The Angel

Simon went in the opposite direction of Adler and made his way to the back wall where Keira’s two donated watercolors were on display.

He decided to bid on the one with the cottage, just to give himself something to do.

It was a white stone cottage set against a background of wildflowers, green pastures and ocean that wasn’t in any part of Ireland that he had ever visited. He supposed that was part of the point—to create a place of imagination and dreams. A beautiful, bucolic place. A place not entirely of this world.

At least not the world in which he lived and worked.

Simon settled on a number and put in his bid, one that virtually assured him of ending up with the painting. He could give it to Abigail and Owen as a wedding present. Even if he didn’t plan to go to the wedding, he could give them a present.

He acknowledged an itch to head down to the Public Garden with the BPD detectives, but he let it go. He’d seen enough dead bodies, enough to last him for a long time. A lifetime, even. Except he knew there would be more. There always were.

Instead, he decided to find another glass of champagne, maybe grab a couple of the chicken skewers and wait for a dry, calmer Keira Sullivan to make her appearance.

Chapter 4

Beacon Hill

Boston, Massachusetts

8:45 p.m., EDT

June 17

Keira peeled off her hiking shorts and added them to the wet heap on the bathroom floor of her attic apartment. Her hands shook as she splashed herself with cold water and tried not to think about the dead man and the expressions of the two students as they’d frantically checked him for a pulse, uncertain of their actions, desperate to do the right thing even as they were repulsed by the idea of touching a corpse.

“The poor man,” she said to her reflection. “I wonder who he is.” She saw herself wince, and whispered, “Was.”

She towel-dried her hair as best she could, expecting a twig or a dead mosquito to fall out, a souvenir from her earlier hike to her mother’s. None did, and she combed out the tangles and pinned it up. She’d been looking forward to tonight’s auction and reception, but her visit with her mother and then the awful scene in the Public Garden had sucked all the excitement out of her. She just wanted to get the evening over with and be on her way to Ireland.

But for Ireland, she wouldn’t have even been in the Public Garden tonight. She’d dropped her car off with a friend in Back Bay to look after for the next six weeks and ran into the students dragging the man out of the pond on her way to the Garrison house. As she’d raced up Beacon Street after the police had arrived, she couldn’t shake the notion that her mother’s talk about sin and evil had put her in the Public Garden at exactly the wrong moment.

But that was unfair, Keira thought, and as she returned to her bedroom, she found herself wishing she could call her mother and tell her what had happened.

Everything changes.

She dug through her small closet, pulling out a long, summery skirt and top. The apartment was no more permanent than anywhere else she’d lived, but she liked the space—the efficient, downsize appliances, the light, the view of the Common. It wasn’t on the grand scale as the rest of the house, but it had charm and character and worked just fine for now. Compared to her mother’s cabin, Keira thought, her apartment was a palace.

In five minutes, she had wriggled into her outfit, put on a bit of makeup and was rushing back down the stairs again. Two deep breaths, and she entered the drawing room. Her cousin Fiona’s ensemble was playing a jaunty tune that didn’t fit Keira’s mood, but she tried to appreciate it nonetheless.

Owen immediately fell in alongside her, and she smiled at him. “I’m okay,” she said before he could ask.

“Good.”

He had a way about him that helped center people. Keira could imagine how reassuring his presence would be to a trapped earthquake victim. “Who was the man I saw you with earlier?” she asked. “Big guy. Another BPD type?”

She thought Owen checked a grin, but he wasn’t always easy to read. “You must mean Simon Cahill. He’s a volunteer with Fast Rescue.”

“From Boston?”

“From wherever he happens to be at the moment.” Owen smiled as he grabbed a glass of champagne from a caterer’s tray and handed it to her. “A little like you in that regard. I don’t know what happened to him. He was here two seconds ago.”

Just as well he’d taken off, Keira thought. She’d spotted him at the height of her distress, and if Owen was a steadying presence, Simon Cahill, she thought, was the opposite. Even in those few seconds of contact, she’d felt probed and exposed, as if he’d assumed she had something to hide and was trying to see right through her.

She thanked Owen for the champagne and eased into the crowd, realizing her hair was still damp from the downpour. For the most part, people she greeted seemed unaware of her earlier arrival, which spared her having to explain.

Colm Dermott, a wiry, energetic Irishman, approached her with his usual broad smile. She’d met him two years ago on a trip to Ireland, where he was a highly respected professor of anthropology at University College Cork. He’d arrived in Boston in April after cobbling together grants to put together the Boston-Cork conference and had immediately recruited Keira to help.

“The auction’s going well.” He seemed genuinely excited. “You must be eager to go off tomorrow.”

“I’m packed and ready to go,” she said.

“Ah, you’ll have a grand time.”

She’d given Colm a copy of the video recording she’d made of Patsy McCarthy telling her story, but hadn’t told him about her mother and her long-ago trip to Ireland.

They chatted a bit more, but Keira couldn’t relax. Finally, Colm sighed at her. “Is something wrong, Keira?”

She took a too-big gulp of champagne. “It’s been a strange day.”

Before she could explain further, her emotional younger cousin burst through the crowd, her blue eyes shining with both excitement and revulsion. “Keira, are you okay?” Fiona asked. “Owen just told me about the man you found drowned. I wondered why Dad and Abigail left so fast.”

Colm looked shocked. “I had no idea. Keira, what happened? No wonder you’re distracted.”

She quickly explained, both Colm and Fiona listening intently. “It wasn’t a pleasant scene. I wish I could have arrived sooner, but it might not have made any difference. He could have had a heart attack or a stroke, and that’s why he ended up in the water.”

“Do you know who he was?” Colm asked.

Keira shook her head. “No idea.”

“I hope he wasn’t murdered,” Fiona said abruptly. “I hope not, too,” Keira said, reminding herself that her cousin was the daughter of an experienced homicide detective. “The police are there in full force, at least.”

Owen returned and spoke to Fiona. “I just talked to your father. He’s going to be a while and asked me to give you a ride back to your apartment—”

“I can take the subway.”

“Not an option.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “My dad worries too much.”

But she seemed to know better than to argue with Owen. She and some friends were subletting an apartment for the summer that her father considered a rathole, on a bad street, too far from the subway and too big a leap for a daughter just a year out of high school. Keira had stayed out of that particular discussion.

“I’ll water your plants while you’re in Ireland,” Fiona said, giving a quick grin. “Maybe I’ll talk Dad into buying me a ticket to Ireland for a week. You and I could visit pubs and listen to Irish music.”

“That’d be fun,” Keira said.

“It would be, wouldn’t it? Right now I guess I should go pack up.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to hear more of your band.”