Liar's Key Read Online Free PDF

look uptight, Emma,” Oliver York said in his genuine upper-class English accent. “Or do you continue to insist I call you Special Agent Sharpe?”
    â€œAgent Sharpe will do.”
    â€œMmm. That sort of call, is it?”
    â€œIt’s always that sort of call, Oliver.”
    She’d placed her laptop on her coffee table and was seated on the sofa in her small living room. Just as well they were talking here instead of her FBI office. Nothing about her relationship with the wealthy Englishman, sheep farmer, mythologist and serial art thief was regular. He was in his late thirties, with curly tawny hair and lively, light green eyes. His features were deceptively boyish, betraying none of the psychological trauma and physical pain he had suffered as a child.
    â€œI see.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “For someone usually so cool and analytical, this uptight look of yours worries me. You and Colin haven’t canceled the wedding, have you?”
    â€œIt’s Agent Donovan and no, we haven’t.”
    â€œHave you relented and decided to invite me after all? Is that why you texted me?”
    â€œI’m not inviting you to my wedding.”
    â€œIs Agent Donovan inviting me, then?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œA pity, but I’ll send a gift, regardless.” He sat back, putting a bit of distance between him and his screen. “You’re home early. I recognize the moody seascape on the wall behind you. It’s the work of our fair Irish artist friend, Aoife O’Byrne.”
    â€œIt’s a signed print. I can’t afford her original art.”
    â€œWho can these days? But a signed print is worth something. It’s only four o’clock here. That means it’s just eleven in the morning in Boston. Did you get fired?”
    â€œNot yet. It could happen anytime with you in my life.”
    â€œI see you tried and failed to smile while making that comment. What can I do for you, then, Agent Sharpe? Does the FBI need my help given my expertise in mythology?”
    Emma barely heard him. She was looking past him, taking in his surroundings. She recognized the bright, contemporary furnishings and the view from the partially open window behind him of the Irish Sea. “Oliver...” She gritted her teeth. “Oliver, you’re in Declan’s Cross. You’re in a seaside room at the O’Byrne House Hotel.”
    â€œI am, indeed. I’m taking in a delightful breeze off the sea as we speak. Spring on the south Irish coast is quite lovely. I believe I’m in the room where you and Colin stayed on your last visit this winter.”
    â€œIt’s not the same room.”
    â€œAs if you’d tell me if it were.”
    â€œWhy are you in Declan’s Cross?”
    â€œI couldn’t resist Kitty O’Byrne’s scones.”
    Kitty was Aoife’s older sister and the proprietress of the boutique hotel, which a decade ago had been a rambling old seaside house owned by their uncle. Ten years ago, the house had been broken into by a clever, brazen art thief, still officially unidentified and at large, although the stolen works had mysteriously reappeared last fall.
    Oliver did have nerve.
    â€œI’m leaving once we’ve finished our chat,” he said. “Kitty kindly allowed me a late checkout without extra charge. So, my dear, if you’re tempted to sic the Irish guards on me, there’s no need.”
    He was referring to the Gardaí, the Irish police. Kitty’s love interest happened to be a Dublin-based garda detective who owned a farm in Declan’s Cross.
    Sean Murphy would love an excuse to interrogate Oliver York.
    â€œI’m not going to sic the guards on you,” Emma said. “But if you’re hatching a plan to resteal the art you returned to the O’Byrnes, you can forget it. You’ll be arrested. MI5 won’t be able to save you.”
    Oliver waved a hand. “You and