is it, Agent Sharpe?”
Emma didn’t answer, instead keeping her focus on Maisie. “What do you know about Rachel’s relationship with Aoife O’Byrne?”
Maisie frowned. “Why don’t you ask Aoife? Why ask me?”
Despite her unpretentious appearance, Maisie Bristol was clearly used to being in charge. Her father leaned forward, fingering one of the decorating magazines on the table. “We’ll be happy to answer any questions you have, Agent Sharpe. I’ve never met Miss O’Byrne. I only learned of her last night when Rachel told us she had invited her to Boston, and she had just arrived. I understand that she’s a remarkable artist.”
Emma glanced at Colin, his expression unreadable, then shifted back to the Bristols. “Rachel told Aoife she was working on an independent film inspired by an Irish art theft. Were you involved, Maisie?”
“It’s complicated,” she said, her voice almost inaudible.
“It’s Maisie’s project,” Travis said. “Rachel knew that. I’m sure she’d say the same thing if she were with us right now.”
Maisie seemed hardly to hear him. “Rachel had her ideas about the direction we should take. We were going to talk about everything this morning at the marina. I have so many ideas. It’s easy for me to get ahead of myself. I wanted to get more details on what Rachel had in mind and get Dad’s take. We were also going to talk about plans for the island.” She blinked back tears. “It was supposed to be a good get-together. Fun. Stimulating.”
“We all love the island,” her father said. “Rachel as well as Maisie and me.”
Maisie nodded. “Mom, too. Some of my fondest memories are of the three of us digging clams on the beach. She’d like us to let the island become part of the national park system along with most of the other islands. That’s an option, but I’ve been exploring the idea of launching a film school and production company on the island. It would be nonprofit. Who knows, maybe it could be part of the Boston Harbor Island Recreational Area, too.” She waved a hand. “None of that matters right now.”
“What time did you arrive on the island?” Colin asked from the foyer door.
Maisie looked startled, as if she’d forgotten he was there, but recovered quickly. “Just before the police did. I knew something terrible had happened. I threw up.”
“I arrived a few minutes later,” Travis said.
“It’s been a long day. I know you understand.” Maisie pointed vaguely toward the back of the house. “Why don’t I show you my workroom? It’s just downstairs. I don’t like sharing the details of a project too soon, but...” She tried to smile. “But you’re the FBI, and you want to know. And I have nothing to hide.”
“I’ll go with you,” Danny said.
Maisie bristled visibly. “You don’t have to stay, Danny. You can go anytime. Dad and I will be fine.”
He shifted his impassive gaze to Emma. “Maisie is independent. That’s cool, but it doesn’t occur to her that someone might not wish her well.”
“That’s not what today is about, Danny,” she interjected, clearly annoyed with him. “I’m not the one who was in danger, obviously, and we don’t know that Rachel’s death has anything to do with me. In fact, I can’t imagine how it could.”
“Rachel had her own life apart from Maisie and me,” Travis said.
Maisie nodded. “She could have had her own enemies, too. More likely, what happened this morning was just a stupid accident. With the cottages falling into disrepair, vagrants and people out for a good time have been using that side of the island. Developing it would end all that. But we don’t know what happened today, except that Rachel is gone.”
Travis eased in next to his daughter. “Danny, you’re welcome to move in here. If we’d known you were coming, we’d have had a room ready for you.”
“I’m good with my rental,” Danny said. “No rats or roaches.”
Maisie gave him a cool look before turning to Emma. “Shall we go downstairs?”
Danny made a move to join them, but Colin shook his head. “You sit tight, Danny. We’ll be back.”
“Feds,” he said, good-naturedly. “Love you guys. Go do your thing.”
* * *
Maisie Bristol’s workroom was down a half flight of stairs at street or “garden” level. French doors opened onto a brick courtyard with a stone fountain, statues and pots now mostly empty with the cooler weather. In the fading afternoon light, Emma noticed chips and cracks in the fountain. Moss and crabgrass covered patches of the brick. A six-foot stepladder leaned up against the back wall, reminding her that the Bristols were having work done on the place.
Maisie grabbed a book off a worktable pushed up against multipaned windows. “I’m sorry, I don’t have many chairs in here, and the few I have are stacked with books. I’ve been collecting them like a madwoman. I don’t know when I’ll get to read even half of them.”
“We don’t mind standing,” Emma said.
Colin walked over to the window. He’d said little since arriving at the Bristols’ house, but she had no doubt he was paying close attention. That she’d found a dead woman and Yank had found his wife trapped in Aoife O’Byrne’s Dublin studio hadn’t sat well with him—as an FBI agent or as Emma’s fiancé and Yank’s friend.
Maisie set her book back on the table. Emma saw it was on Jack B. Yeats. “I wasn’t familiar with his work until recently,” Maisie said, brushing her fingertips across the cover, one of his western Irish landscapes. “Rachel told me about him, as a matter of fact. I didn’t realize at first that her interest in Yeats cuts to our different approaches to the film we were working on together. She wanted flash and dazzle. I want...” Her eyes shone with fresh tears. “Well, I don’t know what I want.”
“When did Rachel introduce you to Yeats’s work?” Emma asked.
“About a week ago. She’d done some research and thought she’d found the perfect hook for our movie.”
“And you weren’t sure?”
“I wasn’t, no. I’m interested in the intersection of pagan Celtic Ireland and Christianity and the integration of those two worlds. I’ve been gobbling up everything I can.” Maisie gave a broad gesture to more books stacked on the worktable. “It’s fascinating.”
Maisie—or someone—had turned the end wall into a collage of color printouts of photographs of Irish Celtic scenes. Emma recognized ogham stones, Celtic crosses, beehive huts and church ruins, pages from the Book of Kells.
“I wasn’t upset by Rachel’s ideas,” Maisie added quickly. “Differences are to be expected in a creative endeavor. I like to throw everything out onto the table—without self-censorship—and see what develops. Let things simmer and percolate until what’s meant to be emerges. It’s not always a neat and tidy process, but it works, at least for me.”
“You’ve had a great deal of success,” Emma said.
“I
