Fia chastised herself for not beating Glen to the door. She didn’t like any special treatment from men, especially other agents. Especially men who looked like her Ian. The lying, murdering bastard.
“Clare Point has never had a murder, not since the town’s founding,” she said, keeping her voice flat, unemotional, matter-of-fact. “This place isn’t Baltimore and it sure isn’t Philly.”
He halted at the bottom of the steps, raising both hands as if in surrender. “Hey, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
It was almost dark and the security lamp, mounted high on a corner of the building, was just beginning to glow, casting a yellow, vaporous light over the sidewalk and the now-gray grass. In the fading light, the familiar objects in front of the station—the lilac bushes, the flag pole, the tiger lilies blooming in the flower bed next to the steps—seemed somehow altered, almost surreal. Maybe it was just the sight of Ian standing there in a Brooks Brothers suit in twenty-first century America, or maybe Clare Point really had been changed forever with Bobby’s murder.
Fia kept walking, heading up the sidewalk toward Main Street.
“You want a ride to your car?”
“Nah,” she threw back.
“Special Agent Kahill?”
She couldn’t ignore him, though she considered pretending she didn’t hear him.
“Agent Kahill,” he repeated.
She halted, half turning to look at him.
“You weren’t intending on going into the post office again tonight, were you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Because I don’t think we should. We need to go back together tomorrow. Have a fresh look at the scene. Together.”
“I’ll see you at the hotel in ten,” she called, crossing the street.
Damn, she thought, jingling the post office key in her pocket that she’d snitched. He’s good.
She just hoped not too good.
By the time they walked into the pub together, Uncle Sean was already at the bar and on his second pint. At least. A small chalkboard inside the door informed patrons that the bar mistress was serving her Houndstooth Stout tonight. It was an excellent, heavy brown ale. Fia knew it well. Uncle Sean liked his stout.
Music played from an old jukebox in the far corner of the public room; a rollicking tune from the seventies. An image of Tom Cruise sliding across hardwood floors in his tighty-whities flashed through her head.
The Hill, as it was known in town, was the second oldest continuously operated bar in the United States, right after the White Horse up in Newport. If it hadn’t been for the eighteenth-century hurricanes, it would have been the oldest. Originally built down near the water on top of a sand dune by one of Fia’s aunts, they had finally surrendered to the elements and rebuilt inland on higher ground. The town had sprung up helter-skelter around the pub, and year round, the public room was the heart of the Kahill sept. No one fought, no one made love, no one bought a new or used truck without word going around inside the Hill.
There wasn’t a sign outside announcing the pub’s presence on the street and the interior of the Hill wasn’t much to look at. Tavia kept it that way to discourage tourists from visiting. There was a proper Disney World-style pub on the other side of town called O’Cahall’s that had been built just for them. Still, there were a few humans here tonight. Two couples, and a middle-aged widower who came, each year, with his grown children, all of whom spent August in the town and liked to fool themselves into thinking they were locals.
The walls of the pub were dark wood wainscoting, stained by years of spilled ale and smoke. The floor was planked hardwood, once washed regularly with sand and seawater, now with some pine product that always smelled just slightly like toilet bowl cleaner to Fia. There were heavy wooden booths along two walls, and a few scattered tables and chairs in the middle. The bar that ran the length of one wall was built of wood from the ship that had carried the Kahills to Clare Point. Stained by salt water, scarred by years of abuse, and with more than a few wormholes, the bar was as much a part of the sept as its individual members. The long, etched and gilded mirror reflected the faces of those Fia had known for centuries. Some she loved, some she hated, but she was absolutely loyal to every one of them.
“Why don’t we grab a table, Special Agent Duncan,” she suggested, steering him away from the bar and her Uncle Sean and his brother Mungo.
She could feel Sean trying to speak to her, but she ignored him, turning him off in her head.
Duncan followed her toward a table. “This is silly. Call me Ian.”
As the words sank in, she stopped abruptly, spinning around. “What did you say?”
Confusion showed on his face. “I said, this is silly. Call me Glen.”
“Oh.” Where the hell did that come from? God, she was tired.
Luckily, Shannon bounced up to them at that instant, all boobs and lashes and Pam Anderson hair. In her mid-twenties, she worked nights for Tavia when the tourist season petered out. In the summer, she cooked and served at a large B and B down the street. She wasn’t as tall as most women in the town, but was every bit as beautiful, almost in an exotic way. She always wore tight, low-cut T-shirts and blue jeans that looked painted on. Like all vampire women, she exuded a sensuality that even human men could smell in the air.
Shannon ignored Fia, lifting a feathery eyebrow with interest in Duncan. She already knew perfectly well who he was. Shannon was just expressing her pleasure at having gotten a look at his handsome face.
Shannon hadn’t known Ian. Had no idea of the resemblance
