He set the paper down. “Well, one might have hoped you’d be further along by now.”
She frowned at him fiercely. “You know, I don’t have a badge or a license to go snooping around. I’m here as a nurse. I’m observing people, and I’m doing my best to follow Zachary Flynn around and learn what I can from him. He does have an investigator’s license, and he’s on the trail of whatever’s going on. If you had given me better credentials to work with, I might have been able to beat down a few doors.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s your job to study people, to understand them. You need to discover how they think and why—and, most importantly, when they’re lying and when they’re not. But, since you brought it up, no, I’m not here just because of you. I’m here because there are a number of items that need my attention on this side of the Atlantic.”
“Great. I’d hate to think that any failure on my part to move swiftly enough brought you out on a journey to the New World,” she told him sarcastically.
He shrugged. Michael was not easily goaded. “You’re usually very good at what you do, Caer.”
The waitress arrived with his food, and it looked to her as if he’d ordered half the breakfast menu. The waitress set down a plate that held an omelet, hash browns and toast. Smaller plates held side orders of pancakes and biscuits.
Caer ordered coffee.
“What, nothing else?” Michael asked her, already cutting into the omelet with gusto. “Pancakes. Will you look at those pancakes? Light and fluffy. I’ll bet they’re delicious,” he told their waitress, whose name tag identified her as Flo.
Flo blushed with pleasure. Michael’s smile could be absolutely charming. “We make the best pancakes in the state, I swear.”
“There you go, Caer. Pancakes.”
She forced a smile for Flo. “No, thank you. Just coffee for me.”
Flo lingered a moment. “I just love hearing you talk. My great-grandfather was Irish.”
“Lovely,” Caer assured her.
Flo walked away. Michael seemed to be giving his attention to his food when he told her, “Let’s see, not so thrilled with the concept of breakfast. Foods that tease the taste buds and the palate. Hmm. There’s a flush about you. Something in your face, in your movement, that I find intriguing. Is it…could it be…dare I suggest that you might have discovered a few of the other joys of the flesh during your time here in Rhode Island?”
She gritted her teeth, trying hard to stare at him with an unreadable expression. “That’s really none of your business.”
“You’re right.” He set down his fork. “It’s none of my business. But you are my business, and I’m getting worried about you.”
“Why?”
“You can’t stay here. I’m seeing far too much emotion in you, you know. I think that you believe, or wish to believe, that you might have some kind of future here, and you do not.”
She looked down, startled, and suddenly feeling vulnerable.
“I’m trying to save a man’s life, remember?” She waited as Flo returned with her coffee, thanked the woman, and waited until she was gone to lean in and say, “Michael, there are black birds everywhere. Crows, ravens, black birds.”
“I see,” he said. “So it’s drawing closer.”
She shook her head. “It? Nice euphemism. Michael, it’s becoming more and more evident that Eddie was murdered, so it’s not closer—it’s here.”
He studied her for a while, and then spoke softly. “Caer, you’ve seen the world for a long time. You know how it works. Bad things happen. The birds come when evil grows, when tragedy threatens, when the death toll will be high. When the normal order is seriously disturbed. You have a lot of work to do.”
“But…you’re here,” she said.
“This is your assignment, and you must handle it. And it’s not going to be any easier now that you’ve allowed yourself to become so involved.”
“It’s not fair,” she said. “Michael, this isn’t a place I know, it isn’t home, and now you’re here. You have more experience, and you have much more power. And—”
“Whoa. Who ever said that life and death were fair?”
“I’ve always done what I was asked to do, and I’ve done it well.”
“Human flesh is weak,” he said. “Take me—I do relish a good pancake.”
“Pancake!” she protested.
“Temper, temper,” he warned.
She let out a sigh of aggravation. “Michael—”
“I saw that you were attracted to the man, to the picture alone. It’s a natural thing, perhaps. He’s a handsome man, with strength of purpose and real decency, but, Caer…a fling with the man was fine. Now you’ve become far too involved. You’re dreaming of a life with him, and it isn’t to be. Cannot be.”