A path given way, a stone turned beneath an unwary foot, slippery mud, the force of the wind, the darkness—it was Greg, wasn’t it? He’d been wearing athletic shoes, not wellies, not that wearing wellies was a guarantee of traction. Or had Tina herself fallen?
Jean ran back out onto the stone step, but heard nothing. Funny how her face was now hot, so that the wind felt like a slap with a wet fish.
Two shapes rushed at her through the kaleidoscope of light and shadow and with a gasp she jerked back against the door frame.
A big black lab and a little white terrier swarmed around her legs, leaving mud and damp on her jeans and the aroma of wet dog in her nostrils, then stampeded into the house. The last time Jean had seen them, they’d been dozing in front of the fire in the drawing room, inert as hassocks.
She reeled back through the doorway to find Alasdair pulling out his notepad and wallet—there was the phone. He punched three numbers. “We’re needing an ambulance, someone’s injured at old Dunasheen Castle—Alasdair Cameron, at the new castle—Kinlochroy, aye—very good then.”
He clicked his phone shut, jammed it into his pocket, and bellowed, “Fergie!”
A wet yellow raincoat fell off its hook, crinkling to the floor. Hugh sang the old sea chantey about South Australia full of rocks, and fleas, and thieves, and sand. The dogs had vanished, leaving only a trail of muddy paw prints across the tile floor.
In a stately home, no one could hear you scream.
“No one heard you. No one heard Tina, either.” Jean jittered to the door and the darkness outside, then to the row of coat hooks, where she replaced the raincoat, then back across the tile floor to the cabinet where Fergie kept the flashlights. She grabbed two and handed one of them to Alasdair. “There’s a bell pull in the drawing room, Fergie used it this afternoon.”
“Give it tug then, see if it rouses Fergie or Diana, or one of the Finlays. If not them, then the manager’s cottage is next the garden. The constable at Kinlochroy’s been alerted. I’m away back down to the old castle.”
No point trying to convince him to stay put and wait for help. The roses in his cheeks had perished under a drift of snow, and his features tautened into his I’m in charge here expression. When he paused on the doorstep to throw her a crisp, ice-blue glance, she forced her chin up and lifted her left hand in a wave. “I’ll catch up with you. Be careful!”
And he was gone. The rapid crunch of the gravel beneath his boots faded. The gate clanged.
Her hand was still extended toward the darkness. The diamond on her ring finger glinted, a micro-prism clarifying the brassy ceiling light.
Don’t think about it. Find Diana. Find Fergie.
Jean spun around, spun back again, shut the door, and realized she’d tracked mud across the scratched tile floor—well, who hadn’t, the dogs’ paw prints were only part of what looked like a child’s finger painting project.
Dumping the flashlight on the nearest surface and stuffing her scarf and gloves into her pocket, she pulled off her wellies. Where were the shoes she’d left here earlier? No time to search.
In her thick wool socks, she skated rather than ran down the dimly lighted corridor, around a corner, and up a short flight of steps beneath a moth-eaten stag’s head sporting a Santa Claus cap. The doors of the Great Hall, the door of the library… She threw open the door of the drawing room, zigzagged around the furniture to the Gothic Revival fireplace, and yanked the tasseled end of the bell pull—to no discernible effect. Whether some distant jangle would attract the attention of a MacDonald, or of one of the Finlays, resident caretakers and chief bottle washers, she had no way of knowing. Come to think of it, this afternoon Fergie had supplemented his yank at the bell pull by shouting down the hallway.
Alasdair should have phoned Fergie, too. Where the hell was everyone?
A movement in the corner of her eye jerked her around toward the tall windows. But it was only her own reflection wavering in their black, mirrored depths, her crown of auburn hair turned inside out, her shoulders up around her ears, her stance that of a prizefighter in a corner of the ring.
What she punched was the “Stop” button on the CD player. Sorry, Hugh. His voice halted between one beat and the next. Were those footsteps? Jean spun toward the door. No. She was hearing the tick of a clock.
Dunasheen wasn’t one of those stately marble-halled homes tricked out with gilt cherubs, the sort of place that made Jean feel as though she was dragging the knuckles of all ten thumbs on the floor. This drawing room was friendly and functional with a Persian rug, needlepoint chair covers, a piano. The holly jolly crimson and tinsel of the season decorated mantelpiece and chandelier, while odds and ends from Chinese snuff bottles to Roman coins to prehistoric fish hooks were installed on every horizontal surface. An antique screen decoupaged with flowers, fairies, and saccharine Victorian angels almost managed to conceal a flat-screen TV set the size of a coffee table.
Jean wondered how many of Fergie’s family antiques, artifacts, and holy relics had been sacrificed to fund Dunasheen’s upkeep. But he had enough left to make that good show, spiced with his own paintings and sculptures.
Was that low murmuring wail, almost a voice but not quite, the wind in the chimney? Was it Tina screaming again? Alasdair might not have reached her yet. Maybe he’d slipped himself, and fallen, and lay broken and bloodied on the rocks… A chill puckered the back of Jean’s neck.
Come on, come on! She yanked the bell pull again, then jogged to the door, looked down the hall, and shouted, “Fergie! Diana! Mrs. Finlay!” Her voice died away into silence.
Dozens of painted and photographed eyes gazed accusingly down from the Pompeiian red walls, not least those of Fergus Mor and Allan Cameron. Fergie’s and Alasdair’s fathers wore the kilts, tunics, and bonnets or tam o’shanters—stiffened berets with wool pompoms—of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, an old and greatly honored regiment. Each bonnet, adorned with a badge and the colored feathers of a blue hackle, was bent toward the other. Or Fergus Mor’s, rather, was bent down toward Allan’s, demonstrating the maximum allowable versus the minimum allowable regimental heights.
Breathe, Jean told herself. In with the good air, out with the bad.
The embers piled in the grate emitted more of an ashy breath than warmth, and the castle’s scents of baking and furniture polish were tinged with mildew. Perhaps the house had become the terrestrial version of the Marie Celeste, abandoned to its ghosts.
Although if new Dunasheen had any ghosts, neither Alasdair’s nor Jean’s sixth senses had picked up on them in the few hours since their arrival. It was her five ordinary senses that at last detected footsteps in the hall. She wouldn’t have to run down to the manager’s cottage after all.
Jean popped out of the drawing room to see Fergie ambling toward her, round face and round glasses gleaming with good will. With his lavender sweater and slippers and bulky physique, he looked ready to host a children’s television program, welcoming them to a neighborhood where he played the part of a purple dinosaur. “Ah, it’s yourself, is it, Jean? No worries, we’re making the tea, though you’re good for a dram as well, I should think.”
“Tina MacLeod’s down by the castle, she was screaming, Greg must have fallen, Alasdair’s already called 999 and he’s gone back down there.”
Fergie gaped at her, pale blue eyes bulging, mouth working.
