Carla Neggers - Harbor Island

Yank’s gray eyes settled on Emma. She cleared her throat, knowing she was expected to say something. “Did the police recover Rachel’s phone?” she asked.

Yank nodded. “It was in wet sand not far from her body. She probably dropped it when she was shot. It’s in bad shape. They’ll see what they can get off it. Someone else could have used it, but there are no other footprints near the body besides yours and hers.” His gaze bored into her. “How did this woman get your number, Emma?”

Colin and the BPD detectives had asked her the same question. She gave Yank the same answer. “I don’t know. It was one of the things I planned to ask her. I don’t hand out my number to everyone, but it’s not top secret.”

“Who all has it besides us?” Padgett asked.

Emma knew it was a loaded question but answered, anyway. “My family. A few friends.”

Yank hadn’t shifted his gaze away from her. “Declan’s Cross has been in the news recently with the murder of Lindsey Hargreaves.”

It had been almost two weeks since Lindsey had been found dead on cliffs near the village of Declan’s Cross. Emma leaned forward, trying to relax the tensed muscles in her lower back and legs. “A few of the news accounts mentioned Declan’s Cross is the site of a celebrated unsolved theft of three landscape paintings—two of them by Jack Butler Yeats, arguably Ireland’s greatest painter.”

“And a fifteenth-century Celtic cross like the one found on Rachel Bristol this morning,” Padgett added in a combative tone.

“Somewhat like it,” Emma said, matter-of-fact. She didn’t want Padgett to succeed in getting under her skin. “The stolen cross is a rare silver wall cross inscribed with Celtic knots and spirals and the figure of Saint Declan, one of the Irish saints who helped Christianize Ireland in the fifth century. Some scholars believe he could even predate Saint Patrick.”

Padgett stretched out his long legs. “How do we know it’s Declan on the cross and not some other Irish saint?”

Emma reined in any irritation with Padgett. He was testing her, she decided. Letting her know that he was going to ask any and every question he had if he thought it would help get to the bottom of what had happened on Bristol Island that morning. “We know it’s Saint Declan because the figure is holding a small bell,” she said. “Tradition holds that the bell was given to Declan by God and led him across the Celtic Sea to Ardmore, on the south coast of Ireland, where he established a monastery.”

“I didn’t find any photographs of the stolen cross in the files,” Padgett said.

“We don’t have one, only a detailed description by its owner, who died five years ago, and copies made by his niece, Aoife O’Byrne, an artist.”

Emma was aware of Yank eyeing her from Dublin, and Colin from his position by the door. No one else in the room spoke.

Finally, Padgett scratched the side of his mouth. “Got it,” he said.

“It’s a lot to remember.” Emma kept any sarcasm out of her voice. “The third painting stolen that night is the work of an unknown artist, an oil landscape that depicts a scene in Declan’s Cross—three nineteenth-century Celtic Revival crosses on a hill next to the ruin of a church dedicated to Saint Declan. The largest of the crosses is a copy of the stolen wall cross.”

“No picture of the unsigned painting, either,” Padgett said. “We only have photographs of the two Yeats paintings. Jack Butler Yeats was related to William Butler Yeats?”

“His younger brother.”

“Good to know.”

Emma heard a slight edge of sarcasm and even belligerence creep into her colleague’s tone. Sam Padgett hadn’t signed on to HIT to chase art thieves. She doubted he’d ever read William Butler Yeats and was certain he’d never heard of Jack Butler Yeats until the stone cross had shown up for Yank. It was a much smaller, modified version of the wall cross, minus the knots and spirals and inscribed onto a polished stone rather than carved out of silver.

Yank settled back in his chair next to Wendell Sharpe’s fireplace. “It’s not common knowledge that the thief who hit Declan’s Cross ten years ago has been active since then, striking in eight cities around the world, or that he’s the nemesis of a renowned octogenarian art detective. Maybe our murdered Hollywood producer figured it out.”

“And wanted to make a movie?” Emma asked.

“It’s possible. Did she sound scared on the phone?”

Emma shook her head. “Breathless. Excited. Definitely not scared.”

“Okay. Keep me informed. Watch your backs.” Yank shifted his gaze from her to take in his entire team. “I want this Sharpe thief.”

* * *

Emma stayed behind in the conference room as the rest of the team filed out once the monitor went blank and Yank left them. Colin ducked out, saying nothing. He didn’t have his own desk yet. He would go down to her office or park himself at one of the cluster of desks in the open workroom. Yank had designed the space so that his agents could work quietly, alone, behind closed doors or in small or big groups.

“Yank was at your grandfather’s place in Dublin, wasn’t he?”

The question came from Sam Padgett. He hadn’t gone anywhere. Emma nodded. “I recognized the fireplace. How did you know?”

“I recognized the fireplace, too. It’s pictured on the Sharpe Fine Art Recovery website. I did my homework.” He walked over to the large casement window that looked out on to the harbor. The sky had turned overcast. “I should have taken a picture of the sun while it was out.”

“Making a joke, Sam?”

“Nope. Serious. Might not see the sun again until April.”

“Winter days can be bright and sunny in Boston. Those are often the frigid-cold days, too.”

“Something to look forward to. I like you, Emma. You’re smart, and you’re good at what you do, but it bothers me that you didn’t tell us you’d been a nun.”

Not what she’d expected, given the circumstances. “Yank knew.” She kept her tone even, without any defensiveness. “It wasn’t a secret. It’s just not something I talk about that often. Do I know everything about your past?”

Padgett turned from the window. He seemed almost to smile. “I wasn’t a monk for three years in my early twenties, that’s for damn sure.”

“What were you?” Emma asked him.

The almost-smile broadened into a genuine one. “Trouble.” He returned to the table and pointed at the small stone cross. “Where did Rachel Bristol get her cross?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could it be one of the ones this thief sent to your grandfather?”

“Possibly. I haven’t talked to him yet. I don’t know if any are missing.”

“He didn’t turn them over to law enforcement?”

“No.”

“Interesting guy, your granddad. Has he told us all he knows about this thief?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Emma said, noticing beach sand on her boots. Her stomach lurched, but she tried not to show any emotion or discomfort as she continued. “It’s been ten years. There’s a lot of information. Blind alleys he’s gone down, people he’s talked to and leads he’s followed that haven’t worked out. He doesn’t write everything down. It’s hard to know what he’s forgotten, what he’s deliberately left out that he thinks doesn’t matter.”

Padgett grimaced. “An honest answer, I guess. Have you told us all you know?”

“Yes.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down, nodded again to the stone. “What’s the significance of the bell? Besides it leading Declan to Ireland. Does it have any special powers?”

“Declan and his followers were at sea, returning to Ireland, when they realized they had left the bell behind on their stop in Wales. They prayed for its return, and it appeared on a large boulder that they followed to Ardmore.”