In Her Secret Fantasy (6 page)

She shivered.

“You
are
wonderful,” he said. “You’re amazing and you’re strong.”

She let out a little choke of derisive laughter. “How, exactly?”

He smiled, and at least there was softness in his reflective blue eyes. “I’ll tell you on Saturday.” His hand came up once more, touching her face with a briefer caress than before. “Take care.” Then he turned and strode off towards the village.

She’s been right to send him away, to have the time to rein in her emotions in solitude. Why then did she have such an urge to run after him? Remembering her weirdly conflicted reaction to Len’s invitation, she tried turning away from Aidan and walking in the other direction.

That worked.

Sighing with relief, she looked around her.
Where was I before all this happened? Ah yes, the cave…

Deliberately, she grabbed at something else to focus on. She found the cave again without difficulty, sliding her hand straight in. Reaching farther this time, she touched something soft and furry. Thinking it was a dead animal, she jerked her hand away with a small cry. But then, realizing there had been no solid flesh, she felt around again, drawing it towards her until she realized its considerable size. Like a fur coat.

She withdrew her arm, remembering for some reason the selkie stories Aidan had talked about on New Year’s night. When selkies took human form, they hid their seal skins, because if the skin was lost or destroyed, they couldn’t return to the sea.

She stared towards the village, just in time to see Aidan disappearing around the headland. Bizarre suspicion entered her head.

She smiled. “Nah,” she said, and walked in the opposite direction, brisk and energetic. At least she no longer wanted to cry.

Chapter Five As they walked in different directions, Aidan glanced back at her a couple of times, saw her exploring inside some cleft in the cliff. Distracting herself, probably, with matters far removed from her own strange episode.

It had taken her by surprise. Aidan, who’d come across victims of many horrendous crimes in his work, knew the trauma could manifest itself in strange ways, and at odd times. Although it had been a while ago, and although she’d moved on with her life with such supreme courage, her recovery could only be partial.

He felt again the huge surge of protectiveness that had consumed him when she’d run to him, clutched him. She’d even let him hold her, had seemed to draw comfort from his closeness. His own emotion had taken him by surprise. He’d dealt with victims on both sides of the law every day for years, so many that the line between those sides was blurred into nonexistence. But he’d learned the value of detachment. You couldn’t help, you couldn’t go on, if you empathized too closely.

And yet if the ex-con on the beach had hurt her, Aidan would have beaten him to a pulp. Only immediate care for her had kept the emotion in check, but it had swamped him—fury and pity and the urge, the
need
to protect.

Oh yes, he was broken. He’d known her what, three days? She was nothing to him, and yet he cared. He cared too much.

Or perhaps he was trying to distract himself from the impossible problem of his parents. They
were
his responsibility. So was Louise. And he’d been neglecting them for far too long.

When he got back to the B & B, Louise was making dinner. His dad was rocking in his chair, making a tuneless humming noise reminiscent of a baby. It was probably a blessing his mum couldn’t hear it. She smiled sweetly at Aidan, though.

“There you are!” Louise called from the kitchen. “Izzy says she doesn’t want the flat and she’ll come round tomorrow and make sure all her stuff’s out, so you can move up there when you like.”

“Great,” he said. It would give him space, a bolt hole from the continuing tragedy downstairs.

It wasn’t until the evening that he got the chance to talk properly to Louise. They’d got their parents to bed and collapsed in the living room. Instead of the hot chocolate Louise had first suggested, he’d poured them both a whisky from the New Year bottle Glenn Brody had left.

“It’s much quicker when you’re here,” Louise observed. “Thanks!”

Aidan shrugged irritably. “They’re my parents too. You’ve been flying solo too long.”

“I wasn’t keeping it from you. It got worse so gradually, and we’re not very good at staying in touch.”

Aidan took a mouthful of whisky, let it burn down his throat. “True. But I know now, and you can’t go on like this.”

“It’s not always easy, but I cope.”

“I know you do. What you don’t do is have much fun.”

Louise shrugged. “It won’t be forever,” she said bleakly.

He stared at her. “Louise, it could be years. Neither of them is that old. You can’t do this alone.”

She glared at him. “Are you offering to stay?”

“No, I’m saying there are other options.”

Her eyes widened. “Stick them in a home in Fort William?”

“I don’t think you need to ‘stick’ them anywhere. Professional care isn’t a bad thing.”

“They’ve lived in Ardknocken all their lives. How could we take them away from that?”

Aidan blinked. “Dad doesn’t know where he is, and Mum barely goes out. They can come back for days out. I’m not suggesting Outer Mongolia.”

“You might as well. It’s not happening. I don’t mind doing this. I
want
to do it.”

“Shit, Louise, you can’t
want
to. No one
wants
to do this. You think you
should
, because they looked after us when we were helpless, but it’s not the same thing. We were tiny kids and we grew.”

“They’re our
parents
!”

“Yes, and they’d want that chance for you too. You can’t let life go right by you like this.”

Louise knocked back her whisky in two gulps and stood up. “What gives you the right to dictate my life? Or theirs? You don’t even live here, Aidan, so stop pretending that you do.”

When she’d stormed off, Aidan refilled his glass and stared into space.

Well, that didn’t go too well.

In fact, it hadn’t really been a day of successes. Although at least Chrissy was talking to him again. Stupidly, he still felt the pleasure of her running to
him
and that had little to do with his job.

He downed the whisky, poured himself another, then picked up the bottle and took both to his old bedroom, where he sprawled on the bed and opened his laptop. He didn’t really want to know the details of the attack on Chrissy. His research so far, on all the residents of the house, had been general and to do with crimes and connections. Now it was time to know about her. At least the whisky would take the edge off.

He called up police reports and newspaper articles.

One of her clients, Robert Howard, a big, heavy man convicted twice of violent if not sexual crime, had been accused of raping her in her office in broad daylight while the building was fully staffed. Howard’s defence was that they’d been conducting an affair this way for weeks. She’d only accused him of rape because one of her colleagues had walked in on them, and she’d been fighting for her career. Another lowlife had come forward to say he’d had the same privileges as Howard.

But the jury had convicted quickly and unanimously. And studying the police reports, Aidan could see why. Sickened, he looked at the bruising and the injuries she’d suffered. Not on her face, but on her body, where her colleagues wouldn’t have seen them as she’d been led out of the office. Which may have explained the lukewarm support she’d later received from some of them. No one had heard her scream due to Howard’s hand being over her mouth. There was a photograph of her bite mark on his palm to prove it. Only the sound of her shoe heels drumming constantly on the floor had finally attracted her colleagues’ attention.

She’d done all the right things, and Howard had quite rightly gone down for it. So where had the rumours about her false allegation come from? Because mud stuck. No one had troubled to disprove the smearing of her reputation in general, because the facts of the actual attack were so obvious. And what had been said in public was never unsaid. Rumours had begun among those who hadn’t actually been involved in the case. And Chrissy was still paying for what had been done to her.

Ignoring the glass, Aidan raised the bottle to his lips.
Jesus fucking Christ.

He’d been right to admire her spirit. She’d gone back to work and pigged it out in the teeth of those bastards. And now, even if she was no longer a parole officer, she’d risen above what must have been appalling trust issues, to look after the bunch of ex-cons up at the house. Brody’s protectiveness seemed suddenly much more understandable.

He lowered the bottle. What if they were all healing together? The parole officer and the damaged criminals. What if he was barking up the wrong tree, just making things worse for all of them? He was damned sure Chrissy wasn’t involved in any drug deals, and he rather doubted Brody was either. They put a lot of effort into their co-operative, and one false move would get it shut down. It wasn’t as if they could avoid the scrutiny of their own parole officers, or the local cops.

And Chrissy.
Jesus…

He took another pull from the bottle.

Morning dragged him from heavy, whisky-soaked slumber. His phone was ringing. But at least he’d retained enough sense to keep it on the bedside table. He grabbed it, slid his finger across the screen without even opening his eyes. “’lo.”

“Grieve?”

His eyes flew open. Hastily, he clawed through the cobwebs of his mind. “Sir. Morning.”

“Got a development for you. A body on the beach near Oban, shot through the head. Found first thing this morning.”

“Who?” Aidan asked.

“Gowan.”

“Damn. He was our only link. Things must be moving.”

“Possibly. We’ve managed to keep the lid on the murder for now, because of its connection to your investigation. How’s that going? Learned anything from the Ardknocken end?”

“I’d say if there is a connection it’s not an organized one,” Aidan said carefully. “More likely to be a solo effort. But my mind’s still open. Maybe this body will tell us more.”

“Well, you’d better get up there right away. They’re expecting you.”

Although his parents’ bedroom door was still closed when he ran downstairs, he could hear the sounds of washing up from the kitchen. Louise was up and probably still grumpy with him. Part of him felt guilty for leaving her to deal with everything alone again, but if it encouraged her to think about what he’d said last night, it would, surely, be good for her in the long run.

He left by the front door and walked round to spring his car from the row of garages behind the house.

Two hours later, he was staring at the body of Henry Gowan. His face was familiar to Aidan—apart from the neat hole in his forehead.

“Time of death?” Aidan asked.

“Preliminary guess is some time yesterday late afternoon or evening,” the local CID man answered. His name was Davidson.

“No other injuries?” Aidan asked.

“No obvious ones.” Davidson shrugged with a hint of impatience. “We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

Aidan nodded. “What did he have on him? Weapons? Drugs of any kind?”

Davidson shook his head. “Nothing like that. Just his wallet, some cash and credit cards. His clothes are with forensics.”

Aidan turned away, heading for the door. He’d met Davidson here at the mortuary since that’s where the CID man had happened to be when Aidan had called in on arrival.

“What else?” he asked. “Smoking gun?”

“Oddly enough, yes. We found a pistol behind a rock, as if it had been thrown away without much effort to conceal. Seems likely to be the murder weapon—we don’t have a plague of shooting gangs up here.”

“Gowan was known to carry a gun. It could be his.”

“We’re tracing it and finger printing it,” Davidson said without much hope.

Aidan nodded, dragging one hand through his hair. “Who found the body?”

“Local uniform. Which is why we’re able to keep this quiet for a bit. No guarantee people won’t talk though, and if a journalist gets wind—”

“The cat’s out of the bag, I get it. Let’s see what forensics come up with. If it opens no new lines, we might as well release it. How familiar is your team with the Ardknocken House project?”

Davison shrugged. “We’ve got nothing to do with it. I believe they came up here in the autumn to play music, but there was no trouble. Some of the local worthies donate to the project.”

“Can I show your guys some mug shots? See if they’ve seen any of them around the town?”

“Sure,” Davidson said, reaching into his pocket in response to the ringing of his phone. “Excuse me. Davidson.”

The CID man’s eyes widened. “That was quick… Okay, thanks. Good work.” He rang off and pocketed the phone, fixing Aidan with his gaze. “The gun’s unregistered. But we’ve got a print match.”

This was much more than Aidan hoped for. “Who?” he demanded.

“A rape victim called Christine Lennox.”

“Sir?” Davidson said anxiously. “Are you all right?”

The tilting world righted itself, and Aidan dragged his hand through his hair as if that could bring his stunned brain back to life. “Yes, fine. Just surprised.”

“Her fingers were on file from her rape complaint, for elimination purposes. You know her case?”

“Heard of it,” Aidan said shortly. He flung himself onto one of the hard benches lining the corridor.

“Plus, you were right about the Ardknocken connection. She’s worked there since it opened.”

Aidan nodded.

“So how do you want to play this?” Davison asked impatiently. “Do we release it? Do you want us to speak to Lennox or will you?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

He drew in his breath. “Sit on it for now. Let me know as soon as you have anything else.”

Abruptly, Aidan stood up and walked away, avoiding the uniformed cop coming in his direction. Behind him, he heard the uniform say, “What’s the matter with him?”

“Fuck knows,” Davidson said with a trace of resentment. “Undercover cop—they’re notoriously unstable.”

You have no idea. No fucking idea.

When Chrissy walked into the silent library, Thierry was busy upgrading the computers there. Len sat at one of the lovelier antique desks, waiting patiently. Chrissy dumped a pile of ledgers and invoice boxes in front of him.

“There you go,” she said cheerfully. “This year, you get to do the books, and I don’t want to know what I did wrong last year.”

Len smiled at her. Curiously, it wasn’t much like his beach smile. She’d found herself warming to him, then. Now, he seemed to give her the creeps again, which felt so unfair that she lingered to ask, “You get to the village okay yesterday?”

He blinked. “Er, yes. Thanks.”

“Any shops open?”

“Um…didn’t really notice. Are you all right, Chrissy?”

“Fine.” She turned away. “Let me know if you’ve any questions. If I’m not in the office downstairs, I’ll be close by.”

As she ran downstairs, she heard the sound of the Hoover and moving furniture in the dining room. It hadn’t been properly cleaned since New Year’s lunch, and Chrissy didn’t envy Izzy this task. She wondered if they’d need a new cleaner-stroke-housekeeper soon. Izzy was still doing it, but she had more of her own work coming in now, and Chrissy could hardly blame her for preferring it to cleaning up after this load of tykes.

She walked into her office and pulled up short. Her stomach lurched. Aidan sat behind her desk, gazing at her.

A slow curl of heat uncoiled in her belly, spreading outward. A smile began to tug at her lips.

“Hello. I didn’t expect to see you today.”

“I don’t suppose you did. Close the door. Take a seat.”

Her heart beat with excitement as she closed the door and walked forward towards the desk. But still, she lifted one quizzical eyebrow. “Are you going to offer me coffee too? I thought those were my lines.”