The Presence Part 33

"Most of it."

Kevin sighed. "You didn't read the last paragraph? At the time, he'd told his superiors that he'd 'gotten into the head' of the man! Thought like him.. .moved like him!"

She looked at both of them a bit blankly. "Okay, isn't that what FBI profilers say they have to do when they're trying to solve crimes?"

"It's scary! That's what it is," David said.

"David! The guy was a good cop!"

"So why did he leave?"

"I don't know. Maybe he didn't like being in the head of a serial killer!" she said.

"Or maybe..." Kevin murmured.

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe it was too much like his own," David said.

"Oh, please!" Toni said, tossing the paper down.

"He found the first body," Kevin said.

"And the second body was found in the forest, as well," David said.

"You're sick, both of you!" she accused them.

"Maybe," David murmured. He hesitated, looking at Kevin. "But.. .he's a local hero type here, Toni. I mean, if he was up to something, everyone in this village would protect him. Maybe he doesn't even know he's a lunatic."

She stared hard at both of them, then tapped the paper angrily with drumming fingers. "It seems to me that he saved a number of young lives. And with very hard and painful work. Good Lord! He caught a couple. Can you imagine that, a husband and wife working together, luring innocent young victims!"

Unfortunately Ryan and Gina chose that precise moment to come walking cheerfully into the kitchen.

"'Morning, all!" Ryan said, then stopped dead, his expression quizzical as he realized that the three were staring at them.

"What are you all doing?" Gina demanded.

"Reading the paper," Toni said.

"Seems our host captured some really serious killers at one time," Kevin said.

"A married couple."

Gina turned to the three of them, outraged. "So you're looking at us as if.. .as if being married makes us guilty of something?"

"No, don't be ridiculous," Toni said.

"That would be d.a.m.ned ridiculous!" Ryan said. "What? Gay people never kill other people?" he demanded.

"Sure, they do," Kevin said calmly, grimacing. "Statistically, they kill other gay people."

Toni groaned. "Don't worry, the Keystone Cops here aren't after the two of you. They're convinced now that I have to be careful around Bruce."

"I was just thinking that maybe you shouldn't be quite so close to him," David said with a sigh.

"As in sleeping with him on a nightly basis," Kevin added.

"I thought that he was the one who caught the killers?" Gina said.

"He was," Toni said flatly.

Gina arched a brow and looked at David and Kevin.

David threw his hands up. "Look, what do we really know about this guy?"

"Oh, let's see!" Toni said. "He's rich, owns half the village. People here are very loyal to him. He was with the police. And he's been d.a.m.ned decent to us, since he could have thrown us all out on our b.u.t.ts!"

David looked down his nose at her. "My dear, Toni! We know that you're solidly infatuated with the man. But let me ask you this. If he's so rich, why does he own a ramshackle castle?"

She sighed. "You two, it's just silly to be so worried about this guy. All right, let me fill you all in on something, having to do with the state of the castle. He was engaged once to a woman who was in love with the place. It was her dream to fix it up again, make it magnificent. She died, and he lost heart. And that's why he's ignored it. It's probably why he still spends so much time out of the area, even out of the country."

"It sounds.. .reasonable," Gina said.

"Oh, yeah, I just about hear violins," Ryan murmured.

"Hey! That borders on the entirely insensitive!" David protested.

"How do we really know anything around here, though, especially when it comes to our host?" Gina murmured.

Kevin glanced at David and then at Toni. "You've got to admit, we really don't know much of anything. And then...well, you do see the guy with a sword in your nightmares."

Toni instantly stared at David. "You--you traitor! You weren't supposed to say anything about things I told you in confidence."

"I didn't! Well, of course, I talk to Kevin. Especially when I'm really worried about you!" David said, defending himself.

She groaned.

"Now I really don't know what any of you are talking about!" Gina exclaimed.

Toni groaned again, laying her head on the table.

"Somebody better tell us," Ryan said.

Toni lifted her head, not about to let David do her explaining. "I've had some nightmares, very real nightmares, about the legendary Bruce coming back and standing at the foot of my bed with a sword, okay?" She glared at David. She didn't want anything else about her past spread any further than it had already gone.

"And see, there's the thing. Thayer told us about the old woman in the cemetery the other day," Kevin said softly.

"Now Thayer has a mouth on him, too!" Toni muttered.

"Oh, yeah! That's right!" Ryan said. He looked at Gina. "Remember? He was talking about how he and Toni had just met Lizzie and Trish, and then this weird old bat comes in with her son and daughter-in-law, and rambles about the old Bruce being up from his grave, running around the countryside, finding women and strangling them as he had his wife."

"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.