Carla Neggers - The Mist

Henrietta was as near to a mother as Lizzie had ever known, even more than her grandmother, but neither woman had ever tried to be something she wasn’t. Successful, creative, not bound by clocks and routines, Henrietta Rush was a devoted wife and mother of four sons. The daughter of the Whitcomb’s head maintenance man, she’d met Bradley Rush when she hand-delivered a list of a hundred things her father thought the hotel was doing wrong. The two of them still lived in the same drafty Victorian north of Boston. Lizzie considered it home as much as anywhere. When she was growing up, her father had maintained an apartment in Boston because it was convenient for him to leave her with his brother and wife when he had to be away for weeks at a time and couldn’t take her with him.

When she left for college, he moved to Las Vegas.

“I was supposed to grow up here,” Lizzie said, Will close to her in the dark. She could hear the wash of waves down on the rocks. “Then my mother died, and my father-I think that’s when he gave up on leaving the CIA or whatever alphabet agency he works for.”

“Do you believe your mother died because of his work?”

“I believe I don’t have all the facts about her life or her death.”

Will stayed close to her as they made their way back to her little house. The tide had shifted and was just starting to come in, bringing with it the cool night breeze and smells of the ocean.

Lizzie was intensely aware that Will would be sleeping close by again tonight. “I’m just enough on Irish time to be exhausted,” she said.

“Taking on a killer and finding a man shot to death can’t help.”

“I didn’t think. I just acted.”

“You fight well.” He nodded to her small living area. “Do you train here?”

“Sometimes. I almost took out a window in July with my kicking.”

He stood in front of her, looking at her as if he wanted to push back all her defenses and see into her soul.

Which was just nonsense. She had to stay focused and couldn’t indulge in romantic fantasies. But he took her hand into his and she leaned into him, letting herself sink against his chest.

He put his arms around her, and she lifted her head from his chest so that she could see his face. “When you walked into Eddie O’Shea’s pub…” She wasn’t sure she could explain. “There’s something about that village. It’s as if Iwas meant to be there, sitting by a fire reading Irish folktales. When I was in London, I thought you were just another spy. Of course, I didn’t actually see you.”

He smiled. “You didn’t get this close.”

“Too dangerous.” She eased her hands up his arms, hard under the soft, light fabric of his sweater. “Way too dangerous.”

“I don’t know if I want to disabuse you of your romantic notions about me.”

“You mean that you’re as sexy-”

His kiss stopped her midsentence and took her breath away, a mix of tenderness and urgency. Lizzie tightened her grip on him just to keep herself on her feet. The ocean breeze gusted through the screens, hitting her already sensitized skin, and she let her arms go around him. There was nothing soft or easy about him.

“I’m breaking all my rules with you,” he whispered.

“You’re used to discipline and isolation.”

“My father left broken hearts in his wake. I learned at an early age the dangers of romantic entanglements.”

“Entanglements. Scary word.”

He kissed her again, lifting her off her feet, and she gave herself up to the swirl of sensations-ocean, seagulls, wind, wanting-and relished the taste and feel of him, imagined him carrying her to her bedroom, and making love to her for the rest of the night. She knew it wouldn’t happen. Not tonight.

Will pulled away, or she did, and they turned toward the water.

Lizzie cleared her throat and adjusted her shirt. “Our focus is rightly on Abigail, Norman, Fletcher and what we can do to help the situation.”

Will pivoted around to her, his eyes dark and serious now. “Not we, Lizzie.”

“You’re a British citizen. You shouldn’t be sneaking around southern Maine on your own, either.”

“Lizzie-”

“I know what you’re saying, but right now I’m here, and I’m safe. I hope the FBI and BPD find Abigail and arrest Norman tonight. I’d love to wake up tomorrow morning with nothing more dangerous on my mind than a trip to the lobster pound.”

“I’d like that, too, but whatever’s happened by morning, you need to leave Myles and Estabrook to real professionals.”

“And if I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time as I was with Norman and his friends in the drug cartels? Then what?” She smoothed the back of her hand along his rough jaw and didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ve a job to do. I won’t get in your way. But I really am falling for you. Tall, fair, handsome and loyal-and you can walk through an Irish pasture and hardly get a bit of manure on your shoes.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him and kissed her, nothing tentative or gentle about him now. He kept her close, smiled as he spoke. “You Rushes don’t do anything by half measures, do you?”

This from a man who fought terrorists.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Hiking the Beara Way. One day…” He dropped his arms from her and stood back. “Go to bed, Lizzie. I’ll stay out here. I’m not going anywhere, and I have no intention of taking advantage of a woman about to fall asleep on her feet.”

“Will…”

“We have time.”

“I hope so. You must be tired yourself.”

“I slept on my flight. I didn’t have a deck of cards to distract me, and I had the comforts of a private jet.”

She gave a mock protest. “I was in coach with a toddler kicking the back of my seat, and you-”

He laughed softly. “Next time perhaps you’ll think twice before you slip out on me.”

Boston, Massachusetts

10 p.m., EDT

August 26

Fiona had left her full-size, classic harp in the corner of the Garrison house first-floor drawing room, in front of Keira’s sketch of the Christmas windowbox in Dublin. Bob plucked a string. Fiona had shown him how, but it made a twangy sound, nothing like the rich, full sound she could produce. He’d walked up from Charles Street. The joint task force was meeting at BPD headquarters in a little while. He’d be on his way there soon. They were making progress, but they still didn’t have Abigail or her captors.

Yarborough materialized in the foyer door. “Lieutenant?”

Bob resisted biting the guy’s head off and turned from the harp. “Yeah, what’s up?” Even he could hear the fatigue in his voice.

Yarborough, who’d been glum all night, was almost perky. “We have an ID on the dead guy, a South Boston thug named Walter Bassette. Lucas and a couple precinct detectives are on their way over to his apartment.”

Bassette. Bob liked having a name. It was something solid. “Good work, Yarborough.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m just telling you.”

Credit where credit was due. He was ambitious, but he was also fair.

“We’re checking if Bassette was in Ireland recently, called there, met someone from there. Having a decent lead…” Yarborough shrugged, not getting himself too excited. “It helps.”

“The bombs weren’t sophisticated, but these bastards had to get the materials from somewhere and put them together somewhere.” Bob looked at Keira’s sketch of the Dublin windowbox. “Someone had to hire Murphy, the guy in Ireland. If it was Bassette-” He broke off with a sigh and shifted back to Yarborough. “Who has Abigail now? What was Bassette doing in that alley?”

Yarborough rubbed the side of his nose and didn’t answer. Bob recognized the tactic for what it was. The younger detective was giving him time.