“She’s gone to Boston.” Colin glanced around the house. It was smaller, simpler and older than he’d expected, and almost as empty as Wendell Sharpe’s house on the waterfront. “Your sister was a nun. Why?”
Lucas’s gaze, his eyes green like his sister’s, was steady, observant. “Who are you again?”
“Donovan. Colin Donovan. I’m from Rock Point.”
“The Donovan brothers,” Lucas said. “All right. What’s your interest?”
“I’m the FBI agent Donovan brother.”
“I see. All right. I never understood Emma’s decision to enter the convent, to be honest. We weren’t that religious growing up. I think she was caught up in romantic notions of what life at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart would be like. You’ve seen it up there—it’s a beautiful place.”
“Was there a precipitating incident? A death, a heartbreak? A vision? A movie?” Colin wasn’t even sure why he wanted to know, but he didn’t stop. “Did she want to turn into Julie Andrews and run away with Christopher Plummer?”
Lucas pulled off his overcoat and slung it over a side chair in the entry. There was no rug, just the worn pine-board floor. “Emma was a serious student and took right to the work of our family business.”
“Your father’s disabled—”
“I don’t think his accident had anything to do with her decision. One day she was in college. The next day she was up at the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. It wasn’t that simple, but it seems like it looking back.” Lucas hesitated. “You should talk to her.”
Colin heard the windows rattling in the gusty wind. “What about your grandfather?”
“He’s semiretired. He’ll stay active in the business, but he’s closing his Dublin office. I have someone in mind to take over.”
“Another Sharpe?”
“No. My parents are likewise semiretired. They’re in London at the moment. We all call Heron’s Cove home.” Lucas stood back. “Is Emma all right?”
“Do you worry about her?”
“She’s my little sister. She’s got a Donovan on her ass. What do you think?”
That was a good point. “What about your former girlfriend, Ainsley d’Auberville?”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “I’m cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
“I am law enforcement, ace,” Colin said.
A Maine CID car rolled in. Colin didn’t take time for more questions. He had an ex-nun FBI agent to find.
CHAPTER 18
EMMA ENTERED MATT YANKOWSKI’S CORNER office in the small, highly secure, unmarked brick building on Boston Harbor where he’d set up his unit. Three agents were at their desks, working on any connection between HIT’s investigations and the situation in Maine. Two other agents were working on the case itself—the murder of Sister Joan Mary Fabriani, the disappearance of a newly discovered Jack d’Auberville painting and now the discovery of a bomb in the attic of one of their own.
The questions they were asking were the same ones Emma had been asking. Had this killer struck before? Did this killer have a particular interest in art involving saints, Vikings, the d’Aubervilles, the Sharpes or old Maine houses?
They would treat this investigation like any other. Emma had answered a few crisp, focused questions about the past two days but no one commented on her years as a novice with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. Any personal curiosity or criticism of her reticence about a major part of her life would wait. She was the youngest member of the team. Yank had recruited her not just because of her expertise with art theft and recovery but also because of her international contacts, her family background and her time with the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. He’d known everything there was to know about her and he’d wanted her here in Boston.
Now he looked as if he knew that was a decision he could come to regret.
“Does Colin Donovan work for you?” Emma asked him as she stood by a window, the blinds shut. “Is he one of your ghosts? I asked him, and he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Then don’t expect me to tell you.”
Yank didn’t get up from his leather chair. He wore a dark suit that he might have put on ten minutes ago instead of early that morning. He’d chosen Boston for his high-impact crime-fighting unit because he knew it and liked it, and because it was close to Washington but not too close. He’d never said he hated Washington, but Emma had always felt he did. His wife had stayed behind to sell their house in the northern Virginia suburbs. Emma had sensed tension between them but hadn’t asked. His desk, of course, was devoid of personal mementos. That was Yank.
“Is Donovan working this case from a different angle?” Emma asked.
“You.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Believe him.”
She stayed on her feet, in front of a low, contemporary sofa stacked with files and reports. “He’s better at bombs and break-ins than I am.”
“So is everyone else in this building,” Yank said, typically blunt. “It’s not why you’re here. You bring something else to the party.”
“Donovan went back to Rock Point. I think his priest friend knows that I was a nun.”
“Everyone here knows. Did you notice any change in them? Did anyone leave holy water on your desk? People don’t care, Emma. You care.”
It was different with Colin, she thought, remembering their kiss—which wasn’t anything she planned on discussing with Yank. “You put Donovan on me, Yank. Why? I can take care of myself. I train constantly and I’m in good shape.” She glared at him. “You still think of me as a nun, don’t you?”
Yank tilted back his chair and lifted his feet to the edge of his neat desk. “The question is do you think of yourself as a nun? Sister Joan’s death stirred up your past for you. I can see it, Emma. You aren’t reverting to your joyful heart of old, are you?”
“Don’t make fun of the sisters, Yank.”
“I’m not. I’m serious. They’re a joyful lot. They’re dedicated to what they do. You were, too, at one time.” He crossed his
