The Mist (6 page)

Lizzie's throat tightened as Keira spoke to the man she loved. She'd found her soulmate, and Simon had found his.

Every instinct Lizzie had told her she had to get out of there
now or she wouldn't be able to leave. She didn't want to end up under the thumb of Irish law enforcement. They'd call the FBI and the Boston police, and then where would she be?

In cuffs herself as a material witness, or even a suspect.

If Scoop Wisdom was able to talk, he'd tell the FBI and his BPD colleagues about the black-haired woman he'd caught lingering in front of the triple-decker yesterday afternoon. He'd walked out from the backyard with a colander of green beans that, somehow, made him look more intimidating.

"Can I help you?" he'd asked her.

Hesitating, debating with herself, Lizzie had opted not to tell him the truth. "No. Sorry. I'm just catching my breath." She'd smiled. "Shin splints."

He hadn't bothered hiding his skepticism, but he hadn't stopped her as she'd gone on her way, boarding her flight to Ireland that evening. She'd decided to talk to Simon Cahill instead of John March's detective daughter, Abigail, or her detective friends.

And now, twenty-four hours later, a bomb had exploded on Abigail's back porch, severely injuring Detective Wisdom.

Lizzie reached for her backpack on the hearth. Had she screwed up by not talking to him yesterday? If she had, would he and his detective housemates have found the bomb?

Her father would tell her not to look back with regret but to learn and to help her figure out what she needed to do next.

She felt the sting of her cuts and scrapes now. "Norman isn't flying off to a resort to celebrate his freedom," she said, addressing Simon's British friend. "He'll be furious that his plan didn't work. He'll try again."

Will eased closer to her, his eyes changeable and intense in the heat of the fire. He was taking in everything, studying her, seeing,
she was sure, more than she wanted to reveal. An image came, unbidden, unwanted, of them together in a pretty Irish inn, with no worries beyond which book to read or which bath salts to choose.

"You obviously know Estabrook," he said quietly. "Are you a friend?"

"Norman doesn't have real friends."

"He's very wealthy. Some people are drawn to wealth."

"Yes. Some people are." Lizzie saw clearly now what she needed to do. If she was to be of any help now that Norman was acting on his intentions, she had to remain anonymous for as long as possible. She couldn't explain her association with him and his entourage of wealthy investors, adventurers, staff, hangers-on and drug traffickers. "I imagine by now most everyone knows Norman Estabrook's not your basic mild-mannered billionaire adventurer. If you'll excuse me--"

"You've had an ordeal tonight." Will brushed a fingertip across her hand, just above her split knuckles. "You're hurt."

She gave a dismissive shrug. "Nothing a nice hot bath and a lot more brandy won't cure." She lifted her pack onto her shoulder, feeling her jetlag, too. "Please don't stop me. I'm no good to anyone sitting in a garda interview room."

His eyes stayed on her. "I'll find out who you are."

"You could take my backpack from me and find out now, but you won't. We're both in a foreign country." She tilted her head back and challenged him with a cool smile. "You don't want to get into a tussle with me just as the guards arrive and risk getting yourself arrested. You and Keira have enough to explain as it is."

The change in his expression was subtle, but something about it instantly had her conjuring images of fighting him, sparring with him, blocking, counterattacking. Going all out, no-holds-barred.

It was sexy, the idea of getting physical with her very own James Bond.

Further proof, Lizzie decided, of the deleterious effects of jetlag, adrenaline, a knife fight in an Irish stone circle and two sips of brandy on an otherwise perfectly normal brain.

It was time to go.

She lifted Murphy's assault knife out of her pocket and handed it to Eddie O'Shea. "Thank you for the brandy and for your help tonight. Your brothers, too."

He took the knife, his suspicion, if anything, even more acute now. "Just here walking the Beara Way, you say."

But the barman didn't stop her, either, as she headed back out into the quiet, pretty village.

She heard a dog barking in the distance and, high up in the hills, the bleating of sheep. The wind had died to a gentle breeze, and the rain had stopped, the air cool, scented with roses and lavender.

The picnic table was empty. There was no old farmer with a pipe and strange talk.

Lizzie walked past the brightly painted houses and the lamp-posts with their hanging flower baskets to her little rented car.

No one followed her.

She got behind the wheel but warned herself not to let down her guard just yet, even for a few seconds. As she started the engine, she felt the ache in her muscles from the bruises she'd incurred doing battle in the Beara hills, and she acknowledged a desire to go back to the pub and believe she had allies there, people she could trust.

Instead she pulled out onto the street and found her way back to the main road, the sky slowly darkening over Kenmare Bay.

She wondered how long she had before the Irish Garda, the Boston police, the FBI and one handsome British spy came after her.

Probably not long.

Boston, Massachusetts
3:40 p.m., EDT
August 25

A
phone call...

Abigail Browning remembered teasing Scoop and Fiona from her back porch about tomatoes. She'd been laughing when she'd gone inside to answer the phone.

She was between the two men who'd grabbed her off the street a few minutes later and was walking with them now on what felt like a marina dock. They'd thrown a smelly car blanket over her head and shoved guns in her ribs. They were pure, brazen, hired thugs who obviously would prefer to shoot her and dump her body--or not to have kidnapped her in the first place.

They'd have just let her burn up in the fire.

She smelled saltwater and the fishiness of low tide. The sounds
of boats in front of her and traffic behind her suggested a marina in busy Boston Harbor.

She suppressed her anger and fear and concentrated on what was in her control right now, at this moment.

She could listen, assess, stay alert.

Conserve her energy and try to survive.

"You should take the blanket off my head. It'll draw attention."

"Anyone asks, we'll say you're seasick, and the bright light makes it worse," the man on her right side said in a South Boston accent. "You go along with us."

"How? Turn green on command?"

He inhaled sharply, telling her he didn't like her answer.

Didn't like her.

She'd debated staying out on the porch and not answering the phone. Owen would call her on her cell phone. Tom Yarborough, her partner, would page her or try her cell first. But her father and Simon were on their way, and they would call her home phone if something came up.

It was hot outside, and Abigail had figured she'd scoot into the kitchen, take the call and fill a pitcher of iced tea and bring it out.

Her front doorbell had rung as she'd answered her phone.

Or was she imagining that part?

No. She was sure.

The voice on the other end of the line had been very clear and precise. It hadn't been the man with the South Boston accent. Probably the driver of the van waiting in the street. "In five seconds," he'd said, "a bomb will go off on your back porch. Five...four..."

By three, Abigail was in the living room.

At zero, as promised, came the explosion, thrusting her to the floor and sucking the wind out of her. She'd crawled to her feet, her ears ringing as she'd pulled open her front door.

Scoop...Fiona...Bob...she remembered thinking she had to get to them.

She'd run into the main entry and opened that door. As she'd leaped down the steps, two men swooped in on her in a coordinated maneuver and dragged her to the van. Disoriented from the blast, she'd clawed one of them--the one with the Southie accent--enough to draw blood, but she'd been unable to do more to defend herself.

They stuffed her in the back of the van, dived in with her and sped off, a third man at the wheel.

Three armed men against her. Not good odds. When they finally came to a stop, the driver had muttered something about going on ahead to get things ready and left Abigail with the two men in the back of the van.

"Careful," the man to her left said now. "We don't want to lose you to the sharks, do we?"

"Sharks," she said through the blanket. "Funny."

Half lifting, half shoving her, they got her onto what was obviously a boat. A decent size one, too. They forced her down narrow steps before pulling the blanket off her head and taking her into a small, dark stateroom, where they pushed her onto a metal chair.

Working quickly, they blindfolded her with some kind of scarf, tying it so tightly, it pulled even her short hair enough that her eyes teared up. Using what felt like rope, they tied her hands and ankles to the chair back and legs.

Abigail knew she had to control panic and claustrophobia before they could get started and spiral, taking on a life of their own. She breathed in through her mouth to the count of eight. She held her breath for eight. She exhaled through her nose for eight.

Finally she said, "I hope you didn't bleed on me."

Her sarcasm was met with a backhand smack to the left side of her face, striking her cheekbone. The pain was immediate and searing, but she bit it back.

"Ouch," she said without inflection.

"It'll be a pleasure to kill you when the time comes," the man with the Southie accent said.

She did her breathing exercise again.

In for eight. Hold for eight. Out for eight.

"Estabrook and his Brit friend can deal with her," the man added "This whole business stinks. I'm going up for a drink."

"They'll be here in a few hours," the second man said.

"Then they can have a drink with me."

Abigail heard a door shut, the click of a lock turning. She listened, but heard no one breathing nearby, no footsteps.

She was alone.

Estabrook.

So. Norman Estabrook was free. He was the reason Abigail's father and Simon were in Boston. The reason, ultimately, that she'd called them that morning and asked to talk to them.

Had Estabrook just tried to carry out his threat to kill the men he claimed had betrayed him?

Abigail did three more sets of her breathing exercises and pictured Owen on his deck at his summer house on Mount Desert Island, smiling at her. He was rugged, hard-edged, a sexy mix of Boston and Texas, a search-and-rescue expert and a man of action who wouldn't take to having his fiancee kidnapped.

But what if he'd been targeted, too?

And Simon and her father. What about them? Had the men who'd grabbed her known they were en route to see her?

Did they know why?

She stopped the thoughts in their tracks. Even if she was alone,
there could be a surveillance camera in the room. She didn't need to spool up if she were being watched for signs of distress.

In for eight. Hold. Out for eight.

The boat got underway. The marine patrol would be on the lookout for her. She hoped her captors made a mistake--that they'd already made one and the yacht was under watch now, SWAT planning her rescue.

Owen...

Abigail saw him coming to her on a moonlit Maine night and felt him making love to her, imagined every touch, every murmur of his love and passion. She heard the waves crashing on the rocks outside their window and the cries of the seagulls in the distance.

He was with her.

Whatever happened, Owen was with her.

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland
9:10 p.m., IST
August 25

F
arther up the peninsula, Lizzie turned off the main road onto a sparsely populated lane that crawled over the twilit hills and would take her to the market village of Kenmare at the head of the bay. It wasn't a shortcut, but she hoped she'd be less likely to run into the
An Garda Siochana
--the Guardians of the Peace.

In other words, the police.

Once in Kenmare, she would go on to the small Kerry County airport and fly to Dublin.

At least she had the start of a new plan.

She pulled over to the side of the road--it wasn't much more than a sheep track--and got out, welcoming the brisk wind in her face. The physical effects of her first real fight with an
opponent determined to kill her and the thought of what had happened in Boston had left her drained.

And encountering Will Davenport had left her thoroughly rattled.

She looked out across the hills that plunged sharply to the bay, its water gray under the clearing, darkening sky. She walked along a barbed-wire fence. She hadn't passed another car since leaving the main road. The only evidence of other people were the lights of a solitary farmhouse far down on the steep hillside.

A trio of fat sheep meandered across the rock-strewn pasture toward her. Even in the dark, she could see the splotches of blue paint on their white wool that served as brands. She could put aside her distaste for camping and pitch her tent right here among the rocks and sheep and forget everything she had on her mind, including the good-looking Brit who, she suspected, would have her name before the clock struck midnight Irish Summer Time.

Will Davenport could become a very big problem. As she watched the sheep nudge closer to the fence, she wondered how Will knew the Brit she'd run into in Las Vegas. Because she was sure he did...

Yes. He definitely could become a problem.

She'd arrived in Las Vegas in late June after a few days on her own at her house in Maine and a quick stop in Boston to make an appearance at the family hotels' main offices. Her uncle, Bradley, her father's younger brother, ran the company and had been losing patience with her erratic schedule. He'd even begun making noises about finding another role for her. She was very good at getting a lot accomplished in a short time and had managed to placate him. Traveling from one Rush hotel to another
had allowed her the flexibility to dip in and out of Norman's world as well as to breathe new life into her ideas about the concierge services and excursions the hotels offered. Her uncle, however, liked to see her at meetings and behind a desk once in a while. Since his older brother lived in Las Vegas, Bradley hadn't objected to Lizzie's heading there. He'd given up seeing her father at meetings or behind a desk a long time ago.

She'd enjoyed being back in the hot, dry, sunny, vibrant town her father called home, but Norman had arrived unexpectedly that same morning for a high-stakes poker game. Lizzie hadn't been able to bring herself to smile at him. Still unaware of Simon's undercover mission at that point, she'd been trying to figure out what else she could do to fire up the FBI to go after Norman. But none of his drug-cartel friends had been with him, and she'd made an effort to relax.

During a break in the game, a man with close-cropped brown hair had approached Norman and spoke to him briefly out of Lizzie's earshot. Whatever they discussed, it had seemed important. She'd retreated to the hotel bar, and ten minutes later, the Brit joined her. She did her best to look bored as she simultaneously nursed a bottle of water and a martini.

He'd eased onto the stool next to her. Unlike Norman, he'd struck her as being very fit. "More of that water in your bag, love?"

"Sure." She'd reached into her tote bag and handed him a bottle. It was Vegas. She knew to stay hydrated. "I'm Lizzie Rush. Who're you?"

He'd taken the water and uncapped it. "You should behave, love." He'd winked at her, and she'd noticed he had gray eyes. "Sorry, I can't stay. I'm in a rush. No pun intended."

He'd left, chuckling to himself, and later that night, Lizzie had reluctantly flown to Montana with Norman. Simon had been
scheduled to join them after visiting his friend Will Davenport in London. He and Norman were to work on plans for future high-risk adventures.

Three days later, Norman was under arrest.

Lizzie had provided the FBI with a description of the mysterious Brit in Las Vegas, anonymously, over the Internet, a trick she'd actually taught her father.

As far as she knew, nothing had come of it.

She'd asked her father about him before she'd left for Montana. "Who's the Brit?"

"No one I know."

He could have been telling the truth.

Or not.

And now here she was in Ireland with sheep nuzzling up to her. She got a disposable cell phone out of her jacket pocket and dialed her father's cell phone. "It's me, Dad. Are you in Las Vegas?"

"Losing at poker. How are you, Lizzie?"

She could hear the worry in his voice but sidestepped his question. "Do you remember the Brit who stopped to talk to Norman Estabrook in June?"

"Who?"

"You heard me. I asked you about him that night, and you said you didn't know him. I'm wondering if you've run into him since, or maybe done a little digging."

"I'm losing at five-card stud, sweetheart. Just dying here. Where are you?"

She pictured him at his poker table at the hotel, at just under two hundred rooms their largest. Harlan Rush was a tawny-haired, square-jawed man in his late fifties. He was handsome and rich, and he'd swept her Irish mother off her feet thirty-one years
ago after she'd stayed at the Whitcomb Hotel in Boston on business. She had been in Irish tourism development.

Supposedly.

Lizzie didn't want to tell her father where she was. "Let's just say I'm jetlagged."

He sighed. "You're in Ireland. I told you not to go there. Years ago. I told you."

"Ireland isn't the problem."

"It's bad luck for us."

"I love it. Cousin Justin is doing great at the Dublin hotel, which, I might add, is a huge success. Maybe Ireland was bad luck for you and my mother."

"I remember you reaching for her as a baby. 'Mama' was your first word. She was gone, and it was still your first word."

"Don't, Dad."

"You're in trouble. I can hear it in your voice."

She looked up at the sky. There'd be stars tonight. She could stay here and watch them come out. "I think the Brit we saw in Las Vegas might know another Brit, Will Davenport, who is friends with Simon Cahill."

"Cahill? The FBI agent?" Her father groaned. "Lizzie."

"And I think Will is from your world," she said.

"
Will
, he is now? How well do you know him?"

"We just met over brandy in an Irish pub."

"You only drink brandy when you're in trouble."

"Not only," she said with a smile, hoping it relaxed her voice, "but it's the best time."

"Go back to Maine and watch the cormorants."

"Dad--"

"That bastard friend of yours, Estabrook, was turned loose this morning. He's not your problem. You understand that, don't you?"

"Sure. So, nothing on my Brit in June?"

He hesitated just a fraction of a second. "No name. No nothing. Forget him, Lizzie. If he and Lord Davenport are friends, forget him, too."

"I said his name was Will. I didn't say 'Lord.'"

"What, he
is
a lord? I was being sarcastic."

True or not, her father wasn't telling her everything, not because he was a liar, but because he never told her or anyone else all he knew about anything. He could have researched Simon Cahill's friends as easily as she had--before or after Norman's arrest. Her father had never particularly liked her hanging out with Norman and his entourage.

"Will
is
from your world, isn't he?"

"Just because I taught you a few things doesn't mean you should be jumping to conclusions about what I used to do for a living."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"You're an amateur with the skills and the instincts of a pro, Lizzie, but you're still an amateur. You don't have anyone behind you. You stand alone."

"I have you."

"Lizzie." He took in a breath. "If you need me, I'll be there for you. You know that."

"I do, Dad."

"Your aunt Henrietta is in Paris buying linens."

"I adore Aunt Henrietta, but do you know what it's like to shop with her?"

"I do. Pure hell. Paris is closer to Ireland than Maine. Pop over and help her. Get drunk on expensive brandy. Have some fun, Lizzie." He hesitated before continuing. "The Davenports are a fine British family. A bunch of good-looking devils, too. If you
have cause to drink brandy, having a sip or two with a Davenport isn't a bad thing."

That was all the endorsement she needed. "Thanks. You can go back to your poker game. You're not bluffing on a pair of threes, are you?"

"I wish. Stay safe, my girl."

"I love you, Dad."

After she hung up, Lizzie smiled as more sheep joined her trio and crowded along the fence, the wind blowing their long, woolly coats. Because of her father, she could defend herself in a fistfight, spot a tail, disarm a rudimentary bomb. "The first step, Lizzie," he'd told her, "is knowing the bomb is there."

She returned to her car and dug a change of clothes out of her pack, just as prosaic as the ones she had on, but clean, and put them on right there at the side of the road, in front of the sheep. She kicked off her mud-and-manure-encrusted shoes and tossed them in the trunk in exchange for a pair of pricey little flats she'd picked up at Brown Thomas in Dublin. Her father had hated and avoided Dublin for as long as she could remember. It was where Shauna Morrigan Rush, his wife, Lizzie's mother, had died.

An accident, according to Irish authorities and John March, the young Boston detective who'd looked into her death, later to join the FBI and become its director.

Lizzie shut the car trunk, questions coming at her all at once.

"Resist speculating," her father had told her time and time again. "Discipline your mind. Focus on what you can do."

Easier said than done when knives, bombs, FBI agents and spies were involved, but she would do her best.

A horned sheep baaed at her, and she baaed back.

"There," she said with a laugh. "I could just stay here and talk to the sheep."

She remembered having formal tea with her grandmother, Edna Whitcomb Rush, a stern but kind woman who had never expected to help her older son raise a daughter. She'd tried to explain why Lizzie's father had to be away for long periods. "He's a scout for new locations and ideas for our hotels."

Ha. A scout.

Harlan Rush was a spy, and he'd taught his daughter everything he knew.

Lizzie abandoned the sheep and climbed back into her car, started the engine and continued along the dark, isolated road. She glanced in her rearview mirror.

Still no sign of the garda or Will Davenport on her tail.

At least not yet.