“No need to be hard on yourself. Where are we going now?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I thought I’d show you where I saw you—except it wasn’t you.” She beamed another troubled smile at him. “I keep thinking about Claire Grayson, the woman who died here. Gabe’s building a house on one of the lots she owned, and I’m living in her former carriage house. It’s creeping me out. I don’t have the heart to tell him. He’s so much more pragmatic.”
“Your father didn’t seem to mind,” Finian said. “He bought her carriage house.”
Ainsley struggled to smile. “Also pragmatic.”
“Ainsley?”
“What if my father and Claire had an affair, and that’s why she died? What if my father hurt her?” She gulped in a breath. “Father Bracken, what if the missing painting proves that my father did something awful to this woman?”
“Is that what you think happened?”
Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “I don’t. I see them as two artistic souls. But I’m afraid. I’ve never been so afraid in my life, and I can’t pinpoint why.”
* * *
Colin pulled in behind Bracken’s BMW and gritted his teeth but said nothing as he jumped out of his truck. Yank was right behind him. They ran down the lane and all but tackled Ainsley d’Auberville and the Irish priest.
Ainsley, intuitive to a fault, immediately went pale. Colin didn’t give either of them a chance to speak. “Where’s Emma?”
“Her car’s here. I didn’t see her when I got back. I walked down the lane a little ways….” Ainsley was close to hyperventilating. She nodded to a bicycle leaned up against a birch. “I don’t know whose it is.”
“Sister Cecilia’s,” Colin said.
“The novice who was there when Sister Joan was killed? She can’t be…” Ainsley’s eyes widened. “She can’t be the killer, can she?”
Colin glanced at Yank, who directed his attention to Ainsley. “I just spoke to Lucas Sharpe. Claire Grayson had a son.”
Ainsley looked blank. “A son? What difference does that make?”
But Yank hadn’t finished. “Claire tried to give him away so she could become a nun and he wouldn’t be raised by his father. It wouldn’t have worked. She still couldn’t have entered the convent because she was married and the mother of a dependent child.” Yank’s voice was tight but steady. “The husband was a real bastard. The son takes after him. His name’s Gabriel. Gabriel Campbell Grayson.”
Ainsley gasped and shrank back from Yank. Colin grabbed her arm. “Your boyfriend, Ainsley. Where is he?”
She seemed confused, dazed. “Gabe?” She shivered as if she were cold. “He’s not here. He’s on a job. In York, I think. You can’t… He can’t…”
Colin dropped her arm. She teetered, and Bracken stepped forward, steadying her with one hand. “She thinks she saw a priest,” he said, his dark blue eyes on Colin.
His throat tightened. “Where?”
Bracken pointed toward the oceanfront. “There.”
Colin drew his weapon and turned to Yank. “Stay with Fin and Ainsley. Watch for bombs. Don’t go inside. Gabe will burn this place down.”
“Go,” Yank said, drawing his own weapon.
Colin ran down the lane. He had to get to Emma and Sister Cecilia in time. He didn’t even consider what would happen if he didn’t.
CHAPTER 40
“NO ONE COMES HERE UNINVITED,” GABE SAID, holding his .40-caliber Glock steady. “It’s a surprise for Ainsley.”
Emma worked at keeping him talking. When he was talking, he wasn’t cutting or shooting. She had placed the headband back on Sister Cecilia’s wounds, but the bleeding had eased. The novice had regained consciousness, although she was still clearly weak and in pain.
“It’s a lovely house,” Emma said. “I’m sure Ainsley will be pleased.”
“She will be.”
Gabe stood by the painting his mother had done of the ill-fated Irish princess. He was wearing black jeans and a black suit coat with a Roman collar, now splattered with blood. His hands were smeared with more blood, but he maintained the same easygoing demeanor that he’d had when Emma had first met him.
“Sister Cecilia will corroborate your story,” Emma said. “She’s so crazed with pain and fear, she’s not taking in anything you and I have said. She thinks Father Bracken attacked her. Let her go, Gabe. Just let her go. She’ll tell everyone a priest hurt her.”
“She can’t walk.”
“She’ll manage. Once she’s free, she’ll rally—”
He shook his head. “She’ll see me.”
“No, she won’t. We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Don’t you care about your own fate, Emma?”
“Of course, but I have a bargaining chip.” She paused, then added, “I can help you find the Rembrandt.”
His eyes darkened and he licked his lips but didn’t respond.
“I’ll help you,” Emma said, “but first you have to let Sister Cecilia go.”
“I make the rules.”
“That’s self-evident, Gabe. You have the gun.” Emma kept her tone casual and unafraid, but also nonthreatening. “You’re a brazen, clever thief, but you can’t steal the Rembrandt if you don’t know here it is.”
“It’s not the Rembrandt. It’s my Rembrandt.” He didn’t raise his voice.
“Your mother brought it here. To Maine.”
“She loved it here. She was a genteel, beautiful woman. She wanted to be a nun. My father told me. He hated her for it. The sainted Mother Linden wouldn’t let her become one of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.”
“She couldn’t. It wasn’t up to Mother Linden. Your mother had a husband and a small child.”
“That’s right, Emma. It’s good you’re not patronizing me. Did you know my mother tried to give me away?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It was bound to come out now that you’re focused on her. My father told me. I don’t remember. I was just a baby.” He sounded almost wistful, but his expression hardened as he continued. “Isn’t that what you’d do? Tell your son his mother tried to give him away so that she could become a nun?”
“Maybe not,” Emma said, “but if it’s the truth,
