Revenge (Book 3 of Lost Highlander series) (22 page)

She sighed and went into the bathroom and found the little scissors she used to snip split ends. Pulling the bodice away from her chest, she ruthlessly began cutting away the fabric until she had cut far enough down to just grab the edges and tear it the rest of the way off. She didn’t realize she was crying until she had to gasp for breath and she stepped out of the ruined heap of fabric before blindly making her way back to her bed.

For a moment she looked around desperately. Surely he had left something behind, something she could hold next to her skin while she slept. She rummaged through the bedside table drawers, threw open the wardrobe, dropped to her knees to look under the bed.

He hadn’t had much, and he’d needed to take it all with him on their last journey. With nothing to hold onto, not even a scrap of hope, she got under the blankets and curled into a ball. She pulled the pillow Lachlan had slept on over to her, to be close to his scent, and her hand brushed something hard. She sat up and found a small white box wrapped with a simple red bow.

Her birthday present. She held the box until the bow blurred into a red blob in her unblinking vision, then pulled it off, slowly removing the lid. Inside was a folded up note with her name written showily across the top fold in thick lines of ink. Somewhere in all her junk he’d found a quill to write with. He loved modern conveniences, except for ballpoint pens. He thought those were just awful. Tears splashed onto the ink, smearing her name and she quickly moved it out of the way.

Under the note, nestled on a velvet pad, was a wide gold ring inset with a ruby, with lovely delicate scrollwork all around the band. She couldn’t have chosen something more beautiful for herself. A flash of their time together before the party, when he’d complimented her on her red dress, made her throat close up. She closed her eyes as she put on the ring, her heart breaking as she tried to envision his strong hands sliding it on her finger, feel their sturdy warmth as he grasped her hands in his, then leaned down to kiss her.

“I don’t understand,” she said once again, voice cracking on a sob.

She lay down, her fist closed tightly to feel the ring. She couldn’t read the note, not yet. The words he wrote were meant to be birthday wishes, but whatever they were would come across as last words and she couldn’t stand that.

She stared at her tearstained name on the folded piece of paper until she fell asleep, only to be plagued by nightmares.

***

“He’ll come back if he can,” Evie said, her voice too chipper.

Piper struggled not to roll her eyes. She’d heard the same thing from Sam and Mellie and was getting sick of their pity.

“I know,” she said. She didn’t know, but she stuffed the pain down and carried on.

It took her a good week to get over the first crippling bout of grief, in which she barely got out of bed. She tossed and turned from the strange dreams that she fell into every time she slept. There wasn’t anything her subconscious could conjure that was more terrifying than what she’d seen while awake, and the dreams were mostly a nuisance, save one that showed her wandering downstairs and discovering yet another secret wall safe.

She always woke up before she managed to open it, so never learned its mysterious contents. When she was awake, she didn’t care. If there was another secret wall safe in her batty castle, whatever was inside it could rot. She would be damned if she was going to be bossed around by dreams.

She’d sat in bed like an invalid, letting Evie bring her food on a silver tray, and hold Magnus up and make him wave his chubby hand at her, and she would at least pretend to laugh and crumble up the food so it looked like she took a few bites.

When Evie thought she was asleep she’d coax Hoover into the room and up on the bed with her to keep her company. Piper hugged the shaggy puppy and let him lick her face, trying to fight the emptiness that threatened to swallow her.

Then she started to feel stupid and ashamed of her moping around and got out of bed, weak from doing nothing and not eating enough. Every morning when she couldn’t think of a reason to get out of bed, she made herself imagine what it would be like if that was the day Lachlan returned, only to find her hiding under the covers.

It was now the third week of Piper’s return, and they were sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by mountains of books. While she had been wasting away in her bed, Evie and Mel discovered a new stash of boxes while overseeing the repairs on the fifth floor. It was a brand new wealth of information— receipts, ledgers, books, letters— much of it dating back to Lachlan’s time.

They were especially excited about it since Mellie swore up and down that she’d already looked in that area and there hadn’t been boxes there before. No one wanted to admit out loud that history might have changed due to their constant tampering, but they were ruthlessly poring over every page. Piper knew Evie was being so manic about the renewed love of research to try to keep her from slipping back into despair.

“We’ll figure it all out, don’t worry,” she said, that damn tone to her voice, like Piper was dying or something. Or like Evie was scared.

“Yes, I know,” she agreed without glancing up.

She closed the ledger she was reading, a riveting tale of the grain consumption of the castle livestock in the year 1743. Spoiler alert, she didn’t care anymore. Evie thought it was important to go over everything, in case a detail was tucked away somewhere unexpected, but she’d had enough.

She rubbed her bleary eyes. Even with the dog keeping her company, it was hard to sleep. When she drifted off, she was haunted by nightmares, by Lachlan’s troubled glance before his arm came down, by the terrible sound of the axe hitting bone.

She was afraid she might sleepwalk during one of her dreams and had started barricading herself in her room at night. All she needed was to wake up standing in front of an open wall safe, some new and horrifying thing waiting for her inside. No, thank you.

Evie clapped her hand over her own and she realized she had been picking at her cuticles. Evie hated when she got all fidgety and started tearing things up, especially her own body parts.

“Piper,” Evie started, full school marm voice in effect. “What is it?”

Piper shrugged, turning her head listlessly to gaze out the window at the grey day. She tried to avoid looking out windows lately, because she couldn’t help hoping she’d see Lachlan through one of them. The following plunge into disappointment always took her by surprise, no matter how she steeled herself against it. Looking at Evie’s accusing face was worse right now, though. To her dismay, Evie reached over and took her by the chin, forcing her to turn back.

“You have to tell me what’s going on,” she said, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

She dropped her hand with a forceful smack against the old plank table.

Piper showed her teeth in what she hoped passed for a smile and shook her head, throwing in another eye roll for good measure. “Nothing,” she said. “All the grain statistics were giving me a headache.”

“Enough,” Evie said with another slam. “I can’t take you lying to me anymore. You thought Daria wasn’t a threat, or that you could handle it on your own, and you were wrong.” She patted Piper’s hand to soften her harsh words. “You were gone for eight months. I thought I lost you. When you came back, you knew Daria might be out there, but you didn’t tell me. I almost lost Magnus.” Her voice broke and she dropped her chin to her chest. “You’re here, but not here, Pipes. I’m afraid you’re going to get lost if you don’t tell me.”

Piper opened her mouth to deny all of it, even as guilt rippled through her. The thing that kept her up at night, that plagued her when she managed to fall asleep, was pulling at her to brush off her oldest friend, tell her she was nuts. Poor, sweet Evie would believe her.

“I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you everything when we first got back,” she said slowly. “I didn’t want you to worry. What with having the baby, and the fighting with Sam. And you had to take care of the estate all that time we were gone.” She laughed mirthlessly and shook her head. “I gave away half my money and you ended up earning most of it back with your insane skills.”

“I was weirdly good at it,” Evie agreed. Then she frowned. “Okay, I get why you didn’t tell me, and I forgive you, but things still aren’t right.”

“I miss Lachlan,” she said in a last ditch effort at evasion.

Evie leaned back, crossing her arms in front of her. She shook her head, a mix of anger and sadness in her overflowing eyes. “It’s more than that,” she insisted.

Piper took a deep breath and watched the tears roll down Evelyn’s face. “When Lachlan killed Daria, I think something evil possessed me,” she said on the exhale, before she could chicken out.

Evie coughed, her eyes growing round. “Crap,” she said after she stopped choking.

“Yes. Crap.”

They stared at each other until they both burst into nervous laughter. Piper put her head on the table, feeling lighter that it was out in the open, but still very much weighted down. She expected to be left alone to wallow in her misery, and she would deserve it. Maybe one day she would figure out how to beat the dark presence, or maybe she’d be committed to an institution.

“Do we want booze or chocolate for this?” Evie asked.

Piper’s head snapped up and she looked at her oldest and dearest friend with surprise and gratitude.

Evie rolled her eyes. “That nasty piece of work cut me, stabbed Sam, nearly killed us both in a fire, and stole my only child. Do you honestly think I’m going to let her jacked up spirit possess you?”

Piper snorted as she blinked away tears. “So, what do we do now?” she asked, the first glimmer of hope working its way back into her darkened heart.

Getting up from the table, Evie hauled one of the recently discovered boxes of books over and plunked several of them down in front of her. She took out a sheaf of tattered papers and sat back down, looking resigned.

“We study,” she said, waving her hand at the books. “Somewhere buried in all the damn grain statistics, there’s got to be something.” She settled in, rattling the dry parchment as she smoothed it out, rested her chin in her hands and squinted down at the nearly unreadable print.

Piper opened the nearest book and had barely gotten two pages into it when Evie gasped. She looked up to find all the color drained from her face, her mouth open in shock.

“Oh my God,” she said, her finger stabbing a line on the page. After several blinks, she bent over it to read it again.

“What?” Piper asked impatiently. “Did you find something about Daria?”

Evie made a strangled noise and shook her head. “I think I found out why Lachlan’s in the crypt.”

The End

It was too late. He had never seen such a look of torment on her face before, on anyone’s face. He could tell she wanted him to stop, and he trusted her. He trusted her more than she trusted herself, never believing for an instant that she had anything in common with the foul witch other than a distant blood line. At the last second, a look of absolute decision had come to life in her eyes. She didn’t want the witch dead. But it was too late. He was too strong and the axe too sharp. The momentum had carried the blade home to its destination.

He left the blade buried in the ground in the fast growing pool of blood and whirled around. Too late. The sound of her anguished scream winked out as if shut up in a bottle, not even an echo of it remaining.

“Piper,” he bellowed, running to where she had been standing.

He spent desperate minutes going in every direction, rattling branches and hollering himself hoarse. Finally he stood still, back where he started, and gazed down at the witch’s corpse. It took all of his willpower to refrain from kicking it or being otherwise disrespectful. His darling Piper wouldn’t have wanted that.

His mind was reeling with shattered thoughts and disjointed questions. Where was she? Had she and the wee lad been sent back, and if so, how? He prayed that was what had happened and that they were safe.

“What have ye done, ye wicked woman?” he growled at Daria’s body, dislodging the axe blade from the earth and wiping the blood on a patch of moss.

He couldn’t stand still, the fear of not knowing what had happened to Piper making him pace restlessly.

With shaking hands, he dug out the small vial of dried herbs he kept with him at all times and gripped it in his fist. He could find her, he must find her. If the last image he ever had of her was the despairing look she’d given him just before he swung his axe…

He closed his eyes and tried to conjure a memory of her laughing face, the way she gazed at him as if he were worthy of her. The way her eyes fluttered shut when he kissed her just so.

He started to work the tiny cork out of the vial, ready to make his way back to her time, clinging to the hope that she was there, and not in some fearsome empty space all alone. That thought nearly killed him where he stood. He would go, now.

Looking around for a spot to perform the spell, he realized how close he was to the pool of blood surrounding the witch. He didn’t care a whit about her, and was happy to imagine her being picked apart by crows, but it made him think of Redmond, who lay dead some way back in the woods, murdered by that fiendish woman.