The Presence Read online

  “We don’t actually have a profile—”

  “But we know what it would be. White, heterosexual male, young, twenties to thirties, day job, probably menial, maybe even a wife or steady girlfriend.”

  Robert nodded. “Aye, you’ve a point there. But profiles have been off. You know that yourself. Remember, years ago? What profiler, no matter how good, would have come up with the real scenario, a husband and wife killing team?”

  Bruce shrugged. “Robert, I think we’re grasping at straws here. If we had to go through a roster of every foreigner who happened to be in the country at the times of the murders—or disappearances—I think we’d have some numbers to go through. And if we’re looking at opportunity, I’m afraid we’ve a nation full of people to look through, as well.”

  “Bruce, you don’t need to be defendin’ the crew. All I’m telling you is what I happened to see when I made inquiries—which I did at your behest.”

  George hurried over, nearly tossing down their plates. “Damn, but if I could just get meself a decent lass!” he swore.

  Bruce frowned suddenly, catching the man’s arm when he was hurrying to move on.

  “George?”

  “Aye? Sir, be quick, would ye?”

  “Your girl just walked out on you? Or just didn’t show up? She didn’t quit, I mean, let you know she was leaving?”

  George waved an impatient hand in the air. “She was another wanderer on the loose. Strange accent—looked more the Norse type, which she should. Lass came down from Orkney. And quit? Resign? Have the courtesy to let a fellow know she wasn’t coming back? Are y’jestin’? Hell no! She didn’t show up, and that’s that. Got herself enough money and hurried on to the next town, no doubt. Now, sir, I’ve got food piling up in the kitchen!”

  Bruce stared across the table at Robert. “You might want to make some inquiries here,” he said softly.

  Robert looked down at the table and shook his head. “Aye,” he said, and pushed away the plate of fish and chips he had been so anticipating.

  Toni called the number she swore she’d never dial, only to find that Adam Harrison was out of town. When the young man answering the phone asked if she’d like to leave her name and a message, she nearly hung up. But she had her own cell phone with her—it wasn’t as if he’d call back and leave a message on a line that anyone might answer. After hesitating, she left her name and phone number.

  “Oh, hi!” the voice on the other end said. “Toni Fraser…Adam said to pay sharp attention if you ever called. Someone will be right back with you.”

  Someone?

  Toni didn’t feel particularly comfortable with that information, but she thanked the young man anyway and rang off.

  For a moment, she pondered her next move. She nearly jumped sky-high when her cell phone, still in her hand, began to ring. She fumbled with the little buttons, nearly hanging up on the caller.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. Toni?”

  The voice on the other end was feminine.

  “Yes?” she said carefully.

  “My name is Darcy. Darcy Stone. I work with Adam Harrison.”

  Toni was silent. It had been one thing to contemplate talking with Adam, a man who knew her. The gentle soul who had been there when a young child’s world had fallen apart. The man who had come to see her one-woman show, but didn’t press it when she said that she was just fine, not having any more nightmares, no more visions….

  “Toni?”

  The woman’s voice was crystal clear; she might have been in the next town.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Listen, please don’t worry, Adam isn’t shuffling you off to anyone. You can speak with him in a few hours—he’s on a plane right now. It’s just that he has your name on a special list, and he’s always said that if you called in, we were to get back to you immediately. Please, nothing you say to me will ever go any further than me. And again, no matter how insane it might sound, don’t be afraid to say anything. Anything at all.”

  Toni stared at the phone slightly skeptically, as if by looking at it she could somehow fathom the truth of the words being said.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Darcy Stone said, from across the miles. “Where are you?”

  “Scotland. A small village known as Tillingham. At—at the castle there.”

  “A castle. In Tillingham?”

  “Yes.” Toni took a breath. “I think I’m seeing a ghost,” she said.

  “Then you probably are,” came the matter-of-fact answer.

  “I am?”

  “Yes.” Darcy chuckled. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid you’ll hang up on me when I say this, but…I see many ghosts.”

  Toni was tempted to hang up.

  “Please, don’t hang up, and do talk to me,” the woman said, as if entirely aware of Toni’s every thought and action.

  “I rented a castle with friends in Scotland, rented with a lease option to buy,” Toni said. “Except it turned out that we didn’t really rent it, at least, not from the owner. We were told the family had died out, but there’s a very current laird. I made up a story about an ancestor of his, and it turned out to have happened, right down to the name of the laird’s wife.” She hesitated. “I dreamed, or woke up, a ghost. The man in my night mares, or ghost in reality, is the exact image of the living laird. I thought at first that maybe I was being taken, as we had been taken in by the corporation supposedly leasing the property. But then, there are the murders.”

  “The murders?”

  “Women have been disappearing. Three to date, I believe. And two have been found in the forest bordering the castle. I went into the forest one day, led by the…ghost. I found bones. Everyone assumed it was the third victim, but it looks as if it’s the old laird’s lady, dead now for centuries. He wasn’t an old laird, he just lived in the sixteen hundreds. I’m not making any sense at all. I’m—” Again she hesitated, thinking that she really was losing her mind. This wasn’t even Adam she was talking to, and she was spilling out way more than she had ever planned. “I’ve quickly fallen into a certain involvement with the young laird, the contemporary laird, who certainly has been decent enough about this whole thing. We rented, or thought we rented the place to do theatrical tours—”

  “I saw your production of Queen Varina,” the woman interjected. “It was wonderful.”

  Toni had never liked to think that she overreacted to either criticism or praise. But at that moment, she decided that she definitely liked the woman on the other end of the phone.

  “Thanks,” she said softly. “Um…he—the laird, that is—doesn’t see ghosts. Or the ghost.” She hesitated.

  “There’s only one.”

  Darcy was silent for a moment. “Women have been found in the area, dead. But the ghost brought you to the remains of his long-dead wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen him since?”

  “Yes. Now he keeps leading me to the crypts.”

  There was no way she could ever describe this conversation to anyone.

  “There’s a simple answer,” Darcy Stone said from the other end.

  “And that is?”

  “He wants her by his side. Now that you’ve found her, he wants her buried where she should be—at his side.”

  Toni was startled to feel a rise of excitement. Lord, yes! That would make so much sense. Well, if the fact that she was seeing a ghost made sense, then his leading her to the crypts after she had found the bones would definitely align, at any rate.

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Of course, it might not be that simple,” Darcy warned.

  “Now that you’ve said that to me, it has to be!” Toni said. “I saw him at the foot of my bed, and then going into the forest. And then…into the crypts. Oh!” She groaned.

  “What?”

  “They think she’s an incredible historic find. His wife, the lady I found. I’m afraid they’ll want to study her, put her in a museum.”
r />   “Well, that’s easy enough to handle. And I don’t think this is one you’re going to have to worry about at all. Her descendant just says no! But still, there might be a lot more going on there.”

  “Not in this residence,” Toni said. “There are terrible things going on—”

  “The victims found in the forest weren’t associated with the castle?”

  “No, definitely not. They were part-time prostitutes at the very least, and kidnapped from three major cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.”

  “You’re certain there can be no association?”

  “That would be impossible. Really. We haven’t been here that long. And aside from us, there’s the laird and a fellow who works for him.”

  “I see.”

  Toni hesitated, aware that she should mention the fact that Eban scared the wits out of her. And that, at times, she’d almost convinced herself that the current laird was dressing up as a ghost. She had never seen the both of them at the same time!

  “I can come right over.”

  “What? To Scotland? That’s not…necessary,” Toni said. She was ready to groan out loud. What had she done? If she brought anyone else in here—especially some kind of an occultist who claimed to speak to lots of ghosts!—they’d definitely be thrown out. She couldn’t begin to imagine Bruce MacNiall standing for such a thing.

  “Your situation sounds a bit complex.” Darcy hesitated, then her words spilled out. “Toni, Adam has talked about you. He’s says that you’re…you’re one of the most amazing mediums he’s ever encountered.”

  “Medium!” Toni said, shocked.

  “You see things,” the voice on the other end said.

  Toni gripped the phone so tightly it might have snapped. She swallowed hard, forcing herself to breathe. “I’m sorry,” she said then. “This was…a mistake. I’m not a medium. I had a few unusual—very unusual—dreams as a child, but I am not a medium. I don’t want to be a medium. And please, do not—I repeat—do not come over here. We’re in a tenuous situation, at best. I appreciate your time. I’ll see to it, somehow, that the woman is buried next to her laird. Thank you for all your help. It’s truly appreciated. But do not come here! Thank you and goodbye.”

  She hung up the phone, threw it on the bed and stared at it as if it might turn into a serpent and bite her. She waited, half expecting the woman to try to call her back. But the phone lay on the bed, silent.

  She turned and hurried out of the room. One of their group had to be somewhere about. She wanted company very desperately. Someone among…the living.

  14

  It was time for the buses to come rolling up, and Bruce had not returned.

  “You had it all figured out!” Gina said with dismay. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “Someone else will play Bruce’s part, that’s all,” Toni said.

  They were standing in the great hall, dressed for the various roles they were going to play. Everyone stared at Toni.

  “What?” she said.

  Kevin cleared his throat. “Really, no one else can play Bruce’s part.”

  “He’s not even an actor!” Toni protested.

  “That’s just it,” David said. “He is the great MacNiall.”

  Toni shook her head. “Come on, guys! We never planned on having him to begin with. He’s worked with us, but he’s not on the payroll.”

  “We don’t exactly have a payroll, right now, do we?” Thayer inquired.

  “Thayer, you can be Bruce,” she said.

  “I can’t ride that horse.”

  “And now,” Ryan said, “I’m supposed to be the bad guy. I’ve been practicing my evil sneer all day.”

  Toni sighed. “He isn’t here. So we have to do something else.”

  “I know!” Ryan said. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m not so sure I can ride his horse, either—”

  “You can ride any horse,” Toni protested.

  Ryan shook his head. “That fellow knows his master. But Wallace is right as rain now. I’ll ride him in, then I’ll come up the stairs as the very personification of good and evil. You know, a dramatic Jekyll and Hyde number. I fight with Toni, and myself. It will be great.”

  Again, they were silent, staring at him.

  “Thayer,” Toni said, staring at her kinsman, “you’ll have to be Bruce—without the horse. Burst into the castle on foot, run up the stairs. Ryan will come riding in as the bad guy.”

  “We could just do it the way we had originally,” Gina said.

  “That’s a definite plan,” David said. “It’s actually the most logical.”

  “It is,” Kevin agreed.

  Toni shook her head stubbornly. “We can’t go back, because now we know that we were maligning someone.”

  “Toni, we were never maligning anyone, because we didn’t know he had really existed!” Gina protested.

  “But now we do,” Toni said. “And I don’t want to play it the way we had it originally. Guys, we know the fellow was innocent.”

  “Well, we don’t know it,” Kevin said.

  “Yes, we do,” Toni insisted stubbornly. “So, Thayer walks in, and Ryan rides in. Agreed?”

  “Sure,” Thayer said.

  “I don’t know,” Ryan protested, shaking his head. “I think my Jekyll and Hyde thing could have been really, really good.”

  “Alas! We’ll never get to know!” Gina said, and winked at Toni.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Kevin clapped his hands. “Places, everyone. David and I get to open the doors now!”

  “No, no! Not yet,” Thayer protested. “It’s just Lizzie and Trish. They were coming early.”

  He went to answer the door. It was indeed the girls. They came in, exited and exuberant, oohing and aahing over the castle alone. “And you all are living here! How wonderful,” Lizzie said.

  “Actually, yes,” David murmured, looking around. “We should be grateful, for whatever time we get, huh?”

  Ryan sighed. “We thought we’d have it for all of our lives.”

  “Or as long as we wanted, anyway,” Gina said.

  “Well, it’s lovely, truly lovely,” Trish said, catching Thayer’s arm and squeezing it. “You’re lucky, for whatever.”

  “Yes, I guess we are,” Gina said.

  “Buses!” Kevin said. “I can hear them. Let’s move, children. Trish, Lizzie, just follow the crowd around. We can all chat when the last bus leaves.”

  Toni disappeared up the stairs, awaiting her cue. Leaning against the wall, listening to activity below, she smiled, pleased to hear the audience reaction as they played out their parts and gave their histories. She didn’t know if the fact that Lizzie and Trish were out there, determined to have fun, spurred their tour to greater enthusiasm, or if they were just all getting into it so deeply that they naturally brought their listeners along. But the night was going wonderfully.

  When she came out on the landing, clad in her white gown, ready to become the Lady Annalise, she found that she was “on” that night herself, wound up by the stories the others had told. Her voice rang through the hall. Her passion for the heroism of Laird MacNiall was strong. And when she announced his return, she was stunned when Bruce came riding in on Shaunessy, perfectly on cue.

  He strode up the stairs in anger as he had before. She found herself falling to her knees, and to her own ears, it sounded as if she really begged for her life.

  Then his anger abated. If she hadn’t caught the flash of humor in his eyes as he fell to his knees before her, accepting her words of loyalty, denying any fault thrown upon her by others, she would have thought the passion and ardor that he offered were real.

  Ryan came riding into the hall with an expert display of horsemanship. Bruce rose, striding down the stairs to battle with Ryan.

  Toni was amazed herself. Ryan, of course, had used swords in his previous work. It didn’t seem a shock that Bruce might have learned something, as well. But they had never practiced. And usually, s
uch a display was meticulously choreographed.

  They were wonderful. They shouted back and forth, playing off one another’s ad libs. And in the finale, a strike by Bruce’s sword brought Ryan’s flying across the floor—toward the hearth, away from their group. Bruce left Ryan for dead on the floor, coming back for Toni. As he reached her, Ryan slowly rose. With Bruce’s back to him, he staggered up the stairs, catching Bruce by the shoulders, throwing him downward. Then he put his hands around Toni’s neck. He winked as he strangled her.

  After all that she had witnessed, she sprang into character, making her death scene as spectacular as the fight she had just witnessed. She lay dead on the stairs. Ryan fell at the feet of them.

  Silence reigned in the hall.

  Then, Lizzie, bless her, yelled out “Bravo!” And the room burst into applause that never seemed to end.

  “Tea and scones! Into the kitchen, everyone!” Kevin commanded.

  “This way!” David said, helping move them all along.

  Toni sat up. Ryan and Bruce both were rising. “Oh, my God! We pulled it off!” Ryan said. “I thought you were crazy, suggesting that we could do this without a single practice. But that was incredible.”

  “I’ll second that,” Thayer said, coming forward. Gina, too, was running down from her place at the landing. She jumped up and down, kissing her husband, then planting one on Bruce’s check before settling down in embarrassment. “Sorry, Laird MacNiall!”

  “Nae, now, it was a lovely moment, Mrs. Browne,” he told her, then turned to Toni. “Sorry I was late. I was—tied up.”

  She shook her head. “Why on earth would you want to be sorry? That was really phenomenal. The two of you…together. Purely amazing.”

  Bruce inclined his head to her. “Thank you, Lady Annalise.”

  She smiled but gritted her teeth, aware that no offense had been intended, but she was uneasy being called by the name. The strangeness of the day came rushing back to her—and the memory that, just that morning, she had so desperately wanted to talk to him.