Heron's Cove

by Carla Neggers

  “She will find you, Colin, but not through me,” Finian said. “I will keep your confidence.”

  When they reached the waterfront, Finian went into Hurley’s alone while Colin walked down to the docks, the tide rising but barely making a sound. He could hear his brothers’ laughter. Andy wasn’t cleared to drink whiskey yet but he was there.

  Colin felt the pressure in his chest, the tightness of emotion. He had a great family. He was damn lucky.

  He walked out to the end of the pier and dialed Emma. She didn’t pick up. She was still holed up with her colleagues, or maybe Yank had arrived. He waited for her voice mail, shut his eyes at the sound of her voice.

  “I have to go away for a while,” he said. “I’ll be in touch. I love you, babe.”

  He didn’t know what else to say.

  When he walked back to Hurley’s, Mike was waiting by the steps. “Come on. I’ve got my truck. I’ll give you a ride to wherever you’re going.”

  “Ireland.”

  His older brother’s mouth twitched in something like a smile. “To the airport, then.”

  “You hate the city.”

  “I’ll be back on the Bold Coast soon. Let’s go, brother.” As they started across the parking lot, Mike glanced at Colin. “We don’t have to talk on the way.”

  “Suits me.”

  “I thought it might.”

  * * *

  Matt Yankowski was waiting on the back porch of the Sharpe house when Emma walked up from the pier where she had been looking at the stars sprinkling a dark, clear sky. The Nightingale was still moored at the yacht club, its owner and crew recovering in the hospital.

  “I like the cabinets you picked out,” Yank said, nodding toward the kitchen.

  She sank onto the rail. “Don’t try to make me laugh.”

  “I’m not. I’m serious. I figure I have a stake in how this place turns out now that I’ve had a tac team go through here searching for poisons and such.” He stood at the rail next to her, facing the water. “How are your brother and grandfather?”

  “I called again a couple of hours ago. They were in the middle of a whiskey tasting with Declan Bracken. They’re okay.” She took a breath. “How are things in Rock Point?”

  “Does anything ever change there?”

  “You have to know what to look for,” she said with a smile.

  “Colin sometimes makes quick decisions,” Yank said without looking at her. “He goes with his gut, which doesn’t usually let him down.”

  Emma eased off the rail. Her side ached where Yuri had hit her, and she flashed on running her fingertips along Colin’s much-worse bruises. She felt heat rush to her cheeks and was glad for the cool air and darkness, especially with Yank watching her.

  “Colin’s trying to make it to Boston in time to catch a flight to Ireland,” she said.

  Yank raised his eyebrows. “He called you?”

  “Well, yes and no, but I have my sources.” She smiled. “Mike Donovan texted me.”

  “Not Father Bracken?”

  “He’s sworn to secrecy.”

  “No guilt in that grin of yours, Emma. I think you have these Donovan brothers beat.”

  “Or vice versa, maybe.”

  Yank looked down toward the Nightingale, partially lit against the dark night. “Your pal Ivan took off before the police and ambulance arrived at Tatiana Pavlova’s cottage.” Yank shifted his gaze back to Emma. “He made sure she would be okay first.”

  “He hadn’t drunk any of the poisoned cider.”

  “Either that or he keeps botulism antitoxin in his wallet.”

  Emma wouldn’t be surprised if he did. “I’ve been going over everything in my mind, and we both know that none of this would have happened if the arts crimes expert on your team wasn’t a Sharpe.”

  “Colin said the same thing about himself. You knew Dmitri Rusakov before Colin ever went undercover. Colin would have been killed or rounded up smaller players or taken longer and more arms would have ended up in the wrong hands if I hadn’t gone to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart and met you that day four years ago.”

  “Did you know back then that there was a Sharpe-Rusakov connection?”

  “I don’t remember if I knew then or found out, but I knew before you went to London to look into the disappearance of this Rusakov collection. I don’t have a crystal ball, Emma. I just pick good people. Your connections coupled with your knowledge, experience and temperament make you a valuable agent.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  “A lot of fish in the Sharpe sea,” he said.

  “You put in a line—through me—and see what you catch.”

  He sighed. “I wish it were that simple, or that easy. Don’t start turning into a cynic, Emma. It’s not your nature. Your fresh, open look at the world—at your work—is an asset, not a liability.”

  She angled him a smile. “Does that mean I’m not fired?”

  “Why would I fire you?”

  “For being a Sharpe,” she said without hesitation.

  He shook his head as if he had no clue what she was talking about.

  Emma crossed her arms against a cool breeze off the water. “What about Colin? What’s next for him?”

  Yank grimaced. “That’s what he needs to decide on this trip to Ireland. He needs to get his head screwed on straight. It’s hard to do with you around.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  “It’s the way it is.”

  She didn’t argue with him. “Natalie hooked up with some dangerous men. At first she thought she was just falling for a sexy pilot. After Bulgov’s arrest, when she realized Pete Horner and his Russian friends could pick up the pieces of their boss’s arms trafficking network, she couldn’t resist.”

  “She thought she could handle them,” Yank said.

  “The real question was whether they could handle her. They wanted Colin’s orphaned weapons—”

  “Which didn’t exist.”

  Emma nodded. “And they’d have killed him either way.” She paused, but Yank made no comment; she felt another breeze as she continued. “Natalie wanted Dmitri to buy the collection back from her, but that money became essential once Colin escaped. They needed it to buy weapons and keep their buyers happy, get their foothold as illegal arms merchants.”

  “She was drawn to the danger, glamor and sexiness of her idea of arms trafficking,” Yank said, thoughtful. “She wanted to be a player and she used what leverage she had available to her.”

  “Horner’s attraction to her. The collection. Her relationship with a Russian billionaire.” Emma paused, listened to the wash of the tide down on the stony beach. “Do you think they’d have killed Natalie when they no longer had any use for her?”

  “Tried to, maybe. The Russians, especially. Horner was all-in with her.”

  “She didn’t want to kill us all for any sensible, strategic reason. She wanted to kill us to make herself feel better. We didn’t drive her into Vladimir Bulgov’s world, and we didn’t drive her into hating herself.”

  Yank nodded. “It all came together in an outburst of violence and revenge,” he said.

  “Natalie’s fears about herself were justified. She is like her mother. She’s as mean, selfish and unfeeling. Worse, since her mother never resorted to poisoning people.”

  “Another baba yaga,” Yank said. “An evil Russian witch.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew Russian folklore.”

  “A few things you still don’t know about me, Agent Sharpe.” He stood straight and eyed her in the dim light from the kitchen window. “Colin isn’t the only one who has some thinking to do. You do, too. You need to decide where you belong, who you are. I can’t have someone on my team with doubts.”

  “Yank—”

  “You can always go back to Sharpe Fine Art Recovery but once you cross that threshold, you can’t go back to the FBI, at least not to my team.”

  Emma nodded. “I under
stand.”

  “As smart as you are, I’ll bet the hell you do.” Yank walked over to the back door, pulled it open as he glanced at her. “Think about taking a break yourself. You’re due.”

  He went inside, heading out through the front door to his car. Emma stayed on the porch. She was tempted to paint, but it was too cold. Instead she sat on the steps and stared out at the water, listening to the tide and wind, clearing her mind, centering herself. Meditation had been an important aspect of her life as a novice.

  After a while—she didn’t know how long, exactly—Mike Donovan walked across the yard from the parking lot on the other side of the hedges.

  Emma walked down the steps and joined him on the cool, dew-soaked grass.

  “I was in here once as a teenager,” Mike said. “I’d done something wrong. I forget what, but your grandfather had me sweeping floors to make amends. You’ll notice I’m not one of the law enforcement Donovan brothers.”

  “Did a few years in the military straighten you out?”

  “Not really.” He grinned at her, but his deep gray eyes remained serious as he turned and faced the water. “Finian Bracken owns a cottage in the Kerry hills.”

  “How do you know?’

  He shrugged. “Big brother Mike knows all.”

  “Why are you telling me?” Emma asked.

  “My brothers and I have broken enough hearts.” Mike shoved his hands into the pockets of his canvas jacket. “Colin’s being a rock head. He probably knows it by now.”

  Emma smiled. “Mike, you’re a romantic.”

  “That’s why I live alone in the woods.” He winked at her. “Give Colin a few days to get good and miserable before you go find him.”

  27

  EMMA STOPPED IN Heron’s Cove to check with the carpenters before her evening flight to Ireland. She had lasted three days. She couldn’t wait any longer. Matt Yankowski had all but shoved her out of her office in Boston, insisting she finally take time off. She hadn’t since Sister Joan’s death.

  The Nightingale was still at its mooring, but preparations were under way for its departure. Dmitri Rusakov and Tatiana Pavlova—his daughter—had been released from the hospital that morning and were spending time together on board.

  Ivan Alexander mounted the steps to the back porch. He smiled at Emma’s latest attempt at watercolor, clipped to the easel in the corner. “A great blue heron?”

  “My version, anyway.” She pointed with her brush at another watercolor heron, beautifully rendered, on the dresser where she kept her supplies. “Tatiana gave me that one. I’ll treasure it. She’s truly gifted.”

  “She’s done everything on her own.” He studied Tatiana’s watercolor. “Her mother and Dmitri fell in love as teenagers. Katya was—is—the love of his life. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone twenty years. Dmitri let his work consume him after her death. He told me it was best Tatiana stay with her mother’s family while he tended business. She had a quiet life, people who loved her. She was safe. He got caught up in money, his enemies—women.”

  “Tatiana wanted nothing to do with him, and he did nothing to correct her view of him.”

  “Nor did I,” Ivan said. “She was always artistic, like her mother.”

  “And feisty,” Emma said with a smile.

  Ivan didn’t return her smile. “Yes.” He picked up a pencil, checked its tip with his thumb. “I warned Dmitri about Vladimir Bulgov.”

  “In April?”

  “Then, too.”

  Emma digested his words. “You mean twenty years ago,” she said.

  “Dmitri didn’t listen until it was too late.”

  “You suspect Bulgov killed Katya.”

  “He wanted Dmitri to help him get started in business and Dmitri refused. He didn’t like Vladimir. I didn’t like him.” Ivan set the pencil down again. “I couldn’t prove that he killed Katya.”

  Emma rinsed her brush in a jar of water and set it to dry on the edge of the dresser, as Tatiana had taught her. “Was it revenge for not helping him?”

  “I think he believed Dmitri was in the car, too.”

  “So he didn’t target Katya,” Emma said. “What did he want with Dmitri in April?”

  “He wanted him to know that he’d found Tatiana. It was quite by accident, he said. He’d heard about the Firebird, that a young Russian designer was getting a lot of attention. When he saw her…” Ivan steadied his gaze on Emma. “He knew.”

  “But he never had a chance to use what he knew against him. Did you have anything to do with luring Bulgov to Los Angeles, Ivan? With helping me find out about his interest in Picasso?”

  He shook his head. “I would have helped you, but no.”

  Emma looked at her great blue heron, remembered Tatiana arriving at the Sharpe house. Was it only a week ago? “You’re Tatiana’s falcon,” Emma said. “Her protector. You have been since she was a little girl.”

  “She doesn’t always make that easy.”

  “Ivan—”

  “She’s like a baby sister to me,” he said, as if guessing what Emma meant to ask. “When Vladimir came to the Firebird and commissioned the nesting dolls, Tatiana let her imagination get carried away.”

  “She convinced herself you and Dmitri were in cahoots with him,” Emma said.

  He smiled, just a twitch of his straight mouth. “‘Cahoots.’ I like that word.” His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. “When I learned Natalie was bringing the collection here to Heron’s Cove, I thought Tatiana might find out, too.”

  “Dmitri knew you would put her first. He would protect her.”

  “It didn’t mean she would listen.”

  “No,” Emma said. “She knows now that she should never have hid from you, or from her father. She’ll make a full recovery. You got to her in time.”

  “And your man,” Ivan said quietly.

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  “He’s decisive. He acts on instinct but that’s good.” Ivan’s gaze didn’t waver. “He loves you very much.”

  “Ivan—”

  “I’m seeing Tatiana and Dmitri to the Bahamas. They will need weeks more of rest. They can get to know each other again, as father and daughter. They’ve made mistakes but it’s time to put the past behind them.”

  “The police found the collection in Natalie’s tote bag.”

  “It will be returned to Dmitri. There’s no question that he is the rightful owner.” Ivan turned and looked out at the water, not even glancing toward the Nightingale. “I didn’t see through Renee, or Natalie.”

  “You tried with both of them. It was you who broke into Natalie’s house in Phoenix?”

  “I knew Tatiana was there. I wanted to know what she would find.”

  “Nothing,” Emma said. “Natalie hid her affair with Pete Horner well. She knew what she was doing, just as her mother did when she made off with Dmitri’s collection. She’d found out about Tatiana, hadn’t she?”

  Ivan didn’t answer.

  “She didn’t like not being the fairest of them all,” Emma said, remembering Tatiana’s sketch. “And Tatiana knew.”

  “Renee sought her out. Dmitri found out. It was the last straw. At first she seemed like a beautiful woman who wanted to enjoy life.”

  “She and Natalie excelled at keeping their true natures hidden,” Emma said. “They knew how to make themselves irresistible when they wanted to ensnare people, capture them in their webs to use for their own needs and wants.” Emma was silent a moment, picturing the two women together in London four years ago, then Natalie just a few days ago, screaming in a rage. “They’re the sort who manipulate and use people—even the people who love them—and then discard them.”

  “Maybe most especially the people who love them,” Ivan said.

  “Renee’s gone, and Natalie and Vladimir are under arrest here in America. It’s time to heal.”

  Ivan turned to her, his eyes suddenly lost in the shadows. “Thank you, Emma, for all you’ve done. You wer
e an excellent Sharpe. Now you’re an excellent FBI agent.”

  “I still am a Sharpe. I just don’t work for my family’s business.”

  “Dmitri asked me to invite you aboard the Nightingale for a drink before he and Tatiana depart. He doesn’t want you to have any problems because of him.”

  “I won’t. I’ll stop by, but only for a minute. He and Tatiana both need to rest.”

  “And you have a plane to catch,” Ivan said with a small smile. “Give my best to your grandfather, and your agent.”

  “What makes you think—”

  “You’re here alone, and you don’t want to be.”

  She swallowed through a sudden surge of uncertainty. “Colin and I have complicated each other’s lives. I don’t know what’s next.”

  Ivan caught her fingers into his and squeezed them gently as he kissed her on the cheek. “I do,” he whispered.

  In the next moment, he was gone.

  * * *

  By midmorning, Emma was walking with her brother and grandfather on a lane that ran along a green ridge above Kenmare Bay and Declan Bracken’s house. She could hear sheep and cows, the rush of water in a nearby stream, and nothing else.

  “Walking’s the best cure for jet lag,” she said.

  “And for all that ails the soul.” Her grandfather slung an arm over her shoulders and hugged her close. “It’s good to have you here in one piece, Special Agent Sharpe.”

  But Lucas didn’t smile. He stayed along the hedgerow, the tangles of greenery dripping after an early-morning shower. The sun was out now, sparkling in the fields and down on the bay.

  Emma slipped out from her grandfather’s embrace and moved in closer to her brother. “I know you’re concerned that my job with the FBI endangers you, Granddad, the work you do. You dispatched your thug with no trouble, but I never should have sent you to London.”

  “It’s a damn good thing you did,” Lucas said with a grunt. “I don’t have to worry about the red tape that the FBI or Scotland Yard would have required.”

  “That’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that what happened in Heron’s Cove with Dmitri Rusakov proves your concerns about my role with the FBI aren’t unfounded.”

  “Does it, Emma?” her brother asked, not waiting for an answer. “Maybe there’s another way to look at this. Maybe being a Sharpe endangered a sensitive FBI mission. The thug that came after Granddad and me was a result of Sharpe work as much as of FBI work. That’s just the way it is.”