Carla Neggers - The Whisper

"Do you think it was a ghost or fairies?" Myles asked.

"Ireland's full of folklore."

It wasn't a direct answer, but Myles let it go.

"An archaeologist wouldn't necessarily think of this place in the same way that we do," Josie said. "To me, it's desolate, remote and inhospitable. To Sophie--"

"It's fascinating," Tim said.

They heard a sound deeper inside the cave.

A moan.

Josie glanced at Myles but saw that he'd heard it, too. At the mouth of the cave, Tim O'Donovan was silent.

Someone was back there in the dark.

30

Boston, Massachusetts

Scoop spoke briefly with Eileen Sullivan at the Boston-Cork conference offices, then walked back down to the street. He left Sophie another voice mail. "Call me as soon as you can."

He dropped his phone in his jacket pocket. He had it on Ring and Vibrate. No way would he miss her if she called him back. He'd been trying to reach her for the past twenty minutes. She'd left the conference offices fifteen minutes ago.

He'd joined forces with Bob and Abigail and pried information on the investigation out of Tom Yarborough, probably Yarborough's first tweak of protocol since he'd told his mother no at two. Cliff Rafferty had almost certainly built and planted the bomb. His trail was relatively easy to follow once they had C4 sitting on his coffee table. They knew what questions to ask. They'd found more materials in his garage and traced them to their source.

The bastard had assembled the bomb, walked into the yard of fellow officers and placed it under a gas grill, ensuring added explosive power when it went off.

"He used our trust against us," Abigail had said.

"We never saw him," Scoop had said. "None of us did. He sneaked in back with his damn bomb because he knew we'd ask questions if we saw him. It could have been anyone."

But it wasn't. It was a cop. Someone they knew.

And he'd been murdered.

Scoop walked down the street to the Carlisle house. Josie Goodwin and Myles Fletcher were checking Sophie's island, but they hadn't reported back yet. They'd be out there now, maybe even in the cave itself.

His phone rang and vibrated in his jacket. He had it out in seconds, but it wasn't Sophie. Instead it was Damian Malone, her FBI-agent brother. "Helen Carlisle took a flight from London to Boston the same day you and Sophie got back," Damian said. "She arrived a couple hours after you did. I'm checking, but I'll bet she was in Ireland when her husband met Sophie in Kenmare."

"Then she didn't come from New York. She told us a bald-faced lie. Why?"

"Good question. Is she on the skids with Percy? Does she suspect he was involved with moving stolen art with Jay Augustine?" Damian sounded focused--and worried. "And where's my sister? She texted me a little while ago that there was no problem. It was an odd message."

"I'll find her," Scoop said.

He headed into the formal front yard of the Carlisle house and turned up the walk to the side door. It was partially open. He entered the elegant house, dialing Bob O'Reilly.

"I was about to call you," Bob said. "Yarborough's on his way. He wants to talk to Helen Carlisle about a few lies she told."

"About when she left her husband in Ireland?"

"We checked the auction house where she worked. She turned up in June of last year. Before that she was at a smaller auction house--a totally different woman. Quiet, timid. Not at all glamorous." Bob paused. "Scoop, Helen Carlisle isn't who she says she is."

He entered the kitchen and saw skulls and blood-dripping branches. "Yeah, Bob," Scoop said, tightening his grip on the phone, "I can see that."

31

Helen Carlisle had transformed the large, elegant courtyard into her own notion of a sacred wood. Sophie stood next to Acosta by a potting bench. The blood dripping from the branches was definitely real. Helen had taken it from several "rodents" she'd killed, their carcasses hanging from the branches of a potted oak sapling.

In the middle of the courtyard was a giant cast-iron cauldron set on a grate over an open fire. Sophie could feel the blistering heat of the flames.

Helen kept her gun--one of Cliff Rafferty's, she'd explained--pointed at her prisoners.

Her future victims, Sophie thought. "Were you here earlier today?" she asked Acosta.

He nodded, transfixed by the frightening image Helen presented with her red wig and cape pinned at the shoulder with a gold brooch of distinctive Celtic design. His skin was gray, pasty. "I deluded myself." He slurred his words slightly, his voice barely audible. "She tried to kill me yesterday. I see that now."

"Listen to me." Sophie knew she had to pull him out of his shock and self-pity if they were to survive. "Did Helen give you anything? Tea, a glass of water--"

"Tea."

"She's drugged you. She thinks she's some kind of warrior queen or goddess. She thinks she's drawing power from you. You're a police officer. A warrior. A lover. A threat. She has wild ideas but she's not insane. She knows exactly what she's doing and what she wants."

Helen sniffed. "What are you saying, Sophie? I told Jay Augustine that you had a knack for adventure and archaeology. I told him that you had a gift and it was just a matter of time before you discovered something of value and interest. I was right." She didn't lower her weapon a fraction of an inch. "When Percy told me about you and your Irish fisherman...I knew."

"Rafferty and Augustine played you."

"Oh, they tried. Certainly. Cliff was an opportunist. Jay was a killer--I didn't know at first. Now I see he was sent to me as a sign that it was time I took action."

"You transformed yourself," Sophie said, wishing somehow she could get Helen to move closer to the flames, catch her cape on fire--fall against the bubbling cauldron.

"Jay and Cliff thought I was a mousy know-nothing who dusted artwork in one of New York's lesser auction houses. And I was, until I became the woman Percy Carlisle fell in love with." Her beautiful eyes leveled on Sophie. "I sought him out because of you."

"Because of my expertise in Celtic archaeology."

"Jay was amused by my transformation. Cliff didn't even know until after Ireland." Her tone was superior--she was enjoying telling her story. "After he and Jay did what I wanted."

Sophie kept her tone steady, unafraid. "They followed me to the island."

"Can you imagine?" Helen smiled, but she didn't lower her gun. "Percy told me about your research in Ireland and your family home in Kenmare. Everything. Cliff was stupid and lazy in many ways, but he saw you go off with your Irish fisherman. He had binoculars. He was able to follow you and figure out where you were going."

"He got lucky. If he'd followed me the first five trips out to the island, he'd have come back empty-handed."

"It wasn't luck. Those pieces were meant to find their way to me. Jay wasn't tuned in to anything except opportunities for himself, and look what it got him? He died alone in a jail cell."

"Did you know that would happen, too?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did."

Acosta sank onto a bench. "Get the hell out of here," he whispered to Sophie. "Save yourself. I knew she was out of control but not this. Damn."

"If we can keep her talking--"

"No, don't. Don't, Sophie. Get out of here."

Helen glanced at him with disdain. "He'll fall asleep. He won't die from what I gave him."

"How did you kill Cliff?"

"I waited for him to get back from whining to you. I hit him on the head hard enough to knock him out. Then I hanged him. It was all planned. He had to be sacrificed. I wanted what power he had left in him."

"You'd fantasized about doing just that to someone."

"I don't fantasize." She came closer to Acosta as he fought to stay conscious. "I found myself when I delved into the study of true ancient pagan Celtic ways. I have a special insight because of my past. That's one thing that mouse I used to be gave me."