LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

darkness. The diamond on her ring finger glinted, a micro-prism clarifying the brassy ceiling light.

      Don’t think about it. Find Diana. Find Fergie.

      Jean spun around, spun back again, shut the door, and realized she’d tracked mud across the scratched tile floor—well, who hadn’t, the dogs’ paw prints were only part of what looked like a child’s finger painting project.

      Dumping the flashlight on the nearest surface and stuffing her scarf and gloves into her pocket, she pulled off her wellies. Where were the shoes she’d left here earlier? No time to search.

      In her thick wool socks, she skated rather than ran down the dimly lighted corridor, around a corner, and up a short flight of steps beneath a moth-eaten stag’s head sporting a Santa Claus cap. The doors of the Great Hall, the door of the library… She threw open the door of the drawing room, zigzagged around the furniture to the Gothic Revival fireplace, and yanked the tasseled end of the bell pull—to no discernible effect. Whether some distant jangle would attract the attention of a MacDonald, or of one of the Finlays, resident caretakers and chief bottle washers, she had no way of knowing. Come to think of it, this afternoon Fergie had supplemented his yank at the bell pull by shouting down the hallway.

      Alasdair should have phoned Fergie, too. Where the hell was everyone?

      A movement in the corner of her eye jerked her around toward the tall windows. But it was only her own reflection wavering in their black, mirrored depths, her crown of auburn hair turned inside out, her shoulders up around her ears, her stance that of a prizefighter in a corner of the ring.

      What she punched was the “Stop” button on the CD player. Sorry, Hugh. His voice halted between one beat and the next. Were those footsteps? Jean spun toward the door. No. She was hearing the tick of a clock.

      Dunasheen wasn’t one of those stately marble-halled homes tricked out with gilt cherubs, the sort of place that made Jean feel as though she was dragging the knuckles of all ten thumbs on the floor. This drawing room was friendly and functional with a Persian rug, needlepoint chair covers, a piano. The holly jolly crimson and tinsel of the season decorated mantelpiece and chandelier, while odds and ends from Chinese snuff bottles to Roman coins to prehistoric fish hooks were installed on every horizontal surface. An antique screen decoupaged with flowers, fairies, and saccharine Victorian angels almost managed to conceal a flat-screen TV set the size of a coffee table.

      Jean wondered how many of Fergie’s family antiques, artifacts, and holy relics had been sacrificed to fund Dunasheen’s upkeep. But he had enough left to make that good show, spiced with his own paintings and sculptures.

      Was that low murmuring wail, almost a voice but not quite, the wind in the chimney? Was it Tina screaming again? Alasdair might not have reached her yet. Maybe he’d slipped himself, and fallen, and lay broken and bloodied on the rocks… A chill puckered the back of Jean’s neck.

      Come on, come on! She yanked the bell pull again, then jogged to the door, looked down the hall, and shouted, “Fergie! Diana! Mrs. Finlay!” Her voice died away into silence.

      Dozens of painted and photographed eyes gazed accusingly down from the Pompeiian red walls, not least those of Fergus Mor and Allan Cameron. Fergie’s and Alasdair’s fathers wore the kilts, tunics, and bonnets or tam o’shanters—stiffened berets with wool pompoms—of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, an old and greatly honored regiment. Each bonnet, adorned with a badge and the colored feathers of a blue hackle, was bent toward the other. Or Fergus Mor’s, rather, was bent down toward Allan’s, demonstrating the maximum allowable versus the minimum allowable regimental heights.

      Breathe, Jean told herself. In with the good air, out with the bad.

      The embers piled in the grate emitted more of an ashy breath than warmth, and the castle’s scents of baking and furniture polish were tinged with mildew. Perhaps the house had become the terrestrial version of the Marie Celeste, abandoned to its ghosts.

      Although if new Dunasheen had any ghosts, neither Alasdair’s nor Jean’s sixth senses had picked up on them in the few hours since their arrival. It was her five ordinary senses that at last detected footsteps in the hall. She wouldn’t have to run down to the manager’s cottage after all.

      Jean popped out of the drawing room to see Fergie ambling toward her, round face and round glasses gleaming with good will. With his lavender sweater and slippers and bulky physique, he looked ready to host a children’s television program, welcoming them to a neighborhood where he played the part of a purple dinosaur. “Ah, it’s yourself, is it, Jean? No worries, we’re making the tea, though you’re good for a dram as well, I should think.”

      “Tina MacLeod’s down by the castle, she was screaming, Greg must have fallen, Alasdair’s already called 999 and he’s gone back down there.”

      Fergie gaped at her, pale blue eyes bulging, mouth working. “The old castle? But he went round the back—”

      “One of the Aussies may be hurt!”

      His lips snapping shut on a four-letter word, Fergie gesticulated frustration to heaven and the gods of the historic homes business—rising damp, mounting bills, and now this. And then with a grimace of contrition, for, after all, the welfare of the guests came first, he said, “I’ll organize the menfolk, if her, him needs carrying—though if there’s a broken limb involved, we shouldn’t—blankets, tea—if you could ask Diana to find the first-aid kit…” Mumbling beneath his breath, pirouetting so swiftly his long gray ponytail swung in an arc behind him, Fergie loped back the way he’d come.

      “Where’s Diana?” Jean called after him, but he didn’t hear.

      If she remembered their arrival tour, and there was no guarantee she did, then he was heading for the new and pricey commercial kitchen and his command center at the garden end of the house.

      Jean started after him, only to stop dead in the center of the antechamber, foyer, lobby—she couldn’t remember what Fergie called the room that was the formal entrance hall. She’d sounded the alarm. Now she needed to get back down to the castle.

      In the distance, a door opened. A gust of canned laughter blew down the hall and was then choked off as the door shut again. Aha, the Finlays were in the kitchen watching a TV show or listening to the radio or doing something that, along with the thick stone walls, had muffled Alasdair’s shouts. That’s why Fergie himself had finally answered the bell. As for Diana, who knew?

      I’m coming, Alasdair! She made a U-turn. Flashlight. Boots.

      The massive wooden front door at the far side of the room vibrated beneath a rain of blows. A muffled voice shouted, “Hey! Anyone home? Answer the door, already!”

      Chapter Three

      All right! The cavalry had arrived!

      Looking right and left—Fergie had disappeared and no one else was in sight, not even a dog—Jean skidded across these considerably cleaner tiles, raised the latch, and opened the door.

      Three people, tall, not-so-tall, and shorter-than-Jean, stood in the tiny porch. As one, they pushed past her into the house and stood huddled together while she shut the door.

      “I pushed the freaking doorbell five times,” said the man with the razor-cut black hair, closely trimmed goatee, and mountaineer’s parka.

      “I told you, Scott,” said the brunette in the stylish narrow glasses and belted trench coat, “these places are big, it takes a while for the servants to answer the door.”

      The girl wore a red-and-gold-striped knitted muffler looped around her neck and shoulders. Above it, dark eyes in a pale, pinched face grew larger and larger, taking in the guns and swords arranged on the walls, the vaulted ceiling with its colorful clan shield bosses, the massive turnpike stair spiraling upward into shadow.

      “The luggage is in the car,” Scott told Jean. “Is there valet parking here?”

      The woman looked down from her superior height. “You need to get someone to help

Скачать книгу