Harbor Island. Carla Neggers
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six-foot stepladder leaned up against the back wall, reminding her that the Bristols were having work done on the place.
Maisie grabbed a book off a worktable pushed up against multipaned windows. “I’m sorry, I don’t have many chairs in here, and the few I have are stacked with books. I’ve been collecting them like a madwoman. I don’t know when I’ll get to read even half of them.”
“We don’t mind standing,” Emma said.
Colin walked over to the window. He’d said little since arriving at the Bristols’ house, but she had no doubt he was paying close attention. That she’d found a dead woman and Yank had found his wife trapped in Aoife O’Byrne’s Dublin studio hadn’t sat well with him—as an FBI agent or as Emma’s fiancé and Yank’s friend.
Maisie set her book back on the table. Emma saw it was on Jack B. Yeats. “I wasn’t familiar with his work until recently,” Maisie said, brushing her fingertips across the cover, one of his western Irish landscapes. “Rachel told me about him, as a matter of fact. I didn’t realize at first that her interest in Yeats cuts to our different approaches to the film we were working on together. She wanted flash and dazzle. I want...” Her eyes shone with fresh tears. “Well, I don’t know what I want.”
“When did Rachel introduce you to Yeats’s work?” Emma asked.
“About a week ago. She’d done some research and thought she’d found the perfect hook for our movie.”
“And you weren’t sure?”
“I wasn’t, no. I’m interested in the intersection of pagan Celtic Ireland and Christianity and the integration of those two worlds. I’ve been gobbling up everything I can.” Maisie gave a broad gesture to more books stacked on the worktable. “It’s fascinating.”
Maisie—or someone—had turned the end wall into a collage of color printouts of photographs of Irish Celtic scenes. Emma recognized ogham stones, Celtic crosses, beehive huts and church ruins, pages from the Book of Kells.
“I wasn’t upset by Rachel’s ideas,” Maisie added quickly. “Differences are to be expected in a creative endeavor. I like to throw everything out onto the table—without self-censorship—and see what develops. Let things simmer and percolate until what’s meant to be emerges. It’s not always a neat and tidy process, but it works, at least for me.”
“You’ve had a great deal of success,” Emma said.
“I support good people and get out of their way and let them do their work.”
“That takes a certain vision, doesn’t it?”
Maisie smiled, brushing at her tears with the heel of one hand. “And luck.”
“Did Rachel—”
“All my successes were flukes according to Rachel. She said it was a positive viewpoint. If they were flukes, I wouldn’t expect to duplicate them in the future. I wouldn’t be disappointed.”
“She was lowering your expectations?”
“Helping me to a soft landing,” Maisie said. “She and my dad started seeing each other when I was fifteen. I was even more awkward than the average awkward fifteen-year-old. Living in Las Vegas with my erratic but loving mother. Traveling back and forth to Los Angeles and Boston to see my father. It’s not like not knowing where your next meal is coming from or going to bed hungry, but I coped by watching movies, talking movies, eating and sleeping movies. Rachel was very kind to me in her own way, and she taught me a lot.”
“But part of her still thought of you as that awkward fifteen-year-old,” Emma said.
“She admitted as much.”
Colin turned from the window. “Was she hijacking your movie, Maisie?”
“She knew I wouldn’t let that happen. She told me last night that she realized I wasn’t the insecure girl breathless for whatever words of wisdom she had for me—that just because I’m open to ideas doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas of my own, or a strong vision of my own. That I...I...” Maisie gulped in air, her face crumpling as she sobbed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “I can’t believe she’s gone. I can’t believe someone killed her.”
Emma pulled out the one chair that was pushed under the table and lifted a stack of books from the seat. Colin eased Maisie onto the chair. “Try not to hyperventilate,” he said. “It won’t help.”
She nodded, still gulping in air. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been in such a state of shock that I’ve hardly cried at all. I don’t know what all Rachel was up to—I think she was trying to manipulate me or bully me into doing the movie her way. I’m sure that’s why she invited Aoife O’Byrne here. How awful it must be for her to arrive in Boston and not twenty-four hours later, the woman who got her here is shot to death in cold blood. I can’t believe—” She clutched her shirt at her solar plexus. “I’m going to be sick.”
Colin placed a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Maisie. Just breathe normally.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out of the corners. Her nose was running. She sniffled, letting go of her shirt and wiping her nose on the sleeve. She opened her eyes and sniffled again. “Sorry. I never seem to have a tissue. I’ll change in a few minutes. God, what an awful day.” She raised her gaze to Emma. “I know you’re the one who found Rachel this morning. The police asked us—Dad and me—if we knew that she’d called you. We didn’t. We’ve no idea what she wanted. Did she tell you? When Rachel called—” Maisie stopped abruptly and shook her head. “Never mind. I know you can’t tell me things.”
“How long had you and Rachel been working on the movie?” Emma asked.
“Since October. In the last week or so I could see it was turning into two different movies. Hers and mine. Rachel wanted to take my interest and knowledge of the Irish Celtic pagan and Irish Celtic Christian worlds and use them as the backdrop for a movie about an art thief and the private art detective chasing him.”
Emma kept her expression neutral. “What prompted Rachel to go in that direction?”
“She read a news story about the murder of an American in a little Irish village. Declan’s Cross. It mentioned an unsolved art theft of two Jack B. Yeats paintings, and she was off and running. Obsessed. She looked into this art detective and Aoife O’Byrne. The art detective is in his eighties now. She said ours would have to be younger.”
“Did she give you his name?” Colin asked.
Maisie shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe. I wouldn’t remember. I’m terrible with names.”
Emma narrowed her gaze on her. “Wendell Sharpe,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Maisie straightened, gaping at Emma. “Wait. Sharpe? You two are related?”
“He’s my grandfather.”
“Oh. Oh. No wonder Rachel called you this morning, then. Now it makes perfect sense.”
Emma picked up the book on Yeats. “How so?”
“You’re an FBI agent and the granddaughter of a renowned art detective. Rachel could have been shifting and thinking of making you the art detective in her version of our movie. Maybe doing a composite of you and your grandfather. It’d all be fiction, of course—as Rachel said, inspired by but not based on real events. Anyway, with Aoife O’Byrne arriving yesterday, I can see that Rachel would want to talk to you. Pick your brain. With my scheduling a meeting at the marina this morning, it makes sense she asked to meet you on the island. Pure convenience.”
“Did she tell anyone she was going out there?” Emma asked.
“She didn’t tell me. She died before she could go into much detail about what she’d learned so far about the thief and her art detective—your grandfather—but I know she was excited. I was resistant to