Harbor Island. Carla Neggers
Murphy glanced back. “That time might already have come. I have a key,” he added. “Kitty gave me one before I left Declan’s Cross.”
They went up wide stairs to the second floor. No one else seemed to be around late on a dreary Saturday. Murphy explained that the building had a half-dozen studios owned or rented by artists. Each studio included an efficiency apartment—kitchen facilities, bathroom, place to sleep—but only Aoife actually lived in hers.
Her cop almost-brother-in-law clearly didn’t approve. “Aoife’s doing well financially,” he said as they came to the top of the stairs. “She can afford to live anywhere she likes. She doesn’t have to live in her studio. She says the other artists in the building come and go at all hours, but you see what it’s like now. Quiet as a church. I don’t like her being here on her own.”
“Does she appreciate your concern?”
“Not a bit. She tells me I know nothing of the art world. It’s true. I remember her as a girl tinkering with paints and brushes, hammers and chisels—she was always working on something. Kitty’s visual but not in the same way. You’ll see her talents when you come to Declan’s Cross one day.” Murphy gave a small, unreadable smile. “I’ll buy you a drink at her hotel.”
“Did Aoife tell you she’d received the cross that’s now missing from her hotel room and presumably is the one in Rachel Bristol’s hand in Boston this morning?”
The Irishman’s mood palpably darkened. “No.”
“Wendell Sharpe says she didn’t tell him, either,” Yank said, feeling a draft in the dimly lit hall. “What about her sister?”
“Aoife told Kitty she was going to Boston but didn’t mention the cross.”
“What did she give Kitty as her reasons for going?”
“Impulse,” Murphy said, as if that made sense where Aoife O’Byrne was concerned.
Yank said nothing. Sean Murphy had to be worried and annoyed at the situation in which Aoife had found herself—put herself—but he obviously wasn’t letting his emotions affect his actions and concentration. He looked like any other senior detective on the job as he approached a door at the front of the building. Yank could appreciate the difficulties when the professional and the personal collided in their line of work.
Murphy got out a set of keys, then went still. He held up a hand, and Yank came to a halt behind him. He saw immediately what had caught the Irishman’s attention. The heavy door to Aoife’s studio was shut now, but had clearly been pried open, the brass lock popped, with gouges and scratches on the door itself.
Murphy looked back at Yank. “Stay close. I don’t need a dead FBI agent on my hands.”
They entered a large room with high ceilings, exposed brick and stark, white-painted walls. Industrial-style windows were splattered with rain, reflecting the city lights and casting eerie shadows. A scarred-wood worktable occupied the center of the room. Utilitarian wood-and-metal bookcases that lined the interior wall had been cleared of their contents and one section upended, as if whoever had tossed the place had reacted in frustration.
Murphy dipped into an adjoining room—presumably the living quarters—and came back out again, nodding to Yank. “Clear.”
While the Irishman switched on lights, Yank walked over to the bookcases. Most of the contents appeared to be art supplies and photographic equipment. A few books and sketchpads. As he leaned forward, he saw a hand extending from under the upended bookcase and its spilled contents. At first he thought it might be a work of art. Some sculpture.
It wasn’t. It was a woman’s hand.
“Murphy.”
The Irish detective stood next to him and cursed under his breath. They moved in unison, dropping down to the bookcase and the woman pinned under its heavy metal-and-wood frame.
Yank saw dark hair. Fabric—dark red fleece. A jacket.
Murphy checked the exposed hand for a pulse. “She’s alive,” he said.
He and Yank lifted the heavy bookcase off the woman and shoved it aside. It had landed on top of her, trapping her but not crushing her. Murphy knelt next to her upper body, checking her breathing. Yank pulled sketchpads, a camera case and a tripod off her. He couldn’t see her face, but she was a small woman, dressed in jeans, walking shoes, the fleece jacket. She must have come in from the street. Had she surprised whoever had broken into the place? Or was this their perpetrator?
Murphy moved back slightly, exposing her other hand.
Yank’s gaze fixed on the simple gold wedding band.
He touched the Irishman’s shoulder. “Murphy. Move back a bit. I need to see her face.”
The detective gave him a sharp look. “Do you recognize her?”
Yank stared down at the pixie haircut and pixie face. The smooth, milky skin of her throat and her small body as she lay on her side, crumpled into a fetal position. His throat tightened. He couldn’t speak.
“Agent Yankowski,” Murphy said, cutting through Yank’s shock. “Who is this woman?”
Lucy.
Yank sank onto his knees next to her. “She’s my wife.”
“I played dead,” Lucy said, trembling under the blanket a paramedic had given her. Yank had placed the blanket around her shoulders himself. She was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the exposed brick wall of Aoife O’Byrne’s studio. She licked her chapped lips. “I heard you and Detective Garda Murphy come in, but I didn’t know who you were.”
Yank knew he had to contain his emotions, but it was damn hard. Lucy. His wife. In Dublin, trapped under a bookcase for at least thirty hours. Likely left for dead. She’d managed to protect her head and vital organs when the bookcase had come down on top of her, and she’d had access to her water bottle, although it had been nearly empty when she was attacked. She was bruised, but she had no broken bones, lacerations or other internal injuries. And she was shaken. More shaken than she would want to admit. She’d martialed her limited water supply and was mildly dehydrated, but she’d been lucky. They both knew it.
The gardai were doing their work. Sean Murphy was definitely the guy in charge. The living quarters had been tossed, too. Murphy had been firm but not a jackass when he’d reminded Yank this was now a criminal investigation. Yank knew he had no choice and had to stand back and let Irish law enforcement do their jobs. He had no authority in Ireland.
“What are you doing here, Lucy?” he asked finally, sitting next to her on the wood floor.
She attempted a weak smile. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“Consider me surprised.”
“Because you found me in Dublin or under a bookcase?”
“Take your pick.”
Her dark eyes leveled on him. The same dark eyes he’d fallen in love with at twenty-three at the University of Virginia. He’d been getting his master’s in criminal justice. She’d been a senior majoring in psychology. Ten years they’d been married, and yet some days—like today—he wasn’t sure he would ever know her.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she whispered.
“Did you break in here and pull the bookcase on top of yourself?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then nothing to be sorry about.”
“Cut-to-the-chase Matt Yankowski. There’s a reason you’re in law enforcement.” She sighed, again licking her chapped lips. He noticed a small cut at the corner of her mouth,