buttoned his jacket, enjoying the scenery and the chance to process what he’d learned from Emma, Ursula Finch and his parents.

As he turned onto busy Park Lane, he glanced back and saw a man making his way down to the subway station on the corner. Tall, fair, shaved head, dark sweater and trousers. Lucas had noticed him outside the pub and slowed as he arrived at his hotel.

The man disappeared down the subway steps.

The doorman asked Lucas if he needed anything.

Lucas shook his head and went into the hotel lobby. Maybe it was lunch with his parents and the talk about Emma and their grandfather’s melancholy—or just the mention of Colin Donovan—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the man with the shaved head had followed him.

Maybe it was none of the above, Lucas thought as he got into the elevator. Maybe it was having two beers at lunch.

13

AFTER A THOROUGHLY unsatisfying visit with Julianne Maroney’s grandmother, Finian Bracken took his BMW for a spin along the southern Maine coast. He rolled down the windows and let in the autumn air. How had he landed up in this blasted place, so far from home and the people he knew and loved?

Starchy Franny Maroney had all but chased him out of her kitchen with a broom. “Mad at God, indeed,” he muttered, slowing the BMW, his one indulgence.

Mrs. Maroney had said she would keep her promise to help with the bean-hole supper. She was on the cleanup detail, and was bringing coleslaw, made from the recipe her now-departed mother had provided St. Patrick’s; it was in the bean-hole supper folder.

Finian thought she had softened slightly as he left, but she plunged out her front door and followed him to his car.

“Don’t waste your time visiting me again unless I’m in the hospital about to take my last breath,”
she told him in no uncertain terms.
“Visit the sick and dying.”

He had resisted a number of quick retorts and said a prayer for her through gritted teeth as he climbed back into his car. Now he wondered if his family and friends had felt much the same when he had been raging after the deaths of his wife and daughters. They were taken from him so young—thirty-three, seven and five. Yet he knew not to compare his loss with that of Franny Maroney. It wasn’t a competition, and her rage—her crisis of faith—was her own and had nothing to do with him.

By the time he parked in the pretty village of Heron’s Cove, Finian had hold of his temper and his frustration with not being able to help an elderly woman so filled with pain. What had he been thinking when he decided on parish work—on thrusting himself upon a small American fishing village?

He found his way to the shop the Sisters of the Joyful Heart ran on a narrow side street in the village. Sister Cecilia greeted him with her usual pleasant smile. “How nice of you to stop by, Father Bracken.”

“Lovely to see you, Sister Cecilia,” Finian said, struggling to return her good cheer.

Sister Cecilia wore the order’s modified habit with a wide white headband holding back her medium-brown hair, an oversize hand-knit sweater, dark-colored tights and black clogs. She lifted a pottery pitcher, painted with a cluster of wild blueberries, from a shelf and dusted underneath it. “Everyone’s buzzing about the fancy yacht that arrived here over the weekend. Have you seen it?”

He nodded. “It’s impossible to miss.”

“It’s owned by a Russian billionaire. I wonder if he’s a Sharpe client. I heard that Emma was on board yesterday, but I haven’t seen her—I think she’s gone to Boston. I’ve been giving her painting lessons.”

“So I’ve heard,” Finian said. “How are the lessons going?”

“Well…they’re going.”

He laughed, relieved to be in the company of the cheerful young sister. Sister Cecilia and Emma had become friends after the terrible events at the convent in September. The Sisters of the Joyful Heart were still grappling with the aftermath of the murder of one of their own, as well as the discovery of a genuine Rembrandt hidden in the convent. The killer had tortured Sister Cecilia, cutting her so that she would bleed to death, but she had prevailed, with the help of Emma and Colin. Her wounds—psychological, physical and spiritual—were healing. She found comfort and purpose in the mission and the charism of her order, and her calling to their work. In a few weeks, she would profess her final vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Finian had been asked to participate in the ceremony.

He watched as she wiped down the rest of the shelf, which already looked spotless to him. “You keep track of what’s going on in town,” he said.

“It’s not hard when people tell me things. It’s interesting to know an FBI agent. Two FBI agents, really. Colin Donovan is back. He and Emma are from such different worlds, even if they both are FBI agents.”

“Same world as I see it.”

She smiled, blushing. “I hope I’m not being a busybody.”

“Not at all. They’re your friends. You care about them.”

“I do,” she said. “I haven’t seen Colin yet. He’s well?”

Finian was spared answering by the arrival of the dark-haired woman he had met at the convent the other day—Tatiana, the London-based Russian jewelry designer. She looked flushed, as if in a dilemma, but she managed a bright smile at Sister Cecilia. “What beautiful work, and what an adorable shop,” she said in her pronounced Russian-British accent. “I had to stop by and see for myself.”

Sister Cecelia thanked her but withdrew to the back room when Tatiana gave a tentative look at Finian, as if she might want to talk to a priest. Tatiana watched her, wincing as she turned to Finian. “I went for coffee this morning and someone mentioned the nun who was killed here last month. An awful thing, yes?”

“Very much so,” Finian said without elaboration.

Tatiana seemed momentarily embarrassed. “That’s not why I’m here. I don’t want to remind anyone of a painful time.” She motioned with a slender hand in the general direction of the waterfront. “I walked here from my cottage. I’m sketching seabirds for my work. I won’t use all of them, but some. The herons. Perhaps a gull. Do you paint or sketch, Father?”

“No. In a previous life, I made whiskey.”

She smiled. “Ah, yes.
Aqua vitae.
‘The water of life,’ as they say. And now here you are in Heron’s Cove. We’re both strangers in a strange land, yes?”

“I have faith that I am where I should be.”

“I wish I had such faith. I stopped by the Sharpe house but Emma’s not there. I ran into carpenters. No one else. They said she’s gone to Boston. She works there, yes? And Colin Donovan, also?”

Finian was reluctant to give many details on his FBI agent friends. “Perhaps you should talk to them.”

“Oh, of course.” Her smile widened. “I’m nosy, yes?”

Finian smiled back at her. “They’re FBI agents and we’re not.”

She laughed out loud this time. She took a quick walk around the shop, eyeing the displays of pottery and other handmade goods. Finian wanted to ask her about the Russian yacht but a group of women came in for a drawing class with Sister Cecilia, and Tatiana left quickly. After a few moments of uncertainty, he went outside himself. Was her visit to the sisters’ shop worth reporting to Colin?

Finian gave an inward groan at his own sense of drama. As he opened his car door, he saw Tatiana walking unhurriedly down the narrow street. She turned toward the waterfront and disappeared from his view.

A man in a black jacket crossed the street from another shop and quickly dipped out of sight, down the same street as the young Russian.

Finian stood motionless. Was this the same man who had spoken to him the other night in Rock Point? Was he following Tatiana?

He shut his car door and walked down to the corner. He hadn’t seen the man’s face, or even the color of his hair.

He saw no sign of either the Russian designer or the man in the black jacket on the quiet, narrow street. Finian paused, feeling foolish. How many men on the Maine coast wore black jackets? And even if this were the same man who had followed him out from Hurley’s, did his presence in the village of Heron’s Cove mean anything? He could just be waiting for his wife to finish shopping, or be off for a lobster roll at one of the popular hole-in-the-wall restaurants on the waterfront.

Still, Finian decided he would feel better if he checked on Tatiana. He had only a vague idea where her cottage might be, but there weren’t that many choices.

And what if he ran into the man in the black jacket and he was, in fact, following her?

Well, Finian thought, he’d been in a few bar fights back in the day. He could defend himself.

He could also call 911.

He returned to his car and drove a little too fast out Ocean Avenue, toward the Sharpe house, slowing as he came to the knot of cottages and shops where he suspected Tatiana was staying. He spotted her approaching a tiny cottage with weathered cedar shingles trimmed in marine-blue. She started up the stairs to a deck that overhung the water, her dark hair shining in the sunlight.

The man in the black jacket was nowhere in sight.

The massive luxury yacht, however, was very much in sight. Even in his freewheeling entrepreneurial days, Finian had never imagined owning such a yacht, not that he could ever have afforded one. Since the sailing accident that had claimed his family, he didn’t want to step foot on another boat.

Interesting that he had taken a parish in a fishing village. Why not in Colorado or Idaho if he’d wanted a temporary assignment at an American church?

Still uneasy, he continued out past large summer houses and spectacular Atlantic views, and on to Rock Point.

All was quiet at St. Patrick’s rectory and church.

He sighed, wishing he had stayed in his office after mass that morning and studied, or gone back to the rectory and read a book. For one, Franny Maroney might have been in a better mood on a Tuesday morning than a Monday morning.

I might have been in a better mood,
he thought, chastened, and as he pulled his BMW into the rectory driveway, he noticed a dark gray truck park on the street in front of the church.

Mike Donovan climbed out. “Hey, Father,” he said in greeting as he joined Finian on the driveway.

“Hello, Mike,” Finian said. “And how are you this gorgeous Monday?”

Mike grinned. “Bored and irritable. You?”

Finian laughed. “The same, I’m afraid.”

The eldest Donovan brother cocked his head. “What’s up, Fin? You look a little shaken.”

“Nothing. Nothing’s up. Thank you for asking.”

“Nothing usually means something.”

Finian felt even more ridiculous but he could see that Mike wasn’t going to give up. “I had another encounter with the Russian woman. The one I told you about.”

“Tatiana Pavlova.”

“I didn’t know her last name.”

Mike shoved his truck keys into the pocket of his canvas jacket. “What kind of encounter?”

“I ran into her at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart’s shop in Heron’s Cove.”

“And?”

Finian regretted opening his mouth now. “It’s not worth mentioning.”

“This Tatiana is attractive, though, right? Just because you’re a priest doesn’t mean you didn’t notice.”

Finian cleared his throat. “She’s very pretty, yes. Colin must have noticed, too. Of course, she isn’t Emma. There’s only one Emma Sharpe.”

“Damn good thing,” Mike muttered, but he looked unsatisfied. “Do you want to talk to Colin about this encounter of yours?”