She heard March take in a sharp breath. “You let me believe you’re a professional. You’re not, are you?”

She didn’t answer.

“I want to know who you are,” he said.

“You’ll find out on your own soon enough. Please listen to me, Director March. You can’t tell a soul about me or what I’ve done. You can’t come after me. You’ll be risking my life and my ability to help find your daughter if you do.”

“I can have an agent meet you tonight, wherever you are. Let me help you. I don’t want you to endanger yourself or this investigation by taking unnecessary risks.”

“There is one thing.” Lizzie hesitated, wondering if she was going too far-if she’d gone too far already. But she didn’t stop herself. “I have a tall, handsome, patrician Brit on my tail. Will Davenport. He and Simon are friends. He came to Ireland to see about Keira. Can I trust him?”

“Even if you can, would you? Do you trust anyone?”

It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer tonight. “ Norman doesn’t know I’ve been helping you. I want to keep it that way.” She tried a bite of the black pudding. “You didn’t steer me wrong. Black pudding does take like sausage.”

She shut her phone before he could respond.

Would March figure out who she was and have her hotel stormed by armed agents at sunrise? He could make it happen, even in Ireland.

But he wouldn’t. John March was a hard man who often faced only bad choices, and right now, she was safe and his daughter wasn’t. And he’d made his choice. He would let his anonymous source have room to maneuver and give her a chance to find Norman Estabrook-and save her own skin as well as his daughter’s.

Lizzie ate a few more bites of her meal before she gave up and headed for the bathroom, turning on the water in the tub as hot as she could stand. She added a scoop of lavender bath salts and, as they melted, shed her robe and dipped slowly into the steaming water. The heat eased the ache and stiffness in her muscles and the scent of lavender soothed her soul. Images washed over her-Simon and Norman in Montana going over plans for a Patagonia hike…the enigmatic Brit winking at her in Las Vegas…Scoop Wisdom walking out to the street with his colander of beans…Keira Sullivan and the black dog in the stone circle.

Will Davenport eyeing her over his brandy.

Lowering herself deeper into the tub, an image came to her of John March at her family’s hotel in Boston last August. It was the anniversary of her mother’s death, and he was drinking Irish whiskey alone at a table in the pub named in her honor. Lizzie had been in Boston, making one of her strategic appearances at the hotel offices, and had stopped at the Whitcomb.

She hadn’t approached the FBI director and former Boston detective and doubted he’d been aware of her presence. Now she couldn’t help but wonder where they’d all be if she’d identified herself as the anonymous source who’d been supplying him information on Norman Estabrook and his drug-trafficking friends.

But she hadn’t.

She got out of the tub, dried off with a giant towel and slipped back into her robe. She returned to the living room and, no longer in the mood for a chat, set her tray in the hall and called down for its removal. When she sat back on the sofa, she managed to deal another hand of bridge, but she didn’t sort the cards and instead curled up under a throw made of soft Irish wool and gave in to her fatigue.

When the telephone rang, she bolted upright, instantly awake. She glanced at the clock as she answered. It was almost 4:00 a.m.

“He’s here,” Justin said. “What should I do now?”

“Send him up.”

“Lizzie? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“All right, I won’t tell anyone.”

She felt a surge of heat. “It’s not like that.” But she couldn’t tell him the truth. “I’ll explain one day, Justin, I promise.”

“I imagine it’ll be a tale.”

“Let Davenport think he’s checking into his own room and I’ll take it from there.”

“You lead a complicated life,” her cousin said.

As Lizzie hung up, her bathrobe fell open, the cool night air hitting her exposed skin.

This won’t do, she thought. She’d come to Ireland to talk to an FBI agent about a man she was convinced would commit murder, not to greet a British lord in nothing but a hotel bathrobe.

Best to jump into some clothes before Will Davenport got to the door.

Chapter 14

Dublin, Ireland

3:47 a.m., IST

August 26

By the time she heard a key card slide into the slot in the door, Lizzie had on a long knit skirt and a T-shirt. She was still barefoot, but at least she wasn’t naked under her bathrobe. She unchained the door and opened it. Will had his trench coat slung over one arm and a scarred leather bag in his hand, which at least meant she didn’t have to worry about Justin turning up.

“I had a feeling you were good,” she said.

Will gave her the slightest smile. “And I had a feeling you were on the other side of this door.”

“We Rushes like to keep an eye on spies in our hotels.”

“You’re imaginative. May I assume I’m invited in?”

“You may.”

Lizzie stood back, and he walked past her and set his bag on the floor next to the coffee table. As she shut the door, she noticed him glance at the scattered cards on the table. She ran a hand through her hair, remembered she hadn’t combed it since her bath and wondered what had gotten into her, arranging for an MI6 agent to share her room.

She scooped up the cards. “Playing bridge by myself helps me think. My method of creative problem solving.”

“What problems were you trying to solve tonight?”

“You. What to do when you showed up.”

The soft light from a brass floor lamp created shadows that darkened his eyes and made them even more difficult to read. “And your answer was to have me sent up here to your room?”

“No, I’d already figured that one out. I knew I didn’t want you wandering around on your own and eliciting secrets about me from the staff.” Not to mention her cousin.

“You worked here yourself prior to becoming director of concierge services for all your family’s hotels.”

“Ah. You’ve been busy.”

“I have an able assistant.”

“I loved working here. I learned a lot. Ireland offers an incredible variety of opportunities-great restaurants, rich history, natural beauty.”

“So it does.”

“Most of what the staff could tell you about me is innocuous enough. I can speak a bit of Irish and have a fondness for Irish butter and fresh Irish seafood, especially mussels, and I love to walk.” She tidied up the deck, using both hands, which, she noticed, were trembling slightly. An annoyance, but she blamed her interrupted sleep, not the man across from her. “But I decided I didn’t want anyone telling you about my Grafton Street shopping sprees.”

As far as she could tell, Will didn’t respond to her attempt at humor or even notice it. “Has Norman Estabrook been to this hotel?”

“I met him here, actually. A year ago this past April.” She set the cards back on the table. Interrogation time. “He hired Simon Cahill as a consultant a few months later.”

Will laid his coat over the back of a chair. He looked every inch the British lord turned SAS officer and spy as his gaze held hers. “Perhaps you should tell me who you are.”

“You’re here. Obviously you already know.”

“Lizzie Rush, hotelier and-what else?”

“I haven’t had time for much else lately.”

“Why did you come to Dublin tonight?”

“Would you believe I got tired of walking the Beara Way and had a hankering for nice sheets?”

His outright smile caught her off guard. “No.”

“It’s my favorite of our hotels. It opened twenty years ago-over my father’s objections. He’s not much on Ireland, but my aunt and uncle fell in love with Dublin. I was ten years old, and I wanted to come here so bad.”