The Whisper by Carla Neggers Page B

tomorrow.
    Taryn sat on the edge of the bed across from her. “Sophie, are you okay?”
    She pulled her duvet up to her chin. “Just a little distracted.”
    “There’s something going on with you. I know there is.” Taryn peeled off her scarf, the moonlight on her face as she studied her sister. “You haven’t been yourself for weeks. Months, really.”
    “Taryn…don’t go there. Please.”
    She kicked off her shoes. “Whatever’s bothering you has to do with what’s gone on in Boston, doesn’t it? I swear I can feel you being pulled in that direction.”
    Sophie rolled onto her back and stared up at the skylight. “That’s because you’ve had too much Guinness.”
    “Maybe.” Taryn leaned back onto her elbows and sighed.“Do you ever think about chucking your career and opening an Irish inn?”
    “And marrying an Irish fisherman who plays the fiddle?”
    They both laughed. “Oh, Sophie. What a couple of romantics we are under our tough-redhead exteriors.” But Taryn’s light tone didn’t last, and she sat up straight. “You’ll be careful in Boston, won’t you?”
    For no reason at all, Sophie thought of solid, scarred Scoop Wisdom as he’d watched her at Keira Sullivan’s ruin. Had the violence of the past summer started there, on the night of the summer solstice—or had it started a year ago, on a thimble of an island off the Iveragh Peninsula?
    “Sophie?”
    “Yes, Taryn,” she whispered. “I’ll be very careful.”

5
    Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland
    Nights on the Beara Peninsula were quiet but also incredibly dark, and Josie Goodwin found herself restless, frustrated and decidedly annoyed with her lot. As much as she liked Keira and Lizzie and enjoyed their company, she hated being left behind, stuck in a cottage in the Irish hills while Will, Simon and Myles were off doing…well, whatever they were doing.
    She had few details. She’d learned early that morning that Myles was en route to Ireland and had alerted Will, who in turn had alerted Simon. In the month since Myles had again disappeared after helping to free Abigail Browning, he had continued to avoid communications with anyone in London. For the past two years, he’d sacrificed much to establish his cover as a rogueSAS officer and penetrate a deadly association between drug traffickers and a terrorist cell.
    His cover was so deep, so impenetrable, that no one—not even Will Davenport—had known what Myles was up to. Josie and Will had believed Myles had been dragged off in a firefight in Afghanistan and killed—and not heroically at that. Killed by his terrorist friends after he had betrayed his colleagues to them.
    But he hadn’t been killed, and he hadn’t betrayed anyone.
    Now it was time he had help.
    Josie resisted the temptation to pace. What she wanted to do was to return to London. But what could she do there?
    Nothing more, she thought bitterly, than she could do right here.
    With a heavy sigh, she surveyed the tidy room. Keira had lit a wood fire. Lizzie was washing up in the kitchen. Scoop Wisdom had left little evidence that he’d been here at all, never mind for two weeks. Josie walked over to the front window and looked out at the stars and half moon. She wondered if Myles would have let Norman Estabrook and his thugs kill Abigail before he risked compromising his own mission. He would never have considered such a dire option. He tackled problems head-on and went after the outcome he wanted—in that case, Abigail Browning free and safe, Norman Estabrook and his thugs dead or captured and he, a British agent, with the key information he needed to carry on his mission.
    Josie could see Myles giving her one of his crooked, cocky grins. “No worries, love,” he’d say.
    She’d never met a man so certain he could achieve whatever he was after.
    She raked a hand through her hair. How could she blame Myles for the risks he’d taken—for his courage, his sacrifices?
    Because she bloody well could, she