Carla Neggers - The Mist

It was just after 9:00 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast, but John March picked up after the first ring. “Where are you?”

“ Ireland.” No reason not to tell him that much. “ Norman didn’t go on a joy ride this morning. He didn’t crash into a mountain or run into mechanical problems and make an emergency landing somewhere. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about what happened today. I wish I’d known sooner. Are Scoop Wisdom and your daughter-”

“You’re the one who needs to do the talking.”

Lizzie’s heart jumped painfully. “The bomb was a diversion, wasn’t it?” Her father had taught her about bombs, diversionary tactics. “ Norman had your daughter kidnapped, didn’t he?”

“Talk.”

She picked up her fork. If she let John March intimidate her now, she’d be of no help to him or anyone else-especially Abigail Browning. “I’m debating whether to try black pudding,” she said, poking it on her plate. “What do you think?”

“It’s made with pig’s blood. Tastes like sausage.”

She could hear anguish in his voice. “White pudding?”

“No pig’s blood. Suet, oatmeal. This and that.”

“Doesn’t sound very appetizing. I guess some things I just don’t want to know.”

“That’s true for any of us.”

Under the strength and determination that had characterized the FBI director in her dealings with him, Lizzie now heard the terror of a father for his missing daughter.

“Are you still in Boston?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Simon?”

“He’s still here, too.”

Lizzie stared at the warm brown bread, butter, eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes-the black and white pudding-on her simple white china plate, all a reminder of normalcy. She’d led a relatively normal life of family, work, travel and the occasional romance and adventure before she’d let her curiosity-her sense of duty-ask questions and see things others might ignore. Once she’d found herself in a room of violent drug traffickers, what was she supposed to have done? She’d started by e-mailing names and surreptitious photos to John March.

But hadn’t she been looking for an excuse to contact the detective who’d looked into her mother’s death thirty years ago?

It didn’t matter. Instead of dropping out of Norman ’s circle of friends as she otherwise would have, Lizzie had dived in and hung on for the next year.

“ Norman will never look at himself and understand he was arrested because he did wrong.” She spoke calmly, despite her own fatigue and fear. “He’ll blame you and Simon. And me, if he ever finds out what I’ve done.”

March didn’t soften. “You’re the woman who saved Keira Sullivan and warned Bob O’Reilly about the bomb.”

“I’m not sure Keira needed my help. An Irish gale, an ancient stone circle, a black dog out of nowhere. Spooky.” Not to mention an aristocratic British spy. Lizzie stabbed her fork into the black pudding and cut off a small piece. “For all the time I’ve spent in Ireland, I’ve never tried black or white pudding. I suppose you have Michael Murphy’s file on your desk by now?”

“The Irish authorities are cooperating in the investigation.”

An oblique response. “He’s Norman ’s doing.”

“No one’s leaping to any conclusions.”

“I am,” Lizzie said.

“Estabrook has no reason to take this risk.”

“Did he have any reason to circumnavigate the world in a hot-air balloon?”

“That’s an adventure.”

“You’re articulating a professional point of view. I understand that, but you don’t believe it. You know as well as I do that Norman is responsible for what happened today. Yesterday here in Ireland, actually. It’s after midnight.” She eyed the bit of pudding on the end of her fork. “Maybe you have to grow up eating black pudding to appreciate it.”

“You’re exhausted. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Maybe a full Irish breakfast will help. I’ve been banged up before, but I was in my first real fight for my life tonight.” She felt herself sinking deeper into the soft cushions of the sofa. “For someone else’s life, too.”

“You won,” March said.

“I could have killed Murphy. I had his own knife at his throat.”

“Did you want to kill him?”

Lizzie let her mind drift back to the moment in the stone circle when she’d first became aware of the shadows by the cluster of trees. “No. I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Why are you in Ireland?”

“I was reading about Irish fairies and decided-”

“You wanted to talk to Simon,” March said.

“It doesn’t matter now. I was almost too late to help Keira. I was too late to warn your daughter.”

“Bob O’Reilly’s daughter and Scoop Wisdom are alive because of you.”

Lizzie felt no satisfaction at March’s statement. “ Norman has virtually limitless resources.”

“The U.S. federal government can match them.”

“He could be anywhere by now. Trust me. He has a plan. He’s not anyone’s victim. He’s compulsive, and he’s a thrill seeker. Be sure your profilers understand what that really means. Be sure you understand. I didn’t see it myself at first, but Norman is a dangerous, violent man.”

She heard March take in a sharp breath. “You let me believe you’re a professional. You’re not, are you?”

She didn’t answer.

“I want to know who you are,” he said.

“You’ll find out on your own soon enough. Please listen to me, Director March. You can’t tell a soul about me or what I’ve done. You can’t come after me. You’ll be risking my life and my ability to help find your daughter if you do.”

“I can have an agent meet you tonight, wherever you are. Let me help you. I don’t want you to endanger yourself or this investigation by taking unnecessary risks.”

“There is one thing.” Lizzie hesitated, wondering if she was going too far-if she’d gone too far already. But she didn’t stop herself. “I have a tall, handsome, patrician Brit on my tail. Will Davenport. He and Simon are friends. He came to Ireland to see about Keira. Can I trust him?”

“Even if you can, would you? Do you trust anyone?”

It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer tonight. “ Norman doesn’t know I’ve been helping you. I want to keep it that way.” She tried a bite of the black pudding. “You didn’t steer me wrong. Black pudding does take like sausage.”

She shut her phone before he could respond.

Would March figure out who she was and have her hotel stormed by armed agents at sunrise? He could make it happen, even in Ireland.

But he wouldn’t. John March was a hard man who often faced only bad choices, and right now, she was safe and his daughter wasn’t. And he’d made his choice. He would let his anonymous source have room to maneuver and give her a chance to find Norman Estabrook-and save her own skin as well as his daughter’s.

Lizzie ate a few more bites of her meal before she gave up and headed for the bathroom, turning on the water in the tub as hot as she could stand. She added a scoop of lavender bath salts and, as they melted, shed her robe and dipped slowly into the steaming water. The heat eased the ache and stiffness in her muscles and the scent of lavender soothed her soul. Images washed over her-Simon and Norman in Montana going over plans for a Patagonia hike…the enigmatic Brit winking at her in Las Vegas…Scoop Wisdom walking out to the street with his colander of beans…Keira Sullivan and the black dog in the stone circle.

Will Davenport eyeing her over his brandy.

Lowering herself deeper into the tub, an image came to her of John March at her family’s hotel in Boston last August. It was the anniversary of her mother’s death, and he was drinking Irish whiskey alone at a table in the pub named in her honor. Lizzie had been in Boston, making one of her strategic appearances at the hotel offices, and had stopped at the Whitcomb.