She and Lucas had grown up around the business. Only when chronic pain from a freak fall on the ice had become debilitating had her father stepped away.
By then, Emma had been on Yank’s radar.
Colin Donovan appeared in the office doorway. Emma hadn’t heard a sound. He had on a black jacket and held a nine-millimeter pistol in his hand. He put a finger to his lips. “Easy, sweetheart. I’m on your side, remember.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Same as you.”
Not quite, she thought. “What’s going on?”
“Storm door out front’s broken.” He spoke quietly, everything about him intense but very steady. “Someone’s been in here.”
She nodded her understanding, drawing her own Sig from the holster on her hip. “Are you trying to cover for searching the place yourself?”
“No. If I’d been in here, you’d never know it.”
“Your priest friend?”
“Not a chance. He said Ainsley d’Auberville didn’t make it inside.”
“That’s what she told him. As you can see, there’s nothing here. And nothing’s missing. I was just in the kitchen. It’s fine.”
“Upstairs?”
“Empty, but there are old files in the attic.” She paused, thinking. “And there’s a vault.”
“Let’s have a look,” Colin said. “I’ll go first.”
It didn’t occur to Emma to argue with him.
CHAPTER 14
THERE WAS NO SIGN OF AN INTRUDER IN THE cleared-out bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor. Emma pointed to the open door to the attic. “Normally it’s shut, but I haven’t been up here in ages. My brother could have—”
Colin didn’t let her finish. “Stay behind me.”
He started up the steep stairs. The attic had low, slanted ceilings with a solitary window letting in the afternoon sun through a thick layer of dust. Sheets covered old furniture, and boxes were stacked everywhere. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed in years.
Colin edged over to a freestanding vault as tall as he was, its heavy metal door half open. “What’s in here?”
Emma stood next to him. “Archives. Nothing of substantial value. The conditions are good for storage. Humidity and temperature are fairly steady.”
“Why’s the door open?”
“We don’t keep it locked but it should be shut tight.” She swung the vault door open wider, stopping abruptly when she saw the mess inside—boxes upended, files strewn on the floor, old canvases shoved aside. “Someone’s been in here—”
“Hold on.” Colin touched her arm. “Don’t move.”
She followed his gaze to a small explosive device just inside the vault, a few inches from the toe of her boot. She took in the blasting cap, wires and ticking clock.
“Colin…”
“Yeah. It’s a bomb.”
He hadn’t moved. Emma, hardly breathing, forced herself to remain still. “I’ll call for a bomb squad,” she said. “My phone’s downstairs—”
“We don’t need a bomb squad.”
Without any warning, Colin snatched a utility knife from a coffee can on the floor of the vault, then knelt down and, in one swift move, cut a wire on the obviously homemade device. He winked up at her. “Done.”
“Show-off.”
He stood. “It’s crude. My guess is it was put here in a hurry.”
Emma tried not to let him see that her hands were trembling as she backed away from the vault.
Colin got on his phone and spoke to the police.
“You were a state trooper?” she asked when he finished.
“Marine patrol.” He slipped his phone into his jacket pocket and smiled at her. “I like boats. Let’s wait outside. I doubt there are more devices in here, but just in case.”
“This one was timed to go off—”
“Midnight.” He tilted his head back, his dark eyes on her. “You don’t need me to carry you down the stairs, do you?”
“No.”
He grinned. “Didn’t think so. I heard you jumped a fence yesterday.”
“I climbed over a fence. I keep telling people. Wonder Woman jumps. I climb.”
He glanced back at the vault. “Will you know if anything is missing?”
“Maybe. I doubt there’s a formal inventory of the contents.” She steadied herself, wishing now she’d eaten more of Ainsley d’Auberville’s apple muffin. “Placing the bomb up here in the attic means it was probably intended to distract and divert attention rather than to hurt anyone.”
“Or to destroy evidence.” Colin nodded to the stairs. “This time you go first.”
Emma had holstered her weapon. Warm now, her heart skidding along rapidly, she felt him standing close to her, steady, watchful. Definitely a high-testosterone type. “Defusing bombs with a rusted utility knife and your fingernails. Honestly.”
“It wasn’t much of a bomb. You don’t do bombs as an art detective?” He brushed a few strands of hair off her face and tucked them behind her ear. “You don’t want hair in your eyes walking down steep stairs. Any ghosts up here?”
“I used to think so,” she said. “I’m not afraid to be here alone if that’s what you’re getting at.”
He stayed very close. “You’re not afraid of anything, are you, Agent Sharpe?”
“Bombs,” she said with a small smile.
“What about the prospect that your family might have done something wrong in the past that will come back to haunt you?” He found another few strands of hair to tuck behind her other ear. “I think you’re afraid that this mess yesterday is going to bite the Sharpes in the ass.”
“It already has, because I was with Sister Joan yesterday and couldn’t save her.”
In no apparent hurry to get out of there, he traced a fingertip along her lower lip, and when she took a quick breath and didn’t throw him down the stairs or go for her gun, he kissed her, a soft, inevitable kiss that unraveled her composure. Her heart was racing now, every part of her shaking, unsteady. She found herself grabbing his upper arm, clutching the sturdy fabric of his coat. She felt his tensed muscles. She was cerebral more than physical, analytical, a planner—not an agent who leaped tall fences to help a nun in trouble or cut wires to defuse an explosive device.
“Emma,” Colin said quietly. “The bomb didn’t go off. We found it.”
“I’d never have—”
“You’d have seen the broken window in the storm
