Instinct and training had taken over the moment she’d realized she wasn’t alone in the stone circle, but now, in the familiar surroundings of her favorite hotel, she could finally let down her guard-at least until Lord Davenport arrived. But she and Keira Sullivan had come close to being killed a few hours ago. Would Will have arrived in time to save them if she’d failed?

A moot question, Lizzie told herself as she pulled on a cuddly hotel robe and tied it tightly around her waist.

She went into the beautifully appointed living room of the suite and ordered a full Irish breakfast from room service. Her blackberry crumble was long gone, and she was starving. But she resisted ordering brandy, or a martini.

She sank onto the sofa and grabbed a deck of cards off the coffee table, an antique she and her aunt had bought two years ago at an estate sale in County Clare. Each of the hotel’s thirty-seven rooms was individually decorated, as much as possible, with furnishings and objets d’art from Ireland.

Against her father’s objections, Lizzie had spent eighteen months working at their Dublin hotel, loving every minute. She and her aunt had crawled through countless Irish galleries, choosing Irish paintings, pottery, sculpture, glasswork, throws and whatever else caught their fancy. Lizzie recognized a copper vase they’d found at a gallery in Kenmare. It was fashioned by a contemporary Irish metalworker but reminded her of the old mines where Keira’s story of the stone angel had originated.

Lizzie moved the copper vase and a stack of books on Ireland aside, creating space on the table, and dealt the cards into four piles of thirteen each for a game of bridge. She sorted the hands and counted up the points, then silently bid each one as if she didn’t know what was in the others. She produced an offense and defense and played the game. Flipping one card after another, keeping track of aces and kings and trump cards, scooping up winners and losers. The process anchored her mind while allowing it the freedom to roam.

She had to have her thoughts in order before she made the call she knew she had to make.

The offense won. She dealt another hand.

Her breakfast was delivered by a longtime employee of the hotel, an older woman who didn’t ask why Lizzie was having breakfast at such an hour. She set the tray on the coffee table, and when she left, Lizzie debated eating her meal, taking her bath and going to bed. She could postpone her call and tell Justin to never mind and not to let her know after all when Will Davenport arrived.

Instead she buttered a chunk of brown bread and took a bite as she got out her disposable cell phone and dialed a number she’d received in a terse e-mail last summer. She’d called it only twice before, preferring to stick to e-mail whenever possible.

It was just after 9:00 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast, but John March picked up after the first ring. “Where are you?”

“ Ireland.” No reason not to tell him that much. “ Norman didn’t go on a joy ride this morning. He didn’t crash into a mountain or run into mechanical problems and make an emergency landing somewhere. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry about what happened today. I wish I’d known sooner. Are Scoop Wisdom and your daughter-”

“You’re the one who needs to do the talking.”

Lizzie’s heart jumped painfully. “The bomb was a diversion, wasn’t it?” Her father had taught her about bombs, diversionary tactics. “ Norman had your daughter kidnapped, didn’t he?”

“Talk.”

She picked up her fork. If she let John March intimidate her now, she’d be of no help to him or anyone else-especially Abigail Browning. “I’m debating whether to try black pudding,” she said, poking it on her plate. “What do you think?”

“It’s made with pig’s blood. Tastes like sausage.”

She could hear anguish in his voice. “White pudding?”

“No pig’s blood. Suet, oatmeal. This and that.”

“Doesn’t sound very appetizing. I guess some things I just don’t want to know.”

“That’s true for any of us.”

Under the strength and determination that had characterized the FBI director in her dealings with him, Lizzie now heard the terror of a father for his missing daughter.

“Are you still in Boston?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Simon?”

“He’s still here, too.”

Lizzie stared at the warm brown bread, butter, eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes-the black and white pudding-on her simple white china plate, all a reminder of normalcy. She’d led a relatively normal life of family, work, travel and the occasional romance and adventure before she’d let her curiosity-her sense of duty-ask questions and see things others might ignore. Once she’d found herself in a room of violent drug traffickers, what was she supposed to have done? She’d started by e-mailing names and surreptitious photos to John March.

But hadn’t she been looking for an excuse to contact the detective who’d looked into her mother’s death thirty years ago?

It didn’t matter. Instead of dropping out of Norman ’s circle of friends as she otherwise would have, Lizzie had dived in and hung on for the next year.

“ Norman will never look at himself and understand he was arrested because he did wrong.” She spoke calmly, despite her own fatigue and fear. “He’ll blame you and Simon. And me, if he ever finds out what I’ve done.”

March didn’t soften. “You’re the woman who saved Keira Sullivan and warned Bob O’Reilly about the bomb.”

“I’m not sure Keira needed my help. An Irish gale, an ancient stone circle, a black dog out of nowhere. Spooky.” Not to mention an aristocratic British spy. Lizzie stabbed her fork into the black pudding and cut off a small piece. “For all the time I’ve spent in Ireland, I’ve never tried black or white pudding. I suppose you have Michael Murphy’s file on your desk by now?”

“The Irish authorities are cooperating in the investigation.”

An oblique response. “He’s Norman ’s doing.”

“No one’s leaping to any conclusions.”

“I am,” Lizzie said.

“Estabrook has no reason to take this risk.”

“Did he have any reason to circumnavigate the world in a hot-air balloon?”

“That’s an adventure.”

“You’re articulating a professional point of view. I understand that, but you don’t believe it. You know as well as I do that Norman is responsible for what happened today. Yesterday here in Ireland, actually. It’s after midnight.” She eyed the bit of pudding on the end of her fork. “Maybe you have to grow up eating black pudding to appreciate it.”

“You’re exhausted. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Maybe a full Irish breakfast will help. I’ve been banged up before, but I was in my first real fight for my life tonight.” She felt herself sinking deeper into the soft cushions of the sofa. “For someone else’s life, too.”

“You won,” March said.

“I could have killed Murphy. I had his own knife at his throat.”

“Did you want to kill him?”

Lizzie let her mind drift back to the moment in the stone circle when she’d first became aware of the shadows by the cluster of trees. “No. I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Why are you in Ireland?”

“I was reading about Irish fairies and decided-”

“You wanted to talk to Simon,” March said.

“It doesn’t matter now. I was almost too late to help Keira. I was too late to warn your daughter.”

“Bob O’Reilly’s daughter and Scoop Wisdom are alive because of you.”

Lizzie felt no satisfaction at March’s statement. “ Norman has virtually limitless resources.”

“The U.S. federal government can match them.”

“He could be anywhere by now. Trust me. He has a plan. He’s not anyone’s victim. He’s compulsive, and he’s a thrill seeker. Be sure your profilers understand what that really means. Be sure you understand. I didn’t see it myself at first, but Norman is a dangerous, violent man.”