Now You See Her Page 0,20

ranked the second-most dangerous country in Europe in which to drive. She couldn’t remember the first. “Are we almost there?” she asked after almost two hours had elapsed.

Are we there yet? she heard Devon’s voice say, echoing her own.

“About another hour,” the driver replied from the front seat. “People always forget how to drive in the rain.”

“But it rains almost every day.”

“There you go,” he said, as if that answered everything. And maybe it did, Marcy thought, leaning her head back against the top of the seat and closing her eyes. “Where do you want me to drop you?” he asked in what seemed like the next breath.

“What?” Marcy snapped to attention, checking her watch to discover an hour had passed and she must have fallen asleep. She looked out the raindrop-splattered window to find the city of Cork.

“What hotel are you stayin’ in?” the cab driver asked, navigating his way slowly through the severe congestion into the flat of the city.

It suddenly occurred to Marcy that she had forgotten to make hotel reservations. She pictured Lynette shaking her head, silently berating her again for failing to think in advance. “I actually don’t have a room. Do you happen to know somewhere nice you could recommend?”

“Well, it’s not going to be easy to find a place. It’s the height of the tourist season after all, and Cork doesn’t have that many grand hotels.”

“It doesn’t have to be grand. In fact, I’d prefer somewhere simpler.” Simpler meant less chance of anyone finding her. She didn’t want Judith or Peter being able to track her down as easily as they had in Dublin. Nor did she want Vic Sorvino riding in on his white horse to rescue her, appealing as that thought might be. Experience had taught her that she couldn’t depend on a man to save her. Nor should she. It wasn’t fair to either of them.

Marcy opened her side window, careful not to let the rain inside the car. The bells of St. Anne’s Shandon Church were sending the first eight notes of “Danny Boy” rippling down the hill and throughout the city. She smiled, a feeling of excitement filling her lungs. It didn’t matter where she stayed, she thought. As long as Devon was nearby, she’d sleep on the sidewalk if she had to.

“There’s Tynan’s over on Western,” the driver was saying. “It’s a bed and breakfast, and I hear it’s okay, although it might be pretty basic.”

“Basic is good.”

It was also fully booked. As were the next half-dozen B&Bs that sat cheek by jowl along Western Road. Good thing the rain finally stopped, Marcy thought as she dragged her suitcase up the front steps of the Doyle Cork Inn, one of the few B&Bs on the street she’d yet to try.

“Can I give you a hand with that?” a young man asked, appearing at her side to grab her suitcase. He was in his late teens, and his fair skin was scarred with the leftover remnants of a case of childhood chicken pox. There was one particularly large pockmark that sat right between his wide-set hazel eyes, like a bullet hole. A stray lock of reddish-blond hair curled into the center of his large forehead, and his mouth was filled to bursting with Chiclet-sized teeth.

A proper pair of braces would have fixed that, she heard Peter say.

“Thank you, yes.” Marcy followed the young man inside to the check-in counter of the tiny lobby. “Do you have a room?”

“I believe we do, yes.”

“Thank God. I was beginning to give up hope.”

“Oh, you must never do that.”

Marcy smiled. “I won’t. Thank you. That’s good advice.”

“The name’s Colin Doyle. My mum’ll be right with you. You from America?”

“Canada,” Marcy told him.

“Really? We had a guest here from Canada not too long ago. Name of Randy Sullivan, I believe it was. Do you know him?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.” She refrained from telling him that there were more than thirty-three million people in Canada. Although you never knew. It wasn’t totally outside the realm of possibility that she might know this person. It was certainly no stranger than her taking off for Ireland on her erstwhile second honeymoon and finding the daughter she’d given up for dead. “Do you know this girl?” Marcy asked, pulling the latest picture of Devon out of her purse and showing it to Colin.

He took it from her hand and studied it for several seconds, his bushy eyebrows collapsing toward the bridge of his nose. “Can’t say