She eyed Conall again, licking her lips. “How much time do you need?”
“As much as you can give me. He’s hard to shop for.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at Bree. “You got it,” she said, adjusting her pushup bra. “By the way, I’m Sherri.”
“Uh, Evelyn. Nice to meet you. I really appreciate this.”
The girl slipped around and approached Conall from behind. The minute he turned, Bree bolted, not waiting to see how impressed he was with Sherri’s offerings.
“Alb…” she gasped, minutes later, leaning on the counter. “Albany. I need the next flight to Albany.”
The ticket agent checked the computer. There was a flight leaving in one hour.
“No good. It’s an emergency.”
“There’s a flight boarding at gate 13B, but I don’t think you can make it.”
“I’ll try.”
The agent looked doubtful, but issued the ticket. Luckily the security line was short. As she handed the man her boarding pass, her name was announced over the intercom.
“Ma’am, they’re paging you,” he said, the slight widening of his eyes the only indication of how bad she must look.
“My boyfriend,” she said, panting. She clutched her tote bag and tried to smooth down her hair. “I’ll call when I get seated.”
Bree didn’t rest easy until the plane was several thousand feet in the air. It was a toss-up who would kill her first, Russell, Conall, or Faelan.
The plane landed in darkness. She’d hoped to arrive in daylight, when it was reasonably safe. She’d dart in, grab the
After a long search for her car—she’d forgotten which lot she parked in—Bree plugged her dead cell phone into the charger and dialed her mother.
“Darling,” her mother simpered. “Do you have exciting news?”
“Where’s Faelan?”
“Still in Scotland.”
“Making plans—”
“I don’t know what he’s doing.”
“We had a lovely drive. But you need to call Peter and have him look around. I’m sure I saw someone near the chapel.”
“The chapel?”
“I came back to the house and spent the night—”
“You stayed at my house?” Bree screeched.
“Sandy had company, and it was so loud there, I was getting a migraine.”
A migraine was nothing. Her mother was lucky she was alive. “The trespasser was probably Russell. I think I spotted him in town.”
“No, Russell was inside.”
“Russell was there?
“He stopped by, and I felt sorry for him. He didn’t look well. He’d lost weight, and I don’t think he’d bathed. We had dinner, and he spent the night. I put him in Faelan’s room. I don’t remember him being so paranoid. I woke up to go to the bathroom and found him prowling through the house, peeking out the windows, like one of those drug addicts on TV. The next morning, he was gone. Didn’t even say good-bye.”
A cold sweat formed on Bree’s forehead. Russell had spent the night in Faelan’s room where the
“You sound troubled. You haven’t done something foolish, have you, dear?”
“Foolish?” Bree muttered, distracted with her unpleasant thoughts.
“Faelan’s a good man. He’s like your father. He’d do anything to protect you, even something he hated. Like that silly war. Don’t throw it away.”
“War?”
“You know, the Civil War and all that treasure hunting.”
“What about it?”
“Well, he did it for you. You knew that, right? He hated the war and those caves and digging for buttons and coins.”
Bree’s head spun. “I thought he liked it.”
“Oh, dear. You didn’t know? He liked being with you. He hated when you weren’t near. Oh, darling, I’m so
