Chapter 15
Heather—Present Day
H eather didn’t wait for her tea to cool. She left her mug half-full on the counter and crossed into the study, the echo of her own words still pulsing through her mind.
Because if she doesn’t, I’ll never stop asking.
The room smelled of dust and rain—old wood, old ink, old ghosts. Morning light angled through high windows, striping the floor in thin gold. Her mother’s papers were still strewn across the desk from the night before, a chaos she hadn’t yet had the heart—or stomach—to tame.
Flynn leaned in the doorway, arms crossed but not closed off. “What’re ye lookin’ for, exactly?”
“Anything,” she murmured, flipping through a stack of notebooks. “A name. An address. Something I missed.”
“You could call the university again,” he offered. “Maybe if—”
“I already tried,” she said too sharply. Then softer, “Sorry. They said she retired. No forwarding.”
Flynn lifted his palms. “Just thinkin’ out loud, lass.”
She nodded, swallowing guilt. “I’m sorry, Flynn. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”
With an understanding smile, he tucked a rouge curl behind her ear as if to say she was forgiven.
She shifted a box of old photos—her parents at Glenoran, her mother laughing beside a wind-beaten dig site—and a yellowed envelope slid loose, skidding across the desk.
Her mother’s handwriting marked the front.
E.M. — Personal.
Heather froze. Opened it with careful fingers.
Inside was a letter. Neat loops, sharper pen strokes. Not her mother’s.
Eleanor McRae’s.
Eilidh,
If you’re coming north again, you know where to find me. The cottage is the same. Bring your notes on the Glenoran account—we’ll need them.
— E.M.
Cranachan Cottage, Dingwall
Heather’s breath stuttered. “She was here,” she whispered.
Flynn came closer, scanning the address. “Dingwall… that’s twenty minutes away, maybe less.”
Heather folded the letter with hands that wouldn’t stay steady. “We’re going.”
Flynn didn’t argue, just nodded once and said, “I’ll get the keys.”
She paused, fingers brushing her mother’s looping initials. Something in her chest shifted.
Not grief this time.
Resolve.
The clouds were breaking when they departed Glenoran.
Flynn’s truck rumbled along the narrow Highland road, pebbles kicking up behind them. Heather sat stiffly, fingers worrying the paper in her lap. Outside, the hills stretched wide and rinsed clean—streams overflowing, everything smelling faintly of pine and rain.
Flynn’s hand rested near hers on the bench seat, thumb tracing the seam of his jeans in a habit she recognized now as nerves.
“You’re quiet,” she said softly.
He huffed a small laugh. “Tryin’ not to spook you. You look like you’re thinkin’ five things at once.”
“Five?” she muttered. “Try fifteen.”
“Aye,” he said, glancing over with that warm half-smile she’d come to love. “But you usually come out the other side o’ them.”
She gave him a look. “You’re very confident in your investment.”
He shrugged. “You’re worth it.”
Heat rose in her throat, fragile and unexpected. She looked out the window. Sheep dotted the wet fields; a ruined tower loomed like a half-forgotten guardian. Everything she saw felt heavier now. More connected.
“You ever think that there’s so much history under our feet we’ll never understand?” she wondered.
“All the time,” Flynn said simply. “Some of it’s meant to stay buried. Some isn’t.”
She glanced at him. “You think my mom’s story is one that shouldn’t?”
Flynn didn’t look away from the road. “I think hers deserves the truth.”
Her fingers tightened over the paper.
By the time they reached the River Conon, her heart was beating like something caged. The lane narrowed, hedged by gorse and wild thistle.
“That’s the place,” Flynn murmured.
The cottage looked like it had grown from the hillside: ivy swallowing its stone walls, smoke curling from the chimney, windows glowing faintly.
Heather stepped out before she lost her nerve.
Flynn joined her without a word.
“You ready?” he asked.
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m here anyway.”
He squeezed her hand. “That’s good enough.”
Eleanor answered on the first knock.
Gray-haired. Sharp-eyed. Wrapped in a cardigan that looked older than time itself. She took one look at Heather and let out a long, tight breath.
“Heather Campbell.”
Not a question. Not even surprise.
Just inevitability.
“Come in,” she said, stepping aside. “No use lettin’ the whole glen watch.”
The cottage smelled of peat smoke and lavender. Books overflowed every surface, archaeological tools jumbled beside teacups. A fire glowed low in the hearth.
“Sit,” Eleanor instructed, gesturing to mismatched armchairs.
Heather didn’t. Flynn did—for peacekeeping points.
Eleanor’s gaze swept Heather’s face and softened. “You’ve her eyes. Your mother.”
Heather’s throat tightened. “So I’ve been told.”
“And her stubborn streak.”
A faint smile. Quickly gone.
Silence stretched taut.
Finally, Heather spoke. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Eleanor said carefully.
“That my mother didn’t die in a car crash,” Heather whispered. “That she drowned in Scotland. That you sent her chasing the treasure.”
Flynn sat up straighter.
Eleanor winced.
Heather pressed on. “Did nobody think I deserved to know who she really was?”
Eleanor braced her hands on the back of a chair. “You were a child. Your father—”
“ Don’t ,” Heather cut off, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t make excuses for him.”
Eleanor’s expression flickered with pain. “He loved her, hen. Madly. And he loved you.”
Heather let out a small, humorless laugh. “He had a funny way of showing it.”
“Aye,” Eleanor said quietly as she nodded. “He did.”
She hesitated a long moment before adding, “Your father knew what happened.”
Something in Heather’s chest jolted. “He… knew?”
“Aye,” Eleanor murmured. “I called him myself. He flew out within hours.”
“I—” Heather shook her head. “No. That can’t—he never—he didn’t leave. I would’ve remembered.”
But even as she said it, something flickered—thin as smoke, buried so deep she wasn’t sure it was real.
A memory shifted.
Not a full picture, just fragments.
Her mother kneeling in front of her, smoothing Heather’s hair behind her ear.
“It’s just a short work trip, lambie,” she’d said. “Two weeks tops. I’ll be back before you know it.”
The brush of a kiss to Heather’s forehead.
Then another—aimed at Charles but landing on his cheek when he turned his head slightly, quiet and stiff.
Heather hadn’t understood that then. She only remembered Eilidh laughing softly, tapping his jaw, saying, “I love you both. I’ll be home soon.”
Then… normalcy. Or something like it. School. Cartoons. Her dad burning dinner twice in a row.
And then, a week or so later:
Her father kneeling beside her bed, rubbing at tired eyes.
“Grandma’s coming to stay for a bit, sweetheart. I’ve got to go help Mom at work.”
Help her at work.
That’s all he’d said.
She remembered hugging him goodbye.
She remembered the way he squeezed her too tightly, like he was afraid she’d slip away.
She remembered her grandmother arriving with too many groceries and too much gentleness.
And then, days later, her father walking through the front door again, face gray and hollow.
Sitting beside her on the couch.
Taking her small hands between his.
“Mommy’s been in an accident, sweetheart.”
Heather blinked hard, the memory settling—quiet, heavy, unbearably clear.
She whispered, “He went to Scotland.”
Flynn’s hand brushed her back, steady and warm. “Aye, love. Looks like he did.”
Heather pressed her fingers to her mouth, breath hitching. “I didn’t… I didn’t remember any of that until now.”
Eleanor’s expression softened. “He didna want you to carry any of it. Not the fear. Not the wait. Not the truth of what happened at the loch. He thought sparin’ you would spare him too, I think.”
Heather let out a shaky, stunned laugh. “God. All this time I thought he didn’t care. That he just drank himself into forgetting.”
Eleanor shook her head gently. “No, lass. He drank to remember her without breaking.”
Her voice trembled—not melodramatic, just old-sorrow worn thin. “When I found out she’d gone, when they called about the loch… I phoned him. He arrived the next day. I’ve never seen a man break like that. He blamed himself. Blamed me more. Maybe he should’ve.”
Heather stilled.
Eleanor continued, voice soft as ash, “He begged me not to tell you the truth. Said you deserved to remember her as you knew her, not as the woman who couldn’t stay away from a myth.”
Her eyes lifted to Heather’s, raw. “And I agreed with him. I was wrong.”
Heather blinked hard. “He loved her that much?”
“Aye,” Eleanor whispered. “And losing her ruined him. You were the only thing that kept him tethered… until even that wasn’t enough.
I used to call and check in over the years…
to see how you both were holding up. I owed it to Eilidh.
To you. To your Da. But once the liquor took hold of him…
it was damn near impossible to get him to speak to me. ”
Heather’s chest cracked at the admission.
The version of him she remembered, the hollowed one, wasn’t the whole story.
Flynn’s hand brushed her back, grounding her in the present and not the ghosts of the past.
Heather swallowed. “Why did she leave? Why didn’t she take us? Why didn’t she stay?” she whispered.
Eleanor pressed her lips together. “Because she thought she could come back with the truth. She believed the treasure belonged to Scotland… and that she was the only one who could keep it safe. But she didn’t tell him that part.”
The older woman wiped her eyes. “He thought she left them both. Husband and child. And by the time I told him otherwise… it was too late.”
Heather felt something shift inside her—anger loosening, not gone, but no longer the whole shape of her grief.
Quietly, Flynn asked, “What was the lead she’d found?”
Eleanor hesitated. “Her old research partner. Dr. Flora Henderson.”
Heather’s pulse spiked. “Dr. Henderson?”
“Aye. They’d fallen out over the project. Eilidh thought Flora meant to exploit the find. She said she needed to verify the location before anyone else could.”
“And she went alone,” Heather murmured.
“Aye,” Eleanor nodded, voice grim. “And I’ve carried that guilt every day since.”
Heather’s hands balled into fists in her lap. “We need to talk to Henderson.”
Eleanor looked at her sharply. “You sure? The woman’s not fond of people diggin’ where she’s buried things.”
Heather stood straighter. “Neither was my mom. And she went anyway.”
Eleanor stared a long moment… then nodded.
“You really are her daughter.”
Heather didn’t trust herself to answer.
But inside, something aligned: grief and hope and fury and love forming something steadier.
Not chasing a ghost anymore.
Walking her mother’s path instead.