Carla Neggers - The Whisper

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Irelandlate September

Scoop Wisdom opened his daypack, got out his water bottle and took a drink. He sat on a cold, damp rock inside the remains of the isolated Irish stone cottage where the long summer had started with a beautiful woman, a tale of magic and fairiesand a killer obsessed with his own ideas of good and evil.

The autumn equinox had passed. Summer was over. Scoop told himself it was a new beginning, but he had unfinished business. Itd been gnawing at him ever since hed regained consciousness in his Boston hospital room a month ago, after a bomb blast had almost killed him.

He was healed. It was time to go home and get back to work. Be a cop again.

He set his water bottle back in his pack and zipped up the outer compartment. A solitary ray of sunshine penetrated the tangle of vines above him where once thered been a thatched roof. He could hear the rush of the stream just outside the ruin.

And water splashing. Scoop shifted position on the rock, listening, but there was no doubt. Someoneor somethingwas tramping in the stream that wound down from the rocky, barren hills above Kenmare Bay. He hadnt seen anyone on his walk up from the cottage where he was staying on a quiet country lane.

He stood up. He could hear laughter now.

A womans laughter.

Irish fairies, maybe? Out here on the southwest Irish coast, on the rugged Beara Peninsula, he could easily believe fairies were hiding in the greenery that grew thick on the banks of the stream.

He stepped over fallen rocks to the opening that had served as the only entrance to what once had been someones home. He could feel a twinge of pain in his hip where shrapnel had cut deep when the bomb went off at the triple-decker he owned with Bob OReilly and Abigail Browning, two other Boston detectives. He had taken most of the blistering shards of metal and wood in the meatier parts of his back, shoulders, arms and legs, but one chunk had lodged in the base of his skull, making everyone nervous for a day or so. A millimeter this way or that, and hed be dead instead of wondering if fairies were about to arrive at his Irish ruin for a visit.

He heard more water splashing and more female laughter.

I know, I know. It was a woman, her tone amused, her accent American. Of course Id run into a big black dog up here in these particular hills.

In his two weeks in Ireland, Scoop had heard whispers about a large, fierce black dog occasionally turning up in the pastures above the small fishing and farming village. Hed seen only sheep and cows himself.

He peered into the gray mist. The morning sun was gone, at least for the moment. Hed learned to expect changeable weather. Brushed by the Gulf Stream, the climate of the Southwest was mild and wet, but hed noticed on his walks that the flowers of summer were fading and the heather on the hills was turning brown.

Ah. The woman again, still out of sight around a sharp bend in the stream. Youre coming with me, are you? I must be very close, then. Lead the way, my new friend.

The ruin was easy to miss amid the dense trees and under-growth on the banks of the stream. If he hadnt known where to look, Scoop would have gone right past it his first time out here.

A woman with wild, dark red hair ducked under the low-hanging branches of a gnarly tree. Ambling next to her in the shallow water was, indeed, a big black dog.

The woman looked straight at Scoop, and even in the gray light, he saw that she had bright blue eyes and frecklesa lot of freckles. She was slim and angular, her hair down to her shoulders, damp and tangled. She continued toward him, the dog staying close to her. She didnt seem particularly taken aback by finding a man standing in the doorway of the remote ruin. Scoop wouldnt blame her if she did. Even before the bomb blast, he had looked, according to friends and enemies alike, ferocious with his thick build, shaved head and general take-no-prisoners demeanor.

For sure, no one would mistake him for a leprechaun or a fairy prince.

Her left foot sank into a soft spot and almost ended up in the water. Mud stains came to the top of her wellies. I saw footprints back there, she said cheerfully, pointing a slender hand in the direction shed just come. Since Ive never run into a cow or a sheep that wears size-twelve shoes, I figured someone else was out here. A fine day for a walk, isnt it?

It is, Scoop said.

I dont mind the outbreaks of rain. She tilted her head back, letting the mist collect on her face a moment, then smiled at him. I dont do well in the sun.

Scoop stepped down from the threshold and nodded to the dog, still panting at her side. Yours?

No, but hes a sweetheart. I suppose he could be aggressive if he or someone he cared about felt threatened.

A warning? Scoop noticed she wore a rain jacket the same shade of blue as her eyes and held an iPhone in one hand, perhaps keeping it available in case she needed to call for help. It would be easy to think it was still 1900 in this part of Ireland, but that would be a mistake. For one thing, the area had decent cell phone coverage.

Looks as if you two have bonded.

I think we have, indeed. She slipped the iPhone into a jacket pocket. Youre the detective who saved that girls life when the bomb went off at your house in Boston last monthWisdom, right? Detective Cyrus Wisdom?

He was instantly on alert, but he kept his voice even. Most people call me Scoop. And you would be?

SophieSophie Malone. We have friends in common, she said, easing past him to the ruin. The dog stayed by the stream. Im from Boston originally. Im an archaeologist.

What kind of archaeologist?

She smiled. The barely employed kind. Youre in Ireland to recuperate? I heard you were hurt pretty badly.

I ended up here after attending a friends wedding in Scotland a few weeks ago.

Abigail Brownings wedding. Shes the detective who was kidnapped when the bomb went off.

I know who she is.