The Whisper

He shifted to Taryn. “What about you? When do you go back to Boston?”

“For good? Not for a while. My play in London runs through October. After that, who knows? I’m waiting for word about a trip to New York. It could come anytime. I’ll just be there for a few days, though.”

“Do you have an audition?” he asked.

She lowered her eyes. “Something like that.”

“I’ve a distant cousin in Boston.” Tim gave Sophie a pointed look. “A firefighter.”

His tone suggested he’d been doing some research of his own on the goings-on in Boston over the summer and the injured police detective staying on the Beara. Given their earlier conversation, Sophie wasn’t surprised or irritated. If she could do it all over again, she’d never have gone out to the island a year ago. She wasn’t even sure she’d have had lunch with Colm Dermott last week and listened to him relate what he knew about Keira Sullivan’s unsettling night alone in the Irish wilds.

When Tim returned to the stage, James Malone eyed his two daughters with open skepticism. “When I was a working stiff in corporate America,” he said, “I learned about subtext. I would say there was an encyclopedia of subtext in that exchange. Either of you want to tell me what just went on?”

Taryn, good actress though she was, floundered, but Sophie grinned at her father and held up her glass of Guinness. “You know these Irish men, Dad.”

“That’s my point,” he muttered.

His wife elbowed him before he could say more and raised her own glass. “And to us poor women who love them.”

Sophie laughed, relishing her time with her family. Her parents were having a ball with their retirement. Let it be that way for a long time, she thought, just as, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a lone man enter the pub. As a waiter led him to a small table, she was surprised to recognize Percy Carlisle, a wealthy Bostonian she hadn’t seen in a year.

Taryn leaned close to Sophie. “What’s he doing here?”

“I have no idea,” Sophie said half under her breath. She left her drink on the table and quickly stood up, heading to his table. She dropped onto the chair across from him without waiting to be invited. “Hey, Percy. I didn’t know you were in Ireland.”

“I only arrived last night. Helen and I were in London.”

“Is she here with you?”

He shook his head. “She’s gone back to Boston.”

A waiter appeared, and Percy ordered coffee, nothing else. He was in his early forties, dressed in a heavy wool cardigan and wide-wale corduroys that bagged on his lanky frame. He had inherited a family fortune and spent most of his time pursuing his interests in travel, art, music, history and genealogy. Sophie had run into him on occasion when she was a student in Boston and had done research at the Carlisle Museum. They’d gotten along without becoming real friends or, certainly, romantically involved. She hadn’t seen him since she’d moved to Ireland to continue her studies—except briefly late last summer when he’d looked her up while he was visiting friends in Killarney.

“I was in the area and remembered your family has a house here,” Percy said now. “I was on my way there when I saw you and your sister head in here. I was in the car—it took some time to park. I just came from Killarney National Park. For some reason, I’d never been. It’s stunning, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” Situated among clear lakes and forested hills, the park was as beautiful and inviting a setting as she could imagine. “I hiked the old Killarney road to Kenmare the other day.”

“I wish Helen had been with me. She’d have loved it, but she has business in New York to clear up. She’s giving up her job at the auction house there. It’s a big change, but she’s excited about it. We’re moving into my family’s house in Boston, did you know?”

“I hadn’t heard, no.”

“Helen’s handling the transition. I’ve maintained the house since my father died, but I never thought I’d live there again.” Percy’s dark eyes lit up. “Helen is a ball of energy. I’m lucky to have her in my life.”

“I look forward to meeting her.”

Sophie smiled at his obvious happiness. He and Helen had been married only two months—the first marriage for both. His father—Percy Carlisle Sr.—had been an amateur archaeologist famous for taking off in search of lost treasure. Sophie remembered when he’d invited her into his office in the museum shortly before his death. He’d stood with her at a wall of photographs of his exploits and gone over each one, describing memories, enjoying himself. He’d acknowledged to Sophie that his only son wasn’t nearly as adventurous. “Perhaps it’s just as well,” the old man had said.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. Her Guinness was making her head spin. Trekking out to the ruin on the Beara and meeting Scoop Wisdom—scarred, suspicious—had launched her back to her own trauma a year ago with an intensity that had left her off balance, on edge.

The waiter delivered Percy’s coffee. He took a small sip, keeping the mug in one hand as he nodded to her parents and sister. “I saw Taryn when she played Ophelia in Boston a few years ago. She’s quite amazing.”

“That she is. She loves her work.”

“Always a plus.” He set his coffee on the scarred table. “Do you love your work, Sophie?”

“I do, yes.”

“I’ve heard you’re involved in the upcoming Boston-Cork conference on Irish folklore. Will that look good on your CV?”

“Sure, and it’ll be interesting as well as fun.”

“But it’s unpaid,” he said. “How are you managing these days?”

“Same as I did throughout graduate school.”

“Tutoring, fellowships, teaching a class here and there?”

“Every job’s a real job.”

“I admire your attitude.” He picked up his mug of coffee. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, Sophie, you’ve only to ask.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” she said. “I’m heading back to Boston tomorrow. I have a few leads on full-time work.”

“Best of luck to you.” Percy watched the musicians chat among themselves for a few moments. “I considered driving down to the village where Keira Sullivan says she found that stone angel.”

His comment caught Sophie by surprise. “Do you know Keira?”

“Only by reputation. Everyone’s still very shaken that Jay Augustine proved to be a killer.” He seemed to wait for Sophie’s reaction. She sat forward, but before she could say anything, he continued, “I wasn’t friends with the Augustines or even close to it. I’d see them socially from time to time at various functions in New York and Boston. Charlotte Augustine’s moved to Hawaii, did you know?”

“No,” Sophie said.

“She’s seeking a divorce. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for her to discover she was married to a murderer.” Percy stared into his coffee. “The Boston police and the FBI interviewed me in July, not long after Augustine’s arrest. I wanted you to know so that you don’t get the wrong idea. It was routine. I’d done a few perfectly legitimate deals with him. The police talked to everyone who’d done business with him.”

“That makes sense, don’t you think?”

“Of course. I understood completely.” Percy faced her again, his expression cool now, slightly supercilious. “What about you, Sophie? Did you have any dealings with Jay Augustine?”

“No, none.” She tried to lighten her tone. “No money, remember?”

But he continued to look troubled and annoyed. “I’m a very careful, experienced collector, Sophie. Very few pieces available on the market today would interest me. My family…my father…” He broke off, sitting back. “Never mind. You probably know as much about my family’s art collection as I do.”

“I’ve never crawled through your attic—”

“We don’t keep anything of value in the attic. We are familiar with the protocols for storing and preserving works of art.”

Sophie sighed. “It was a joke, Percy.” She noticed with relief that the musicians were about to get started again. “Did you buy from the Augustines or sell to them?”

“Both.”

“What kind of—”

“Nothing that would interest you. Nothing Irish. Nothing Celtic.”

“Percy,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm, “why did you look me up last September?”

He frowned at her. “Last September? What are you talking about?”

She repeated her question.

“Just what I told you at the time,” he said. “I knew you were studying in Ireland and had a house here in Kenmare. I was here playing golf with friends and decided to find you and say hello.”

“No one put you up to it?”

“What? No. Believe it or not, Sophie, I’m perfectly capable of thinking for myself.”

“That’s not what I meant, and I think you know it. Percy, when you were here last year, did you find out that I was exploring—having myself a bit of an adventure between chapters of my dissertation?”

“Following in my father’s footsteps?”

“Making my own.”

“He never liked Ireland. He was far more interested in archaeological sites on the European mainland, in South America, Australia. However, to answer your question—I heard that you were chasing ghost and fairy stories with an Irish fisherman out here somewhere.”

“Did you tell Jay Augustine?”

The color immediately drained from his face at her blunt question. “I didn’t even see Jay Augustine.” Percy stood up, his coffee barely touched. “I have to go. I just wanted to stop in and say hello. Enjoy your visit with your family, Sophie, and good luck finding full-time work. Don’t forget to let me know if I can help.”

“I’m sorry, Percy. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“We should both forget this killer.”

Sophie thought she heard genuine concern and regret in his voice, but she didn’t know him well enough to be sure. “I’ve seen pictures of him. He looks so normal. I wonder what he’s thinking now, locked up in his Boston jail cell. This has upset you, too, Percy. It would be weird if it didn’t.”

“Of course it’s upset me.”

She noticed Tim glowering at her. He wasn’t aware that Percy Carlisle had looked her up out of the blue a year ago. She glanced at her family. Her father looked as if he were about to make up a reason to come over to Percy’s table.

Tim and his friends started to play again, jumping right into their own mad rendition of “Irish Rover.”

“You should get back to enjoying the evening.” Percy withdrew his wallet and pulled out a few euros. “Stop by the house and meet Helen when you get back to Boston. We’ve hired a retired Boston police officer as our private security guard. I’ll make sure he knows to expect you. I never would have considered such a move, but after this summer…”

“I understand,” Sophie said.

He placed the euros on the table. “I know you do, Sophie. It’s good to see you.”

As he made his way through the crowd, he didn’t seem to hear the music, and he left without a word to anyone. Sophie returned to her family. Her father frowned at her, but she picked up her Guinness and offered a toast, dodging his curiosity as they clapped and tapped their feet to the music. They finished their round of drinks and headed out together, Taryn blushing when Tim shouted out to her and blew them all a kiss. His friends hooted, diving into their next song.

Out on the street, the evening air was cool and clear, perfect for the walk back through the village. Sophie asked her parents about their plans for the next month—anything, she thought, to keep the conversation away from her visit with Percy Carlisle and her impending return to Boston. By the time they crossed the stone bridge above the falls, stars sparkled in the night sky. Sophie lingered, listening to the flow of the water over the rocks, pushing back her analytical side and letting herself feel the presence of her ancestors.

After a few moments, she and her sister and parents continued down the road to their house, situated on a hillside above an old stone wall and painted bright yellow. The interior was open and comfortable, decorated with colorful furnishings and art they’d all collected over the years. Sophie pleaded fatigue and an early start and bolted straight for the bedroom she and Taryn shared. It had twin beds, skylights and a small window with a view of the starlit bay. She undressed quickly and climbed into bed, fighting back tears at the prospect of leaving Ireland tomorrow.

Taryn sat on the edge of the bed across from her. “Sophie, are you okay?”

She pulled her duvet up to her chin. “Just a little distracted.”

“There’s something going on with you. I know there is.” Taryn peeled off her scarf, the moonlight on her face as she studied her sister. “You haven’t been yourself for weeks. Months, really.”

“Taryn…don’t go there. Please.”

She kicked off her shoes. “Whatever’s bothering you has to do with what’s gone on in Boston, doesn’t it? I swear I can feel you being pulled in that direction.”

Sophie rolled onto her back and stared up at the skylight. “That’s because you’ve had too much Guinness.”

“Maybe.” Taryn leaned back onto her elbows and sighed. “Do you ever think about chucking your career and opening an Irish inn?”

“And marrying an Irish fisherman who plays the fiddle?”

They both laughed. “Oh, Sophie. What a couple of romantics we are under our tough-redhead exteriors.” But Taryn’s light tone didn’t last, and she sat up straight. “You’ll be careful in Boston, won’t you?”

For no reason at all, Sophie thought of solid, scarred Scoop Wisdom as he’d watched her at Keira Sullivan’s ruin. Had the violence of the past summer started there, on the night of the summer solstice—or had it started a year ago, on a thimble of an island off the Iveragh Peninsula?

“Sophie?”

“Yes, Taryn,” she whispered. “I’ll be very careful.”

5

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland

N ights on the Beara Peninsula were quiet but also incredibly dark, and Josie Goodwin found herself restless, frustrated and decidedly annoyed with her lot. As much as she liked Keira and Lizzie and enjoyed their company, she hated being left behind, stuck in a cottage in the Irish hills while Will, Simon and Myles were off doing…well, whatever they were doing.

She had few details. She’d learned early that morning that Myles was en route to Ireland and had alerted Will, who in turn had alerted Simon. In the month since Myles had again disappeared after helping to free Abigail Browning, he had continued to avoid communications with anyone in London. For the past two years, he’d sacrificed much to establish his cover as a rogue SAS officer and penetrate a deadly association between drug traffickers and a terrorist cell.

His cover was so deep, so impenetrable, that no one—not even Will Davenport—had known what Myles was up to. Josie and Will had believed Myles had been dragged off in a firefight in Afghanistan and killed—and not heroically at that. Killed by his terrorist friends after he had betrayed his colleagues to them.

But he hadn’t been killed, and he hadn’t betrayed anyone.

Now it was time he had help.

Josie resisted the temptation to pace. What she wanted to do was to return to London. But what could she do there?

Nothing more, she thought bitterly, than she could do right here.

With a heavy sigh, she surveyed the tidy room. Keira had lit a wood fire. Lizzie was washing up in the kitchen. Scoop Wisdom had left little evidence that he’d been here at all, never mind for two weeks. Josie walked over to the front window and looked out at the stars and half moon. She wondered if Myles would have let Norman Estabrook and his thugs kill Abigail before he risked compromising his own mission. He would never have considered such a dire option. He tackled problems head-on and went after the outcome he wanted—in that case, Abigail Browning free and safe, Norman Estabrook and his thugs dead or captured and he, a British agent, with the key information he needed to carry on his mission.

Josie could see Myles giving her one of his crooked, cocky grins. “No worries, love,” he’d say.

She’d never met a man so certain he could achieve whatever he was after.

She raked a hand through her hair. How could she blame Myles for the risks he’d taken—for his courage, his sacrifices?

Because she bloody well could, she thought, forcing herself to smile at her two housemates—Lizzie in the kitchen, Keira heading for the bedroom. “You’d never know Scoop had ever been here, would you?”

“That’s typical Scoop,” Keira said. “You should see his apartment. He had to get rid of everything after the fire, but he likes living a stripped-down life. He doesn’t need much more than a good colander for his garden harvest.”

“I like how you say ‘fire,’” Lizzie interjected. “It was a bomb.”

Despite her blunt comment, Lizzie was an optimist by both nature and conviction and every bit Will Davenport’s match. Josie had begun to doubt if he’d ever find the woman who was. Lizzie Rush not only knew her way around five-star hotels—she had taken on a billionaire and his professional thugs, and she’d held her own with Myles, Will, the FBI and the Boston police.

Lizzie was joining Keira and her young cousins and their detective father for tea on Christmas Eve at the Rush hotel in Dublin. They’d invited Josie. She just might chuck London for a few days and go at that.

Assuming she wasn’t in prison for killing Myles Fletcher in his sleep.

Of course, that would require he avoid getting himself killed on his own first. Will and Simon had gone after him in part because they were convinced—as Josie was—that Myles was on the verge of getting himself killed. It had been a long, difficult, treacherous two years. He had done his share. Would he ever be able to return to a normal life? Would he even want to?

Josie refused to go down that particular road. For a time, she’d thought Myles was, finally, a man who understood her, and she’d thought she understood him—including the challenges of being involved with him.

Of loving him.

She smirked to herself. That had been madness, hadn’t it? Fortunately, she had her son, Adrian. She’d gone outside before dark and called him. He’d had schoolwork to do. He was with his father, an accountant who hadn’t been pleased at all when he’d seen through Josie’s charade of a life. He hadn’t wanted a wife who was an intelligence officer in any capacity, even if it was largely behind a desk. He wanted a normal life. Who could blame him?

Adrian adored Myles and had asked about him frequently in the initial months after his presumed death and betrayal. Josie had been prohibited from saying anything—that Myles was alive, dead, missing. And what had she known? Nothing, as it turned out. Just as well she’d stayed mum. Adrian had finally stopped asking, but only after telling Josie that he knew Myles would be back.

Keira carried an armload of blankets and sheets from the bedroom. “It’ll be like a sleepover. Girls’ night. We can have a pillow fight.”

Lizzie paused at the sink, and she and Josie both gaped at Keira as if she’d lost her mind. Girls’ night? A sleepover? A pillow fight?

“Don’t look so shocked,” Keira said with a laugh, dumping the linens in a heap on the sofa, her pale hair hanging in her face. “I’ve never been one for troops of girlfriends, I admit, but I do like having you both here. Two of us can share the bed and one can sleep on the sofa, or one in the bed, one on the sofa and one on a mat on the floor. It’ll work.”

“Of course it will,” Lizzie said, smiling.

Josie angled Lizzie a sharp look. “If you polish that kettle for one more second, you’ll rub a hole in it. What is it, Lizzie? What’s on your mind?”

Lizzie dropped her cloth and abandoned the kettle. She stared out the dark window above the sink. “I was just thinking about Sophie Malone.” She sighed and faced Josie again. “I’m forgetting something. I know I am, but I can’t think what it is.”

“Something important?” Josie asked.

“I hope not.”

Keira sank onto the sofa next to her heap of linens. “Sophie’s a Celtic archaeologist originally from Boston, and she’s participating in the folklore conference. I can understand that she’d want to see the ruin. She just happened to pick a morning Scoop was there.”

“Yes,” Lizzie said, “but that doesn’t mean that’s all there is to it.”

Josie stood by the fire, welcomed its warmth on her back. “These days, nothing is ever quite as it seems, is it?”

Keira fingered the hem of an inexpensive sheet. “Sophie got to Scoop, don’t you think?”

“Is our Dr. Malone attractive?” Josie asked.

Keira blushed. “It’s not that.”

“Nonsense. It’s always ‘that.’”

Obviously preoccupied, Lizzie walked over to the pine table. “I didn’t know Sophie that well when she worked at our hotel in Boston.” She picked up a charcoal pencil from Keira’s array of art supplies, then immediately set it down again. “I know I’m missing something. I’ll remember, though.”

Of that, Josie had no doubt. Both Lizzie and Keira had faced considerable danger and violence since June and had come out on the other side in good shape.

Josie hadn’t faced anything more dangerous or violent than her email in-box.

“Are you going back to London tomorrow?” Keira asked her.

“I’ve no idea what I’m doing tomorrow,” Josie said, keeping any trace of bitterness out of her tone. “Today didn’t go as I expected. Why should tomorrow?”

Lizzie, obviously as restless as Josie was, pushed aside Myles’s pathetic Irish wolfhound drawing. “We can all drive to Dublin in the morning and have tea and scones at my family’s hotel there,” she said.

“You mean you want to talk to your cousin the doorman,” Keira said. “See if he can help you remember whatever it is about Sophie Malone you think is escaping you.”

Lizzie stood up straight. “We need to know exactly what her interest in your stone angel is.”

“It’s not my stone angel,” Keira said quietly. “It belongs to Irish legend now.”

Josie had noticed Keira struggle with her emotions since Simon’s departure. The upheavals of the past three months had to be finally catching up with her. She’d encountered a brutal killer, fallen in love with an FBI agent and learned of family secrets—the mysterious circumstances of her own conception here on the Beara Peninsula, a terrible murder thirty years ago that had haunted her mother and uncle. Before she’d had a chance to absorb all that, her life was again disrupted when Norman Estabrook decided to exact revenge. He’d trusted Simon, never once thinking he was an undercover FBI agent. As payback for what Estabrook regarded as Simon’s betrayal, he’d sent a killer after Keira. She and Lizzie had stopped him in the ancient stone circle just down the lane.

And now here we are again, Josie thought. Lizzie, hotelier and daughter of a spy. Keira, artist and folklorist. The two women were in love with dangerous men, and not a little dangerous themselves.

And me?

She was the enigmatic British spy, she thought with amusement and just a touch of bitterness. After Myles, she’d given up hope of having a normal relationship with a man.

Any relationship at the rate she’d been going for the past two years.

Now what? Myles was alive and he wasn’t a traitor, but nothing would ever be the same between them. There was no going back to their lives prior to his supposed death and treachery. He’d made his choices.

Lizzie sighed, shaking her head. “Stop kidding yourself, Josie.”

“What?”

“You’re as in love with Myles Fletcher as ever.”

“As ever? I’ve never been in love with him—”

Lizzie and even Keira burst into laughter. Josie suppressed a flicker of impatience. What did these two women know about her life? But she knew her mood had nothing to do with them and everything to do with those few minutes with Myles that afternoon. Being near him again after two years hadn’t been what she’d expected. She could almost feel his mouth on hers, his hands on her—the path to ruin, that sort of thinking.

“All right, then,” she said briskly. “It’s late and I’m hungry. What shall we fix for supper?”