He continued onto a rocky path into a glen, the main road disappearing behind the barren hills. He was the only soul in sight, only his footfall disturbing the silence. He crossed a stream as the sunrise spread around him. On previous walks, as a husband, a widower, a seminarian, he’d seen Irish red deer in the oaks across the bog, but he didn’t this morning.
He eventually made his way up a steep hill, Kenmare Bay and the surrounding mountains coming into view in the distance. Behind him were the mountains of Killarney. He paused by a holly bush and looked up at the brightening sky. He could see Sally and their daughters. He could hear their laughter and not, this time, the cries of their fear and suffering. They were real, intense, there.
“Ah, my girls. I should have been with you.”
Finian stayed a few moments, then turned back through the glen just as a rainbow arced in the mist over the still, beautiful hills.
When he arrived at his car, he had an email from Colin Donovan in response to his information on the break-ins. It was well before dawn in Maine. What was Colin doing awake? He was, as ever, to the point: Mind your own business.
Finian laughed, even as he understood the seriousness of the situation at hand.
As he drove through Killarney and out toward the airport, he saw another rainbow, vibrant, never to be taken for granted.
30
EMMA SAT ON A HIGH STOOL AT THE BREAKFAST bar in Colin’s kitchen, relieved that they’d had his email from Finian Bracken to help ease the awkwardness of the morning. Waking up in Colin’s bed without him had been just as unsettling as waking up in her bed with him. She’d lain under the blankets, warm, tingling with the memory of his arms around her as he’d carried her up the stairs.
A message about a possible Albrecht Dürer etching and a possible Viking bracelet turning up stolen had plunged her back into the harsh reality of why she was even in Maine.
“This is new information.” Emma helped herself to a cracker. Food options were few and far between. “Father Bracken didn’t exaggerate, did he? He has good sources.”
Colin was less impressed. “He’s a priest. He should stick to his job.”
“He’d have involved himself even if he didn’t know you. A nun was killed and he wanted to help.”
“Either that, or he’s fooling us all.”
Emma tilted her head back, taking in his raw look. He’d put on jeans and a dark chamois shirt but hadn’t shaved yet and was just in a pair of wool socks. The effect was intimate, casual and enough to take her breath away. “You look as if you had a rough night, Agent Donovan.”
He grunted. “I’m taking the sofa bed to the dump. The mattress is so thin I could feel the bars under it, and my feet hung off the end.”
“You could have come upstairs and—”
“No, I couldn’t have.” Colin slipped into scuffed boots by the back door. “I’ll go get us coffee and breakfast. Back in ten minutes. You can work Fin’s tip.”
“Were you awake when it came in?”
“I was.”
She felt a chilly draft when he went out the door. She slid down off her stool, the morning sun streaming through the kitchen windows. She had work to do. It was already afternoon in Ireland and London. She wanted to reach her grandfather, her own contacts. She wanted to talk to her brother again, too.
She collected her things, found a pen and index card and left Colin a quick note, then headed out to her car. The morning was warming up fast, a summerlike touch of humidity in the air. When she arrived at her grandfather’s house in Heron’s Cove, she had an email from Sister Cecilia asking her to stop by the shop and studio the sisters ran in the village.
Emma decided to walk into the village. Halfway there, Colin passed her in his truck. He didn’t wave. She didn’t exactly blame him if he was annoyed with her for sneaking out on him.
By the time she reached the sisters’ shop on a narrow side street, he was sitting on a bench in front of the small, shingled building they rented. “Are we of like minds,” Emma said, “or did you guess I’d come here?”
“I tucked a homing device on your jacket collar last night.”
“Very funny. You could have waved when you passed me.”
He stretched out his legs. “I did.”
“I didn’t see you wave.” She glanced into the first-floor shop; she could see Sister Cecilia rearranging a shelf of pottery vases painted with wild blueberries that they sold on consignment. Emma looked back at Colin. “I want to talk to Sister Cecilia. Wait out here. I don’t need you influencing her.”
“No problem. I’ll be right here unless I get bored and decide to try my hand at painting. Watercolor class is up next.”
Emma ignored him and went inside. A sister she knew from her own days at the convent was minding the cash register, allowing Sister Cecilia to lead Emma to a back room. Its white walls were decorated with cheerful children’s finger paintings, but the novice wasn’t cheerful. “This all just gets worse,” she said. “I think the shock’s worn off, and now I really feel the pain of what’s happened.”
“That’s understandable,” Emma said.
“I’ve been going through old photos that I collected for my work on Mother Linden’s biography.” Sister Cecilia brushed stray hairs out of her face, tucking them back into her white headband. “I have a few minutes before my next class. Watercolor painting for teenagers.” She gave a faltering smile. “I love watercolors.”
“I do, too. Sister, I got your message—”
“Yes. I wanted to show you.” She fumbled with a stack of files on a trestle table. “Ainsley d’Auberville wants to include her father’s painting of Mother Linden’s Saint Francis statue in her show—the one that’s hanging now in the retreat hall. That would be fun for all of us. Apparently he would often take a series of photographs of the houses and gardens he was commissioned to paint and use them to help as he did the actual painting.”
“Did he take photographs of the statue of Saint Francis?”
Sister Cecilia nodded. “Ainsley found two in her father’s studio. I can’t wait to see them. That’s not why I called, though.” She grabbed a folder and opened it on the paint-spattered table. She withdrew a small, faded black-and-white photograph of a cedar-shingled house. “The detectives asked me if I’d run into anything on Claire Grayson in my research on Mother Linden. I hadn’t, but I started looking through my files, and I found this photograph. It’s not labeled, but I’m sure it’s a picture of her and Mrs. Grayson.”
Emma recognized Mother Linden, smiling in her traditional nun’s habit. Next to her was a beautiful woman in slim pants and a white shirt, her platinum hair pushed off her face. She had a gentle smile. Her eyes were half-closed, not focused on the camera.
“It’s by the tower fence,” Sister Cecilia said. “The statue of Saint Francis is still there. I think it must have been taken the summer Mrs. Grayson took painting lessons from Mother Linden.”
And died in a fire, Emma thought. She studied the picture with interest. “Have you called the detectives yet?”
“Not yet. I wanted to show you first.” Sister Cecilia hesitated. “I need to tell Mother Natalie.”
Emma understood. “How did you get here?”
“I rode my bicycle. It’s such a beautiful day.”
“Have you told anyone else about the photograph?”
“No, just you so far. I only just found it. The convent has a huge collection of photographs from when Mother Linden was alive. I’ve been going through them because of my work on her biography.”
“You seem nervous,” Emma said.
“Do I? I guess I am. I’ve never had so much contact with the police before. I know you’re a federal agent, but…” She stopped, clearly embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll call the detectives and have them meet you here. You need to tell them what you’ve told me and show them the photograph.”
“I understand. Mother Natalie reminds us not to be afraid of the truth.
She doesn’t have a heavy hand as Mother Superior. That’s not our tradition.” Sister Cecilia fingered the edge of the old photograph. “I heard you’d been a member of our community. Why did you leave?”
“I discovered I wasn’t called to be a religious sister after all. A novitiate’s an exciting time, but it’s also challenging, for the most part in positive ways.”
“When it comes time to make my final vows, I know I won’t have any doubts.”
“I expect not, Sister. I expect you’ll know what’s right for you.”
They returned to the front room of the shop and studio. Emma called Detective Renkow and, reassured that another sister was present and Sister Cecilia wouldn’t be alone, went outside. Colin rolled up off the bench, sliding his phone back into his pocket, a suggestion he hadn’t been idle while she’d been inside.
Her own phone vibrated in her jacket pocket, and Emma ducked past him to take the call. “Sunniva definitely isn’t here in Ireland.” It was her grandfather’s voice on the other end. He sounded energetic, focused. “I searched just in case I’d forgotten. I didn’t. That painting sat up in my attic for decades, Emma. It’s of no serious monetary value, but someone broke in, grabbed it and left a bomb behind, then flew to Ireland to nail me. Why, I don’t know.”
“We’ll find out, one way or the other.”
“I don’t dwell on the past, but I’ve been thinking about Claire Grayson. I wish I’d realized what a bad state she was in. Your folks do, too.”
“I can understand that,” Emma said. “I’m struck by the surface similarities between Claire and Saint Sunniva. I wonder if it was a bit of a self-portrait. Sunniva ran away from her homeland to escape a forced marriage. Claire ran away from her husband. She burned to death, though. Sunniva died in a cave.”
“The similarities might have been enough to draw Claire into painting her. She wasn’t a prolific artist, not that she had the chance to be, but I doubt she did more than two or three paintings while she was in Maine.”
“The Sunniva painting is ambitious. The research, the attention to detail—it must have taken time.” Emma stepped into the shade of the building, the midday sunshine more like summer than fall. “Anything else on any artwork Claire might have brought East with her?”
“One thing.” Her grandfather seemed subdued. “It’s nothing I thought much about at the time. I’d like to do more research—”
“Tell me, Granddad.”
He sighed. “You sound just like the FBI,” he said with a touch of humor.
“Now’s not the time to hold on to information, even if it’s not firm.”
“I don’t have much. Gordon Peck, Claire’s grandfather, bought the house in Maine and started the family’s art collection. He was a bit of a character. He liked to think of himself as a philanthropist and gave away a number of pieces, but his estate was a mess when he died. His son and daughter-in-law sold whatever they could. Then they died in a plane crash.”
“Leaving poor Claire on her own,” Emma said. “You’ll tell Lucas?”
“I don’t have to. He called a little while ago. You and he—”
“We’re in touch,” Emma said.
“You’re not staying together? You found a bomb in the damn attic, Emma. I hope you’re not staying there alone. I don’t care if you’re an FBI agent.”
She glanced back at Colin and said, “I’ve taken reasonable precautions. Thanks for the info, Granddad. Be well.” She slid her phone into her pocket and turned to Colin, wondering how much he’d overheard. “Can you take me out to see Ainsley d’Auberville? I can walk back for my car if I have to—”
“Here I was thinking we’d go out for a late breakfast and a nice stroll on the beach.”
“Sister Cecilia found a picture of Claire Grayson. CID’s on the way.”
Emma headed down the walk. Colin caught up with her in two long strides. “Hold on, sweetheart. I’m not letting you out of my sight again. You cost me an extra cup of coffee. I ate the doughnut I bought you, so I won’t put that on your tab.”
“I left you a note. I had work to do.”
“My truck’s around the corner. That was Granddad Sharpe on the phone, I gather. What if he’s covering up something in his past?”
“Then I’ll find out,” she said, refusing to take offense at Colin’s question, and got into the truck.
He climbed in next to her, filling up the cab with his broad shoulders, his long legs. He frowned at her. “What?”
“Nothing.”
He must have noticed the heat rushing to her cheeks. He grinned. “Wishing you walked back for your car, after all, aren’t you?”
“You’re a hard man to ignore,” she said.
“Good.”
“You’re not mad at me for skipping out on you this morning?”
“I got two doughnuts out of it.”
“I’m serious.”
“It’ll teach me to give you information.”
“You’d have done the same thing with a case on your mind,” Emma said.
“This isn’t a simple art crime case, Emma. It’s a murder case.”
As if she needed reminding.
Colin started the engine. “Tell me what Granddad had to say.”
As they headed south out of the village, Emma filled him in on her conversation with her grandfather, leaving out only his concern for where she was sleeping.
When she finished, Colin was turning onto the sunny lane to the d’Auberville studio on Claire Grayson’s former property. “Maybe your brother’s the one who’s covering up past crimes,” he said.
“You can ask him,” Emma said coolly, nodding to the converted carriage house. “That’s his car parked behind Gabe Campbell’s van.”
31
GABE CAMPBELL CARRIED A SMALL, DUSTY CHEST down the front steps of the former carriage house. “Hey, there,” he said, smiling as he set the chest on the driveway.
Emma managed a tight smile back at him. “My brother’s here?”
“Ainsley took him down to the water to show him where Claire Grayson’s house used to be.”
Colin came around from the other side of his truck. “The police have talked to you, then.”
Gabe squinted at him and nodded. “They came by last night. There’s nothing left of the original house. Man. What a tragedy, though. I had no idea. No one said a word when I bought my lot. It’s been forty years, and she wasn’t from here. I guess not many people remember.” He wiped his palm over the dusty top of the chest. “This was in Jack d’Auberville’s studio. Ainsley’s clearing everything out. Cleaning, sorting, hunting for treasures. She likes staying active, but she’s easily distracted.” He grinned at Emma and Colin. “Lucky for her I’m not.”
“Anything of interest in the chest?” Emma asked.
“Nothing, actually. It was empty.” He straightened, looking down the lane, birches, their leaves turning yellow against the blue sky, swaying in the ocean breeze. “Ainsley’s freaked out about a woman burning to death so close by. It’s tragic, but it doesn’t bother me as much, maybe because of my work. Every property has a history.”
Colin kept his attention on Gabe. “Is your lot on the original site of the Grayson house?”
Gabe shook his head. “The property was subdivided into three lots after she died. My lot’s to the north of where the Grayson house was—it’s not as protected but it’s got a better view. You can’t see it from here. I’m doing most of the work on the house myself. Taking my time. I’m worried about Ainsley. She took off for a couple days on Mount Desert. I think it helped. She said she needed to get away and clear her head.”
“The past week hasn’t been easy,” Emma said.
He walked over to his van and opened up the back. “I think she’s been trying to get close to her father with this show she’s planning. Following in his footsteps with her painting, fixing up his former studio, sorting through everything—I don’t blame her, but I don’t know if it’s what’s best for her.” He ya
nked a splotched white rag out of an old apple crate. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”
Emma stood at the edge of an overgrown flower garden, crabgrass and goldenrod vying for space and nutrients along with purple petunias and assorted miniature dahlias that looked as if slugs had been at them.
Colin watched Gabe as he rubbed his rag over the dust-encrusted chest. It looked like an inexpensive unfinished pine chest that been painted—badly, at that—a warm, neutral tan. It was splattered with a few drips of what must have been Jack d’Auberville’s paint.
“I’m a housepainter,” Gabe said, half to himself. “I thought that’s what Ainsley wanted but I’m not sure. There’s nothing dark and mysterious about me. I’m not much of an alpha-male, Viking type.”
Emma frowned. “Are you and Ainsley still engaged?”
His gaze drifted back to the lane where she’d gone with Lucas. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. I have to get cleaned up. This can wait.” Gabe dropped the rag on top of the chest. “Her folks are up here. We’re going over to a cookout at their beach house. The police have talked to them, too. They’re not at all happy about having Ainsley in the middle of whatever’s going on.”
Colin peered into the back of the van. “Has Father Bracken been by?”
Gabe bristled but any irritation quickly dissipated. “Not that I know of. She’s a little obsessed with him right now, because he’s Irish, I think. Maybe that’s why I’m out of sorts.”
“Have you done any painting jobs at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart?” Colin asked, stepping back from the van.
“Yeah, I painted the exterior windows of all the convent buildings this spring. The nuns are mostly self-sufficient but they needed a pro for that. I work all over New England. It’s always nice when I can work close to home.”
Gabe abruptly headed back up the steps and went inside. Emma walked over to the chest and ran her fingertips over the drips of vibrant pink, deep red and white paint. She glanced at Colin but said nothing as Lucas came around a curve on the lane with Ainsley at his side, her golden hair blowing in the breeze. The fair weather wouldn’t hold. Fog and rain were moving in. From her brother’s stiff gait, Emma guessed he was keeping a careful distance between himself and Ainsley.
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