Fia turned up the air-conditioning in the car and pushed her sunglasses back up her nose. Shadows from the trees fell across her windshield; patterns of light and dark danced on the glass. It was the last week of August. Central Delaware was still hot as hell, but at least the humidity was not ungodly high. The tourist season was almost over. Most of the students had gone back to college or school or begun sports training so there would be few visitors on a Wednesday. The fewer the better.
She followed the winding road, wondering what could have happened to Bobby McCathal. She needed to get to the bottom of this quickly, but absolutely nothing was coming to her. Possibilities flitted through her mind, but she was having a difficult time focusing as she fought that familiar feeling of inadequacy that was always part of returning home.
What was wrong with her? She was thirty-five years old, well respected in her field, and yet she allowed these people to make her feel like a child. As if she wasn’t good enough, as if nothing she did would quite meet their approval. “Sweet Mary,” she breathed softly.
The woods opened up, the road widened, and Fia passed the hand-carved wooden sign, embellished with a shamrock and a cattail, welcoming visitors to Clare Point. The state road fed directly onto Main Street, which ran west to east, straight down to the bay. Both sides of the street were lined with Victorian houses, pink—Sorry, Aunt Leah, salmon—baby blue, pale yellow, their gingerbread molding painted in contrasting pastels of peach, teal, and lavender. The colors were silly, like a bag of Jelly Bellys spilled on carpet. But the tourists, especially the blue-haired ladies, marveled at the authentic turn-of-the century houses. The hometown atmosphere they helped to create brought in ninety-five percent of the town’s annual income in three short months.
There were no parking meters in front of the Clare Point post office; it was a friendly town that welcomed visitors…well, at least from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The post office was the only stone building on the street. Built in the thirties, with gray sandstone slabs hauled south in pickup trucks from Pennsylvania, it had originally been a bank. It was an auspicious building, solid, formidable, secure. From its WPA “historical building” cornerstone, to its ever-present American flag flying overhead, it had always seemed like a safe place to Fia. As an old woman, she had even spent a night here during Hurricane Hazel.
Where had that protection been last night when Bobby needed it?
Uncle Sean’s blue police cruiser was the only vehicle parked in front of the building. She pulled the parking brake, grabbed her cell phone and digital camera, and climbed out of the car, tucking the items into her suit jacket pockets. Yellow crime-scene tape danced in the bay breeze, blocking the stone steps leading to the double doors. She wondered where the tape had come from. They hadn’t needed crime-scene tape in Clare Point since its invention.
Glancing up, Fia saw Anna Ross and her sister, Peigi, both in their mid-sixties, at the far end of the sidewalk, talking quietly. She turned away quickly, not wanting to catch their eye. When they spotted Fia, they hurried toward her, calling her name, but she ducked under the tape and made it up the steps ahead of them. Inside the post office, she swung around, closing and locking the doors behind her. She pulled down the old-fashioned shade.
“How long it take to drive here?” Sean Kahill still had a slight Irish brogue, even after all these centuries.
Fia turned around. The question caught her off guard. It just seemed, well…bizarre, under the circumstances. But her Uncle Sean had always been that way. He’d never been very good at focusing.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.” Less than five minutes in town and she was already apologizing. “I had to stop by my place. Grab some clothes and get someone to feed my cat.” She pulled off her dark sunglasses and tucked them into her breast pocket. As she walked toward him, the heels of her boots clicked crisply against the polished stone floor, and echoed off the walls of the lobby.
She could smell the blood in the building. Taste it.
And smoke was there too, with a putrid, undeniable undercurrent. She swallowed hard. Of course, she had known. But still…she hadn’t been prepared. How did one prepare for the stench of burnt flesh?
She met her uncle’s gaze. Sean Kahill was a tall man, like all the other Kahills, probably six-five in his prime, now with a slight paunch. In his early sixties, he had salt-and-pepper hair he kept cut short, military style. His dark blue uniform, with short sleeves and a shiny gold badge, was slightly rumpled.
“Tell me what the hell happened here, Uncle Sean.” Fia already had had enough small talk. “And let’s keep this strictly business. Strictly police protocol.”
There were no signs of a fire in the lobby. No sign of any disturbance whatsoever. The center island, with its REGISTERED, RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED stickers and HOLD MY MAIL slips, was neat and orderly. All the cheap black plastic pens attached to their metal chains were in their appropriate holders and free priority-rate envelopes of different sizes were stacked neatly on the counter. “How could this have happened?” she murmured. “How could Bobby—”
Fee, ye musn’t—
It took her a second to register that she had heard him telepathically, rather than audibly. Nonetheless, his tone made the hair on her forearms bristle.
There was a sound of male footsteps. Someone else was in the building. One of her uncle’s patrolmen?
Her uncle cut his eyes to his right. Fia breathed deep. She could smell him. A human! A stranger. She saw him walk through the door from the back of the lobby. She rapidly made eye contact with her uncle again. Who?
Her mental telepathy was rusty. She rarely used it, even when she was in town. It just didn’t seem…appropriate in the twenty-first century.
“Special Agent Duncan,” Sean Kahill announced in a strained tone. “This is my niece I told ye about, so I did.”
It was the face more than the name that knocked Fia mentally off-balance. She felt, for a moment, as if she were free-falling.
He had classic good looks: high cheekbones, a patrician nose, and sensual lips. His sandy blond hair was no longer shoulder length, yet it was a color she had not forgotten. Could not. But it was those green eyes of his that pierced her heart. Her mind. And every bit of hatred she could muster.
Even in the charcoal gray tailored suit, he could have walked right out of the sixteenth-century Highlands.
Fia mentally caught herself in her downward spiral and yanked herself upward. She struggled to make herself heard in her uncle’s head. Centuries of survival instinct kicked in. In a situation like this, appearance was everything. Special Agent Duncan? Uncle Sean, what are you talking about? Who is this? Why does he look so much like—
“Some…mix-up, I think. Something about jurisdiction,” Sean said in an odd, vaguely official-sounding voice. Ah, now, I’m sorry, my colleen. Don’t know why he looks so much like him. But I tried to warn ye he was here. Called the number yer mother gave me.
“Special Agent Kahill, Philadelphia Field Office.” Trying to rapidly process on multiple levels, Fia offered her hand to the stranger. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his face. Couldn’t quite catch her breath.
Ian, she thought, a sob of emotion rising in her throat.
No, of course not. She choked it down. That was ridiculous. Ian had been dead for centuries.
She regrouped, refocused. Uncle Sean, this isn’t safe. This man can’t be here. He puts us all at risk.
“Special Agent Kahill.” The one who also called himself Duncan shook her hand firmly. “Chief Kahill was just telling me that you were coming.” He released her hand, bristling. His tone was curt, challenging. “I’m sorry you had to drive so far for nothing. I understand your concern due to your relationship to