He paused, but still no one spoke. He knew what they were thinking. With one colleague in serious condition and another missing, he was slipping into posttraumatic stress syndrome.

He could feel his pulse tripping along. “I was focused on the blast. The diversion worked. I didn’t see a thing. The vehicle-nothing.”

“How’d they get to her porch and plant the bomb?” the ATF guy asked.

Bob wanted to strangle him. “Gee. I guess I probably let them in and showed them Abigail’s grill and said, Hey, there’s a good spot. No one’ll notice a bomb there.”

“Any telephone repairs, cable repairs, electricians, carpenters-”

“I gave my statement. Scoop’d give his, except he’s unconscious. And Abigail’s not here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The ATF guy winced. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

The arson investigator said, “Anything we can do for you, Bob? For your family?”

Bob had a half-dozen retorts ready, none of them nice, but he saw the earnest look on the guy’s face. Everyone wanted to help. Everyone felt lousy for him.

He had to get out of there.

He found refuge in the passenger seat of his heap of a car and scraped gunk off his cell phone, then dialed Eddie O’Shea at his little village pub on the southwest Irish coast. Bob had already talked to Keira and an Irish detective about the attack on her. Now he wanted to talk to the bartender. They’d met earlier in August, when Bob had ventured to the land of his ancestors for the first time. He went with his sister in the days after she’d finally given up on her solitary life in the woods and rejoined civilization, such as it was. Keira had already fallen for Simon.

Bob hoped Simon would be on the trip to Ireland at Christmas with Keira, his daughters and his sister. They could sneak off for a beer or two. Christmas seemed far away now. Out of reach and impossible.

O’Shea answered after a couple of rings.

“Irish cops still there?” Bob asked.

“They’ve gone. They searched my pub for bombs, Bobby.”

O’Shea insisted on calling him Bobby. Drove him nuts. “Find any?”

“Just Patrick’s cooking.”

It was a valiant attempt at humor. Eddie O’Shea had lived a quiet life before June when Keira had wandered into his pretty village on Kenmare Bay. “Trust no one,” Bob said. “The guards. Your Irish fairies. No one, O’Shea. Do you hear me?”

“Are you well, Bobby?”

“Burned off my eyebrows.”

“Simon?”

“A man with a mission.” Bob felt his throat constrict. He’d developed a liking for Simon Cahill, and no question Simon believed he’d brought Norman Estabrook down on them all. Bob wasn’t so sure. It was like Estabrook was a deadly virus lying dormant in their lives, just waiting for a chance to spread and do its damage. “I want to hear about this Irishman who tried to kill my niece.”

“He knew about the bomb.”

“The one in my house. There was another one in a car.”

“Ah. He didn’t mention that one. He’s a hired man.”

“Why did he tell Keira?”

“He didn’t. He told that black-haired firebrand.”

Keira had described her to Bob. “Any word on who she is?”

“Not that anyone’s told me. She knows what she’s doing, Bobby, I’ll say that.”

“But she’s not law enforcement?”

“Ah, Bobby…I don’t want to think about who she might be.”

“Like what? A spy?” Bob’s head pounded. “Never mind. You’re a bartender. You love conspiracies. Was she alone?”

“Yes. She said she was walking the Beara Way, but she knew about Norman Estabrook, the billionaire Yank-”

“I know who he is.”

“That’s not a surprise.” Eddie hesitated, then said in a near whisper, “Lord Will was here, Bobby.”

“Simon’s friend?”

“We can trust him. I’m sure of it. And Keira. She’ll be safe here, Bobby. She has more spine than most.”

“That she does.” Bob didn’t want to hang up. He hated the idea of Keira being across the ocean, alone, worried about Simon, targeted by a killer. She’d always been like another daughter to him. “Crazy artist. Tell her to cool her heels and paint pictures of Irish fairies and thistle, and I’ll be in touch when I can.”

Bob disconnected and got out of the car. The ATF guy came over. “Who were you talking to just now, Lieutenant?”

His open suspicion and arrogance went up one side of Bob and down the other, and he decided he just wasn’t doing anymore right now. “A bartender in Ireland,” he said. “I asked him for his recipe for rhubarb crumble.”

Bob headed back to his ex-wife and his daughter before the ATF guy could rip his head off.

Chapter 12

Off the coast of Massachusetts

7:45 p.m., EDT

August 25

Abigail rode out another wave of nausea, forcing herself not to give in to seasickness. What would Owen say? He’d never been seasick in his life. Thinking about him gave her strength. He’d tell her to sleep while she could. Bob, Scoop, Yarborough, Lucas-her father. They’d all tell her the same thing. Simon would, too, but she didn’t know him as well as the others.

Although some days she wondered if she knew her father at all.

She squeezed her eyes shut and fought back tears. They would only make her blindfold wet and worsen her discomfort. She ached, and she itched, and she wanted to fight these bastards but couldn’t. They’d taken turns checking on her, providing a sip of water, threatening her if she tried to escape.

Two men whose voices she didn’t recognize were arguing on the other side of the door. One man was clearly American-petulant, arrogant. The other was British-fearless, angry.

“You promised you’d be there for me,” the American said.

The Brit snorted. “Not like this, you bloody fool.”

“Don’t talk to me that way.”

“I’ll talk to you any way I choose. I agreed to do a job, and you went behind my back and hired these utter morons to indulge your petty desire for vengeance.”

“There’s nothing petty about anything I do. I don’t care what your credentials are, you’re a mercenary who works for me. You’re to do as I say.”

“I will, but in my professional judgment-”

“You’ve made your opinion clear,” the American said, less irritated. “Let’s go forward from where we are now and not worry about the past. Agreed?”

A moment’s hesitation. “Agreed.”

The door creaked, opening abruptly. Abigail straightened as best she could. Her shoulders and thighs were painfully stiff, and her fingers and toes, despite her efforts to wiggle them, had gone numb.

She heard footsteps circling her chair. “My, my. You have had a difficult day, haven’t you?” It was the American, smug, yet also, underneath, clearly agitated. “I have, too. I had a long, hard journey from Montana.”

Norman Estabrook.

Abigail forced herself not to react.

“The risks I’ve taken today and the aggravation I’ve experienced are worth it, Detective Browning, just to see you here, at my mercy.” He was in front of her now. “Your daddy and your friends in law enforcement have no idea where you are or where I am. None whatsoever.”

“Enjoy your role as kidnapper in chief while you can, Norman.” Abigail hated the raspiness of her voice, but at least it was strong. “It’s not going to last. You screwed up today, didn’t you? Everything didn’t go as planned, did it?”

She felt his breath hot against her face. “I have you. I have Abigail March Browning, John March’s daughter. Tell me, Detective. Don’t you think your father needs his own personal devil to fight?”

“We can call and ask him.”

“He needs me. He needs an enemy who is his equal. You learned about good and evil this summer, didn’t you? The serial killer who came after your friend Keira was fascinated with the devil. You investigated him. He understood that God needs Lucifer.”

Abigail suppressed a shiver of fear. She’d learned more about the nature of evil in June than she’d ever wanted to know. In her eight years as a detective, she had never come across such flat-out evil-the conscious, deliberate choice to commit vile acts of gratuitous violence on innocent people.