CHAPTER 35
SISTER CECILIA LEANED HER BICYCLE AGAINST THE trunk of a birch tree by the d’Auberville studio—the d’Auberville barn, really. She’d set off for the village but made a small detour. She wanted to see the spot where Claire Grayson had lived.
No one was around. She was relieved, since she didn’t want to intrude.
She started down the lane toward the ocean, partially visible through the trees. It was cooler than she’d expected. She wished she’d worn a jacket and not just her thick sweater, but she tried to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. How could Claire Grayson have been so unhappy in such a place? But her troubles, Sister Cecilia had come to realize, had been soul deep. A change of scenery, pretending, lying to herself and to others—none of that could possibly have helped her.
As she came closer to the water, Sister Cecilia could hear the tide swirling on rocks and sand. It was foggier here than at the convent, although the fog wasn’t the impenetrable, depressing gray that had encompassed the entire southern Maine coast the morning Sister Joan was killed.
How much had she known when she’d made that call to Emma Sharpe?
Not enough, Sister Cecilia thought. Yet how much did she herself know for sure?
The lane veered off to a house on the right, but she continued onto a narrow, sandy path parallel to the water. She noticed the occasional footprint but expected Ainsley d’Auberville and her fiancé would favor this route for romantic walks.
The path curved closer to the water, the coastline not rockbound here but a mix of sandy beach, marsh grasses and the occasional boulder.
She saw a house tucked onto the wooded hillside above the ocean. It was new construction, with a large enclosed front porch, its exterior sided in natural cedar shingles not yet weathered by the salt sprays, rain and wind. The house reminded her of the one in the fleeting look she’d had of The Garden Gallery, but most houses in the area coast would—even the new ones.
She followed the path to the back of the house, slowing her pace as she came to a more formal, bark-mulched path that led into newly planted roses and hydrangeas. Up ahead, she could see French doors and, through them, a painting on an interior wall. She walked into the garden as if she were being pulled toward the house. Her heartbeat quickened.
The garden. The French doors. The painting of a woman in a cave.
It was as if she were standing in the garden, looking into the garden room, depicted in the Jack d’Auberville that disappeared the morning Sister Joan was killed.
With a gasp of shock, Sister Cecilia whirled around, but already she knew she was too late. She heard footsteps inside the house, then the creak of the French doors opening, and she ran, praying. She slipped on the wet mulch.
The blow to the back of her head was hard and quick, and she felt herself sprawling into the roses as unconsciousness overtook her.
CHAPTER 36
COLIN STOOD ON THE DOCKS IN HERON’S COVE with his brother Kevin, below the house where Wendell Sharpe had started his art theft and recovery business more than a half century ago. Kevin had the grim, pessimistic Donovan look that Colin had seen staring back at him in the mirror more often than he’d care to admit.
“What if Wendell Sharpe had a thing for Claire Grayson?” Kevin asked, referring to the grandfather of a fellow FBI agent and woman Colin had just slept with. “What if he unloaded some phony artwork to help her out, then covered it up with the fire, except she got killed in the process? Or he unloaded them for himself—to expand his business—and he killed her, or she was so upset she committed suicide?”
Colin noticed colorful kayaks lined up on the opposite shore. He could just head out on the water. Disappear until the police had their killer in custody.
Kevin wasn’t finished. “The buyers could have known the art was fake but played the game. Or maybe the art was stolen.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair. “This all could take more time than we have to sort out.”
“Don’t sort it out, then. Just find out who killed Sister Joan.”
“Yeah. Easier said than done.” Kevin glanced over his shoulder again at the gray-shingled house, quiet in the midday mix of sun and clouds. “Lucas Sharpe stands to lose a lot if his grandfather was corrupt. Even if old Wendell did everything by the book the rest of his career, it won’t matter.”
“A lot of people lose if Wendell Sharpe crossed the line.”
“Emma Sharpe could have told her brother about Sister Joan’s call. He heads up to the convent, grabs the painting, kills Sister Joan and scoots. The young nun—the novice, Sister Cecilia—sees him but doesn’t get a good description. And, anyway, his little sister’s there to clean up any mess.” Kevin stood at the very edge of the wooden dock and eyed his older brother. “Tell me you haven’t thought about all this.”
He had, Colin thought. All of it. “Anyone can speculate,” he said.
“Then there’s Father Bracken. For all we know right now he’s lying to you and isn’t in Maine to get hold of himself. What if he’s our killer? What if he knows about this etching and Viking vase—”
“Bracelet,” Colin said.
Kevin waved a hand. “Whatever. What if he knows about those cases because he’s the one who did the stealing? What if he’s after the killer for his own reasons? What if he thinks it’s the same person who’s responsible for the deaths of his wife and daughters, and he’s so obsessed, he’s willing to endanger other people to get what he wants?”
“Damn, Kevin. Fin’s a rich, bored Irish priest. That’s it.”
“What if he’s a
