Free Keeper's Reach by Carla Neggers Page B

morning’s meeting was fifty-seven minutes too long.”
    “It was an hour,” Yank said.
    “First three minutes we stirred our coffees.”
    Yank made no comment and headed out through a revolving door. He was better at navigating the treacherous waters of Washington, but he had decided to base his new HIT team in Boston. Colin had never heard him explain why and doubted he ever would.
    * * *
     
    When Colin reached his room, he packed and texted Mike: Where are you?
    The response wasn’t instant. Hurley’s.
    A favorite Rock Point restaurant on the harbor. It meant Mike had left the Bold Coast early. Should I be worried about you?
    No.
     
    That was Mike. A man of few words. Kavanagh?
    FBI.
     
    Meaning, he was Colin’s headache. Reed Cooper?
    My problem.
     
    No argument from Colin. Not yet, anyway. Stay in touch.
    This time, there was no response. He hadn’t expected one. Mike had always been taciturn but was more so since leaving the army and moving out to the Bold Coast.
    Colin stared out his window at a gloomy alley. Emma would be at the HIT offices at least through lunch. He wouldn’t be interrupting her long weekend on her own if he called.
    She answered on the first ring. “Hey, what have you been up to?”
    “Just got out of another meeting.”
    “Ah.”
    He wasn’t sure she believed him. He told her about Mike’s call about the gathering at the Plum Tree. “He’s in Rock Point,” Colin added.
    “If the man Oliver spotted in London was Ted Kavanagh, he has his own agenda. We can’t have him spooking Oliver if we want those two Dutch landscapes returned.”
    “They’re his last leverage.”
    “Exactly. He’ll hold on to them until he knows what’s next. He wants to keep Scotland Yard off his doorstep.”
    “He’s never threatened to dump them in the Thames.”
    “That’s a plus,” Emma said. “I don’t think he’s worried about getting arrested at this point. It’s more like MI5.”
    “Our friends in the British Secret Service.” Colin knew a number of British agents, although not well enough to mention Oliver York. “With Oliver’s contacts and skills, he can maneuver in a wide variety of worlds. Think of the bad guys he could stop. Has MI5 been in touch with you?”
    Emma didn’t answer right away. “Sort of.”
    “I can see York as James Bond.”
    “What are you doing now?”
    “Packing. I’ll be back in Boston tonight. You?”
    “Leaving for Maine as soon as I can get out of here.
    “Say hi to the sisters for me.”
    “I will.”
    He heard a brightness in her voice—an eagerness to be at the convent again. Many of the current crop of religious sisters had been there when Emma had been Sister Brigid, young, eager, not so much confused as figuring things out. Specifically what
things
Colin didn’t know. At nineteen, he’d been figuring out how to keep himself in cash and women while he got through college. He’d majored in criminal justice, but he’d never been a deep thinker. He swore Emma had been born thinking deep thoughts.
    As he disconnected, he noticed pigeons huddling on a trash can. They looked cold.
    What would his life be like if he’d stayed in the Maine marine patrol, or if he had never volunteered for undercover work? Would he and Emma have ever met? They’d grown up a few miles apart from each other but hadn’t met until last September, despite both being with the FBI.
    It didn’t matter, he thought. If he’d been a lobsterman, a Maine cop or a bartender at Hurley’s, somehow he and Emma would have met. He knew it in his gut.
    They were meant to be together.
    He would arrive in Boston after she’d left for Maine, probably while she was singing vespers with the sisters.
    He wanted her to enjoy her time at the convent.
    He finished packing and headed to the lobby. He had time for lunch, then he would take a cab to the airport and catch his flight.

7
     
    Near Stow-on-the-Wold, the Cotswolds,
England
Thursday, 4:00 p.m., BST
     
    For the first time