“And you want him,” Simon said.

“Simon, we must do this my way or Lizzie and Abigail Browning are almost certainly dead.”

“What about Fletcher? Is there a chance-”

“Is there a chance we can trust him? It makes no difference. Whether Myles is with us or against us-or only looking after himself-doesn’t affect what we must do now.”

“All right.” Simon gave a grim smile. “Lucky I came armed.”

“Simon,” Will said, “you don’t have to do this.”

“Does Lizzie have a weapon?”

Will pictured her lithe, small body in jeans and a sweatshirt down on the rocks. He wished he’d shut her up in the fog with him and left Norman Estabrook, Myles Fletcher and their violence to the Americans.

Simon frowned. “Will…”

“No. No weapon. She has her wits, and her father trained her well. She’s managed to keep her secrets for months from you, John March and a brilliant, wealthy risk-taker.” Will looked down at the rocks and water. The squirrel chattered, out of sight. A seagull landed on a large boulder and stared up at the deck as if he had answers, knew all the secrets of his coastline. “Lizzie guessed Estabrook would come here.”

“Maybe she hoped he would.” Simon pulled open a door. “I’ll alert SWAT and get them moving.”

“On our direction. Not a moment sooner.”

“Sure, Will. We’ll make sure they get here in time to save our asses or put us in body bags.”

Chapter 27

Boston, Massachusetts

7:02 a.m., EDT

August 27

Bob sat across from John March at a table under a window in Morrigan’s. It was very early, and the bar was closed, the liquor bottles still put away for the night. Jeremiah Rush, who seemed to be perpetually on duty, hadn’t stopped the FBI director-or Bob-from going downstairs. March was alone. He’d shaken his protective detail, told them to go to hell, threatened to shoot them-Bob didn’t know what.

None of them had slept. Him, March, Lucas Jones, Tom Yarborough. Who knew where Simon was. Hearing Abigail tortured on the line with her father didn’t sit well with any of them.

“It’s too early to drink,” Bob said. “You should at least have a cup of coffee.”

“I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes. Here, where…” March cleared his throat without finishing his thought.

“We’re never alone, John. Our ghosts are always with us.”

March’s eyes showed a fear no man should know. “Lizzie Rush. Abigail…” He sighed heavily and nodded to the empty bar. “It all started here thirty years ago.”

Bob didn’t know what good drifting into the past would do. “We’ve made progress in the past few hours. Not much. Some.”

“You shouldn’t have come here, Bob.” March abruptly snapped up to his feet. “Don’t follow me,” he said, making it an order, and started for the half flight of stairs.

Bob’s head throbbed. John March had never made anyone’s life easy. It wasn’t why he was on the planet. Resisting the temptation to sit there and wait for the bar to open, order Irish whiskey and not move for the rest of the day, Bob forced himself to get to his feet.

If he wasn’t breaking federal laws, March had no authority over him.

Bob headed up the stairs after the FBI director. Given what she knew about her mother’s death-what any of them knew except March himself-Lizzie Rush had good reason to hate him, at least to be a little or a lot obsessed with him. She was up on the board as a person of interest, potentially in cahoots with Norman Estabrook and guilty as hell.

Except no one really believed that.

Jeremiah Rush was standing behind his desk, directing a middle-aged couple to the Freedom Trail. Without breaking eye contact with them, he gave a subtle nod toward a hall behind him.

Two minutes later, Bob took the hotel’s back steps to a narrow alley, one of the countless nooks and crannies he was always surprised to find on Beacon Hill.

March was eyeing a shiny dark blue BMW.

Bob motioned to the expensive car. “Going to steal it, John?”

“I want to trade my life for hers.” March didn’t meet Bob’s eye, the only indication-other than being there in the first place-that the strain of his daughter’s kidnapping had gotten to him. “Let Estabrook torture me instead.”

“Come on, will you?” Bob said, nearly knocking a pot of geraniums off the bottom step. “Cut me a break. I lose the FBI director in Boston, and they’ll zap my pension for sure.”

March’s shoulders slumped, but only for a second before he straightened again. Even now, after hearing his kidnapped daughter scream in agony, cry for her daddy, he didn’t have a thread or a hair out of place. But anyone who thought he was unaffected would, Bob knew, be making a mistake.

March blew out a breath at the overcast sky. “It was hard enough to shake my detail, but you, O’Reilly. Hell.” He looked over at his longtime friend. “Fill me in.”

Bob was relieved to have the emotions out of the way. “The dead guy, Bassette, was local. You know that. He hired a couple of guys from Chicago -Estabrook’s old stomping grounds. One of them must have sneaked into our yard and planted the bomb on Abigail’s porch. Cops. You’d think we’d sew up the place, but only so much you can do. They could have thrown the bomb over the fence and killed Scoop and Fiona outright.”

“Bob-”

“You don’t need Estabrook to torture you. You’re torturing yourself. I know. I’ve been doing the same thing, blaming myself for Fiona having to sit there with Scoop bleeding all over her. For what she saw yesterday in that alley.” Bob bent over and righted the flowerpot. He had no idea why. He sighed. “It gets us nowhere. The blame.”

“I’m sorry, Bob. For Fiona. She’s a good kid. She-”

“Why are you sorry? What did you do to her?”

The FBI director barely cracked a smile, and Bob suddenly remembered them standing on a South Boston street years ago. March, ten years older, handsome, had been on the move, and Bob, just a kid, had been a cop’s son who didn’t want his friend up the street to be dead. Every night, he’d prayed for Deirdre McCarthy to come home to her mother. Things hadn’t worked out that way, and now, thirty years later, he could feel that awful, hot, violent summer reaching out to him and the man a few yards from him, sucking them back into a time and a world they both had tried to forget.

Bob felt ragged and out of control, even as he was determined to get through the day. Do his job. Find Abigail. Arrest her kidnappers.

March looked as if he’d crumble if anyone touched him.

“You know Abigail wants a wedding?” Bob dug out another pack of gum. “She’s not waiting anymore. She’s marrying her rich Garrison. I’ll be invited. Who knows where it’ll be.”

“Owen’s a good man,” March said, choking back his emotion.

“He didn’t grow up like we did. None of them did.” Bob worked a piece of gum out of the pack. “Then there’s Keira. Ten to one she and Simon will be getting married. She’s already dragging me on that Christmas trip to Ireland. Hell, John. These women are going to break my bank.”

March had tears now in his dark eyes. “Are you at peace with your past, Bob?”

Bob grinned at him. “Never.”

“I keep hearing her scream.”

“I know. We all do, but it’s worse for you. Be glad her mother didn’t get that call.” Bob peeled off the wrapper and stuck the gum in his mouth. “Because I’m your friend, John, I’m going to tell you this. Kathryn wants to take you to a spa retreat.”

“A spa-Bob, what are you talking about?”

He chewed his gum. “She told Abigail on her last trip to Boston. I was up on my porch, and I overheard them talking down by Scoop’s garden. I can see you in a bathrobe, drinking herbal tea, waiting for your massage-”

“All right, enough.” March sighed up at the sky again. “We’re not as young as we used to be.”

“So? Who cares? We know what we’re doing now. Right?”