Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“Please, Chief, no talk of homicide. At least while I’m within earshot.”
I gave Rowan’s hand a squeeze. After a moment, he visibly relaxed and sat on the edge of the table next to me. “His branch of the Murdoch clan is no friend to us, but the rest of them are fine. If he keeps the Rembrandt from us, he’ll find himself pruned from their family tree.”
I voiced something that had come to me during the meeting.
“Look, we all have stories we tell ourselves and others, and he was so off base from my own reality—why I’m really here, my actual character—that it makes me think that he’s a Murdoch in name only, and if he can take the MacLaochs down, he can win the ultimate merit badge: pride from his clan.
Or at least his dad, or someone else who knows he’s not a Murdoch by blood.
Probably a relative close to him was English and married into the Murdoch family and told him tales of ancestral bravery and pride and left out the reasons for the darkness.
” As I finished, I saw Charmaine had a funny expression. Was it…was she impressed by me?
She said, “His grandfather was an Englishman and raised him when his father left. His mother remarried a Murdoch. He never did call him dad, but uncle.”
“Wait, my guess was corr—” I said at the same time Rowan said to Charmaine, “How would you—”
“I, of course, made inquiries when it came to my attention that the Rembrandt wasn’t applied to the loan.”
“You have a habit of doing that. Digging up dirt on people.”
“Yes, I do. It helps even out the mysteries of humans. We are all, ultimately, predictable.”
I could feel my lip curl back. Now that one menace was out of the room, I could remember the awful news I’d learned before the meeting. “And now you’re fucking my brother. What, pray tell, is your prediction there—”
“Holy fuck.”
The new voice made us all jump. Holly in her work gear, tight crop top under flannel and jeans with reinforced knees, came panting into the room. She was trying to catch her breath while she pointed to her phone in her hand, “Cousin.”
“Cousin?”
TJ appeared; the grime on his boots told me he’d been out in the field.
Holly pointed at him. “Tell them. Can’t. Bloody fucking stairs.”
He took the phone and waltzed over to Charmaine, who gave him a radiant smile; he gave her a quick kiss.
She looked at me and, with a blank face, answered the question I’d posed to her before Holly showed up: “Devotion. That’s what I foresee.”
TJ glanced between us. “What’s that?”
Up to his ugly mug, I said, “What does it say?” and pointed to Holly’s phone.
Keeping Charmaine in a one-armed hug, he read the text message: “Hanging over the mantel. And then something about dicks. Let’s see, more dicks, and then, old Otey manor house. The Rembrandt is hanging over the mantel in the main foyer.”
My connection with Rowan sizzled. Rowan, tumbler in hand, slipped off the table and pivoted.
“Oh no.” I lunged for him and missed.
With an arm an outfielder would respect, he whipped the tumbler through the doorway into his office where it shattered against the far wall and dripped whisky down the dark wallpaper.
TJ asked, “What am I missing?”
To Rowan, I said, “Well, that answers that question.”
Charmaine patted TJ’s chest. “The MacLaochs have always been perceived as wealthy and unbeholden to laws or justice that other clans, particularly the Murdochs, have had to face. The feud with the Murdochs began when the clan stole cattle from the MacLaochs, well back in Shakespearean times. They battled each other every generation then went silent for about 150 years until it was rekindled at the whisky raid of 1989. If that was a purposeful rekindling.”
Holly was breathing easy now and came over, giving Charmaine a once-over. “I have to interrupt, love—that pant suit is chic. Is that raw silk?”
“It is.”
“Cool.” Holly flicked her gaze from the suit up to Charmaine’s eyes. “But still, fuck you, aye?”
Charmaine gave her a dry smile. “Holly. Still the vocabulary of a naval nurse, I see.”
Then, to Rowan, as if Charmaine no longer existed, Holly continued, “My cousin works at the old Otey place. Dick Murdoch refurbished it into a modern nightmare. She’s one of the cleaning crew, and she wants me to tell ye, she can take it down and bring it home, if ye like.”
I wondered if we were all envisioning a several-million-dollar painting popped into the back of Cousin’s Peugeot, bungee cords tying the hatch closed before they trundled on back home to the castle. Done and dusted. I smiled with pride; these were my people.
Charmaine confirmed she was indeed sharing that image, though with less delight. “The Rembrandt is highly valuable; it’ll need to be properly crated for shipment and then couriered back here. And insured.”
I wanted to ask her if that was what she had done when she’d hired an art thief to steal it from the castle, but I was more concerned with Rowan.
He was still turned away from the group, trying to catch his own breath and keep his frustration and temper in check.
I went to him and put my hand on his back, giving him some of my calm.
As soon as my fingertips touched the hard rope of muscles lining his spine, his head went up, and his eyes closed.
“It’ll be OK,” I whispered.
He took a deep breath in and whispered to me in my mind, My sow is running bonkers through the fields.
“I bet she is.”
When his hand slipped down off his face, it opened for me; against his chest, I put my hand into his and gripped tight.
We have this.
One more deep breath and he rested his forehead to mine, and I felt him relax.
Rowan, his hand still in mine, turned to Holly clear-eyed.
“Yer cousin, she shouldn’t take it; it’ll bring her too much trouble to do.
And, aye, if it’s not returned today, I’ll retrieve it myself.
He cannae be so daft as tae think I wouldn’t find out.
The old Otey place is not thirty miles from here. ”
Holly said, “We’ll get it back, my liege. If this is a trap, best it be us squirrelly folk tha’ retrieve it.”
“Nae, Holly, I appreciate ye wanting tae do this, but I’ll not risk your scholarship nor your standing at university; it’s not worth it.”
Holly’s face crashed. “But I need tae.”
“Nae.”
They both were getting thick into their respective Scots as their emotions heated up.
“Holl,” I interjected, “it’s all right. There’s no debt to be owed or repaid.”
Her gaze glistened with unshed tears. “Ye dinnae understand, Chief. I’ve failed my clan. I wasn’t at the battle. This I can do. I have tae.”
I felt Rowan melt. Holly’s need overshadowed his own.
He paid forward my abilities to calm him and went to Holly, his hand held up.
She clasped it as he quietly said, “I know ye feel like ye’ve let down the clan, but ye’ve no’.
Do ye see me? Look at me, Holly Alexander MacDonagh MacLaoch.
I know your desire tae help, and ye will, but your focus needs tae be on your studies.
The slope into the world yer father left is a steep one, and all it takes is one second tha’ ye take yer eyes off the road ahead for ye tae fall into it.
I promised yer ma tha’ ye’d not get into trouble when you’re here. It’s a promise I’ll keep.”
Holly looked out the windows, not wanting to meet Rowan’s gaze any longer. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and muttered to him, “But I can help.”
“And ye will. I’ll need it.”
Holly’s gaze shot to Charmaine, then back to his, and it was only then that she relented. “Aye, fine. But for the record, I know a guy.”
The way her eyes hit mine to check my reaction, then back to Rowan’s, made me groan. We all knew a guy. “Holly, no.”
“He owes us. Just like Charmaine.”
“He’s gone,” Rowan reminded her.
“No, he’s not.”
This made Rowan’s brow furrow.
“He’s desperate,” she said, and it sounded like she was pleading on his behalf.
“He’s a fucking dead man.” Rowan punctuated his point by stabbing his pointer finger at the floor, as if he were saying, Bring him here and I’ll show you a dead man.
“He probably wants the gold, hon.” I tried for common sense with her.
“Gold?” Charmaine and TJ said in unison.
Rowan looked to me, his question easy to read there in his eyes: Should we tell him in front of Nincompoop? The last word I inferred.
“What, those Roman coins?” TJ continued.
“Who the hell told you?”
He gave a Baker shrug. “I was down at the pub when I heard about it.”
All eyes were on him now.
“What?”
“You know, Tee, you shoulda been a damn investigator not a medic for the crap you dig up everywhere you go.”
“Not my fault people like to talk to me, but damn, in this town, everyone talks.”
“Who told you?”
“Look, I was minding my own business when this huge dude came up to me and asked if I was TJ, your brother. Like, knew my name. I hoped you didn’t owe him a shit ton of money because he looked like he could bounce me out of that place one-handed.
Instead, he said he was coming by later in the week for a proper hello but that he thought it was fortuitous we met then. ”
Rowan’s gaze went to mine then Tee’s. “Big man, looks like yer sister?”
Tee held his thumb up to me as if squaring up a mental picture. “Ya, just like her, all burly and such.”
“Jackass,” I responded, then clarified further, “looks like Grandpappy, you mean.”
“Yee-up. Freaky like, how much he did, now that you mention it.”
“What did Eli say?”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Eli, that’s right.”
“You’re stalling. Spill.”
“How nice do you promise to be to Charmaine?”
I got close to him and looked up into his stupid, ugly face. “I’ll be super nice. Like super-duper,” and gave him a wide, shit-eating grin.
“You look like Rex”—TJ said, naming our childhood dog—“right before he bit the mailman. So, no, you’re not.”
Charmaine watched the banter like a tennis match, wisely keeping her mouth shut.
“I’m the nicest peach in the orchard. Just not to you.”
“What, come on— Oof!”
I had slapped his crotch with the back of my hand. When he was bent over, I put him into a headlock and sat hard on the floor, taking him down with me.
“Goddamn it!” he hollered as he hit the ground. Charmaine stumbled into the table as Tee’s one-armed hug was ripped from her.
I firmed up my lock. “What the hell did Eli say?”
Rowan had come around and had to shout my name to get my attention. “We’ll ask Eli,” he said, not understanding what was happening.
“It’s not about that! He sassed me.”
Tee socked me awkwardly in the side—his fist glanced off my hip—and then tried to roll me over. I braced myself as best I could in the tight skirt and leaned back, putting more pressure on the hold even as he tried to pull himself free.
“You’re outta your damn mind!” he garbled, his face going beet red.
“What’d he say?”
“Go ask him!”
“I’m asking you!”
“Goddamn it, Cole!”
Rowan tried to interject again. “Mo ghràdh, I can just—”
“It’s not about that!” I roared, feeling the fight from earlier come flooding back. “You goddamn dimwitted fool, what the hell are you doing sleeping with the woman who tried to torch me off the face of this earth!?”
With that realization, I let him go. I was pissed enough to choke him, but he deserved a fighting chance to explain himself first.
He sat back on his haunches, his hand going to his reddened neck. “What the hell, Cole?! Are you…stronger now?”
He looked to Rowan then, as if he needed confirmation.
Rowan looked to me, then to Tee, and back to me. “I’m sorry, ghràdh.” Then he said to Tee, “Not full-strength Ormr, but…”
I looked down at my arms. Were they lightly glowing? “What?”
Charmaine whimpered next to me as Holly scampered around and slid in on her knees. “Show me.” She took my hands and studied my face. “He’s here?”
I sighed, losing the fight in me. “No, Holl, he’s gone. Mostly.”
Charmaine whined again, making Holly snap, “Stop whining, you got to see a once-in-a-lifetime supernatural moment, and you handled it like a damn sissy.”
“I…I can’t if it comes back,” she said and sidestepped away from me.
Tee looked me over then to Charmaine. “She’s fine. She’s just regular pissed now. But before, her eyes went—”
“Neon,” Rowan confirmed.
“I was gonna say to slits, but neon would do it too.”
Holly was crestfallen. “Bring him back for me, mate, just once?”
I gave Holly a resigned sigh. “No way.” Then to Tee: “We’ll talk about everything else once you can unhitch yourself from Charmaine for three minutes.”
“You have got the mouth of a sailor, Cole,” he admonished.
“You’d know—you taught me.” I flipped back at him. “For now, tell us about the bar and seeing Eli. Or I’ll put my Ormr strength to the real test.”