Part 33 (2/2)
”Dammit!” Toni said. ”We know now that the old Bruce didn't strangle his wife, one of his enemies did it.”
”We don't know that for a fact,” David said softly.
”Right. Before he gets chopped to minced meat himself, he asks his executioners for a woolen scarf so that he can kill her first?” Toni said sarcastically.
”No, but maybe he stole his enemy's scarf.”
Toni threw her hands up. ”You're being ridiculous,” she told them. ”I can't listen to this anymore!”
”Toni!” David said. ”I'm sorry, honestly! I'm just afraid for you, that's all. Maybe you don't have to...to sleep with him. Well, sleep with him, but don't sleep with him. Not until we find out a little more about him.”
She shook her head with disgust and exited the kitchen.
Bruce wound up staying far later than he had intended at Darrow's office; it was impossible not to do so. With a full team in tiny Tillingham, fascinated with the discovery of Annalise and armed with modern technology, he found himself involved. He looked at half a dozen scans, and was there when they painstakingly removed the ligature from around the throat of the remains. The scientists were fascinated with the quality of the weave; he couldn't help but remain pleased with the evidence suggesting that his ancestor had not been the one to murder his wife.
When he returned to the castle, it was afternoon. He looked in the kitchen and found David and Kevin working on costumes. They looked at him like a pair of cats that had just filled up on canaries. But when he questioned them, they both said that they were fine--a little too quickly--and went back to work, telling him that Ryan was probably out on Wallace somewhere and Gina was upstairs working with the numbers to find out just what it would take to get them out of the hole. Neither of them had seen either Thayer or Toni for hours.
He couldn't find Toni upstairs, so he headed out to the stables. Shaunessy greeted him with a whinny.
He heard someone working above him and backed away, trying to see who was in the rafters. Eban was there, studiously working hay piles.
”Ah, Laird MacNiall!”
With a smile, the funny little man dropped his rake and came down the ladder. He was agile and quick, dropping the last few feet as easily as a monkey.
”Afternoon, Eban,” Bruce said.
Eban gave him a gamine's grin. ”The roan is doing fine. I bin keepin' an eye on him, now, I'ave.”
”Thank you, Eban.”
”I bin thinking, y'see, that someone is walkin' round,” Eban said gravely.
”Walking around?”
”There's them that say it's yer ancestor. Y'know, the MacNiall.”
Bruce exhaled with patience. ”Ah, Eban! The dead don't walk around.”
”And they don't go making a healthy roan sick, either, so they'd say!” Eban muttered, shaking his head. ”There's someone walkin', and that's a fact.”
He set a hand on the man's shoulders. ”Myth, Eban. Legend. Good stories for a dark night. If the MacNiall were about, don't you think he'd be pleased to see his castle so well tended?”
”As y'should ha' tended it all these years.”
”Aye, Eban. True.”
”She sees him, too, y'know. 'Tisn't just me, Laird MacNiall.”
”She?” he asked.
Eban nodded gravely. ”The la.s.s, the American la.s.s. A fellow such as me, I see it, I do. I see it in her eyes. She be one of the 'touched.'”
”Eban, you know I don't believe all that.”
Eban grinned. ”Believe or nae, what is, is. Anyway, I just wanted y'to know, the roan will be well. I'm watchin' now, I am.”
”Thank you, Eban. You do good work.”
”Ach, Laird MacNiall! Like the days of old. Y'give me a home. A place. Others might not ha' been so kind. And I know it.” With his strange little smile in place, he started back for the ladder. ”Tis like the days of old. Whether the eyes see or not, what is, is,” he said, shaking his head as he went back up to the rafters.
A noise at the door alerted Bruce to the fact that someone was coming into the stables. He turned quickly. Thayer.
He felt his mouth tighten and his muscles tense. He might have refused to let Jonathan see any of his concerns regarding the man, but he felt them, just as he had from the beginning. He didn't think it was ego to wonder how the man could have lived in Glasgow and never heard his name--or known that he existed. And if he had been living with his head in a pint, he should still have known something once he heard the name of the property his group was renting.
”Bruce, you're back,” Thayer said.
”Aye.”
Thayer looked uncomfortable. He hadn't expected to come here and find his host.
”Well, I was just going to look in on the roan,” Thayer said.
”He isn't here. Ryan must have taken him out. But actually, I'm glad you've come. I've gotten some news. I thought I should share it with you first.” He meant to take grave care with just what words and what information he ”shared.”
”Oh, aye?” Thayer said carefully, hovering in the doorway, as if he could make a quick escape.
”They've traced the origins of the Web site that advertised this castle,” Bruce said.
”Aye?”
The man looked as tense as a drawn bow.
”Glasgow.”
”Glasgow?”
Bruce nodded, watching the man.
Thayer shrugged. ”Well, then. That would explain a bit of it.”
”What do you mean?”
”Well, there were advertis.e.m.e.nts about, as well. Flyers in a few local pubs, you know, like broadsides on walls, at bus stops, I think.”
”Ah,” Bruce said.
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