Free The Mist by Carla Neggers Page A

June?"
    He hesitated just a fraction of a second. "No name. No nothing. Forget him, Lizzie. If he and Lord Davenport are friends, forget him, too."
    "I said his name was Will. I didn't say 'Lord.'"
    "What, he is a lord? I was being sarcastic."
    True or not, her father wasn't telling her everything, not because he was a liar, but because he never told her or anyone else all he knew about anything. He could have researched Simon Cahill's friends as easily as she had--before or after Norman's arrest. Her father had never particularly liked her hanging out with Norman and his entourage.
    "Will is from your world, isn't he?"
    "Just because I taught you a few things doesn't mean you should be jumping to conclusions about what I used to do for a living."
    "Is that a yes or a no?"
    "You're an amateur with the skills and the instincts of a pro, Lizzie, but you're still an amateur. You don't have anyone behind you. You stand alone."
    "I have you."
    "Lizzie." He took in a breath. "If you need me, I'll be there for you. You know that."
    "I do, Dad."
    "Your aunt Henrietta is in Paris buying linens."
    "I adore Aunt Henrietta, but do you know what it's like to shop with her?"
    "I do. Pure hell. Paris is closer to Ireland than Maine. Pop over and help her. Get drunk on expensive brandy. Have some fun, Lizzie." He hesitated before continuing. "The Davenports are a fine British family. A bunch of good-looking devils, too. If youhave cause to drink brandy, having a sip or two with a Davenport isn't a bad thing."
    That was all the endorsement she needed. "Thanks. You can go back to your poker game. You're not bluffing on a pair of threes, are you?"
    "I wish. Stay safe, my girl."
    "I love you, Dad."
    After she hung up, Lizzie smiled as more sheep joined her trio and crowded along the fence, the wind blowing their long, woolly coats. Because of her father, she could defend herself in a fistfight, spot a tail, disarm a rudimentary bomb. "The first step, Lizzie," he'd told her, "is knowing the bomb is there."
    She returned to her car and dug a change of clothes out of her pack, just as prosaic as the ones she had on, but clean, and put them on right there at the side of the road, in front of the sheep. She kicked off her mud-and-manure-encrusted shoes and tossed them in the trunk in exchange for a pair of pricey little flats she'd picked up at Brown Thomas in Dublin. Her father had hated and avoided Dublin for as long as she could remember. It was where Shauna Morrigan Rush, his wife, Lizzie's mother, had died.
    An accident, according to Irish authorities and John March, the young Boston detective who'd looked into her death, later to join the FBI and become its director.
    Lizzie shut the car trunk, questions coming at her all at once.
    "Resist speculating," her father had told her time and time again. "Discipline your mind. Focus on what you can do."
    Easier said than done when knives, bombs, FBI agents and spies were involved, but she would do her best.
    A horned sheep baaed at her, and she baaed back.
    "There," she said with a laugh. "I could just stay here and talk to the sheep."
    She remembered having formal tea with her grandmother, Edna Whitcomb Rush, a stern but kind woman who had never expected to help her older son raise a daughter. She'd tried to explain why Lizzie's father had to be away for long periods. "He's a scout for new locations and ideas for our hotels."
    Ha. A scout.
    Harlan Rush was a spy, and he'd taught his daughter everything he knew.
    Lizzie abandoned the sheep and climbed back into her car, started the engine and continued along the dark, isolated road. She glanced in her rearview mirror.
    Still no sign of the garda or Will Davenport on her tail.
    At least not yet.

Chapter 9
    Boston, Massachusetts
4:25 p.m., EDT
August 25
    S imon ran his fingertips over a colored pencil sketch Keira had done of the ancient Celtic stone angel she still swore she'd seen on the hearth of a ruin in the southwest Irish hills.
    There'd been a