Carla Neggers - The Whisper

"Nope. I had this urge to make sure you got to your destination. I'm half a block behind you."

She turned around, and he waved to her from farther down the wide sidewalk. She laughed. "I'll have to take 'Spotting a Tail 101.' I'll wait for you--"

"Tell me now. I can hear in your voice that you have something for me."

What else, she wondered, could he hear in her voice? She shook off the thought. "I have the name and address of a couple in Killarney who are friends with Percy Carlisle. They might have an idea where he is." Sophie paused, watching Scoop make his way steadily toward her. "Maybe your British friends can check them out."

18

Killarney, Southwest Ireland

Josie had steeled herself for Myles to abandon her in Dublin, but not only did he accompany her to the airport, he boarded a small plane with her for the short flight to the west of Ireland. She'd arranged for a car when they arrived. He took the keys. She didn't object.

"I'll navigate," she said, reaching for her seat belt in the passenger seat.

It was very dark when they arrived at an attractive stone house just past a confusing roundabout near Killarney National Park. Lights shining in the first-floor windows suggested Percy Carlisle's friends, David and Sarah Healy, were at home.

Myles popped out of the car with no hint of the fatigue Josie had noticed when she'd first walked into Keira's cottage, and there he was. As they headed up the walk in a light rain, she fought a sudden sagging of her own energy and spirit. "I'd love just to wander among the oaks and yews with nothing more pressing to do than find the next waterfall."

She expected a smart retort from Myles, but he brushed his fingers over the top of her hand. "We'll get there, you and I."

"Ever the optimist." She mounted the front steps to the house. "I wonder if we'll find Percy Carlisle sitting by the fire with a whiskey."

Myles didn't answer right away. She thought he might go soft on her again, but he rallied. "Let's find out, shall we?"

David Healy, an amiable middle-aged Irishman, greeted them at the door, obviously curious as Josie introduced herself and Myles as best she could. "A mutual friend told us we might find Percy Carlisle here. We thought we'd drop in and say hello."

"Sorry, you've missed him. He was here four or five nights ago. He stayed just the one night. He'd come straight from London. Helen wasn't with him. She'd already left for Boston--or maybe it was New York, then Boston. Percy and I took a long hike in Killarney National Park. My wife stayed behind. He left early that evening."

Myles leaned against a wet iron rail. "Did he say where he was going?"

"Kenmare. He planned to see an archaeologist he knows."

"And after Kenmare?" Josie asked.

Healy's expression by itself said he hadn't a clue. "He didn't say. He was quite preoccupied. He gets that way. He did say he wanted to go off on his own for a bit--I don't know more than that, I'm afraid. My wife, either."

The man was looking worried. Josie gave him a cheerful smile. "Well, we're terribly sorry to have missed him. Thank you for your help."

Healy started to shut the door but stopped. "There's nothing at all unusual in Percy wanting to be on his own. He's been like that for as long as I've known him, which has been for at least ten years. Percy's always appreciated his solitude. He says that's why he married so late. Helen understands."

"She wasn't upset, then, about him going off?" Josie asked.

"Not according to Percy."

Myles stood up from the rail. "Percy visited you last year around this time, as well, didn't he?"

Healy frowned. "Yes, for a few days. We played a bit of golf."

"Did he mention his archaeologist friend then?" Josie asked.

"I don't recall, to be honest. Something's wrong, isn't it?"

"We hope not," she said, handing him a card. "My number and e-mail--please let us know if you hear from Percy, won't you?"

He promised he would, and Josie thanked him and retreated back down the walk. Myles stepped in front of her and opened the car door for her. "Do I look as if I'd have run straight into it?"

"I'm being chivalrous."

"Oh. I don't think I've ever had anyone be chivalrous. It's rather nice." She smiled as she got into the passenger seat. "You'll shut the door next?"

"I'll try not to get your foot."

She checked her BlackBerry. She had a message from Will. No news in London. He and Simon were checking into Percy Carlisle's friends, acquaintances and activities there, as well as taking another, closer look at Jay Augustine's travels in Great Britain and Ireland. Undoubtedly Lizzie and Keira were deeply involved, too. They all wanted to know who could have been on the tiny island with Sophie Malone last September.

Simon had suggested that Josie--Moneypenny, as he called her--work directly with the Irish guards, but to what end? She knew nothing they didn't.

She had a message, too, from Adrian, all about his day at school. It made her smile and wish to be back home. She glanced at Myles. But everything had changed, hadn't it? Would she even be allowed to tell her son that his idol hadn't vanished into thin air?

"Where to now?" Myles asked as he started the car.

Scoop Wisdom had reported earlier that Sophie Malone had offered the use of her cottage to his "British sources" in Ireland.

That would be Myles and me, Josie thought.

"Back to Kenmare," she said.

The interior of the Malone cottage was charming and quite chilly, and the moment Josie crossed the threshold, she knew she was lost. Myles eased an arm around her middle and kissed the top of her head. "Josie."

All his anguish and pain came out in that one gesture, that one whisper. She'd kept hers in a tight ball inside her, refusing to acknowledge her feelings much less let them leak out and destroy her. She couldn't hold it in any longer. "Myles...I missed you so much."

"I know, love. I'm sorry."

"No, don't," she said. "Don't be sorry."

In one motion, he caught her up into his arms as if she were a swooning fairy-tale princess and carried her upstairs, kicking open a door and laying her on a frighteningly cold bed. They hadn't lit a fire or turned on the heat.

"We'll warm right up," he said, kissing her.

Moonlight streamed through the window, striking his face. Josie held him fiercely and whispered how much she hated him, loved him, wanted him, and he let her get it all out before he kissed her again, taking his time. After that, she wasn't cold anymore. He lifted off her shirt, and she got his off, half expecting a different Myles underneath--new scars, new muscles. But she found that it didn't matter. She felt only the heat of his skin against hers.

They made love slowly at first, as if it were all so momentous and one wrong move would doom them to perdition, but when he was inside her, Josie grabbed him by the hips and pulled him deeper into her. He moaned, his mouth finding hers in the dark as he drove into her. There was nothing slow about their lovemaking after that.

Later, tucked under the duvet, holding on to him as she'd imagined alone in her bed night after night, Josie smiled. "I should have guessed this would happen when you opened the car door for me."

He laughed. "You did guess."

She laughed, too. "So I did."

19

Boston, Massachusetts

When she arrived back on Beacon Hill, Sophie found the gate to the archway and courtyard unlocked and thought nothing of it as she shut it firmly behind her, locking it again. Her afternoon on her own had left her feeling more normal--determined, even, to back off from trying to find answers to last September herself. Cliff Rafferty and now Jay Augustine were dead. Percy Carlisle was still out of touch. She'd done what she could to figure out what was going on, and she'd told the police everything she knew.