Carla Neggers - The Mist

Estabrook abandoned the posters and squatted in front of her. He seemed unaffected by the stress of the past two days-the past two months. “Was your father just doing his job when Shauna Morrigan was murdered the same summer that Deirdre McCarthy was kidnapped and tortured?”

Abigail’s stomach lurched. “I don’t know-”

“Shauna Morrigan was Lizzie Rush’s Irish mother.”

She tried to look confused. “The Rushes are in the hotel business. I’ve never met Lizzie, but she’s got nothing to do with any of this.” But Abigail didn’t believe that. She ran the tip of her pinkie along her lower lip, feeling the cracks, the coagulating blood. “She’s not in law enforcement. My father, Simon, Bob, Scoop. We’re pros. Never mind anyone else. Deal with us.”

“Lizzie loves Maine. This is her family’s house. It’s so simple compared to the luxury hotels they own. They pamper their guests, but not themselves.” Estabrook smiled. “She’s here, or she will be soon. She’ll hope I’ve come.”

“Why?”

“Lizzie knows, at least deep down, that I can help her find peace. She knows I can help her confront her anger through decisive action.”

“You want her as your minion,” Abigail said tiredly.

“Very good, Detective.” Estabrook smiled nastily at her. “You do remember your lessons on evil. There’s only one Lucifer. One devil.” He turned abruptly to Fletcher. “See to Detective Browning. Then find Lizzie and bring her to me. She has a cottage farther down the rocks. She loves to spend time there alone. With all that’s gone on-” He inhaled through his nose. “She’ll be there.”

Fletcher stood up from the door. “You should listen to me, mate. Vengeance is a temporary high. When it’s over, you’ve nothing to show for it. You’re left with an empty hand.”

“I don’t plan for it to end with this one flurry of activity. I’m looking to a new beginning. A new way of life.” Estabrook started for the door, all business now. “Are you any closer to learning who informed on me to the FBI?”

Fletcher shrugged. “What difference does it make now? Because you couldn’t resist making that call tonight, the FBI knows you have Detective Browning. They’re not going to be diverted, thinking your friends in the drug cartels could be responsible.”

“I could have been forced to hit her under duress.”

“Perhaps, but it’s not what you want. You want John March to know you’re responsible for his daughter’s predicament. You want him to know you have her and can do as you please with her. And that, mate,” Fletcher said as he approached Abigail, “is what will get you killed or sentenced to a long stretch in prison.”

Estabrook licked his injured knuckles. “You knew my arrest was imminent when you came to me in Las Vegas, didn’t you? You said you’d get me out if I got into trouble. You already knew I couldn’t trust Simon and didn’t tell me.”

Fletcher glanced back at him. “You’re right. I didn’t tell you. It would have made no difference. I was already too late to warn you properly. The FBI had you nailed.”

“You wanted money.”

“You didn’t have to hire me. You did because you understood that our interests are aligned.”

“Something you should keep in mind now,” Estabrook said stonily.

Once Estabrook was gone, Fletcher handed Abigail a folded black bandanna. “You’re dehydrated. Try to keep some water down.”

She took the bandanna and dabbed it to her bloody face. She studied the pencil markings on the wall, names written next to them:

Whit. Harlan. Lizzie. Jeremiah. Justin.

Children’s heights.

“I want children,” Abigail whispered. “Do you, Mr. Fletcher?”

He didn’t respond as he put a hand down to her.

She let him pull her to her feet, listening for seagulls and picturing herself with Owen on Mount Desert Island, farther up the Maine coast, walking on the rocks pregnant with their first child. Grief welled up inside her. After all this time, what if she didn’t live to have babies? What if Owen…

“You’ll be reunited with him soon, love. Your man, Owen, is searching for Mr. Estabrook’s plane in Montana. He’s not one to sit tight.” Fletcher winked at her. “He’d be proud of you.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Me?” He gave her a sexy grin. “Count on it.”

As he turned from her, Abigail saw an ache in his gray eyes. She hadn’t imagined it or wished it there. Whoever he was, whatever game he was playing, Myles Fletcher had his own secrets and regrets.

And he was more alone in the world than she was.

Near Kennebunkport, Maine

6:25 a.m., EDT

August 27

Will stood out on Lizzie’s deck in the gray of the southern Maine early morning. Fog had overspread the coast and stolen away the expansive view of the water. He had endured an interminable night on her sofa, the doors and windows open to the breeze and the sounds of seabirds, boats, a nearby chattering red squirrel. He’d have enjoyed the atmosphere of the little ocean house more if he’d been in Lizzie’s bed.

With her, of course.

She was down by an evergreen, gnarled from its exposure to the ocean winds and salt spray, clinging to the edge of the rocks above the water. She’d slipped outside while he was in the shower. A signal, he’d thought, that she’d slept as fitfully as he had-and that she was as worried about Abigail Browning as he was and hoping she’d made the right decision in coming to Maine. Lizzie was no more patient with feeling useless than he was.

She was an innocent civilian, he reminded himself. A hotelier, even if one who’d made sacrifices and taken dangerous risks to expose a criminal network and bring a wealthy, resourceful man to justice.

Josie Goodwin had texted him from Ireland asking him to call her. Will dialed her now as he watched Lizzie pick up a small rock and fling it into the fog.

“Our friends in the garda would prefer I not call you,” Josie said when she picked up. “But I am ignoring their wisdom.”

“Where are you?”

“At Aidan O’Shea’s farmhouse. It’s a delight. Two sheep just wandered up to me among the roses. I had tea with Keira this morning. The guards objected letting me see her at first, but I persuaded them.”

Will smiled. “Of course you did. What have you learned?”

“Keira can draw scary pictures as well as beautiful ones, and Michael Murphy had helpers. He’s cooperating. He led the guards to an isolated house near the old copper mines. He and two friends planned to take Simon there after he’d discovered Keira’s body in the stone circle.”

“They were to hold him for Estabrook,” Will said.

“Yes. He wanted to witness Simon’s grief and then kill him himself, with his own hands.”

Will stared into the fog. He could hear a seagull, invisible in the distance. Lizzie had moved to the other side of her tree. “I want this bastard, Josie.”

“So do I. We’re not alone. The guards, Keira and I have become great friends. But there’s more, Will. Before her death, Shauna Morrigan Rush tipped off the Americans to an FBI agent working with the Boston Irish mob…” When Will didn’t respond, Josie added, “That would be Lizzie Rush’s mother, Will.”

“Who tripped on a cobblestone on Temple Bar.”

“And whose family died in a tragic car accident when they rushed to Dublin after hearing the news of her death. The Boston police sent a detective to Ireland to look into Shauna’s death.”

Will gripped his phone. “John March.”

“Indeed,” Josie said. “Shortly after he returned from Dublin, he exposed the identity of an FBI agent who had dealings-imagine this-with the Boston Irish mob. The Irish ruled the deaths of Shauna and her family accidents.”