She made coffee and toast and took them to her inexpensive downsize couch, which was pushed up against an exposed-brick wall and perpendicular to the windows overlooking the marina. She collected up a stack of photographs she and Colin had pulled out last night, including one of herself as a novice at twenty-one. Colin had put it under the light and commented on her short hair and “sensible” shoes. She wore her hair longer now, and although she would never be one for four-inch heels, her shoes and boots were more fashionable than the ones she’d worn at the convent.
Colin had peered closer at the photo. “Ah, but look at that cute smile and the spark in your green eyes.” He’d grinned at her. “Sister Brigid was just waiting for a rugged lobsterman to wander into her convent.”
Emma had gone by the name Brigid during her short time as a novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart, a small order on a quiet peninsula not far from her hometown on the southern Maine coast. In September, a longtime member of the convent and Emma’s former mentor, an expert in art conservation, was murdered. Yank had dispatched Colin to keep an eye on her. He’d tried to pass himself off as a lobsterman—he’d been one before joining the Maine marine patrol and then the FBI—but Emma had quickly realized what he was up to.
“I bet you were wearing red lace undies,” he’d said as he’d set the photo back on the table.
Emma had felt herself flush. “I don’t wear red undies now.”
He’d given her one of his sexy, blue-eyed winks. “Wait until Valentine’s Day.”
They’d abandoned the photos and had ended up in bed, making love until she’d finally collapsed in his arms. He was dark-haired, broad-shouldered and scarred, a man who relied on his natural instincts and experience to size up a situation instantly. He didn’t ruminate, and he wasn’t one to sit at a desk for more than twenty minutes at a time. She was more analytical, more likely to see all the ins and outs and possibilities—and she was a ruminator.
As different as they were, Emma thought, she and Colin also had similarities. The FBI, their Maine upbringings, their strong families, their love of Ireland. Their whirlwind romance wasn’t all an “opposites attract” phenomenon, a case of forbidden love that had come on fast and hard. They hadn’t told anyone yet of their engagement. On Monday night in Dublin, Colin had presented her with a beautiful diamond ring, handmade by a jeweler on the southwest Irish coast. She’d reluctantly slipped the ring off her finger when they’d arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport from Dublin late Tuesday.
Emma was so lost in thought, she jumped when her cell phone vibrated on the table. She scooped it up, expecting to see Colin’s name on the screen. Instead, it was a number she didn’t recognize. A wrong number? She clicked to answer, but before she could say anything, a woman spoke. “Is this Emma Sharpe? Agent Sharpe with the FBI?”
“Yes, it is. Who are you?”
“What? Oh. My name’s Rachel Bristol. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
“All right. Please go ahead.”
“Not on the phone. In person. Meet me on Bristol Island. It’s in Boston Harbor. There’s a bridge. You don’t have to take a boat.”
“Ms. Bristol, what’s this about?”
“It’s about your art thief. Bristol Island, Agent Sharpe. Be at the white cottage in thirty minutes or less. There’s a trail by the marina.” She paused. “Come alone. Please. I will talk only to you.”
Rachel Bristol—or whoever she was—disconnected.
Emma sprang to her feet. Thirty minutes didn’t give her much time.
She ran to her bedroom and dressed in dark jeans, a dark blue sweater, a leather jacket and boots. She grabbed her credentials and strapped on her service pistol. She didn’t leave a note for Colin. She would text him on the way.
Meeting confidential informants was a tricky business even with protocols, training and experience. But it didn’t matter. Not this time.
Her thief.
Her problem.
“Check the bathroom,” Matt Yankowski said, making an obvious effort to hide his mix of urgency and irritation over the whereabouts of his wife, Lucy.
Colin Donovan frowned as he stood on the uneven wood floor in the sole bedroom of the senior FBI agent’s hovel of an apartment near Boston’s South Station. It was bigger than Emma’s, but it had roaches and rusted appliances and a shower out of Psycho. He’d had a quick peek into the bathroom. He hadn’t gone in and checked for signs of Lucy’s presence. What was the point? If he’d been Lucy Yankowski, he’d have gone running from this place, too.
But this was Yank, technically Colin’s boss and a man on his own in Ireland, worried about his wife and his marriage. Colin didn’t want Yank to have to explain. Easier, smoother and more tactful just to check the damn bathroom.
Colin pushed the bathroom door open the rest of the way and stepped onto the cracked black-and-white hexagon tile, so old and worn that the black tiles by the shower stall were now gray. With his cell phone pressed to his ear, he glanced at the pedestal sink and the towel rack. “Yank, do you know your towel rack is on crooked?”
“Yeah, and I don’t care. It does the job. See anything?”
“Guy stuff. Shaving brush, shaving soap, razor. Nothing remotely feminine.”
“Check the shower. See if she left her shampoo in there.”
“I guarantee you she didn’t use the shower. She’d have gone to a hotel before she used your shower, Yank. Damn.”
“Just check, will you?”
“That means I have to touch the shower curtain.”
“It’s clean. It’s just stained. It came with the place. I didn’t want to spring for a new one.”
“You can get a new shower curtain for next to nothing.”
Yank made no comment. Colin pulled open the curtain. He figured he could wash his hands when he was done. Yank was tidy and clean despite his rathole apartment, but the shower and shower curtain were disgusting. Only word for it.
“No shampoo at all in here,” Colin said, stepping back from the shower. “Just a bar of orange soap.”
“My coal-tar soap. I didn’t bring it to Ireland with me.”
“I could have gone my whole life without knowing you use coal-tar soap, Yank.”
“Think I like having you search my place?”
Colin sighed and went back into the bedroom. “Lucy wasn’t here, or if she was, she didn’t stay long. Your bed’s made. Your fridge is empty. Your bathroom and kitchen sinks are clean. The roaches—”
“I don’t need to hear about the roaches,” Yank said. “I’ve been living there almost a year. I know all about the damn roaches. I got a cheap place and rent month-to-month because I thought
