Carla Neggers - Keeper's Reach

What, Emma wondered, was returning the art costing Oliver?

What would he do now to relieve the sense of helplessness and the terrible pain he had suffered as a child?

She let her gaze linger on the photos of the two missing Dutch landscapes, small oil paintings done by lesser-known seventeenth-century artists. They were valuable but not as valuable as a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh would have been. Oliver tended to stay away from art that would have attracted worldwide headlines. The Amsterdam museum that owned the landscapes had left the spaces empty where they had hung for decades.

Oliver needed to return them. Then Emma could think about his pain.

She shut her laptop and went into her tiny kitchen. She didn’t want to go out again, but she had little in her refrigerator. She was digging out vegetables and hummus when her phone dinged.

Oliver again.

I forgot to tell you. Our agent spoke to a woman in the park.

They knew each other?

I’m certain. They looked like they were arguing.

Did you speak with her?

No. Is she FBI?

Emma resisted getting him back on the phone.

Go enjoy a whiskey with Fr. Bracken and forget about FBI agents.

Ah, Emma. I never forget about you lot.

She responded with a smile icon and resumed collecting her dinner. As she took her plate into the living room, her gaze settled on a photo of her and Colin together in Ireland last fall. Framing it had been her idea. He didn’t think of such things. She set her plate on the coffee table and eased onto the couch as she touched a finger to his chin, as if he were with her. He was solid and confident, a man who relied on his instincts and his training. On Monday, he had packed his duffel bag and headed to the airport, saying he had meetings in Washington and would be in touch.

All very sudden and mysterious.

Colin wasn’t a natural fit for HIT, but he’d managed to make a place for himself once Yank had shoehorned him onto his team in October. Colin contributed to complex investigations with the eye of a seasoned undercover agent and the gut instincts of someone who had faced sustained, real danger in the field.

Emma hadn’t thought his meetings involved HIT until that morning, when Yank had left for Washington with no explanation beyond “meetings.” It was possible his trip had nothing to do with Colin’s trip, but what were the odds?

Given Colin’s absence, she supposed she didn’t need to spend two nights on her own at the convent. She could stay here in Boston and contemplate her life. But her current life wasn’t the reason she had arranged for her mini retreat with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.

It was her past that was driving her to return, briefly, to the sisters.

Ever since the first of the year, she kept seeing herself walking through the convent gates as a teenager, thinking she would never have another home. It was as if she were looking at a stranger, someone outside herself—a different person altogether from the woman she was now, or even the child she had been before the thought of becoming “Sister Brigid” had gripped her.

Emma wiggled the diamond engagement ring Colin had placed on her finger in Dublin. Was he even in Washington? For four years, he had told his family he worked at a desk at FBI headquarters.

Such was not the case.

While tempting and inevitable, speculating, she knew, wouldn’t answer any of her questions. She’d waited for Colin before. She would now, for however long was necessary. She had her work, and her retreat.

Not to mention lunch on Saturday in Maine with his mother.

Emma smiled and pulled out her phone again, flipping to her photo of her wedding dress.

It was a great dress. Perfect for an early June wedding on the Maine coast.

“Not any wedding,” she said. “ My wedding.”

To Colin Donovan.

She slipped her phone back into her coat pocket. She would call him later about Oliver York. If he could talk to her, he would. If he couldn’t, they would talk later.

And wherever he was—whatever he was up to—he would come back to her.

3

The Bold Coast, Maine Wednesday, 7:00 p.m., EST

It took Mike Donovan a full three seconds before he realized the buzzing he heard was his cell phone. He wasn’t used to having a phone. He picked it up from the counter where he’d left it while he chopped garlic. He’d been up since five, when he had pulled on jeans, a heavy flannel shirt, a vest, wool socks and L.L.Bean boots and headed outside. The temperature was in the double digits. He could get work done.

He answered his phone without checking the screen to see who was calling. Before he could get in a word, his mother spoke. “No one’s hurt or been arrested,” she said.

“That’s good. What’s up?”

She launched into something about a visitor. Some guy. Mike couldn’t make it all out. The connection was weak. It was dark at his cabin on a remote stretch of the Maine coast down east of Acadia National Park. The Bold Coast, it was called, named for its dramatic cliffs and tides. His mother was in Rock Point, his hometown in southern Maine.

“You run an inn,” he said. “What’s wrong with visitors?”

“This wasn’t a guest . It was one of your army buddies.”

He heard the urgency in her voice. Married to a police officer, now retired, and the mother of four adult sons, Rosemary Donovan wasn’t prone to overstating her case.

Mike stood at his front window. The evening air was still and dark, stars glittering on waves of undisturbed snow and the ocean, quiet and starlit past the marsh across from his cabin. He’d worked outside most of the day and had planned to spend the evening alone by the fire, reading a book. He owned a television but didn’t watch it much. He liked his life but it was new to him compared to the army. Three years into it instead of ten.

“What army buddy?” he asked finally.

“Jamie Mason. Do you know him?”

Retired army, none better at logistics support. “I know him. When did he stop by?”

“Just now. I offered him coffee, but he said no, he had things to do.”

“Pop’s there?”

“No. I’m here alone. Your father’s at Hurley’s having a drink with your brothers.”

Andy and Kevin, Mike thought. Not Colin. Colin had told them he was in Washington, but he could be anywhere. Their folks would like all four sons in town having a drink at Hurley’s.

Mike turned from the window back to his kitchen area. “You let this guy in?”

“Of course. It’s cold outside.”

It wasn’t that cold for Maine in February. “Just because he said he’s a friend doesn’t mean he is one.”

“Oh, stop, Mike. I didn’t call you for a lecture. He left a message for you. I wrote it down. I have it right here. Hang on a sec.” She paused, and Mike could hear her shuffling through papers. He pictured her in the old sea captain’s house that she and his father had converted into an inn in Rock Point, four hours by car down the coast. “Got it. He said to tell you that Reed Cooper is on his way to Maine from London. He’s meeting with a small group at the Plum Tree Inn. He wants you to join them. You know the Plum Tree, don’t you, Mike? It’s just up the road from here. I thought it was closed for the season.”

“I know it.”

“What do these men want with you, Mike?” his mother asked, as if suddenly realizing she had reason to be suspicious.

“Reed has started his own private contract security firm. Cooper Global Security.”

“Oh.”

Mike heard the apprehension in her voice. He scooped up chopped garlic and tossed it into his frying pan. Jamie Mason wouldn’t be one of Reed’s operators. More likely Mason would be running the office, probably with his wife, Serena, also retired army.