The fog distorted the beam from the flash. Gray moved carefully, eyes and ears straining. He heard the dog bark, but from what direction or distance he couldn’t say.

He stopped by Brianna’s bedroom windows, playing the light on the ground. There, in her neat bed of perennials, was a single footprint.

Small, Gray mused, crouching down. Nearly small enough to be a child’s. It could be as simple as that—kids out on a lark. But when he continued to circle the house, he heard the sound of an engine turning over. Cursing, he quickened his pace. Con burst through the mist like a diver spearing through the surface of a lake.

“No luck?” To commiserate, Gray stroked Con’s head as they both stared out into the fog. “Well, I’m afraid I might know what this is about. Let’s go back.”

Brianna was gnawing on her nails when they came through the kitchen door. “You were gone so long.”

“We wanted to circle the whole way around.” He set the flashlight on the counter, combed a hand through his damp hair. “This could be related to your break-in.”

“I don’t see how. You didn’t find anyone.”

“Because we weren’t quick enough. There’s another possible explanation." He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Me.”

“You? What do you mean?”

“I’ve had it happen a few times. An overenthusiastic fan finds out where I’m staying. Sometimes they come calling like they were old pals—sometimes they just trail you like a shadow. Now and again, they break in, look for souvenirs.”

“But that’s dreadful.”

“It’s annoying, but fairly harmless. One enterprising woman picked the lock on my hotel room at the Paris Ritz, stripped, and crawled into bed with me.” He tried for a grin. “It was . . . awkward.”

“Awkward,” Brianna repeated after she’d managed to close her mouth. “What—no, I don’t think I want to know what you did.”

“Called security.” His eyes went bright with amusement. “There are limits to what I’ll do for my readers. Anyway, this might have been kids, but if it was one of my adoring fans, you might want me to find other accommodations.”

“I do not.” Her protective instincts snapped into place. “They’ve no right to intrude on your privacy that way, and you’ll certainly not leave here because of it.” She let out a huff of breath. “It’s not just your stories, you know. Oh, they draw people in—it all seems so real, and there’s always something heroic that rises above all the greed and violence and grief. It’s your picture, too.”

He was charmed by her description of his work and answered absently. “What about it?”

“Your face.” She looked at him then. “It’s such a lovely face.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or wince. “Really?”

“Yes, it’s . . .” She cleared her throat. There was a gleam in his eyes she knew better than to trust. “And the little biography on the back—more the lack of it. It’s as if you came from nowhere. The mystery of it’s appealing.”

“I did come from nowhere. Why don’t we go back to my face?”

She took a step in retreat. “I think there’s been enough excitement for the night.”

He just kept moving forward until his hands were on her shoulders and his mouth lay quietly on hers. “Will you be able to sleep?”

“Yes.” Her breath caught, expelled lazily. “Con will be with me.”

“Lucky dog. Go on, get some sleep.” He waited until she and the dog were settled, then did something Brianna hadn’t done in all the years she’d lived in the house.

He locked the doors.

The best place to spread news or to garner it was, logically, the village pub. In the weeks he’d been in Clare County, Gray had developed an almost sentimental affection for O’Malley’s. Naturally, during his research, he’d breezed into a number of public houses in the area, but O’Malley’s had become, for him, as close to his own neighborhood bar as he’d ever known.

He heard the lilt of music even as he reached for the door. Murphy, he thought. Now, that was lucky. The moment Gray stepped in, he was greeted by name or a cheery wave. O’Malley began to build him a pint of Guiness before he’d planted himself in a seat.

“Well, how’s the story telling these days?” O’Malley asked him.

“It’s fine. Two dead, no suspects.”

With a shake of his head, O’Malley slipped the pint under Gray’s nose. “Don’t know how it is a man can play with murder all the day and still have a smile on his face of an evening.”

“Unnatural, isn’t it?” Gray grinned at him.

“I’ve a story for you.” This came from David Ryan who sat on the end of the bar and lighted one of his American cigarettes.

Gray settled back amid the music and smoke. There was always a story, and he was as good a listener as he was a teller.

“Was a maid who lived in the countryside near Tralee. Beautiful as a sunrise, she was, with hair like new gold and eyes as blue as Kerry.”

Conversation quieted, and Murphy lowered his music so that it was a backdrop for the tale.

“It happened that two men came a-courting her,” David went on. “One was a bookish fellow, the other a farmer. In her way, the maid loved them both; for she was as fickle of heart as she was lovely of face. So, enjoying the attention, as a maid might, she let them both dangle for her, making promises to each. And there began to grow a blackness in the heart of the young farmer, side by side with his love of the maid.”

He paused, as storytellers often do, and studied the red glow at the end of his cigarette. He took a deep drag, expelled smoke.

“So one night he waited for his rival along the roadside, and when the bookish fellow came a-whistling—for the maid had given him her kisses freely—the farmer leaped out and bore the young lover to the ground. He dragged him, you see, in the moonlight across the fields, and though the poor sod still breathed, he buried him deep. When dawn came, he sowed his crop over him and put an end to the competition.”

David paused again, drew deep on his cigarette, reached for his pint.

“And?” Gray asked, caught up. “He married the maid.”