Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
They’d been in the gravel drive of the old Otey manor for over an hour.
Rowan was listening to Charmaine, to Cole, to everyone: He was being a good boy and waiting for the constable to arrive.
Him waltzing in there wouldn’t accomplish much, at least not yet.
The men the bank had sent days ago had been in, supposedly, and not found it, but reports continued to come in saying that it was there.
Something in his gut said Dick was actively hiding and revealing it, over and over, but for what purpose, he didn’t know.
The old Otey manor was full of nooks and crannies.
It’d take a man like him who had lived his life in another centuries-old building to spot where the walls connected a wee bit too far apart and understand that gap between them was worth looking into.
Mickey Gillian was pacing outside the SUV looking like someone who’d smoked his last cigarette at noon and had needed his next one since noon.
The air through the open car window was clean and cool, but the wind, the onshore breeze that was so prevalent at Castle Laoch, was absent at this place. It made Rowan feel like a storm was brewing.
The old Otey manor house had been built with the monies from Robert the Bruce’s coffers in the thirteen hundreds.
Now the grounds were distantly wooded, but probably back then, the forest had been allowed to creep much closer.
Rowan could look over the expansive lawns that led down to a small river inlet that led to a larger loch at the cloudy horizon.
The property eventually came to be the Blackhart estate.
In the seventeenth century, the Oteys made their fortune in textiles and purchased the nine-thousand-acre estate away from the ailing Blackhart family.
In present day, when Old Man Otey, as Rowan affectionately called him, couldn’t pay the taxes the British government levied on the estate, he sold it.
Now, it was with Murdoch. And now it felt like a piece in the pocket of an anal collector.
The stone facade was mint, as if it had recently been bleached and scrubbed clean; the grounds, while beautiful, were stark.
Rowan remembered visiting several years before Old Man Otey sold it.
He’d needed the retired physician’s advice about Uncle Jacky, who’d had cancer.
Back then, roses twisted up the entry and a sculpture sat to the right of the front double doors.
The sculpture had seen better days back then, for sure, but it was a prized part of the house.
It had been a present from an Italian aristocrat who’d visited before the First World War.
He’d returned every summer until his death, each time leaving behind bottles of his favorite wine—something Old Man Otey shared with every guest and did it with pride.
Now, the place was sanitized: The roses were gone, and not even a weed grew in the crevice between the foundation and the gravel parking area. The statue was gone too. And Rowan would bet his left nut the cellar was empty. The place’s history was scrubbed clean.
Activity caught Rowan’s eye in the rearview mirror. He recognized the forest-green van. It was Double-A and the Whisky Boys. If they were here, that meant their task hadn’t gone to plan.
Double-A stepped out, a cigarette hanging from his lips; Rowan met him halfway between the vehicles. The air felt humid and heavy.
“What is it?” Rowan asked.
Double-A nodded toward the house, his eyes on Mickey. “Found ’em.” He was talking about the banker.
“Where?”
“He was speeding south. Caught ’em in Fort William.”
Rowan squinted his eyes as if trying to figure out that mental puzzle. “South…?”
“My brother-in-law’s nephew pulled him over just south of Fort William.”
“And?”
“It’s not in his boot. Had to let him go.”
Rowan turned away then, his blood boiling. “Bloodyfuckingshitpig!”
Double-A agreed with his reaction. “Maybe we should take a look; see if it’s still here?” and nodded toward the manor.
Mickey slowly made his way over, having overheard them. “Feels like a trap.”
Double-A snapped the cigarette out from between his lips as if he’d been rudely interrupted. “Ye think? Maybe my daughter did ye a favor when she knocked ye about. Got ye thinking clearly, for once.”
Mickey’s blood drained from his face, and Rowan could only assume it was from the realization that the man was Holly’s da and the person who taught Holly how to do the knocking about.
Double-A went to him, popping his cigarette back into the corner of his mouth. “All right, son. No hard feelings. Right, boys?”
The two Whisky Boys creeping about the perimeter gave verbal grunts of agreement.
“Aye,” Simon called from the van. “No hard feelings. So, we send him in first?”
There was a low twitter of humor. Double-A had one hand on Mickey’s shoulder as the other squeezed Mickey’s bicep. “What’d ye think, pretty boy? Wanna go first?”
Mickey was about to reply when Rowan cut in.
“We wait for the constable; there are other things at play we need to heed.”
Double-A tsked and let Mickey off with a friendly double-pat to the back. “Off the hook.” Mickey’s body shook with the force of the pat. Then to Rowan: “All right, Chief. We’ll wait.” And he promptly went to the house’s front windows and put his hands up, shading his eyes to get a good look in.
Rowan felt the thread of control slipping. Double-A and the Whisky Boys had been with his uncle through his law-dodging days, and as Rowan watched them case the exterior of the building, it was obvious that old habits died hard.
“Double-A. Uncle,” he called to Holly’s dad, with respect. “Nae funny business, aye?” He heard Cole in his words.
Instead of confirming, Double-A asked, “When did ye call for a constable tae come?”
“They were to meet us a half hour ago.”
Mickey found his voice again. “At least.” Then to Rowan: “Look, I’m not saying I’m an angel—we both know I’d sell me dad for twenty quid—but this isn’t good. We need to go.”
Rowan didn’t want to agree, but he did. It wasn’t worth giving Murdoch the satisfaction of besting him in this ludicrous game of retribution.
Watching the Whisky Boys, they looked like they would not heed his example of not breaking into the locked manor.
They needed to go. If they got nicked for B and E, the whisky business would be over before it started.
Mickey pressed, keeping his voice low, “You know when I say these old chaps know how to canvas, break a window, slip a lock, and leave no trace. But times have changed since they learned to hot-wire a coupe. This place is old; I get it—they think they’re in their element.
But if your banker, that Murdoch, is as cunning as he might actually be, this is a fucking trap.
There’s likely monitors on all entrances, and if he’s a confident sod to keep it displayed over the fireplace like Holly said it was, it’ll be covered in trip wires and sensors that will set off silent alarms.”
Rowan slid his dark gaze over to Mickey. “Bank agents came in and found nothing.”
“Sure.”
“And if it’s there with trip wires, that’s what you’re here for.”
Mickey didn’t like that blunt response but kept at him. “I know that. But do they?”
The thought of the gray hairs being loaded into the back of a police car made him shiver. “They have orders to wait for police—”
Glass shattered.
Rowan’s attention snapped to the front of the manor, and beside a broken window, Charlie shrugged as if saying, “I’m not sure how that happened.”
Double-A called to him, “Oye! What are ye doing? We’ve orders.”
“Shit,” Rowan said under his breath as he called to them, “Get back to your van and go. Now.”
At the tall, metal-cased window, Charlie put his hand to his ear, his hearing aid tucked behind the shell of his ear. “What’s that?”
Mickey raised his brows. “If you didn’t hear him, I’m the fucking pope,” he yelled back.
Double-A shouted again. “In tha’ fucking van!” and pointed, the cigarette between his fingers.
Only Charlie was bent over now, listening at the rectangle that was now missing its glass. “Oh no,” he said dryly, “I hear someone calling for help.”
“Oh, you do, do ye?”
“Maybe that constable arrived early, the Murdoch tied him up, and we’re the only ones who can save him. We have a duty to save an officer of the law.”
Mickey murmured, “Clock’s started.”
Rowan ignored the pressure Mickey was putting on him and pointed at Charlie. “Don’t unlock tha’ window. Don’t ye go through tha’ fucking window.”
“But I heard—”
Double-A cut in, stomping toward Charlie. “No one believes that crap.”
“What? We have a duty to help that person.”
Double-A bent over, listening at the window. “And…nothing—”
Just then, the curtains moved, and the window clicked and swung open, pushed from inside. Standing there was Shepherd Rupert in his dark blue windbreaker and lithe form looking confused. “Why’d ye break the window? The back door was wide open.”
There was a collective pause, each of the eight men standing still, digesting what it meant that the rear door was wide open.’
Rowan knew then it indeed was a trap. “Get out of the house. Now.”
“Aye. But the Rembrandt is sitting over the fireplace. Want me tae grab it first?”
Rowan blinked. “It’s where?”
“Over the fireplace.” He pointed behind him
Rowan felt like he had been hit sideways with a rage missile. “How…” Rowan couldn’t think. His elder clansman was in the building. Trespassing. The clan heirloom that had been stolen from the halls of Castle Laoch was mounted like a trophy just beyond the open window.
“Fuck it.”
Those words electrified Double-A. He rammed the cigarette back into the corner of his mouth. “Rupert, get out. Charlie, stand watch at the front. Josh, get tae the back.”
Rowan added, “Double-A, tell the rest to keep a lookout on the drive; clock is ticking.” To Mickey: “How much time do we have?”
“Not enough.”
Rowan bit back, “That’s not an answer.”
“Five minutes at most. I timed it on the way in. That driveway takes a full two minutes—”
Rowan cut him off: “Double-A, wheels up in four.” To Mickey: “Ye have ten seconds to get your things and get to the front door.”
The old Otey manor was a solid stone-built manor house.
Rowan took a beat in the foyer. The grand entry and sitting room immediately beyond were no longer filled with opulently carved wood furniture, heavy velvet curtains, and glass curios packed with knickknacks.
The lush houseplants that had softened the corners and crawled along window frames, making the house alive, a true part of its natural surroundings, were gone.
Now, the aesthetic was starkly modern, making the place look twice its size.
It held a chill. All the walls were bare and painted dark as midnight; even the ceiling was flat black, making the occupant feel like they would fall up into the void.
Glass tables and metal chairs with gray leather seats took up the seating area beyond the foyer.
The ornate mahogany stairs that had swept guests up to the open second-floor hall had been replaced with a metal-and-wire industrial staircase. Rowan could see beyond the open cement treads of the stairs to an elaborate glass and stone dining hall with a table made of…was that concrete?
From the rear of the house, Rupert rushed in with a ladder.
The fireplace anchored the main wall in the sitting room.
The fireplace had been built to impress, and as far as Rowan could see, it was the only thing about the house that was as Rowan knew it.
Its opening stood five feet high with a raw-edge wood mantel that looked to be made from one solid tree trunk.
It was the only warmth in the place, save for the Rembrandt that hung above it.
“Take it down,” Rowan said, but he didn’t have to. Rupert was already on the ladder, Double-A at his hip, while Mickey came in with his bag of goods.
Mickey hollered at the balding Rupert up on the ladder. “Just wait one bleeding moment.” To the rest of the men: “Just wait.” When Rupert looked at him, Mickey pointed to the ground. “Get down.”
Rupert looked to Rowan, and he shrugged in agreement.
Rupert did as Mickey asked, and Mickey practically passed him on the rungs, they exchanged places so fast. Rowan noticed Mickey had put on surgical gloves since he had returned from the car.
Charmaine would be pleased. He ran a finger around the edge of the ornate frame of the Rembrandt then the pocket it sat in on the wall.
Mickey looked back to the men in the room. “You’re not going to believe this…”