Saint's Gate

by Carla Neggers

  She sighed. “It’s hard not to be.”

  She laughed unexpectedly, and Finian found himself laughing, too. As they walked back along the steep hillside, staying close to the trees to avoid the incoming tide, he realized he was noticing the beauty of his surroundings more than his sense of loss and the presence of the dead.

  They came to the near-vertical steps back up to the cemetery, and he paused. “The right man for you won’t care that you were a novice for a time, Emma. It’s part of who you are. The right man will see you for yourself.”

  “Maybe there is no right man, Father.”

  He had no answer for her.

  She brushed against the branches of a holly. “I need to focus on figuring out what’s going on. Do you want more time here, or can you come with me?”

  “I’ll meet you on the terrace of the Park Hotel in an hour.”

  “If you don’t,” Emma said, “I’ll find you. Understood?”

  Finian smiled, relaxing for the first time since his arrival in Ireland. “Yes, Agent Sharpe.”

  She smiled, too. “Call me Emma,” she said.

  “I’m Fin or Finian.”

  She started up the steep steps. “All right, Fin. I’ll meet you at the Park. Don’t be late.”

  Finian suspected Colin wouldn’t be far behind her and decided to wait for the tide to come a little closer before he returned to the graveyard on the hill above.

  24

  COLIN WAITED IN THE SHADE AMONG THE HEAD-STONES of the Irish dead. He stood next to a small family plot in the far corner of the old cemetery and watched Emma slip back out through the gate. She hadn’t come there by car. She must have walked from the village, or parked at the luxury hotel that bordered the graveyard.

  He wanted to talk to Bracken first.

  He had gathered the facts on his priest friend. Even if he was late, he was thorough. Finian Bracken was thirty-nine years old. He and his fraternal twin, Declan, were the eldest of five Bracken siblings. They had three younger sisters. Seventeen years ago, the brothers had pooled their resources—limited as they were—and borrowed from anyone who’d lend them money, bought an abandoned distillery near Killarney and started Bracken Distillers.

  Finian had married at twenty-four. His wife, Sally, was a marketing whiz who’d helped Bracken Distillers make its mark in the competitive whiskey business. Declan married later, shortly after the deaths of his sister-in-law and nieces. He and his wife, Fidelma, had three small children.

  Finian walked slowly along the rough path to where Colin stood. “I see I’m not hard to find,” the priest said. “Or did you follow Emma?”

  A soft breeze came with the rising tide and dark clouds from the west. “What were you doing down by the water?” Colin asked.

  “There’s a holy well there.”

  “No wonder Emma found you.”

  Bracken smiled. “Surely you’ve faced scarier things in your days as an FBI agent than an ex-nun.”

  Colin grunted. “Not much scarier.” He ignored the tension in his jaw, the back of his neck. “Fin, I need to know what you’re doing here.”

  Bracken turned and faced the water and the view, stunning even in the gray. “Vikings sacked abbeys and monasteries up and down this coast. They sacked the church here. Can you imagine what it must have been like?”

  “I’m not up on my Irish history.”

  “Neither am I, to be honest.” Bracken stood by a slab headstone, its inscription so worn by time and the elements that it was almost impossible to read. “Colin, I didn’t choose Rock Point because of the Sharpes or you.”

  “Emma asked you that?”

  “Oh, yes. I have no sinister reason for being in Maine. I ran a tough, honest business, and I endured an unspeakable tragedy. Then I received a call from God to the work I do. I had a new purpose in getting up each day.”

  “I’m sorry about your family, Fin. I should have looked into your background before now.”

  Bracken stared at the old stone. “I can help you find this killer. I have contacts—”

  “You’re a priest. You’re not a law enforcement officer.”

  Colin realized he was getting a glimpse of the man Finian Bracken had been before entering the priesthood—before the tragic loss of his family. He’d been a successful businessman, a happily married, outgoing Irishman with two young daughters. Now he was living in a run-down rectory and serving a struggling church on the other side of the Atlantic.

  “I believe in miracles, Colin.” Finian raised his gaze from the stone and looked out across the water. “My presence in Rock Point has meaning. I pushed everything down deep and focused on my call to this work, but inside I was still flailing. I knew I needed to shake things up.”

  “So you arranged to serve the church in Rock Point,” Colin said, his voice softening, although his tension hadn’t eased.

  “I admit I came to lick my wounds. It took a few weeks before I understood that I was there simply to do my work as a priest.”

  “And to live your life,” Colin said.

  “I debated telling you my story, but I didn’t want to distract you.” Finian shifted from the view and gave Colin a knowing look. “And I was aware that you don’t entirely trust me. You don’t trust anyone.”

  Colin grinned suddenly, surprising himself. “You got that right, Father Fin. Let’s get out of here. You priests might not mind cemeteries but I’m getting the creeps.”

  Bracken didn’t move. “This thief and killer has struck before, Colin.”

  “Are you guessing or do you know?”

  “I haven’t done my research yet, but I have resources I can tap—”

  “No research, Fin. No tapping your resources. It’s bad enough I have to keep track of an ex-nun with a gun and a target on her back. An Irish priest who knows whiskey and has a few million in the bank taxes my skills and experience.”

  “Ah, yes. There’s only so much even you can do, my friend.”

  Despite his amusement, Bracken hadn’t given up. Colin could see the resolve—the stubbornness—in the priest’s eyes.

  He let Bracken lead the way back to the entrance of the burial ground. Colin went through the turnstile at the locked gate, noticing his priest friend pause, as if in prayer, before he came through.

  Bracken produced a set of keys and headed to a small BMW in the paved parking area. He looked over the hood, back at Colin. “I’ll bet this killer has struck private homes—thefts that haven’t been widely reported.”

  “Finian.”

  He waved a hand, dismissive. “I’ll be discreet.” Bracken smiled, looking revived, energetic. “I can do things an FBI agent can’t. No worries, my friend.”

  “That’s romantic, Fin. Wait until you find a bomb under your dining room table.”

  The priest opened his car door. “You do have an interesting way of thinking.”

  “I’m not wrong about you, am I?” Colin felt the cold mist on the back of his neck. “You didn’t kill that nun?”

  “I did not.”

  “You’re not in Maine to hurt Emma Sharpe?”

  “No.”

  “Anything, Fin. If I find out you’re lying about anything, I’ll deal with you myself.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” Bracken said, then climbed in the car and shut the door.

  Colin got in his own rental. It was smaller than Bracken’s BMW. A prudent step, given driving on the left and the crazy Irish roads. He calculated that Emma would be almost to the village by now.

  He started the engine, wondering if she’d be surprised to see him.

  25

  EMMA CROSSED A SMALL SUSPENSION BRIDGE JUST outside the village of Kenmare. The wind was strong off the bay, refreshing after her trek to Saint Finian’s holy well and her talk with Father Bracken. An elderly woman walking a little white dog greeted Emma as she headed off the bridge. She mumbled a quick hello and wondered where she’d be in forty or fifty years. Walking a little dog in Heron’s Cove? She shook off t
he thought and ran across the busy street into Reenagross Park.

  The tide had come up considerably, and she felt her tension ease as she continued on a wide lane along the water, across from the holy well where she’d met Finian Bracken.

  As she cut onto a mulched path into the woods, Colin swung out from behind a giant rhododendron. “Agent Sharpe,” he said. “Fancy meeting you out here in the Irish wilds.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t be far away.”

  He eased in close to her. “I looked up Saint Brigid.”

  Emma angled a smile at him. “Fascinating, isn’t she?”

  “She is. Mary of the Gael, she’s called. She’s a patron of the arts, children of unmarried parents, blacksmiths, dairy workers—and Ireland. She was one of the original Irish Celtic Christian saints, a bit younger than Saint Patrick.”

  “Some say she’s a Christian version of the pagan goddess Brigid.”

  “Does that matter to you?”

  “Not at all. The goddess Brigid and Saint Brigid share some of the same traits and concerns—hospitality, healing, abundance, fertility, the arts. Saint Brigid founded an abbey in Kildare—Cill Dara, which means the cell of the oak. It became an important center of learning. Her story still resonates with people over a thousand years after her death.”

  Colin went ahead of Emma onto a path that curved up a hill, under a natural arch formed by more huge rhododendrons. “She’s said to have turned water to ale. My kind of saint.”

  “Brigid is revered for her sense of hospitality.”

  “A pint of ale would do it. She’s often depicted with a cow, since legend says she grew up on a dairy farm.” Colin grinned. “See? I’ve done my homework.”

  They emerged from the rhododendron tunnel. Emma felt the soft ground under her feet. “I turned the Sisters of the Joyful Heart into something they weren’t. Something I wasn’t. Yank says my entering the convent was a whim.”

  Colin started down a steep, short hill ahead of her, then turned and looked up at her, a flicker of amusement in his gray eyes. “That’s what he says to you. He tells me it was about guys.”

  She sighed and descended the hill. “It wasn’t about guys.”

  “You realized there’d never be a rugged lobsterman in your life.”

  She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t about men, lobstermen or otherwise.”

  She plunged past Colin onto a narrow footpath that wound through tall marsh grass to the water. He followed her, saying nothing. Finally she spun around at him. “I became a postulant at nineteen. I didn’t actually start living at the convent until I took the next step and became a novice. I truly felt I had a calling, but I don’t know if I would have if it hadn’t been for the particular convent that was close to me when I was growing up.”

  “The Sisters of the Joyful Heart and their art connection,” Colin said, no hint of teasing now. “The fact that they’re into art and you Sharpes are prominent art detectives isn’t a coincidence. Your grandfather’s friendship with Mother Linden was already well established when you were born. The order she founded was a natural refuge for you.”

  “That’s what was wrong. It was a refuge, and it shouldn’t have been. Sister Joan saw that sooner than anyone else. Sooner than I did, for sure.”

  “Could Sister Joan have known about Claire Grayson and her painting of Saint Sunniva?”

  “I don’t see how. Mother Natalie might know—she was a novice forty years ago when Claire was taking painting lessons from Mother Linden. Sister Joan was younger. We don’t know for certain it’s the same painting Sister Cecilia described, although I can’t imagine it’s not.”

  Colin walked out to the end of the path, almost into the water. Emma noticed the shape of his shoulders and hips and warned herself not to get caught up in fantasies about him. Finian Bracken was right. Colin stood apart from his family and friends. He even stood apart from the FBI.

  He glanced back at her. “So is the snappy wardrobe because you were a nun? Are you going against type?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “The leather jacket, the boots, the cute sweater—”

  “Functional,” she said.

  He gave her a sexy smile. “They look good to me.”

  It was late in the day after little sleep—never mind the rest of what was going on—and she wasn’t getting sucked in by an undercover agent at a loose end. She’d resolved not to on the drive across Ireland that afternoon.

  Emma retraced her steps back through the tall grass. She was five yards into the trees on the main path when Colin caught up with her.

  “Have you seen your friend Father Bracken?” she asked.

  “I just left him in the cemetery.” Colin gave a shudder that was clearly fake. “Damn, that place got to me.”

  “He’s not going to stand on the sidelines.”

  “I told him to.”

  “He didn’t tell you about his family, did he?”

  “No reason to.” Colin jumped lightly over an exposed tree root. “I wouldn’t read anything into it, Emma. Some of us are simple. You’re the one with all the layers.”

  “I don’t think you’re that simple. You’re natural. Confident. You trust yourself.” She squinted through the trees, noticing a young couple walking—or being walked by—a rambling basset hound. She smiled, looked again at the man next to her. “Your brothers think you’re a desk jockey FBI agent. At least, they pretend to. I actually am a desk agent. I like my desk.”

  “It’s nice and neat, like your apartment.”

  “I don’t think well in clutter. Some things come more easily to me than others. I have to train hard to stay on top of my kick-ass game.”

  “But you can kick ass?”

  She took no offense. “Well enough. And I can shoot.”

  “Good. We like FBI agents who can shoot.”

  “You enjoy your family and your work, but you have a solitary job. You don’t like oversight. You trust your own instincts.” Emma paused under the wide branches of an oak. “You don’t let many people know you, do you?”

  He stood in front of her, close. She could see the rough day’s growth of beard on his jaw, and a small scar on his right cheek.

  There was another scar next to his left eye. She hadn’t noticed before. She could think of about a dozen reasons it probably wasn’t a good sign that she was noticing now.

  He put a hand on her hip, under her jacket. “Maybe you’re more like me than you think,” he said in a low voice.

  “I’m not like you at all.”

  The couple with the basset hound zigzagged past them, smiling and saying hello, and Emma took the opportunity to cut down another path, in the direction of the hotel where she’d agreed to meet Father Bracken. Colin could take the hint and go about his business, but she had a feeling she was his business, at least for the moment. It didn’t matter. He was intense, relentless and well aware that she was attracted to him.

  She needed a few minutes on her own.

  The tide was up, the water ripping under a gentle breeze, when Emma reached a stone footbridge and Colin again fell in next to her. She’d been walking at a brisk pace and slowed, finally stopping on the small bridge. “Do you suspect me of killing Sister Joan and planting the bomb in my grandfather’s vault? Attacking him this morning in Dublin?” She cast him a cool look. “Yank would say you should.”

  “I don’t need Yank to tell me anything.”

  It wasn’t a combative statement so much as factual. Senior agents like Matt Yankowski relied on their Colin Donovans to use their instincts, knowledge, training and experience, with enough accountability and oversight to keep everyone happy.

  “You don’t think I belong on Yank’s team, do you?”

  “Not my call.”

  “I’ve fought not belonging ever since I left the sisters. Yank kept in touch the year I worked in Dublin. He saw me as building experience and contacts.”

  “He knew he had you or he wouldn’t
have wasted his time staying in touch.” Colin leaned against the stone bridge. “You went to the convent alone the other morning. You came here to Ireland alone. No backup, no coordination.” His tone was unemotional, neither soft nor hard. “You’re not a team player, Emma.”

  “This from an undercover agent probably a lot of people think is dead.”

  He winked at her. “Got a point there, sweetheart.” He stood up straight and slung an arm around her waist. “So which vow was the toughest, Sister Brigid—obedience, chastity or poverty?”

  She felt herself get hot. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It would be for me. Chastity. Hands down. I figure I’d have wiggle room on obedience and poverty, but chastity? That’s black and white.”

  “In your world, maybe.”

  He dropped his arm back to his side, and they walked off the little bridge, then past a garden of imported shrubs and plants that thrived in southwest Ireland’s mild, wet climate. On another day, Emma would have enjoyed studying the markers and spending a few leisurely minutes in the quiet park.

  “Vows aren’t just about what you can and can’t do,” she said, not looking at Colin. “They’re about making the choice to fully embrace God’s call. I made first vows as a novice, but I stopped short of making final vows.”

  “Are novices kept separate from full nuns?”

  His question surprised her, until she reminded herself that he was an FBI agent and a nun had just been killed. “Novices with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart have separate living quarters within the motherhouse.”

  “Is it a Spartan life?”

  “I suppose that depends on your point of view.”

  “Do novices spend a lot of time thinking?”

  Emma smiled. “Postulants and novices enter into an intense period of discernment to test whether their call to a religious life is authentic.”

  “Yours wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t lasting, I can say that.”

  “What’s the difference between a postulant and a novice?”