Her grandfather shook his head. “No ambulance. I don’t have a concussion or any broken bones.”
“You could have internal injuries,” Emma said.
“I don’t. I’ve been whacked before.” He grunted, shoving a palm over his thinning white hair. “I was unlocking the door. I was thinking about how to get these boxes down the stairs. Next thing I know I’m flying across the room.”
“Shoved?” Colin asked crisply.
“Sneaked up on from behind and kicked out of the way. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I didn’t jump right up. I figured I’d be better off pretending to be unconscious. I didn’t want whoever was in here to finish me off.” He slumped back against the chair. “I couldn’t help but think about poor Sister Joan.”
Colin unearthed the landline from a stack of papers and dialed. “Did you get a look at the person who attacked you?” he asked.
“No, it happened too fast.”
“Man, woman?”
Emma found herself wanting to rush in and protect her grandfather against Colin’s brusque questions, but instead of being cowed, he rallied, as if they helped clear his head. “I don’t know. These days, who the hell can tell? Whoever it was didn’t stay long. Rifled through a few boxes and file drawers and took off again. I tried to get up so I could get to the window….” He gave a small, involuntary moan, in more pain than he wanted to admit. “Then Emma was here.”
Colin spoke into the phone, giving precise details on the situation and assuring the person on the other end there was no immediate danger. He hung up, shifted his focus back to the old man struggling to regain his composure. “Did you see anyone in here, or outside, before you entered the building?”
“I saw a priest on the corner when I stopped for a newspaper across the street. I didn’t get a good look at him.” He pointed to his eyes. “He was wearing sunglasses.”
Emma shot Colin a look. “Where’s your friend Bracken? Did he come with you?”
“There are a lot of priests in Ireland,” Colin said, “even these days.”
“Not as many as fifty years ago.” Her grandfather coughed, then swore under his breath. “That hurt.”
Emma touched his shoulder. “You should try not to move, Granddad. You might be hurt worse than you think. Adrenaline can mask pain.”
“I got hurt worse in Irish pubs in Boston back in the day.”
“That was a long time ago.”
His blue eyes sparked. “Don’t be so sure, missy. Any news from Heron’s Cove? I’m glad you’re here, but there must be a reason you didn’t cancel your trip, given what’s been going on at home.”
“I wanted to see you. Talk to you.”
Emma pushed back a wave of jet lag. This wasn’t the Irish morning she’d expected. An attack on her grandfather, and now Colin hovering behind her. She glanced at the surprisingly contemporary office and noticed signs of a quick, disorganized search.
“Talk to me about what?” her grandfather asked.
“Saint Sunniva,” she said, turning back to him. “A painting of a young woman trapped in a cave—”
“On an island, with a Viking warship about to arrive.” Her grandfather rallied, his interest piqued. “I remember it well.”
“Then I didn’t imagine it.” She noticed Colin stiffen, but he said nothing.
Her grandfather’s color had already improved. “You loved that painting as a little girl. I had it up on a wall in the attic for a while, and you liked to sit in front of it and make up stories about the woman in the cave.”
“I remember,” Emma said.
“I sometimes wondered if it influenced you to try out being a nun.” He jerked a thumb at Colin. “It’s okay? He knows you—”
“It’s okay, Granddad.” Emma avoided Colin’s eye. “What happened to the painting?”
“Nothing. It’s in Heron’s Cove. I took it off the wall, but it’s still in the attic, in the vault.”
“It’s not in the attic anymore.”
“Ah.” Her grandfather tilted his head back and looked at her with interest, his intensity a reminder of his decades of experience as an international art detective. “Our mad bomber was after Sunniva.”
“Where did you get it?”
He answered without hesitation. “Claire Peck Grayson.”
Emma frowned. “Who is she, Granddad?”
“Claire Grayson was a tragic mess of a woman. I haven’t thought about her in ages. It’s been forty years at least. Your grandmother was alive then. She and I came home one afternoon, and we found Sunniva on the porch, with a note from Claire thanking me for introducing her to Mother Linden.”
“Mother Linden?” Emma asked, surprised.
“She gave Claire painting lessons. Claire was from Chicago.
Her family owned a house in Maine, just outside Heron’s Cove. They’d fallen on hard times, and then tragedy struck. Claire’s parents were killed in a small plane crash.”
Emma walked over to a tall window. “How awful.”
“Claire was already trapped in an unhappy marriage and basically unraveled. She came to Maine—to heal, she said. I suspect she was trying to hide from her troubles. She loved to paint.”
“What happened to her?”
Her grandfather grabbed the edge of his desk and pulled himself to his feet. He seemed steadier, if still in pain. “She was killed when her house caught fire. Claire was a genteel, lovely, very screwed-up woman. She was fascinated with saints and Norse history and mythology. Hence, Sunniva.”
Colin studied the older man a moment. “Did Grayson know Jack d’Auberville?”
“They were friends. I never got the whiff of anything romantic between them. He bought her old carriage house—it was all that survived the fire. Jack was a ladies’ man, but Claire was a married woman.”
“Married women have affairs,” Emma said.
Her grandfather shook his head. “Not Claire. She was in a bad marriage, but adultery wasn’t an option. I didn’t know her that well but she just wasn’t the type.”
“How well did you know Jack d’Auberville?” Colin asked.
“Not well at all. He did excellent work. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the snobs who dismissed him as
