and Heather guided Dakota to the stairs.
“Would you care for tea and biscuits just now?” Diana asked, already several steps up.
“Biscuits?” repeated Heather.
“She means cookies,” Dakota said.
“Tea,” said Scott. “Yeah, whatever.”
Free at last, Jean skated back down the hall. Would Miss Dakota point out that William Wallace had probably never set foot on Skye? No matter, his name was marketable, and if Diana understood anything, it was her market. How odd, then, that she’d missed the Krums’ arrival, especially when she’d been expecting them.
Diana’s delicate Scottish complexion was always rose-pink, but now it was positively crimson. She must have been embarrassed at missing her cue or in a rush or both. Maybe she’d been in her office, tied hand and foot with tape the color of her cheeks, the kind spooled out in vast quantities by both heritage watchdogs with their lists of permissible changes and heritage advocates with their lists of grants-in-aid—well no, Diana ran the house, Fergie wrestled with red tape.
The sound of multiple footsteps on stone treads and Diana’s soothing voice faded into the upper reaches of the house. “The weather’s been dreadful but we’re expecting it to clear tomorrow, just in time for our New Year’s Eve celebration.”
What the lady of the house hadn’t been expecting was an accident at the old castle. But Fergie could tell her about that. Jean slid to a stop in the cloak room, where she managed to pull on her wellies and button her coat, wrap her wool scarf around her head, and thrust her hands into her gloves, somehow all at the same time.
A flashlight clutched to her chest, she shut the door and raced across the courtyard. Alasdair, I’m coming! The lights reflecting from the damp-sheened cobblestones created an optical illusion and she stumbled, then righted herself. The crash of the ironwork gate behind her reverberated into the distance. The very silent distance.
Jean’s light-adapted eyes found the night doubly dark. At the far side of the gravel perimeter, the interior light of a small square car looked like a klieg light illuminating a human shape in a peaked police cap. She homed in on the—well, not the cavalry. Its scout.
“Hi. I’m Jean Fairbairn. I’ll show you down to the old castle.”
“P.C. Thomson here,” the constable replied, not at all startled by her appearance. But then, the slam of the gate would have waked the inhabitants of the graves at the old church. Settling his fluorescent yellow jacket over his chest, he turned toward her. As far as she could tell in the gloom, he was about fifteen, and a foot taller than she was. If police work didn’t pan out, he could get a job selling toothpaste—his smile shone with a light of its own. “No worries,” he went on, “I’m a local lad, I’ve visited the old castle many a time. What’s happened?”
“A guest, Greg MacLeod, walked down to the old castle at sunset. He wanted to go to the ruined church. We—my fiancé, Alasdair Cameron, and me—we told him how to get there by going along the beach. Then we met his wife. She was looking for him. She went down to the castle and we heard her scream. Alasdair went right back down there. That was twenty, maybe even thirty minutes ago.” Jean danced backwards across the gravel, toward the path.
Thomson seized a bag from his car, slammed the door, fired up his flashlight, and headed out. “The ruins are dangerous, right enough. Kinlochroy Council and Lord Dunasheen have been going at it for years now, who’s responsible for shoring up the place, planting danger signs, and the like. The old laird, he let the place go rather than spend on its upkeep, squeezing his pounds so tight you could hear the Queen’s picture squealing.”
Good lad. He could walk, talk, and even make jokes simultaneously. Whether she could was another matter—she had to adopt a part jog, part forward stumble to keep up with him. “Entropy tends to outrun good intentions. And clumsy tourists, though I don’t know that either Greg or Tina was clumsy. Alasdair’s with them now.”
A clang behind them was the gate. The walrus-like shape trotting toward them was Fergie’s, laden with a folded blanket and a carrier bag. “Jean! Wait up! Is that Sanjay with you?”
“Sanjay?” Jean repeated, sure she’d misheard some Gaelic expression.
“My granny’s folk are from India,” the constable explained.
“Cool,” said Jean, remembering Hugh’s song about the Scots as rovers, as swords for hire and missionaries, as transported criminals like Greg’s ancestor Tormod.
Thomson turned to Fergie. “Sorry to be called out on business, Fergus.”
With the Highlander’s fine disregard for titles, “Fergus” instead of “Fergie” counted as respectful address. Jean said, “I never did get the first-aid kit from Diana. I couldn’t find, er, an American family arrived and she’s dealing with them.”
Fergie nodded. If he knew Diana had been AWOL, however temporarily, he didn’t show it. “Rab Finlay’s on his way as well, but Lionel, the manager, it’s his day out.”
“I’ve got my kit.” Even Thomson had to shorten his steps on the twisting and bumpy path. At his heels, Jean followed not only his flashlight but his reflecting coat, and Fergie trudged along behind her, his breath rasping louder and louder.
Mist was gathering, shimmering strands drifting across the circles of light from their flashlights like homeless phantoms. Beyond the rocks, pools, and scrubby bits of heather, Jean made out nothing more than a muted shimmer on the underside of the clouds, the reflected glows of Dunasheen and Kinlochroy. A similar shimmer played across the water of first the loch and then, as they approached the castle, the sea. She felt as though she was trailing along with her little lantern, looking for an honest man…well, she was. She was looking for Alasdair.
Down the hill they went, and across the bridge, first Thomson, then Jean, then Fergie. Thomson went up the enceinte path like a mountain goat, then turned to offer Jean his hand. Putting her feminist pride in her pocket—one casualty was enough—she took it. But instead of steadying her up the slope, he heaved her upward so forcefully her feet almost left the ground. With a scramble she retrieved first her footing and then her hand, and managed a breathless, “Thanks.”
She turned to take the blanket from Fergie, the beam of her flashlight spattering down the craggy drop-off to one side, her shoulder brushing the damp cold of the ancient stone wall to the other. A shudder raised the hair on the back of her neck. The night had stripped the old castle of its dignity. Now the broken barricades seemed more sinister than sad, concealing icy eyes that watched the living souls clambering past and hating them for their warmth.
The faint blip on her paranormal radar faded so fast she suspected it might merely have been imagination, the dark, the scene getting to her. No time to analyze, not now.
Fergie, too, hauled himself up the path and stopped at its summit, catching his breath. Ahead, the yellow blur that was Thomson dropped sedately down what might have once been stone steps, but was just as likely to be stacked bedrock. Balancing their burdens, Jean and Fergie levered each other down six or seven levels and across a muddy, weedy patch onto level ground.
There was Alasdair! Or there were two circles of light, rather, meeting, blending, parting again, emanating from a shambling lump. Jean thought for a moment that Alasdair and Tina were supporting Greg between them. But no, the clump wasn’t wide enough for three. As the double figure resolved itself from the darkness, she saw
