LITMIR.BIZ

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abandoned the smile for an embarrassed grimace, but his eyes were guarded. “I work for an auction house in Maryland, doing appraisals, estate sales, that kind of thing. You know, Antiques Roadshow stuff. I was curious about what the MacDonalds have tucked away here. The older the house, the greater the chance of something really cool lying forgotten in a closet.”

      No kidding, Jean thought, but what she said was, “Something that could be bought cheap and then sold on for a lot of money?”

      “I don’t cheat anyone. Reselling is part of the business.” He dropped the grimace as well. “So what do you and your fiancé do for a living?”

      “I’m a journalist and part owner of Great Scot magazine in Edinburgh.”

      “I’ve heard of that. Pretty good worldwide circulation, right? Both paper and electronic?”

      “Yes, we’re blanketing the world with dead trees and pixels both.”

      “You think you could cut me a deal on advertising rates?”

      “You’d have to check with my partner, Miranda Capaldi. She’s the boss.” And the various departments such as Advertising, Circulation, Editorial, Printing, and Web Design were scattered from Leith to Dalkeith, hardly out of Miranda’s sight, but pretty much out of Jean’s mind. “Alasdair—Alasdair Cameron—is the head of Protect and Survive, the security agency.”

      Scott nodded. “Oh yeah, they’ve got a good reputation. I’d like to touch bases with him. Where is he?”

      “He’s…” She redirected her statement in midstream. “He should be here for dinner.”

      “Great. We’ve got drinks first, huh? The library, Diana said. Down this way?” Smile restored, he bowed Jean toward the hallway.

      “Yep, this way.” She glanced back at the two black sheaths, establishing that the one on the right was still empty. Scottish regimental dirks were collectible items, but if Scott had decided to help himself, he’d have taken the sheath with its silver fittings and diminutive knife and fork as well.

      Just because he was checking the place out didn’t mean he was a thief. Just because Jean’s curious nature had developed a suspicious streak didn’t mean there was anything suspect in an art dealer like Greg and an antiques dealer like Scott turning up in the same place at the same time. They’d both been attracted by the house itself. And Fergie certainly had things to sell, if not actively for sale.

      Like books. Passing beneath another stag’s head, this one wearing a Sherlock Holmes–style deerstalker hat complete with an eagle feather, Jean led Scott into the library.

      Glass-doored cabinets lined the room, rank after rank of books old and new glimmering behind polished panes like treasure at the sea bottom. The cabinet holding the Fairy Flagon was closed—Fergie was understandably protective of his family talisman. A peat fire burned in the fireplace, with both of the dogs, the lab and the terrier, lying broadside to it and absorbing most of the warmth. New Age interpretations of Christmas classics emanated from hidden speakers. In front of the center window sparkled a Christmas tree, every light reflected in the glass.

      Jean tasted the air like she would a fine wine—a trace of smoke, a soupcon of old paper and leather, the sharp odor of evergreen, the silken hint of spices. No wet dog, though. The animals looked as though they’d been blow-dried.

      Had they reacted at all to the black-clad man standing alone, wet, and cold in the parking area, looking not at the police vehicles but up at the lighted windows of the house? Or did they know him?

      Heather Krum waited in the middle of the room, her arms folded across a beaded and embroidered jacket, her narrow glasses perched below a heavy fall of bangs letterboxing her eyes. “There you are,” she snapped to Scott. “I thought you’d met up with that Diana woman.”

      “Our hostess?” he retorted. “I ran into Jane on the staircase, okay?”

      “Jean,” Jean corrected, without continuing on to correct Scott’s geographical ambiguity.

      Heather’s slitted eyes looked Jean up and down. “Are you here alone?”

      “No, I’m here with my fiancé for our wedding on January third.”

      “Oh.” Despite her tight ski pants, Heather flounced into a chair.

      Jean wasn’t sure whether her soon-to-be married status or her age had absolved her of threatening the Krums’ relationship. She hesitated between being insulted and laughing, but neither seemed appropriate.

      Dakota was methodically working her way along the shelves, her head tilted as she considered Fergie’s impressive array of books, not just peeling and yellowed ones dating to generations past, but also contemporary titles ranging from astronomy to crypto-zoology, from archaeology to geomancy, from history to frenzied fringe tomes claiming that alien astronauts had not only built ancient structures from Stonehenge to Angkor Wat to Teotihuacan, but also that alien astronauts were humanity’s primeval gods.

      Odd notions, yes, and Alasdair was justified in questioning Fergie’s taste for them, but then, like all odd notions, they were thought-provoking, horizon-expanding, and downright entertaining.

      Atta girl, Jean thought at Dakota, and, at the same time, Watch out, you’ll end up like me. Although there were a lot worse places to end up.

      “So,” Scott said to Jean, just a bit too loudly, “What about the guy—it’s a guy, right?—who fell down at the old castle? Is he okay?”

      “I told you,” said Heather, “we didn’t hear any sirens, so he must be all right.”

      Jean was intended to be counselor as well as jester, then. Thanks, Diana. “Ah, um.” She looked down at her feet planted solidly on the faded rug. “I’m afraid there was no need for sirens. No rush. He, ah, didn’t make it.”

      “You mean he died?” Heather’s nostrils flared as though someone had just handed her a bucket of muck.

      “That’s what ‘didn’t make it’ usually means,” Scott informed her.

      Dakota looked around, smooth features crumpled.

      “The police are here,” Jean said quickly, “and they’re taking care of everything, and the local doctor’s with his wife. Greg’s wife, that is. The man who—didn’t make it.”

      “Good,” said Heather. “I mean, bad. I mean, I’m sorry.”

      Dakota turned one way and Scott the other. He stared up at the painting over the mantelpiece. This one depicted Calanais stone circle on the island of Lewis. The glow of a small fire at the base of the tallest, square-shouldered, megalith diffused upward and met a similar glow in the lowering sky, probably the rising moon. Over the fire crouched a figure that would have been human except for wings catching both light and dark in subtle grades of color, like a pigeon’s breast.

      Beneath it, on the mantel, stood an olivewood nativity scene, presented straight up. At least, Fergie had tucked the E.T. action figure behind one corner of the stable, not substituted it for baby Jesus in the manger.

      Scott made no remarks—or photographs, either, never mind his expedition to retrieve the family camera. Heather inspected a fingernail the same color as the painted sky. Dakota looked at the bookcase, but Jean could see her expressionless face in the glass, while the peppy features of the teen idol on her sweatshirt floated ghostlike below.

      She considered injecting the sudden silence with something artificially cheery, such as the suggestion they could all consider the unfortunate event as a real-life mystery weekend. But over and beyond having to expand “he died” into “he was murdered,” this was no game.

      A musical rattle from the corridor, like glass wind chimes, fell joyfully on her ears. “The drinks are here!” she announced, probably giving the Krums the impression she was an alcoholic needing a fix.

      The door opened, admitting Fergie. He now wore a beautifully

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