porch, a robin perched on a nearby maple branch. Scoop dialed his BlackBerry. Sophie noticed even his hands weren't shaking. While he identified himself and gave his report, she watched the robin fly away and contemplated the grisly scene in the apartment behind her.
'Backup's on the way,' Scoop said as he disconnected.
She stepped back into the kitchen. She was shaking now. She tried to stop but bit her lip, drawing blood. Rafferty's body was just out of view in the dining room. She controlled her emotion and said quietly, 'He didn't kill himself.'
'Why do you say that?'
She faced Scoop, his expression unchanged, nothing about him suggesting he was affected by the past few minutes--by the terrible death of a fellow police officer. 'The pagan Celtic practices reenacted in the dining room and living room suggest ritual sacrifice, not suicide.' She crossed her arms on her chest, trying to keep herself from shivering. She wasn't cold. In fact, quite the opposite. It was warm in the apartment. She saw that no windows were open. Had the killer shut them before setting to work? 'Before you ask, no, I don't know anything for certain. This isn't an archaeological site. It's...' She didn't finish.
'Sophie, easy--you okay?'
'I didn't expect this.'
'Try to remember everything Cliff said to you. Don't try to draw conclusions on your own. Just remember.'
She forced herself to remain steady on her feet and focused on Scoop, his jaw set hard, nothing about him even close to relaxed. He was intense but under control. 'I assume you saw the bomb-making materials on the coffee table,' she said. 'What if Rafferty asked me here to confess his involvement with the bomb at your house?'
'Trust me, Sophie. It won't help to speculate.'
'Maybe his guilt was weighing on him, and he arranged a suicide that made sense to him.' She felt a sting of pain on her mouth and realized she'd bit her lip. 'Except I don't believe that, based on what I see and what he told me. He said he wanted my opinion on something.'
'Something to do with archaeology or with the Carlisles?'
'I don't know. He wouldn't say. The glass beads, the skulls, the pot filled with smashed parts of a gun--the hanging itself--all could fit into some garbled, twisted notion of pagan Celtic rituals. I'm not talking about modern paganism--'
'It's okay, Sophie. This scene means whatever the person who arranged it wanted it to mean, whether it was Cliff or someone else.'
Her gaze rested on toast crumbs on a plate in the stainless steel sink.
Scoop touched her arm. 'Don't try to make sense of things right now. You're an archaeologist. You're used to looking at evidence. You know how to be objective. You know you can't just assume a piece of glass you find in the dirt is some ancient artifact. It could be part of a beer bottle some drunk tossed.'
'I get your point.' She pulled her gaze from the sink. 'You're right. I shouldn't let myself be driven by assumptions and get tunnel vision. Do I stay here or--'
She broke off, suddenly overwhelmed by the stifling heat in the apartment, by the proximity of death.
She was gone, running out the back door, down the balcony steps. She didn't breathe until she was out on the street, just as she heard sirens and the first cruiser arrived.
10
Josie paused to admire the view of Kenmare Bay from the front steps of the Malones' Irish holiday house and found herself yearning for a few weeks on her own, with nothing more pressing to think about than whether to spend the afternoon on a long walk in the hills or curled up with a book.
She'd missed Antonia and James Malone and Sophie's twin sister, Taryn.
Not a total waste of a trip, Josie thought, but it was close.
Keira and Lizzie had finally caught up with Colm Dermott in Dublin that morning. He'd told them he'd talked to Sophie recently. They'd discussed the panel she was doing at the folklore conference and a bit about the violence that had touched Keira and Lizzie--even him--over the summer. He hadn't taken Sophie's interest as anything but natural curiosity and her role as an archaeologist.
Otherwise, he was clueless about what she might be up to.
'Perhaps nothing,' Josie said aloud, hopping off the steps.
She started down the steep hill to her car. She noticed a man standing on the edge of the quiet road and faltered, hoping her sleepless night had got the better of her and she'd conjured him up.
She wasn't that lucky.
The man in front of her car was, indeed, long-lost, treacherous, sexy-as-hell-itself Myles Fletcher.
Josie didn't say a word as she navigated a series of small puddles from an early-morning shower and collected her thoughts. When she came to the road, she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and suppressed, at least for the moment, any emotional reaction to his presence. 'Will and Simon?' she asked crisply.
Myles opened the car door and dumped his rucksack in the back as if he had every right to do so. 'They caught up with me and dinged me back here.'
'Did they, now?'
He shrugged. 'They're pursuing a different angle.'
'A dangerous one?'
He grinned at her. 'No more dangerous than me turning up here.'
'You're compromised,' she said, ignoring his irreverent humor. 'Whoever you all are after now knows you're a British intelligence officer. That's why Will and Simon sent you away.'
'I'm here because there's nothing more I can do. The next steps aren't up to me anymore.' He stood in front of the open car door. 'I arrived back in Ireland this morning and took the bus to Kenmare looking for you. I thought you could use my help.'
'How did you know to find me here?'
'A fair guess.'
Josie wasn't convinced. Myles would tell her what suited him. She went around and yanked open the driver's door with a bit more force than was necessary. 'Is anyone after you?'
'Other than you, you mean?'
Whatever his particular way of going about things, she had no doubt Myles wouldn't be here now were he not confident he hadn't been followed. She didn't need to waste her breath telling him what they both already knew: His dangerous, solitary work over the past two years had secured critical information that Will and Simon--British intelligence and American FBI--could now use to finish the job.
In one brusque move, Josie climbed into the car and let Myles do whatever he meant to do.
He got in beside her. 'It's just you and me, love.'
'I have no illusions, Myles.' She thrust the key into the ignition. 'You're not here for me. Fasten your seat belt. I won't have you bloodied should I ram us into a tree.'
He pulled his door shut and clicked on his seat belt, settling back comfortably in his seat. 'Where are we going?'
'Doesn't matter, does it? I've already been to hell and back these past two years.'
She could feel his gray eyes on her as she started the car. He hadn't shaved. He looked exhausted, irresistible and perfectly capable of slitting an odd throat or two if necessary. Why, she thought, hadn't she simply stayed in London? She had a great deal of freedom with her job, and certainly no one had sent her to Ireland to chase after an American archaeologist.
'Let me guess, then, love.' Myles watched casually out his window as she pulled onto the road, maneuvering through a large puddle. 'You're looking into the Irish life and times of Sophie Malone.'
Josie groaned, nearly choking the engine. 'There. I was right. You
