The branches on the oak moved, and Scoop saw a flash of red--Helen, with a 9 mm pistol leveled at Sophie.
'Drop the gun,' Scoop said, his weapon pointed at her.
She turned her pistol to him, and he fired.
Acosta was a mess when he came to. 'Helen set up a slow death for me. She was going to roast me over a spit.'
'Worse,' Sophie said, pacing in front of the cauldron. She left it at that.
Scoop was more blunt and added the details she'd given him. 'Helen was going to boil you, eat the meat off your bones and then drink the water.'
Acosta grimaced but said nothing. Scoop sat next to him on the brick courtyard. He'd secured the scene. They weren't touching anything. The water was still bubbling in the pot a few yards away.
Without looking at either Scoop or Sophie, Acosta continued. 'So here I am, looking into this bastard Augustine's business to see if he'd been into trafficking of stolen art in addition to killing people, when I run into Cliff. I get him assigned to work security at the showroom. He'd had a lousy career and his wife had left him and I figured I'd do him a good turn. He played me. It never occurred to me he was doing a little cash business with Augustine on the side. Then Helen shows up and I'm done. Head over heels. Gone.'
'Did you know Rafferty was involved with the thugs who kidnapped Abigail?'
'Not in time to do anything about it. I didn't figure it out until too late. Augustine had hired them to do some work for him. That's how Estabrook hooked up with them. Cliff let his failures eat at him. He couldn't let go. All it took was those guys putting cash in his hands to place a bomb at your house.'
'Any of us could have been killed. Fiona O'Reilly was an innocent teenager.'
'Norman Estabrook paid a lot of money to those guys. Cliff was about cash and an island life. Me...' He glanced toward the potted oak trees. Sophie had explained that oaks were a sacred tree. 'I was about Helen. Once she was in my life there was nothing else but her.'
Scoop figured now wasn't the time to tell Acosta what a damn fool he'd been. 'Following Sophie out to the island was Augustine's idea, after Helen told him about the rumors Sophie was investigating a story Tim O'Donovan had told her.'
'Augustine loved scaring the hell out of her. Cliff said it was his first real clue that Augustine wasn't just an occasional thief.'
'They left Sophie for dead, Frank.'
Acosta cut his eyes to Sophie but addressed Scoop as he spoke. 'She didn't die. She's an archaeologist. She's used to digs, rough conditions. She had the fisherman coming back for her. She got through the night.'
'Rafferty told you all this?' Scoop asked.
'The afternoon before Helen killed him. I didn't see it coming. I was figuring out what to do when I heard he was dead.'
'She believed Rafferty and Augustine appropriated and misused her rituals, but she was inspired to act on her violent impulses after realizing what Augustine was.' Sophie was very pale now. 'More of Lizzie Rush's ripple effects.'
Acosta looked up at Scoop. 'You should have let Helen turn me into a stew.'
'When did she come into your life?'
'July. After she and Percy were married. I was under her spell. She sucked me dry. She used me.'
Scoop was unsympathetic. 'You knew the merry-go-round would stop one day.'
'I figured I'd be in a penthouse with Helen when it did.' He looked ragged, exhausted. 'Warrior queen. Hell.'
Bob O'Reilly and Tom Yarborough, a straight-back, fair-haired homicide detective, arrived. Abigail Browning was a split second behind them. Scoop no longer had any question about whether she was giving up the job--she was in full-blown detective mode.
Scoop knew he and Sophie had a long night ahead of them. He slipped his hand into hers. 'So, Dr. Malone, what was your backup plan if I didn't show up with guns blazing?'
A touch of color returned to her cheeks. It wasn't much, but it was a start. She squeezed his hand. 'I was going to take one of her blood-soaked branches and knock her on her ass with it.'
'Whoa.' Scoop grinned at her. 'You might end up as Agent Malone yet.'
But her face was pale again. 'Scoop...'
'It'll take time, Sophie. For both of us.'
34
Josie entered the little pub in Keira's village on the Beara Peninsula and ordered herself a Midleton, because, after all, no one had chained her to a remote island cave or tried to burn, drown or hang her. A peat fire glowed in the fireplace. A dog slept on the hearth. A hurling match was on the television. Local farmers, fishermen and laborers had gathered at tables by the window, teasing each other with the familiarity of men who'd known they'd live their entire lives in their quiet village hugging the rocky southwest Irish coast.
Not far away, people who'd lived on these shores more than a thousand years ago had fashioned a bronze cauldron, gold brooches and torcs, glass bangles and beads. Someone--they'd never know who--had slipped them into an island cave. They would be returned to the Irish. They were a national treasure. Josie supposed she might see them for herself one day, but, she had to admit, she was in no hurry.
'I'll be back in London tomorrow,' she told Eddie O'Shea, the barman. 'I'll enjoy my Irish whiskey tonight.'
'You're ready to be home.'
She smiled. 'So I am.'
Will and Lizzie were there. Apparently her father was in town, too. Josie looked forward to meeting the legendary Harlan Rush. Simon and Keira had already returned to Boston. Of course, she was painting again. Josie had never had a doubt that she would, and soon.
After explaining what they'd been up to in Ireland to the guards and delivering Percy Carlisle to them, she and Myles had three days together at Keira's little cottage up the lane. Josie sipped her Midleton, savoring the memories. He could have told her where he was going--she had the proper security clearances--but he hadn't.
'Ah, Eddie, she could always drink me under the table, this one could.'
It was his voice, but she blamed the whiskey and the cold, dark Irish night. She couldn't possibly have conjured up Myles Fletcher onto the bar stool next to her. Maybe he'd never come to her that late-September morning in Kenmare a week ago. Maybe she'd conjured him up then, too, and she'd searched for Percy Carlisle with an illusion and made love to a perfect figment of her imagination.
'I'll have a pint of Guinness.'
Josie put down her drink and looked at the man next to her. 'You look and sound just like someone I know,' she told him.
He touched the rim of her glass and peered at the amber liquid. 'Just how much whiskey have you had, love?'
'Not enough.'
He smiled at her, his gray eyes crinkling in that way that was pure Myles Fletcher. There was no use pretending. He was there.
'If you leave me again,' she said, 'I'll smother you with a pillow.'
'Ah, there you have it,' Eddie O'Shea said, setting a pint in front of Myles. 'She could do it, too.'
'If you're smothering me with a pillow, love, it means you're in bed with me. I'd die a happy man.'
Eddie roared with laughter, and Josie felt her cheeks warm with a blush, probably her first since she'd turned thirteen.
Myles drank some of his Guinness, but his eyes were serious now. 'I'm ready for a desk, Josie.'
She snorted. 'The hell you are.'
'Your boy needs a man in his life. His dad's fine, but he spends more time with you. You're too soft on
