bomb. Everyone. Cops included.
Maybe especially cops, Scoop thought, sighing at the weeds that had taken over his garden. He could still see where firefighters and paramedics had trampled his neat rows in the rush to save his life and keep the fire from spreading to neighboring homes. He'd trampled a few gardens in his years as a police officer. He noticed a couple of ripe tomatoes and squatted down, pulling back the vines, but the tomatoes had sat in the dirt too long. The bottoms were rotted.
'What the hell,' he said, 'they'll make good compost.'
He yanked up a few weeds, aware of the scars on his back, his shoulders, his arms. He'd grabbed Fiona, protecting her as best he could from the shards of metal and wood as he'd leaped with her for cover--the compost bin Bob and Abigail had moaned and groaned about when Scoop had been building it.
He got to his feet and looked up at the sky, as gray and drizzly as any he'd seen in Scotland and Ireland. He had no regrets about being back home.
He had a lot of work to do.
He headed back out to the gate, picked up his stuff and unlocked his car, sinking into the driver's seat. He'd have no problem readjusting to driving on the right. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. He looked as if he'd flown on the wing of the plane instead of in an aisle seat. He needed a good night's sleep.
Where? Should he take Lizzie Rush up on her offer to put him up at her family's five-star Boston hotel--the one where Sophie Malone used to work?
'Might as well,' he said aloud, and started the car.
7
Sophie's iPhone jingled, signaling an incoming text message. She'd texted Damian when she'd landed in Boston. She checked her screen as she emerged from her subway stop onto Boston Common. Her brother's response was about what she'd expected:
Nothing new. Go dig in the dirt.
She smiled. The Malones were known for not mincing words, Damian especially.
After the long flight, she welcomed the walk up to Beacon Hill. The narrow, familiar streets and black- shuttered town houses helped her to shake off the odd feeling that she was out of her element, on strange and unpredictable ground. She'd gone to college in Boston. She had friends there. It wasn't as if she'd just landed in a foreign country or a city where she didn't know anyone.
She descended steep, uneven stone steps to a black iron gate between two town houses. Since giving up her apartment in Cork, she'd felt uprooted, but unlike Scoop Wisdom and his detective friends, her homelessness was by choice and finances.
No one had blown up her house.
Using the keys Taryn had given her, Sophie unlocked the gate and went through a tunnel-like archway that opened into a small, secluded brick courtyard, one of Beacon Hill's many nooks and crannies. Passersby would never guess it was there. The owners of a graceful brick town house had converted part of their walk-out basement into an apartment, with its own entrance onto the courtyard. Taryn had rented it when she was performing Shakespeare in Boston and hadn't let go of it.
Sophie unlocked the door, painted a rich, dark green, and set her backpack on the floor of the small entry. The tiny apartment, with its cozy Beacon Hill atmosphere, suited Taryn's personality and unpredictable lifestyle. She'd sublet it to an actress friend for the summer, but she'd departed in early September for a role in Chattanooga.
Taryn had placed a round table by the full-size paned windows that looked onto the charming courtyard, where neighbors had set out pots of flowers. A perfunctory kitchen, with downsized appliances, occupied one windowless wall. On the opposite wall a low sectional anchored the seating area in front of a nonworking fireplace.
No cockroaches scurried on the hardwood floor, which Sophie took as a hopeful sign. She'd forgotten just how low the ceilings were. She wasn't claustrophobic, but she hadn't been wild about small, cramped spaces even before her brush with death in an Irish cave. Her experience at archaeological sites had forced her to learn how to deal with them.
She dragged her backpack into the bedroom, its sole window level with the street. She unpacked and, restless after her hours with a suspicious Boston detective behind her, dived into cleaning the apartment from top to bottom. She mopped, scrubbed, vacuumed, put fresh sheets on the bed, dug out clean towels and debated walking to the grocery for a few provisions. Taryn's actress friend had left mustard, salsa and carrots in the fridge and an unopened pint of vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Not terribly promising.
Sophie abandoned thoughts of food and instead changed into leggings and an oversize T-shirt and set out on a run, winding her way over to the Charles River Esplanade. It was early evening, gray but not raining. She didn't push hard. After three miles, she felt less jet-lagged, less a stranger in a strange land and slowed to an easy jog back up Beacon Hill.
She took a shower, slipped into a skirt, a sweater and flats and headed out again. She didn't feel like cooking. She wasn't even sure she felt like eating, but she walked down to Charles Street to the Whitcomb, the Rush family's Boston hotel.
Good-looking, tawny-haired Jeremiah Rush stood up from the antique reception desk in the lobby. 'Sophie Malone!'
'Hey, Jeremiah. Long time.'
He stepped out from behind the desk, his dark gray suit clearly expensive and fitting his lean frame perfectly. 'I thought you might turn up. Lizzie called this morning and said you were on your way back to Boston.'
'Lizzie? How did she know?'
'A Boston cop she ran into in Ireland,' Jeremiah said, no sign he considered the call from his cousin odd. 'She didn't go into detail.'
'What's Lizzie doing in Ireland anyway?'
He grinned. 'Who knows?'
'Did she ask you to report back should I turn up?'
'She did, indeed.'
Sophie supposed she shouldn't be surprised to undergo a certain amount of scrutiny after she'd encountered Scoop Wisdom yesterday, but she hadn't expected Lizzie Rush to be on her case. Had the call he'd taken at the airport that morning been from her?
'It's great to see you, Sophie,' Jeremiah said. 'I hear it's Dr. Malone now. Congratulations.'
'Thanks.' She relaxed some. 'It's good to see you, Jeremiah. I just got in.'
'Guinness beckons, does it? It's on the house. I remember when you'd be doing homework on your break. You had more drive than I ever did in school. Have to celebrate your milestone, right?'
'Definitely. Thank you. Join me if you can get away from the desk.'
'I will. Oh, and I should warn you.' He lowered his voice, as if he were telling her something he shouldn't. 'The cop who told Lizzie about you is staying here. Detective Wisdom. I just checked him in.'
Sophie glanced at the stairs down to Morrigan's, the hotel's upscale Irish bar named for Lizzie's Irish mother. 'Is he down there now?'
'Not at the moment. I thought since you're both just back from Ireland...' Jeremiah didn't finish. 'I should know better than to try to figure out what all Lizzie's up to. Enjoy your drink.'
Sophie thanked him again and trotted down the stairs. She sat at a high stool at the bar and ordered a glass of Guinness, watching the bartender, new since she'd worked there, go through the proper two-part process to pour it.
She'd taken just two sips when Scoop Wisdom descended the stairs, eased over to her and pointed to a table. He had on a dark sweater and dark khakis and looked as if he weren't struggling with jet lag at all. 'Come sit with me.'
Sophie set down her glass. 'As in, you'll arrest me if I don't?'
