“Piper has a pretty accurate memory of what actually went on in those caves,” he warned. “In fact, she found a third cave that you and I and Reid missed. That’s where we found the second sapphire earring.”
“A third cave. No shit. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why am I hearing about all of this secondhand? Wasn’t I the one who had the brilliant idea you should go up there?”
Duncan glanced back through the glass at Piper. “I’ve been a little busy.” So busy that he’d forgotten to phone his brother about the discovery of a priceless earring.
“With Piper. I understand. Daryl filled me in on her situation and the fact that someone followed you into the caves. Adair’s worried.”
Duncan believed that. He also knew his brother’s concern was the real reason for the phone call. “Daryl doesn’t know yet about the latest development. Neither does Vi.” He filled Cam in on Patrick Lightman’s appearance in the village of Glen Loch.
“So you’ve got a mysterious guy in a hoodie sending threatening notes and vases of roses to Piper in D.C., someone else following you into our cave at the castle, a person who may or may not have been paying nocturnal visits to the library until we upped the security, and now a serial killer has joined the party.”
Plus, he had this no-strings sex-on-demand relationship going on with Piper. Which was obviously distracting him. But what Duncan said was, “Those are the highlights.”
“And here I thought that it might be Piper who was keeping you so preoccupied.”
Duncan frowned. One of the plagues of growing up with brothers was that they could read you very well.
“Those secret sexual fantasies the sisters buried in that metal box can keep you busy,” Cam said.
Duncan waited a beat before he took the bait. “Secret sexual fantasies?”
“Piper didn’t mention them yet?”
“No.” Duncan sat down on the stone wall that bordered the terrace and kept his gaze on Piper.
“Adair didn’t tell me about what was in the box, either,” Cam said. “But my curiosity got the best of me.”
Duncan had to laugh. “There’s a surprise.”
“Hey, I’m trying to do you a favor here. I figure I owe you one after I asked you to bring that reluctant bridegroom back from Montana. And I like to pay my debts.”
“I’m all ears.”
“From the time they were little, Adair, Piper and Nell wrote down their private thoughts on paper, locked them in a metal box and buried that box beneath some of the stones in the arch so they could tap into the power of the legend.”
“Vi mentioned that to me,” Duncan said. “Not a bad plan.”
“It gets better. On the night that our mother married A.D., they drank a little champagne and decided to write down their most secret fantasies. Sexual ones. And they put them into the box and tucked them back into the stones.”
“Adair told you all of this?” Duncan asked.
“Not at first.” Cam cleared his throat. “She was showing me where she and Vi found the first earring and we accidentally dug out the box. I was naturally curious, and when she ran off with the thing, I looked into the matter.”
“What good CIA agent wouldn’t?”
“Exactly. First chance I got, I read all of them. I knew which one was Adair’s right away. And brother to brother, I’ll give you a hint that might help you to identify Piper’s. To ensure privacy, they each wrote their fantasies down on different colored paper. Adair’s are the yellow ones. So you have a fifty-fifty chance that Piper’s fantasy is written on either the blue or the pink paper. I’m thinking that a top-notch FBI profiler like you should be able to figure it out.”
“Just where is this metal box?”
“Still buried in the stone arch. Adair wanted her sisters to still have the power working for them. Look for loose stones at the base about two feet in on the right. At the very least, they make very interesting reading,” Cam prodded. “If you have the time.”
Duncan continued to study Piper’s prone form on the couch. She was still out for the count, and a quick glance at his watch told him that Vi and Daryl wouldn’t arrive for another couple of hours. The timing was perfect.
What he said to Cam was, “Before I let you go, what have you found out on your end about Eleanor Campbell and Angus One and their elopement from Scotland? Russell Arbogast, the senior editor from Architectural Digest, says that he’s seen the original stone arch on the Campbell family’s estate.”
“I’m looking at it right now. A.D. is painting it. Thanks to Mom’s meticulous research, we’re visiting the ancestral home of the Campbells, and she’s even gotten the current owners to let her do some research in their library. The bad news is that about a hundred years ago, there was a fire. Many of the books were destroyed. But if there’s something on this end about Eleanor’s dowry, Mom’ll track it down. In the meantime, enjoy your reading.”
That was exactly what he intended to do, Duncan decided as he disconnected the call. Moving quietly through the sliding doors, he closed them, turned on the security system and activated the cameras.
When Alba lifted her head, Duncan signaled her to stay and retrieved his reading glasses from the desk. Then he let himself out into the hallway and locked that door also.
PIPER SURFACED SLOWLY, drifting in that dreamy zone between waking and sleeping while sensations penetrated one by one: a low sound she couldn’t quite nail down, the soft press of leather beneath her legs, something with an edge to it poking into her cheek. And a prickling at the back of her neck.
The prickling grew stronger. Someone watching her? The sound came again.
A growl.
Opening her eyes, she fought through a moment of disorientation. The library. She’d been working with Duncan and she must have dozed off. As she rubbed the back of her neck, she shifted her gaze to the desk where he’d been working earlier.
Gone. She didn’t have to even glance around to see if he was somewhere else in the room. She would have sensed his presence, felt that low humming in her blood. Instead, she felt a pang so sharp, she had to rub the heel of her hand against her chest to ease it. Disappointment that he was gone?
And if Duncan wasn’t here, whose eyes had she felt?
The growl sounded again, starting low and building into an insistent bark. Alba. The dog stood on her hind legs, pawing at the glass doors that led outside. Piper sprang up from the couch and ran to join her. Stroking the dog’s head, she focused on the stretch of lawn beyond the low terrace wall. A storage shed sat near the line of trees that bordered the castle on this side. The doors were closed. To the left, she could just see the bright blue of the lake and the dark clouds that had formed on the opposite shore. To the right, more trees.
No one in sight.
Alba dropped to all fours and growled again.
“I agree, girl,” Piper said as she stroked the dog’s head. Someone had been at these doors looking in.
And that’s when she saw them. She’d been so intent on looking at the space beyond the terrace that her gaze had shot right over the flagstones. Slivers of fear shot up her spine.
Red rose petals, hundreds of them, lay strewn across a white sheet. It looked as if it had been raining blood. She tried the door and found it locked. The security light on the pad was blinking. Duncan must have engaged it before he’d left. The cameras would have caught whoever had done this. She wouldn’t do much about it now, any case. And she’d be damned if she’d let this creep scare her.
Alba