Perfect Timing (6 page)

“They say I committed a B and E,” Ceara replied.

“Breaking and entering? Whoo! You don’t look the type. I had you pegged as a working girl.”

Weariness lay on Ceara’s shoulders like leaden weights. “Pray tell, what is a working girl?”

The woman laughed, the sound raspy. “Ah, come on, honey. It’s plain as the nose on your face that burglary is a sideline for you. I saw that getup you had on. Pretty smart of you, actually. I’ll bet all those skirts and laces turn men on. The harder they have to work for something, the more they’re willing to pay.” She cocked her head. “You’re a pretty little thing even without makeup. Does the fresh, innocent act work good for you? What’s your usual take each night?”

The questions were incomprehensible to Ceara, who was too exhausted, confused, and frightened to puzzle them out. She tossed her towel and jail-issue toiletries on the foot of the cot, then leaned sideways to curl up on the rock-hard mattress. The gray wool blanket was scratchy against her skin. An acrid smell burned her nose. She supposed it was a cleaning agent of some sort, but definitely not lye, which was most often used at home. Tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked, trying her best to get rid of them.

“Not very friendly, are you?” The woman grunted. “No point in wallowing in your sorrows, honey. You’ll be out on the streets again before you know it. You got the money to post bail?”

A hard knot formed at the base of Ceara’s throat. Her father had given her some money, but she doubted it would be of any use to her in this time. Besides, it was still in the stall at Sir Quincy’s arena. “Nay,” she said tightly.

“Well, shit, that sucks. Ah, well, maybe you can get a bondsman to take a chance on you. I’d float you a loan, but I’m a little short on cash myself.”

Ceara appreciated the woman’s desire to help, but she doubted she would ever see the light of day again. She had done naught except land in Quincy Harrigan’s precious arena, but that was apparently a serious crime in this century. With no money to bribe her way to freedom, she might grow old in this cell and eventually die. The thought terrified her. At home, it was not uncommon for people to be incarcerated all of their lives for stealing a wee bit of bread.

How would she survive? She was in a strange place, in a time that was not hers, and they hadn’t even allowed her to keep her satchel. All her mementos were lost to her.

The journey had drained her of strength. Her limbs felt as limp at wet linen. Her father had warned her that the trip would take a harsh toll on her body. He’d even said that she might arrive stripped of her special powers. She’d had no opportunity to attempt to use her gifts, and now she was too exhausted to try. She closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep, but the woman in the next cell wouldn’t stop talking.

“You got an odd way of speaking,” she said. “Is that part of your act, or are you from another country?”

“Ireland,” Ceara said, injecting no expression into the word.
Ireland
. God’s teeth, how she yearned to go back. But that was impossible. Journeying forward was possible for druids, but no one had ever managed to reverse the process. Ceara wasn’t certain why that was so, but she had understood the consequences before deciding to come here, and now there was no way to undo the mistake. “’Tis a lovely place, me Ireland.” She heard the wistfulness in her voice. “I already miss it sorely, and I havena been gone for a full day.”

“I’ve never stepped foot off American soil,” the woman said. “But I’ve heard Ireland is nice. If I ever get rich, my first trip will be to New Zealand, though—no offense to Ireland. Lord, the pictures of that country are amazing. I’d give my right arm to visit there. Hell, maybe I’d even try to stay.”

Ceara had never heard of New Zealand. Feeling dizzy and half-sick, she recalled her amazement when she and her mum had seen the United States in the crystal ball, and she wondered dimly whether explorers had discovered even more new lands over the last few hundred years. “Mayhap ye’ll be blessed with riches and go there one day,” she said.

“Mayhap? You do talk strange, girlfriend. No matter, I kind of like you anyway.”

Ceara thought of the treasures in her satchel—her grandmother’s betrothal ring; a lock of her mum’s hair; her ivory-backed brush and comb, given to her by her aunt; and the carving of her beloved horse that had died, fashioned for her by the young man she’d once adored. Ah, and she mustn’t forget the traveling prayer, which she had committed to parchment, just in case everyone had it wrong and druids
could
travel backward in time. Oh, God in heaven, there were so many little things in that satchel, pieces of home that meant the world to her. Favorite recipes. Notes of family events and history.

Now, because of Quincy O’Hourigan’s temper, was she destined to lose all of it and die behind these bars? She’d never bargained for this. Yes, she’d come forward knowing that she would never see home again. But to lose everything? She curled into a tighter ball and surrendered to her tears.

“Buck up, sweetheart,” the woman said. “This is just a pit stop. They don’t have room in here to keep all of us for long, and in this miserable economy, the county budget is trimmed to the bone. It costs a lot to keep people in jail.”

Ceara barely heard the woman. The pain in her chest grew so intense that she felt as if she might burst from the pressure.

* * *

Frank Harrigan accompanied Quincy over to the house to meet with the tech team from Hawkeye Security. Nona Redcliff, a slender and athletic woman of Native American descent with hair as black as Quincy’s own, was crew leader and now part owner of the company. Quincy refused to deal with anyone else. Nona was a genius with computers and surveillance equipment. According to Frank, she also had good horse sense, which was Quincy’s dad’s way of paying the highest compliment.

Today Nona wore her usual faded jeans and lace-up hiking boots, her only concession to company standards being a beige uniform shirt tucked neatly into her belted waistband. When Quincy shook hands with her, he was impressed once again by her neatly trimmed nails and the strength of her grip. She was a lady who always got right down to business, and he liked that about her. She was also attractive in a rugged, no-nonsense sort of way. He’d almost asked her out for dinner once, but then he’d decided to err on the side of caution. Mixing business with pleasure seldom worked out well—at least, not for him.

“So what’ve we got?” she asked, her dark brown gaze fixed on Quincy’s. A thick black braid hung over her right shoulder. “I understand there was a B and E early this morning?”

Quincy nodded. “And it’s bewildering as all get-out. My forewoman has gone over the arena with a fine-toothed comb and found no evidence of forced entry. I’m positive every door and window was battened down last night, and that the security system was activated. Both Pauline and I make a tour every night to double-check.”

“Did you eyeball the ceiling?” Nona asked. “Sometimes they’ll cut through the roof and drop into an enclosure.”

“Checked that. Found nothing.”

Nona frowned, then shrugged. “Well, we’ll figure it out by watching the camera footage. A housefly can’t come onto this property without the cameras picking it up.”

Without waiting for Quincy to escort her, Nona strode from the kitchen, took a right in the hall, and went straight to Quincy’s in-home office, where banks of security monitors flanked one wall. She sat in a caster chair and rolled over to the open laptop, which ran the program for the entire system. Using the mouse, she slumped back to view the five wall-mounted monitors, which housed viewing frames of the immense acreage, the exteriors and interiors of the buildings, and also showed every angle, inside and out, of Quincy’s residence.

“What time did you leave the stable last night?” Nona asked.

Quincy thought back. “It was a little after twelve. I’ve been keeping long hours lately.”

Standing behind Nona to watch over her shoulder, Quincy saw that she was backing up the cameras to the stroke of midnight. As she adjusted the speed to a midscale fast forward, she asked, “So what’s this gal’s story?”

Quincy felt silly even repeating it, but he told Nona the whole story. Nona huffed under her breath. “You check with the cops to see if any females fitting her description have slipped away from a psychiatric ward?”

Quincy angled Nona a questioning glance. “Do they still lock people up in wards? I thought most places like that were shut down, and patients are allowed to lead normal lives, taking prescribed medications at home for treatment.”

“We no longer have horrific asylums where people are imprisoned and treated worse than animals,” the security officer replied. “But nice facilities do still exist, sometimes special wards in regular hospitals for temporary treatment, other times private or publicly funded retreats where people receive individual counseling, medical treatment, and rehab until they’re ready to reenter society. Most of those facilities have high-security wings for patients who are so ill, either temporarily or permanently, that they present a danger to themselves or others.” Nona glanced up, meeting his gaze. “Did I just touch on a sore spot?”

A picture of Ceara’s face flashed through Quincy’s mind. Those blue eyes, that hint of a sweet smile, the dimple in her cheek. He guessed meeting her had made him take a mental step back. “Not a sore spot, exactly. I’m just thinking I’m probably a little nuts myself, and that all of us have our quirks.” He waved a hand. “My family is convinced I’m over the edge about my diet and workout regimens. The thought of being locked up because I’m a little weird just gave me pause.”

Nona chuckled. “Point taken, and I agree that we’re all a little crazy. It’s just that some of us need more medical intervention than others, and those who aren’t yet ready to follow a regimen of medication at home need to be in a supervised environment for a while. So let me rephrase my question. Have you checked to see if any woman in one of those places who fits your burglar’s description has taken an unauthorized outing?”

“No.”

“Get on it.” Nona adjusted the fast-forward speed of the security tapes. “But first I’d really appreciate a cup of coffee if you’ve got any.”

Quincy got the coffee for Nona while he assigned his father the task of calling Quincy’s paternal uncle Hugh, a state trooper fast approaching retirement, to check on patient escapees with red hair who’d flown the coop over the last few days. Frank took only seconds longer to complete his task than Quincy did to brew a fresh pot of coffee. He didn’t want to serve Nona the thick black sludge he’d made at four that morning.

“Hugh ran a search,” Frank informed them. “No fruitcakes have escaped psychiatric wards in Oregon in the last week.”

Quincy winced. “No name-calling, Dad. Let’s just refer to these people as confused—or something.”

Frank paused while Quincy set a mug of coffee on the built-in desk near Nona’s elbow. “Excuse me for breathin’. What put a burr under your saddle?”

Quincy had no idea why he was taking umbrage. “Sorry, Dad. It’s just— Oh, never mind. Continue with your report.”

“The most recent escape of a
confused
person was eight days ago, a man with tattoos all over his face. No redheaded women, period, Irish or otherwise, in over six months, and all of ’em that escaped earlier than that got picked up and taken back where they belonged. Of course, this Ceara gal could have dyed her hair.”

Quincy mentally shook his head. Ceara’s hair was a natural red. He would have bet the bank on it. “So where does that leave us?” he mused aloud.

Nona chuckled. “Well, it doesn’t leave us with a druid who’s nearly five hundred years old. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Just relax. Watching camera footage takes patience.” She took a sip of coffee, her gaze never leaving the screens. All Quincy saw were frames of the ranch during the dead of night, when nothing stirred except for an occasional horse in its stall. “We’ll see where she came onto the property, how she got into the building, and everything she did after she got inside. Trust me on it. And we’ll have the weak spots in the system fixed before a lamb can shake its tail.”

Quincy had complete faith in Nona Redcliff and in the security system she’d installed. “I’m not worried. It just baffles me how she got in. You come out to check the equipment every six months, and you know immediately at the observation center when a camera goes haywire. It’s hard for me to swallow that this happened because of component failure.”

Two hours later, Quincy still wasn’t worried, even though the camera footage had shown nothing out of the ordinary. He’d given his dad the comfortable leather desk chair while he sat on the less cushioned caster seat reserved for the occasional office visitor. He and Frank sat behind Nona, watching the screens just as closely as she did. The remainder of Nona’s team had left the house to test fence perimeter cameras and examine every square inch of the arena. Quincy hoped they’d report back soon that they had found a point of entry.

As for the camera footage, nothing popped up. Absolutely
nothing
. Glancing at the time of the footage being viewed, which was three hundred hours, Quincy was about to lose patience and ask Nona to increase the fast-forward speed. But no, wait. Quincy saw a flash of bright light and knew his dad and Nona had also seen it, because they stiffened.

“What the hell was
that
?” Quincy asked.

Nona clicked on the upper right frame of monitor four to enlarge the view, reversed the footage, and then they all watched that section of film again, this time in the slowest mode possible. Again, there was a blinding flare of light, and the next instant, Ceara stood in Beethoven’s stall. Her delicately sculpted face was just as Quincy remembered, too pretty for words, and even on camera, that red hair was extraordinary. She had a dazed look, suggesting that she felt disoriented and confused. She stood on the center of a star-shaped piece of cloth. At each point of the star was affixed a stone that appeared to glow eerily blue. As Ceara stepped off the cloth, the light in the stones vanished. She wobbled on her feet. Then she leaned against the black stallion that normally allowed no one but Quincy to touch him. To Quincy’s consternation, Beethoven never even twitched his tail. Instead, he turned his head to nuzzle Ceara’s shoulder as if he were reuniting with an old and trusted friend.