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Public Garden tonight. She’d dropped her car off with a friend in Back Bay to look after for the next six weeks and ran into the students dragging the man out of the pond on her way to the Garrison house. As she’d raced up Beacon Street after the police had arrived, she couldn’t shake the notion that her mother’s talk about sin and evil had put her in the Public Garden at exactly the wrong moment.
    But that was unfair, Keira thought, and as she returned to her bedroom, she found herself wishing she could call her mother and tell her what had happened. Everything changes.
    She dug through her small closet, pulling out a long, summery skirt and top. The apartment was no more per
    manent than anywhere else she’d lived, but she liked the space—the efficient, downsize appliances, the light, the view of the Common. It wasn’t on the grand scale as the rest of the house, but it had charm and character and worked just fine for now. Compared to her mother’s cabin, Keira thought, her apartment was a palace. In five minutes, she had wriggled into her outfit, put on a bit of makeup and was rushing back down the stairs again. Two deep breaths, and she entered the drawing room. Her cousin Fiona’s ensemble was playing a jaunty tune that didn’t fit Keira’s mood, but she tried to appreciate it nonetheless.
    Owen immediately fell in alongside her, and she smiled at him. “I’m okay,” she said before he could ask.
    “Good.”
    He had a way about him that helped center people. Keira
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    could imagine how reassuring his presence would be to a trapped earthquake victim. “Who was the man I saw you with earlier?” she asked. “Big guy. Another BPD type?”
    She thought Owen checked a grin, but he wasn’t always easy to read. “You must mean Simon Cahill. He’s a volun
    teer with Fast Rescue.”
    “From Boston?”
    “From wherever he happens to be at the moment.”
    Owen smiled as he grabbed a glass of champagne from a caterer’s tray and handed it to her. “A little like you in that regard. I don’t know what happened to him. He was here two seconds ago.”
    Just as well he’d taken off, Keira thought. She’d spotted him at the height of her distress, and if Owen was a steadying presence, Simon Cahill, she thought, was the opposite. Even in those few seconds of contact, she’d felt probed and exposed, as if he’d assumed she had some
    thing to hide and was trying to see right through her. She thanked Owen for the champagne and eased into the crowd, realizing her hair was still damp from the downpour. For the most part, people she greeted seemed unaware of her earlier arrival, which spared her having to explain.
    Colm Dermott, a wiry, energetic Irishman, approached her with his usual broad smile. She’d met him two years ago on a trip to Ireland, where he was a highly respected professor of anthropology at University College Cork. He’d arrived in Boston in April after cobbling together grants to put together the Boston-Cork conference and had immediately recruited Keira to help.
    “The auction’s going well.” He seemed genuinely excited. “You must be eager to go off tomorrow.”
    “I’m packed and ready to go,” she said.
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    CARLA NEGGERS
    “Ah, you’ll have a grand time.”
    She’d given Colm a copy of the video recording she’d made of Patsy McCarthy telling her story, but hadn’t told him about her mother and her long-ago trip to Ireland. They chatted a bit more, but Keira couldn’t relax. Finally, Colm sighed at her. “Is something wrong, Keira?”
    She took a too-big gulp of champagne. “It’s been a strange day.”
    Before she could explain further, her emotional younger cousin burst through the crowd, her blue eyes shining with both excitement and revulsion. “Keira, are you okay?” Fiona asked. “Owen just told me about the man you found drowned. I wondered why Dad and Abigail left so fast.”
    Colm looked shocked. “I had no idea. Keira, what happened? No wonder