“Are you all right?” His arms were braced against the cliffs, his palms on either side of her head.
“I’m fine, a couple of scratches. More shaken than anything else.”
As her own breathing slowly returned to normal, she realized that he was still shaking. Eyes dark with shock, he looked haunted. Unable to speak, touched by the naked emotion on his face, she buried her face in his shoulder.
“God, Niall, I’m sorry. About everything.”
He looked at her for a moment, then he pulled her close and held her again. Finally, he moved away to see her face, looked into her eyes. And she wondered whether he could tell that she was in love with him.
NEITHER OF THEM said much as they walked, arms entwined, back to the lighthouse. They made love in the bedroom, woke during the night and made love again. With Niall’s arms around her, she finally fell asleep. When she opened her eyes, the room was filled with morning light.
She rolled over to find Niall already awake. Hands clasped behind his head, he lay on his back, eyes wide open. Without a word, he pulled her close, and they kissed with their bodies stretched out together, soft deep kisses that seemed to meld her to him. Every cliché she’d ever heard, clamored to be said aloud. I’ve never felt this way before. I never thought I could feel this way. I love you.
Her eyes filled, and she buried her face in his neck.
“Kate.” He pulled away to look at her. “What is it?”
She heard the choked sound from her throat at exactly the same moment they heard a loud pounding at the front door. Niall sat up beside her, then without a word, pulled on his jeans and left the room.
Heart racing, she got up and extricated her own clothes from the jumbled pile on the floor. Dressed, she ran her fingers through her hair and started to follow him out, when it occurred to her that she had no idea who the caller might be.
Minutes later, he came back into the bedroom, his face pale. Through the open door, she saw a uniformed Garda.
“I’m being arrested.” Niall reached for her hand. “For the murder of Elizabeth Jenkins.”
NIALL SAW THE COLOR drain from Kate’s face. Her hand to her mouth, she dropped onto the edge of the bed. With a glance at the Garda standing in the open doorway, he sat down next to her, “Listen,” he said softly, “it’s going to be all right—”
“No.” She stood, then bent to bring her face close to his, her voice low and intense. “You can’t still believe that. It’s not all right. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. They’re arresting you, for God’s sake.” She turned to address the Garda. “Look, can you give us a minute?”
“I’ll be right here,” the Garda said.
Kate pushed the door closed. Stayed with her back to it, arms folded across her chest. “Niall, you have to show them the damn note,” she said. “If you’d cleared that up, you wouldn’t be under all this suspicion now. I mean it’s noble and wonderful that you want to protect Moruadh, but—”
“Kate.” Behind her, the Garda had reopened the door and was looking into the room with undisguised curiosity. Niall steeled himself for what he had to say. “Go back to Santa Monica.” He got up from the bed, grabbed a clean shirt from the closet and put it on. “Get married, have some children. Forget all this.”
She blinked, clearly disconcerted. “What—”
“I said go home.” An image of the doll with the note attached to it gave his words conviction. “This has nothing to do with you. Don’t get yourself mixed up in it.”
A moment passed. A range of expressions played across her face. She stood in front of him, clutching his shirt. “Quit playing the damn protector,” she said. “You’ve done it long enough. It’s time for you to help yourself.”
In the hallway, the Garda cleared his throat.
Niall disengaged Kate’s hands. “I will. In my own way.”
“Your own way obviously isn’t working.”
“Kate—”
“No. I am not about to turn my back on you. I care about you, damn it.”
“Well, it’s not mutual.” He couldn’t look at her. “It was great, but now it’s over. I don’t need help. I don’t need support. I mean it. Go. I don’t need you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“WELL, HE’S WRONG, isn’t he, Rufus?” As she fumbled with the unfamiliar instrument panel of Niall’s Land Rover, Kate addressed the dog in the passenger seat. “He does need us. And we’re going to help him whether he wants us to or not.” She patted the top of the dog’s head. “He’s just stubborn. Like most males. No offense to you, of course.”
Niall had given her the key to the castle’s front door and asked her to drive Rufus back to Cragg’s Head. He would call a friend to come and feed the dog, he said. He would write to her, he said. To let her know how everything turned out.
Kate peered through the windshield as the car’s headlights caught the green directional sign in the distance. The dashboard clock blinked three o’clock. After Niall had left with the Garda, she’d lost thirty minutes chasing after the dog and almost an hour driving around Westport looking for an open gas station. And then, of course, the inevitable wrong turns.
She massaged the back of her neck. Her head ached and her shoulders felt stiff with tension. The Garda superintendent would need to see the suicide note to be convinced of Niall’s innocence in Moruadh’s death and, with Niall safely under arrest, they were hardly likely to go to the trouble of retrieving it. Which left only one alternative. She thought of the west wing’s ragged ledge and Moruadh’s study on the far side of it. It would be dark up there, but she couldn’t afford to wait for daylight.
“Your master had better damn well appreciate this,” she told Rufus. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love him.”
Her estimation had been correct. It was nearly five as she drove up the winding road to the castle; the sky was black with not a single star to punctuate the darkness. The car’s headlights caught something moving in the shrubbery along the side of the road, and she stepped on the brakes thinking it might be an animal. She drove a few feet farther to the front door, parked and turned off the ignition.
Rufus jumped out of the car after her and bounded down the hill. Shivering in the cold air, Kate made her way to the front door. She turned the key in the lock, but the door wouldn’t budge. Nothing about this place is easy, Niall had said as he’d fumbled with the key. He’d been right. A twig snapped somewhere, and she froze as she tried to pinpoint the location. She peered into the dark night.
“Rufus.” Her voice sounded shrill in the dark night. “Here, boy.”
She waited a moment, suddenly edgy and alert. The castle, in broad daylight with Niall beside her, unnerved her. At night, by herself, it had the qualities of a nightmare. Keys in hand, she thought about driving back down to the village. Maybe Patrick or Rory would be willing to help her. And then someone behind her said her name.
“Hugh! God, you scared the hell out of me.” Heart pounding, Kate gaped at him. His long hair slicked back in a ponytail, he wore a battered brown-and-green tweed jacket, black cotton shirt and a Pepto-Bismol–pink knit tie. Even in her rattled state, it struck her that he either had a real sartorial flair or truly awful taste. “What are you doing here? Where’s your car?”
“I walked. Needed a little fresh air.” He glanced at the key in her hand. “Trouble with the lock?”
As she started to explain, he took the key from her, fitted it into the lock and shouldered open the door. “There.”
“Thanks.” Uneasy still, she glanced over Hugh’s shoulder trying to spot the dog. “Rufus,” she called again. “Come on.”
Hugh smiled. “Probably has a lady friend down the hill.” He blew into his hands, rubbed them together. “Bit chilly, but not a bad evening for romance. I was walking up here to see you, but I ducked into the bushes when I heard your car, otherwise you’d have run me over.”
“You came to see me?” Kate frowned. “How did you even know I’d be here?”
“Since your car wasn’t outside Annie’s…” He smiled. “Reporters are good at putting two and two together. And you missed our appointment. Again.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry.” The truth was she couldn’t even remember making another appointment with him. After the kiss fiasco, it had seemed better to keep her distance. “It just, um, slipped my mind.”
“It’s all right.” He waved away her apology. “It isn’t the first time I’ve lost a woman to Maguire. All I can hope is that it will be the last time.”
Purse still in hand, she looked at him. He’d always appeared a little disheveled and pale, but now his face was almost ashen. Jingling the change in his pockets, he glanced beyond her shoulder to the dimly lit great hall visible through the open front door. From somewhere down the hill, Kate heard Rufus bark. She leaned forward to call him again, and then in a blur of movement, he took her arm and pulled her inside the room. He slammed the door closed behind them.
“Not to criticize your hospitality—” he smiled “—but it’s bloody cold out there, and I don’t fancy standing on the doorstep all night. I’ve brought Moruadh’s letters for you to see.”
Kate dropped her purse and car keys onto a table. A shiver ran down her spine. True, she had asked to see the letters and she probably had said something about seeing him again, so maybe it was reasonable for him to think he’d find her here. But in the dim light of the cavernous room, he spooked her. Eyeing the stuffed eagle over the mantelpiece and the fox and badger on the walls, Kate thought of the fortune-teller’s words. Death was all around.
A noise behind her made her start. She turned to see a giant candelabra slowly swinging. Caught in a draft, the trembling crystals sent shadows dancing, wild and erratic, on the walls. Her teeth started to chatter. She forced herself to smile at Fitzpatrick.
“So.” Arms folded across her chest. “You’ve got Moruadh’s letters?”
“You Americans are a very direct lot, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “You forget our appointment, leave me standing on the doorstep and now it’s down to business. No niceties, no chat. No offer of a drink. Just a demand and not a very friendly one, either.”
“I’m sorry, Hugh.” He was right, but she wasn’t in the mood for social calls. She took a deep breath. “What would you like? Tea, coffee?”
“A little of what you gave Maguire would be nice.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” He smiled. “A failed attempt at humor.”
Involuntarily, Kate looked again at the door behind him. In her peripheral vision, she could see the black phone on the table beside her. Outside, the wind shrieked, branches tapped against the window. Feigning nonchalance, hands tucked under her arms for warmth, she strolled over to the table where she’d left her keys and purse.
“I’m just a bit disappointed.” Fitzpatrick jingled the change in his pockets more violently. “I was so encouraged after we spoke. Finally, I thought to myself, someone who sees Moruadh’s death for what it was. Murder.”
“I think I told you I wanted to keep an open mind until I’d heard all the facts,” she said. At the table now, she started to reach for her car keys when she noticed the open drawer. Her hand froze. A small plastic doll lay on top of some papers, beside it a note scrawled in heavy black ink. Turn yourself in, Maguire. If she dies… She looked at Hugh, saw his eyes register the doll. With a faint smile, he returned his glance to her.
“The thing is, I’d taken you for a levelheaded woman. A woman who wouldn’t be seduced by Maguire’s boyish charm. After all, wasn’t it you who’d gone on about judging someone on surface appearance?”
“I’m sure I did.”
“But that was before you met him, wasn’t it?”
“Listen, Hugh…” She picked up the keys. In a flash, he grabbed them from her, shoved them in his pants pocket. For a moment, their eyes locked. Slowly—his eyes never leaving her face—he withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. As he lit up, his hand shook slightly, then he exhaled and peered at her through a drift of smoke.
“I have to say, even for Maguire, this must be a record of sorts. What was it, three days and he’d got you into his bed? Or did he slip it to you that first day up at the castle?”
He leaned against the doorjamb, smoking, a faint smile as though he’d asked a polite social question. Kate fixed her eyes on his shoulder. Slow breaths. Think. What is it you’re supposed to do in these situations? Don’t antagonize. Don’t show fear. Did Ireland use 911?
“Maguire did murder Moruadh, you know.”
“So you’ve said.”
“He murdered her because he was jealous. For once in his life, Moruadh’s life didn’t revolve around him. He couldn’t stand that. He also knew that Moruadh wanted to marry me. Did I tell you that?”
“You mentioned it.”
“Moruadh had accepted my proposal. She was going to divorce Maguire and marry me. When he found out, he killed her.”
Kate nodded. She clenched her jaw to stop her teeth chattering. Her eyes burned from the cigarette smoke. Should she make a break for the side door?
“Something tells me you’re still not convinced.” Cigarette between his teeth, he withdrew some letters from his inside pocket. “Moruadh sent these. May I read part of one?”
“Go ahead.”
“‘Niall is a plague upon me, Hugh,’” he read. “‘He will not leave me alone. He is obsessed with me. I have no life of my own while he is around.’” He watched her face as though for reaction. “‘A plague on me. Obsessed by me.’”
“You showed them to the Gardai?”
“Of course I did. Fat lot of good with the old superintendent. As good as on Maguire’s payroll, that one. This new fellow, though, paid a little more attention.” He smiled. “Between the two of us, these letters are part of the reason they finally stopped dragging their feet and picked him up.”
“You mean you just showed them these letters and it was enough?”
“Ah, finally we get a little reaction,” he said. “Lover boy’s in jail. And you don’t like that, do you?”
She looked at him, her brain racing. If Niall had been arrested for Elizabeth’s murder on the basis of Moruadh’s letters, now she had to retrieve the suicide note. First she had to get rid of Hugh.
“So, Hugh. Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here?”
He laughed. “Haven’t I already told you?”
“Seriously.” There were five, maybe six steps to the side door off the kitchen. With luck, it wouldn’t be bolted. Her eyes fixed on his, she took two steps backward. “Maguire’s in jail now, Hugh. You obviously believe that’s where he belongs.” She took another step. “And you may be right.” Another. “I’ll have to give you my address in the States and you can write and let me know how it all turns out.”
She turned to run, but in an instant he was behind her. As he reached to grab her arm, she ducked and ran across the room, throwing obstacles in his way. A chair missed him, but the lamp she hurled with both hands hit his forehead. It only slowed him for a few seconds. He grabbed a handful of her hair, jerked her head back, arching her neck and throat. With one hand around her throat, he began to press lightly against her jugular vein.
“What do I want? you ask.” His voice was soft as a lover’s. “What do I want? I want to have you like Maguire had you. That’s what I want. Mind you, I have to say I’ve grown a little tired of his castoffs. It’s been that way my whole life, you know.” The pressure of his fingers intensified. “It’s not fair, is it? But then life’s not fair.”
Her vision began to blur.
“No doubt you think it’s unfair that lover boy’s behind bars, but I’m here to take his place. When I’m through with you, you’ll never think about Maguire again.”
As he spoke, he half dragged her over to the couch, pushed her down and fell on top of her. One hand on her chest, he tugged at the zipper of her jeans.
“Maguire’s castoff.” He shoved
his knee between her legs. “Sure, I’d like to have been there first, but this’ll do.”
With massive effort, she brought her knee up and jabbed him in the groin. As she jumped up from the couch, he caught her and hit her across the face. While she was still reeling, he slammed her back down, pinning her with his hand. Barely conscious of his face anymore, she stared wordlessly. Blackness threatened, the room seemed to tilt.
“Bitch.” He grabbed the front of her shirt. Buttons flew. “Just like all women, aren’t you? You’ll put out when it suits you, won’t you? Just like Moruadh after Maguire had enough of her. Just like that little tramp up on the cliffs. Sure, all over me until Rory shows his face. Well, I showed her and I’ll show you.”
He reached for his fly.
Kate screamed. A loud, bloodcurdling sound that filled the space between them. Kept on screaming until he shoved a hand, the one he’d been using to pin her down, across her mouth. She bit him, hard, and struggled into a sitting position.
“Listen to me, damn it,” she said. He pushed her, but she shook herself free. “Just listen to me. Look, we’re both writers, okay?” White spots blinked before her eyes. She struggled to rally her thoughts. “You know what it’s like, right? Gotta get the story, right?” Keep talking. “Sure, I screwed Niall. Only way I could get any information from him, okay? He’s a wuss, though. Couldn’t get it up.” Sorry, Niall. His grip on her arm lessened slightly. “What a joke, huh?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He hit her again. “Shut up, if you can’t do any better than that.”
“Okay, listen to this.” Something warm trickled from her mouth. Her lip was starting to swell. “I know where Moruadh’s journals are.” Something flickered in his eyes, and she pressed on. “Remember you said the Gardai couldn’t find them? You were right, Maguire hid them. He knew they’d be incriminating.”
“Where are they?”
“Right here in the castle. Want me to go and get them?”
The Man on the Cliff Page 22
