Competition Can Be Murder (18 page)

But why would Ian need to watch the Dunbars? Unless he’d formulated the plan to take Richie and wanted to know when the boys left. It might have been a feat to dash to a concealed vehicle somewhere and follow them, but surely it wasn’t impossible.

Movement below caught my eye. Sarah had stepped out the front door.

“Robert!” she called. Her voice carried clearly to me.

Robert, his head ducked into the trunk of the Bentley, hadn’t heard. She called his name again and began walking toward the cars. She was halfway there before she got his attention. He snapped to attention and bumped his head on the lid of the trunk. I heard his expletive clearly. This, indeed, was the perfect spot for spying.

“Where’s Charlie?” she asked him. “It’s nearly time for the phone call.”

“Well, she was out here somewhere,” Robert said. “Just on the bench over there.”

They both looked at the bench.

“Probably went back inside,” he told her.

They turned and went into the castle. I felt like a real snoop watching the whole scenario, but it confirmed how easily sound traveled up the little hill, letting someone know what was going on. I pocketed the candy bar wrapper and followed the narrow trail down the other side of the rocks, making a complete circle around the pond. Beside it, there was a stone bench. This spot was clearly Sarah’s haven when she came to visit the pond.

I made my way through the rest of the carefully arranged rocks and plantings and crossed the wide expanse of open lawn.

“Charlie! Oh, I was just wondering where you were,” Sarah said as I entered the kitchen.

“Out walking,” I said. “Trying to clear my mind for a few minutes.”

I glanced at Robert and he sent an encouraging look my way.

“It’s nearly noon,” Sarah said.

Edward and Elizabeth sat at the counter, leaning forward on their stools, clutching mugs of coffee in their hands. Lewis had taken a seat on one of the other stools, one he’d pulled into a corner away from the others. Alasdair wasn’t in the room. A portable phone sat in the middle of the large butcher block island, with all eyes fixed to it.

“Is everything ready?” I asked.

Robert and Edward nodded. Elizabeth’s knuckles whitened around her mug. Lewis’s face looked white and pinched, his soft freckles standing out like cinnamon on whipped cream. I blew out a breath, unable to take the tense silence.

“Could I get some water?” I asked Sarah. She nodded and pointed me toward the cupboard with the glasses. I drew a glassful from the sink and drank it in tiny sips.

Twelve o’clock inched by. One minute after. Two minutes after.

“I’m going to scream if that thing doesn’t ring,” Elizabeth said through clenched teeth.

At five after, the tension in the room had reached the breaking point. By ten after, an edgy weariness began to show on everyone’s faces. By twelve-thirty, people were beginning to slump in their seats, weary of the wait.

“They’re not calling, are they?” Elizabeth asked. “The bloody bas—”

The phone on the counter shrilled. A collective start bolted through the room. Six pairs of eyes stared at the innocent-looking white instrument. It rang again.

“Robert!” Sarah’s voice was as close to hysterical as I’d ever heard it.

He snatched up the handset, pressed the button and listened.

“Yes?” His voice sounded over-loud in the dead silence of the room, where not a breath interrupted the quiet. “Yes. I understand. I will.”

He held the phone in front of him with both hands for a few seconds before pressing the button that turned it off.

“What!” Edward’s voice captured the word that nearly whooshed out of everyone else’s mouth as we all began breathing again.

“They want Lewis to come.”

“What?! That’s ridiculous,” Edward sputtered. “A teenager can’t take this on.”

We all stared at Lewis, who cringed into his corner. If his face had been white before, it was pure alabaster now.

“I—I—but, sir . . .” he said with a wobbly voice. “I can’t drive. I don’t have a license.”

“That’s right, stupid idea,” Edward contributed.

“Drive what? Which car—”

“Depends on how far . . .”

The voices continued to pile upon one another until I couldn’t make sense of any of them. Alasdair came in, looking like he wondered what the hell was going on. After about two minutes of the cacophony, I stepped forward and waved my hands, settling them into a time-out T.

“Folks, folks, time out a minute here,” I said, working to keep calm in my voice. “Can we take a minute to analyze this?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, “Charlie’s the professional here. Let’s let her handle this.”

I groaned inwardly. Edward shot me a look that said he wasn’t at all convinced of my professional abilities.

“I don’t want to ‘handle’ it, but let’s see if we can organize ourselves a bit,” I said. “Now, Robert, what were the exact instructions?”

“We’re to send the money with Lewis. He’s to go to the Culloden Battlefield. He’s to walk out on the field, follow the path to the area where the clan graves are, and put the bag behind the marker on the Clan MacDougal grave. He’s to walk on to the Clan Fraser grave and meditate there a moment. Richie will join him there.”

“I can—” Lewis piped up, but I shushed him with a hand signal.

“And how long do we have?” I asked Robert.

“They didn’t say.” His face looked stricken as he realized what he was telling us.

“Didn’t give you a time for the rendezvous? That’s crazy!” I said.

Voices in pandemonium broke out again. My mind whirled around a dozen possibilities. After a couple of minutes, things quieted and I found everyone staring at me again.

“Okay. Then we better get started now.” I eyed the rest of them. “Lewis, what were you starting to say?”

“I can go to the battlefield. We went on a school trip once. I know the arrangement of the graves.”

“Maybe the kidnappers didn’t mean that Lewis must come absolutely alone. Maybe he’s just to approach the graves alone,” Alasdair suggested. “I could drive him to the battlefield.”

“It’s a big tourist attraction,” Robert said. “Surely no one will be able to watch the car park and the graves too.”

“I think we’re forgetting the most important thing here,” I said. “We can’t just send two boys in by themselves. The kidnappers could be waiting for the perfect chance to snatch them as well. In fact, why else would they ask for Lewis to come alone, if not to grab him?”

Silence greeted that observation. Edward squirmed and I got the idea that he didn’t really care that the other two boys might be in danger, if it meant a chance to get his son back. Adasdair and Lewis exchanged a glance, probably trying to build each other’s confidence. Finally, Robert cleared his throat and spoke.

“What do you suggest, Charlie?” he asked.

“Aside from the fact that, if the police were handling this they would have some unknown faces to send in as guards,” I said, “if it has to be us, I’m thinking we split up and cover as many bases as we can. I quickly outlined the rest of my plan.

“Communication is going to be critical,” I said, beginning to feel some of the authority they’d conveyed upon me. “Does each group have a cell phone?”

At their affirmative nods, I instructed them to pass all messages through Robert. Two-way radios would have worked better, where we could have kept everyone in touch on the same frequency, but we didn’t have them. If all went smoothly, we shouldn’t need them.

We exchanged numbers and five minutes later, Edward and Elizabeth left in Sarah’s Land Rover. They would go to the battlefield and become two of the few hundred tourists who would be milling about the place. We gave them a ten minute lead.

“Lewis, you and Alasdair will take the white Range Rover. Park where you can see the Land Rover, but not right next to it,” I told them. “Lewis, take the bag of money. Alasdair, you wait in the car.”

The two boys nodded. I watched Lewis lift the money bag from the floor and my heart sank. He could barely pick it up. How was he ever going to walk inconspicuously through a crowd of people with it?

“I can manage,” he huffed. “Just need to get me legs under me better.” He hiked the bag up to his waist and managed to get his arms under it. “See?”

At least he could walk, and without too much of a strained look on his face.

Robert and Sarah would follow in the Bentley, not exactly an inconspicuous vehicle, but they would keep the boys in sight until they arrived in the parking area at Culloden.

I leaned in through the open window of the Bentley. “If Lewis looks too awkward carrying that bag, pretend to be a kindly stranger and offer to carry it for him,” I suggested. “Nothing like having the museum people question him before he ever gets into the place.” If they allowed bags in there at all.

“Right.” Robert acknowledged the plan and drew himself up. “See you there.”

I watched the two vehicles drive away. I would follow alone in my car, and I made it clear that I’d be peeling off and heading for the airport if Drake called. I glanced up at the rock garden once before getting into my rented Vector. If someone were regularly watching the place, they knew every move we’d just made.

Twenty minutes later I pulled into the parking area for the Culloden Battlefield and Museum. I spotted the white Range Rover, with Alasdair behind the wheel. His head swiveled back and forth, nervously watching the other cars. Don’t be so conspicuous, kid, I thought as I drove past him and parked two rows away. The Bentley, empty, sat five cars away from the Range Rover. Sarah’s Land Rover, also empty, had found a spot near the entrance.

I stuffed my few scraps of evidence—the two cigarette butts and the candy wrapper—into the glove compartment and locked it. Making sure that my cell phone was easily accessible in a jacket pocket, I locked the car and headed toward the visitor’s center.

Overhead the clouds had fractured, leaving almost equal patches of blue and gray, and the wind had picked up considerably. A steady, damp-feeling breeze rushed off the surrounding low hills and swept across the open field. Set at wide distances, I could see the flags marking the positions of the two opposing armies back in 1746. The poor Highlanders had never stood a chance, losing 1200 men to the king’s 300 on that bitter April day. It had all been over in forty minutes.

I hurried through the lobby of the museum and paid my entry fee. A docent tried to offer me the chance to view a film, see a reenactment of battlefield conditions in a field hospital, or tour the exhibits in two large rooms. I waved her off and went straight out the doors leading to the battlefield itself.

The wind whipped my hair across my face as I started up the path. A winding trail led the visitor around the perimeter of the entire field, but I headed right for the middle where a sign pointed the way to the clan graves. It was impossible to see any great distance. Tall shrubs and grasses forced the path to curve around small hillocks. I finally came to a gate, where I passed into the area where the majority of the clans had fallen.

Killed as they attacked, entire families had been slain in groups. Transporting the bodies back to their home ground, in spring’s often blizzard conditions, over distances that could take weeks in good weather would have been impossible. Clans were gathered together and buried together, the frozen ground too impenetrable for adequate digging.

Now, more than two-hundred-fifty years later, earthen heaps marked each spot. A single rough-cut stone stood near each, naming the family of clansmen it contained. The stones were spread widely and randomly, and much of the area was surrounded by low trees and heavy shrubbery. I glanced at each, watching for MacDougal or Fraser.

MacDougal was the first one I spotted. It was one of the larger stones, before one of the larger mounds. I saw the black bag behind it and only let my eyes stay on it a split-second. Acting as casually as I could, I paused and pulled a tissue from my pocket and blew my nose. In the damp, bitter wind, the act wasn’t merely for show. I caught sight of Robert and Sarah looking down at a grave marker on the opposite side of the path, about thirty feet farther up. As planned, they were to make sure no tourist walked away with the bag. We didn’t acknowledge each other.

I hurried along to the next marker, pausing again, wanting to blend in with the dozen or so other tourists in the area. At a bend in the path, I glanced back at Robert. He’d moved a little farther away from me, but was still within view of the MacDougal stone. As I followed the bend, I saw Edward and Elizabeth in the distance. Elizabeth’s blond hair had given up its style and she finally looked like everyone else, windblown and mildly disheveled. I paused where I was and read some more markers. They slowly worked their way toward me.

“Nothing yet?” Edward said under his breath, as they passed on the opposite side of the path.

“It’s still there,” I said.

We passed without another word.

Another path cut away behind me, at a right angle to this one. It led to a large stone monument with a big brass plaque on its face. No one else was near it, so I headed that way. Circling it to be sure I was alone, I stood on the leeward side and pulled out my cell phone. I hit the button to speed dial the number of Robert’s.