Heron's Cove (34 page)

“Horner’s attraction to her. The collection. Her relationship with a Russian billionaire.” Emma paused, listened to the wash of the tide down on the stony beach. “Do you think they’d have killed Natalie when they no longer had any use for her?”

“Tried to, maybe. The Russians, especially. Horner was all-in with her.”

“She didn’t want to kill us all for any sensible, strategic reason. She wanted to kill us to make herself feel better. We didn’t drive her into Vladimir Bulgov’s world, and we didn’t drive her into hating herself.”

Yank nodded. “It all came together in an outburst of violence and revenge,” he said.

“Natalie’s fears about herself were justified. She is like her mother. She’s as mean, selfish and unfeeling. Worse, since her mother never resorted to poisoning people.”

“Another
baba yaga,
” Yank said. “An evil Russian witch.”

“I didn’t realize you knew Russian folklore.”

“A few things you still don’t know about me, Agent Sharpe.” He stood straight and eyed her in the dim light from the kitchen window. “Colin isn’t the only one who has some thinking to do. You do, too. You need to decide where you belong, who you are. I can’t have someone on my team with doubts.”

“Yank—”

“You can always go back to Sharpe Fine Art Recovery but once you cross that threshold, you can’t go back to the FBI, at least not to my team.”

Emma nodded. “I understand.”

“As smart as you are, I’ll bet the hell you do.” Yank walked over to the back door, pulled it open as he glanced at her. “Think about taking a break yourself. You’re due.”

He went inside, heading out through the front door to his car. Emma stayed on the porch. She was tempted to paint, but it was too cold. Instead she sat on the steps and stared out at the water, listening to the tide and wind, clearing her mind, centering herself. Meditation had been an important aspect of her life as a novice.

After a while—she didn’t know how long, exactly—Mike Donovan walked across the yard from the parking lot on the other side of the hedges.

Emma walked down the steps and joined him on the cool, dew-soaked grass.

“I was in here once as a teenager,” Mike said. “I’d done something wrong. I forget what, but your grandfather had me sweeping floors to make amends. You’ll notice I’m not one of the law enforcement Donovan brothers.”

“Did a few years in the military straighten you out?”

“Not really.” He grinned at her, but his deep gray eyes remained serious as he turned and faced the water. “Finian Bracken owns a cottage in the Kerry hills.”

“How do you know?’

He shrugged. “Big brother Mike knows all.”

“Why are you telling me?” Emma asked.

“My brothers and I have broken enough hearts.” Mike shoved his hands into the pockets of his canvas jacket. “Colin’s being a rock head. He probably knows it by now.”

Emma smiled. “Mike, you’re a romantic.”

“That’s why I live alone in the woods.” He winked at her. “Give Colin a few days to get good and miserable before you go find him.”

27

EMMA STOPPED IN Heron’s Cove to check with the carpenters before her evening flight to Ireland. She had lasted three days. She couldn’t wait any longer. Matt Yankowski had all but shoved her out of her office in Boston, insisting she finally take time off. She hadn’t since Sister Joan’s death.

The
Nightingale
was still at its mooring, but preparations were under way for its departure. Dmitri Rusakov and Tatiana Pavlova—his daughter—had been released from the hospital that morning and were spending time together on board.

Ivan Alexander mounted the steps to the back porch. He smiled at Emma’s latest attempt at watercolor, clipped to the easel in the corner. “A great blue heron?”

“My version, anyway.” She pointed with her brush at another watercolor heron, beautifully rendered, on the dresser where she kept her supplies. “Tatiana gave me that one. I’ll treasure it. She’s truly gifted.”

“She’s done everything on her own.” He studied Tatiana’s watercolor. “Her mother and Dmitri fell in love as teenagers. Katya was—is—the love of his life. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone twenty years. Dmitri let his work consume him after her death. He told me it was best Tatiana stay with her mother’s family while he tended business. She had a quiet life, people who loved her. She was safe. He got caught up in money, his enemies—women.”

“Tatiana wanted nothing to do with him, and he did nothing to correct her view of him.”

“Nor did I,” Ivan said. “She was always artistic, like her mother.”

“And feisty,” Emma said with a smile.

Ivan didn’t return her smile. “Yes.” He picked up a pencil, checked its tip with his thumb. “I warned Dmitri about Vladimir Bulgov.”

“In April?”

“Then, too.”

Emma digested his words. “You mean twenty years ago,” she said.

“Dmitri didn’t listen until it was too late.”

“You suspect Bulgov killed Katya.”

“He wanted Dmitri to help him get started in business and Dmitri refused. He didn’t like Vladimir. I didn’t like him.” Ivan set the pencil down again. “I couldn’t prove that he killed Katya.”

Emma rinsed her brush in a jar of water and set it to dry on the edge of the dresser, as Tatiana had taught her. “Was it revenge for not helping him?”

“I think he believed Dmitri was in the car, too.”

“So he didn’t target Katya,” Emma said. “What did he want with Dmitri in April?”

“He wanted him to know that he’d found Tatiana. It was quite by accident, he said. He’d heard about the Firebird, that a young Russian designer was getting a lot of attention. When he saw her…” Ivan steadied his gaze on Emma. “He knew.”

“But he never had a chance to use what he knew against him. Did you have anything to do with luring Bulgov to Los Angeles, Ivan? With helping me find out about his interest in Picasso?”

He shook his head. “I would have helped you, but no.”

Emma looked at her great blue heron, remembered Tatiana arriving at the Sharpe house. Was it only a week ago? “You’re Tatiana’s falcon,” Emma said. “Her protector. You have been since she was a little girl.”

“She doesn’t always make that easy.”

“Ivan—”

“She’s like a baby sister to me,” he said, as if guessing what Emma meant to ask. “When Vladimir came to the Firebird and commissioned the nesting dolls, Tatiana let her imagination get carried away.”

“She convinced herself you and Dmitri were in cahoots with him,” Emma said.

He smiled, just a twitch of his straight mouth. “‘Cahoots.’ I like that word.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. “When I learned Natalie was bringing the collection here to Heron’s Cove, I thought Tatiana might find out, too.”

“Dmitri knew you would put her first. He would protect her.”

“It didn’t mean she would listen.”

“No,” Emma said. “She knows now that she should never have hid from you, or from her father. She’ll make a full recovery. You got to her in time.”

“And your man,” Ivan said quietly.

She smiled. “Yes.”

“He’s decisive. He acts on instinct but that’s good.” Ivan’s gaze didn’t waver. “He loves you very much.”

“Ivan—”

“I’m seeing Tatiana and Dmitri to the Bahamas. They will need weeks more of rest. They can get to know each other again, as father and daughter. They’ve made mistakes but it’s time to put the past behind them.”

“The police found the collection in Natalie’s tote bag.”

“It will be returned to Dmitri. There’s no question that he is the rightful owner.” Ivan turned and looked out at the water, not even glancing toward the
Nightingale.
“I didn’t see through Renee, or Natalie.”

“You tried with both of them. It was you who broke into Natalie’s house in Phoenix?”

“I knew Tatiana was there. I wanted to know what she would find.”

“Nothing,” Emma said. “Natalie hid her affair with Pete Horner well. She knew what she was doing, just as her mother did when she made off with Dmitri’s collection. She’d found out about Tatiana, hadn’t she?”

Ivan didn’t answer.

“She didn’t like not being the fairest of them all,” Emma said, remembering Tatiana’s sketch. “And Tatiana knew.”

“Renee sought her out. Dmitri found out. It was the last straw. At first she seemed like a beautiful woman who wanted to enjoy life.”

“She and Natalie excelled at keeping their true natures hidden,” Emma said. “They knew how to make themselves irresistible when they wanted to ensnare people, capture them in their webs to use for their own needs and wants.” Emma was silent a moment, picturing the two women together in London four years ago, then Natalie just a few days ago, screaming in a rage. “They’re the sort who manipulate and use people—even the people who love them—and then discard them.”

“Maybe most especially the people who love them,” Ivan said.

“Renee’s gone, and Natalie and Vladimir are under arrest here in America. It’s time to heal.”

Ivan turned to her, his eyes suddenly lost in the shadows. “Thank you, Emma, for all you’ve done. You were an excellent Sharpe. Now you’re an excellent FBI agent.”

“I still am a Sharpe. I just don’t work for my family’s business.”

“Dmitri asked me to invite you aboard the
Nightingale
for a drink before he and Tatiana depart. He doesn’t want you to have any problems because of him.”

“I won’t. I’ll stop by, but only for a minute. He and Tatiana both need to rest.”

“And you have a plane to catch,” Ivan said with a small smile. “Give my best to your grandfather, and your agent.”

“What makes you think—”

“You’re here alone, and you don’t want to be.”

She swallowed through a sudden surge of uncertainty. “Colin and I have complicated each other’s lives. I don’t know what’s next.”

Ivan caught her fingers into his and squeezed them gently as he kissed her on the cheek. “I do,” he whispered.

In the next moment, he was gone.

* * *

By midmorning, Emma was walking with her brother and grandfather on a lane that ran along a green ridge above Kenmare Bay and Declan Bracken’s house. She could hear sheep and cows, the rush of water in a nearby stream, and nothing else.

“Walking’s the best cure for jet lag,” she said.

“And for all that ails the soul.” Her grandfather slung an arm over her shoulders and hugged her close. “It’s good to have you here in one piece, Special Agent Sharpe.”

But Lucas didn’t smile. He stayed along the hedgerow, the tangles of greenery dripping after an early-morning shower. The sun was out now, sparkling in the fields and down on the bay.

Emma slipped out from her grandfather’s embrace and moved in closer to her brother. “I know you’re concerned that my job with the FBI endangers you, Granddad, the work you do. You dispatched your thug with no trouble, but I never should have sent you to London.”

“It’s a damn good thing you did,” Lucas said with a grunt. “I don’t have to worry about the red tape that the FBI or Scotland Yard would have required.”

“That’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that what happened in Heron’s Cove with Dmitri Rusakov proves your concerns about my role with the FBI aren’t unfounded.”

“Does it, Emma?” her brother asked, not waiting for an answer. “Maybe there’s another way to look at this. Maybe being a Sharpe endangered a sensitive FBI mission. The thug that came after Granddad and me was a result of Sharpe work as much as of FBI work. That’s just the way it is.”

“Maybe so,” Emma said quietly.

Her grandfather caught up with them and paused at a barbed-wire fence, several brown cows coming up to him. “To think that my folks could have become farmers instead of moving to Boston when I was a little tyke. How different my life would have been.”

Lucas took in a quick breath, impatient, concerned, but Emma hadn’t spent the past few days with their grandfather, and smiled at him. “No regrets, Granddad?”

He patted one of the cows. “I don’t know that I’d have made a good farmer, but I’ve done all right as an art detective. Now as I retire, I have to decide what needs to be said and what doesn’t need to be said. I thought the tragic story of the young artist who helped me in Moscow twenty years ago was one that I would take to the grave with me.”

“I need to know everything, Granddad,” Lucas said without hesitation, then added, “And so does Emma. Sixty years is a long time, but I’m willing to listen. I want to, and if I’m to carry on your work, I need to.”

Wendell Sharpe stood back from the cow and motioned with one hand at the surrounding hills. “This area is filled with ancient Celtic sites. The Celts had no written language. They passed on stories, poems, history and knowledge orally. Nothing was written down.”

“The key word is ‘oral,’” Lucas said. “That means they talked. They didn’t die with the knowledge in their heads. Sorry, Granddad. I don’t mean to be so blunt.”

“I prefer blunt. You kids were always more polite than I ever was.”

The cows wandered off into the field, and he continued down the lane. Emma and Lucas glanced at each other, then followed their grandfather. The lane dipped down a hill and they crossed a small bridge, the air cool with the stream flowing under them. A holly tree branched out over a clear pool, and Emma stopped to take in the sight.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she said, half to herself. “It’s too messy, being an FBI agent and a Sharpe. That’s why Colin’s not here. He’s figured that out. He’s pushing me to figuring it out, too. He didn’t just go away for himself. He went away for me.”

Her grandfather eased in next to her. “Your experience as a Sharpe is one reason you’re as valuable to the FBI as you are. The people you work with, including Colin, must see that.”

Lucas, she noted, made no comment.

They followed the lane down the hill, then back along another lane below the ridge and up to Declan Bracken’s house overlooking the bay. Then it was on to a pub in his small village.

“My poor brother is digging bean holes in America,” Declan said cheerfully, sounding so much like his twin brother, “and here we are, enjoying ourselves. Then again, Fin does sound content when I talk to him.”