The Presence (7 page)

“We're going to cook up the best breakfast in the world,” David said.

“We might want to start by brewing a new pot of coffee,” Toni told them, and she couldn't help a grimace toward Gina. “Laird MacNiall just dumped yours down the sink.”

“Really!” Gina said.

“So your coffee sucks!” Ryan said cheerfully, kissing her cheek. “You're still as cute as a button.”

“Get out of here, the lot of you,” Kevin said. “Shoo! We have to cook.”

Toni rose to leave, and as she did so, she glanced at the paper Thayer had left on the table when he'd first come in. The headlines blazed at her: Edinburgh Woman Still Missing. Police Fear Foul Play.

“Wait! Not you, Toni,” David said.

She looked over at him. “What do you mean, not me? You all insult my cooking!”

“But you're the best washer, chopper and assistant
we've ever had,” Kevin told her sweetly. “And then there's the table. We should set it really nicely.”

“Wait, I get to wash, chop and be chef's grunt?”

David set his arm around her shoulders, flashing her a smile, his dark eyes alive and merry. “Think of it as historical role-playing. Everyone wants to be the queen, but you have to have a few serfs running around.”

“Serf you!” she muttered.

“The others will have to clean up,” he reminded her.

“All right, there's a deal,” Toni agreed. She walked over to the table and picked up the newspaper, sliding it under the counter so that she could go back for it later.

 

“Laird MacNiall?”

Bruce had been at his desk—where, he had to admit, the lack of dust was a welcome situation—when the tap sounded at his door. Bidding the arrival enter, he looked up to see that David Fulton was at his door.

“Aye, come in,” Bruce told him.

Fulton was a striking fellow, dark and lean. His affection for Kevin was evident in his warmth, but he also seemed to carry a deep sense of concern for the rest of his friends, as did they all.

Bruce was surprised to discover he somewhat envied the repartee in the group. The gay couple, the married couple, Toni Fraser—and even her Scots cousin. They were a diverse group, but the closeness between them was admirable. Riding with Ryan that morning, he had gotten most of the scoop on the group, how they had met, and how they had first begun the enterprise as a wild scheme, then determined that they could make it real.

“We're really grateful to you,” David said. “Anyway, we like to think that we've prepared a feast fit for a king—or a lord, at the very least. Would you be so good as to join us?”

Bruce set down his pencil, surveyed the fellow and realized his stomach was growling. He inclined his head. “Great. I'll be right down.”

He waited for David to leave, then opened his top drawer and set the sheets he'd been working on within it, along with the daily news.

He didn't close the drawer, but studied the headline and the article again, deeply disturbed. The phrase
all leads exhausted
seemed to jump out at him.

Jonathan Tavish was fine enough as a local constable, but he hated giving up any of his local power, and he just didn't have the expertise to deal with the situation that seemed to grow more dire on a daily basis.

Down in Stirling, Glasgow and, now, Edinburgh, they believed that the girls were seized off the streets of the main cities, then killed in other locations and finally—with the first two, at least—left in the forest of Tillingham because it was so lush and dense that discovery could take years.

Bruce's question was this: Were there others, sad lives lost and unreported, decaying in the woods, their disappearance unnoted? And now another.

Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The killer was striking all over, yet in Scotland, the distances were certainly not major. The first three abductions had taken place in large cities. But if he had found it easy enough to seize women off busy streets, would he grow bolder and seek out quieter locations?

He drummed his fingers on the desk. Thus far, the
local populace had not felt the first whiff of panic. But thus far, the girls reported as “missing” had not been what the locals would consider “good” girls. Not that the people here were cold or uncaring; it was quite the opposite. But since the victims had been known to work the streets and to have fallen into the world of drugs, the average man and woman here did not worry.

It was sad, indeed, tragic. Hearts bled. But women who fell into the ways of sin and addiction left themselves open to such tragedy.

But MacNiall didn't feel that way. There was a killer on the loose. And no matter what the state of his victim's lives, he had to be stopped.

And he had the power to stop him? MacNiall mocked himself.

He had come home—as far as Edinburgh, at least—when Robert called and told him that there had been no leads on the case and he was just about at wits' end. Then, just two days after arriving in Edinburgh, Robert had told him of a new missing persons report.

The strange thing was, he'd felt an urge to return even before he'd gotten the phone call. Actually, he'd wanted to ignore the haunting sense that he'd needed to be here. But after speaking to Robert, he'd taken the first flight out of New York.

So here he was. Yet, really, why? There were fine men on the case, and he wasn't an official anymore.

But they needed…something. Hell, they needed to realize what they were up against.

Bruce was afraid that all available manpower would not be put on the case until the killer upped his anger or his psychosis, or until the “wrong” victim was killed.

By then, God alone knew what the body count could be.

He pressed his fingers against his temples, remembering the other reason he was actually anxious to have the group gone—his dream. How could he explain having such a strange dream?

Then again, maybe it wasn't so strange. After all, he had found the first body. That vision would never leave his mind.

And now maybe it was natural to meet a woman, find her irritating beyond measure and then sexy as all hell…. And then fear for her.

Annoyed with himself, he snapped the drawer shut and rose to join his uninvited guests in the kitchen.

 

The setting was a wonder to behold. Toni was certain that Bruce MacNiall thought as much, because he paused in the doorway. And for once, he certainly wasn't angry. He gave that slight arch to his brow and curl to his lip that demonstrated amusement, then he wandered in and took the seat left for him at the head of the table.

Everyone was there, seated and looking at him. “I'm sorry. I didn't realize that I'd kept the rest of you waiting,” he said pleasantly, taking the napkin that had been arranged into an elegant bird shape from his plate.

“Almost hate to use this,” Bruce said, looking around the table.

“Please, they're nothing to fold,” Kevin said. “I've worked in a number of restaurants. That's the fate of most theater majors. Actually, though, I'm a set designer.”

“So Ryan told me,” Bruce said.

“We each have special and unique talents,” Gina said.

“I've heard a few,” Bruce said.

“That's right, you were out riding with our Ryan,” Thayer said, clapping his hand on Ryan's back. “He's our master of horse and arms! There's not an animal out there our boy can't ride.”

“Yes, Ryan is quite skilled,” Bruce agreed.

David lifted a hand. “Costumes,” he said.

“Yes, and he juggles,” Kevin said. “He's really a fantastic actor, as well, but we are the technical whizzes.”

“And they're both so humble and modest,” Toni said sweetly.

“Sorry, modesty never gets us the job,” Kevin reminded her.

“Touché,” she agreed.

“And you? What were you doing in Glasgow?” Bruce asked Thayer.

“Piano bar,” Thayer said ruefully.

“I'm marketing and promotions, and whatever else is needed,” Gina said. “The jill-of-all-theatrical-trades, but my major was actually on the business side.”

“Ah.” Bruce stared at Toni then, waiting.

“Writer,” Toni said, certain that he thought her one hell of a storyteller all right.

“Now you see,” Kevin said. “Her imagination is legendary.”

“So it seems,” Bruce mused, staring at her.

“Our Toni is far too modest. She wrote a one-woman show on Varina Davis—she was the one and only first lady of the Confederacy—and spent six months performing it for sold-out audiences in Washington, D.C.,
and then Richmond. She writes, acts, directs, sews and is a regular vixen with a paintbrush. Naturally, we do whatever is needed.”

“Like scrubbing floors,” David said.

“And cleaning latrines,” Thayer added.

“Sewing, wiring, flats, paints…we've done it all,” Toni told him.

“And what part of the States are you from?” MacNiall asked them, looking around at the group again.

“I'm from Iowa, originally,” Gina said. “Toni's from the D.C. area, David's a native New Yorker, Ryan is from Kentucky and Kevin's from Philadelphia.”

“We went to college together,” Toni murmured.

“NYU,” David offered.

“Most of us went to college together. Toni, Ryan, David and I went to college together,” Gina corrected softly. “Then, when Ryan got his job with the Magician's Castle, I moved to Baltimore. Toni moved nearer to D.C., but we stayed close. When she wanted to mount her Queen Varina show, I spent time down there to help her, David did her costume and set. We met Kevin about that time, almost two years ago, and then we finally met Thayer and dragged him in on the scheme the last time we were in Scotland.”

“And that was…?”

“Just about six months ago, right?” Ryan said, looking for agreement from the others. “We were at a castle owned by the Menzies family. Clan members had bought it, done some renovations and then opened it for tours.”

“Ah,” MacNiall murmured, still watching them. Toni wondered what he was thinking. He looked at Thayer. “You were in Glasgow and you just got roped in?”

“I had tried to meet Thayer when we were here just before that. We've vacationed in Scotland at least four times since college,” Toni informed him. “But every time I was in the country, Thayer had a job somewhere else. When we finally met…”

“It was as if you'd known one another all your lives?” Bruce MacNiall suggested dryly.

“Actually, yes,” Thayer said.

“I see.”

“I wasn't roped into anything,” Thayer said, offering Toni a small smile. “Their idea was a good one.”

“Aye, it might have been,” Bruce MacNiall conceded, surprising Toni. “What I saw was wonderfully dramatic.”

“You know, we've got a problem tonight,” Ryan said.

Toni realized that he was looking at her. “Yes?”

“I really had trouble going from costume to costume, and then doing the whole horse in the great hall thing last night. Of course, it worked, because—” he stared at Bruce and smiled weakly “—because Bruce showed up, but otherwise you'll have to stall more.”

“She can't stall. The timing was great. Suspenseful. We'll lose them if she has to pad what is a perfect speech!” Gina protested.

“You want Bruce MacNiall to ride into the great hall as he did last night?” Bruce asked. “I can do that for you again. Is that it?”

They were staring at him incredulously.

“You would do that?” Gina said.

“Hey, you're here, and I already think I'm insane myself. Why the hell not?” he returned.

“There's a little more to it, as written,” Gina said.

“Oh?” Bruce queried.

David grinned. “You're supposed to dismount, walk up the stairs and strangle Toni.”

“Ah.” Bruce stared at Toni again, a smile teasing at his lips. “I think I can handle that.”

“You only pretend to strangle her, you know,” Thayer interjected.

“And that might be a lot harder!” Kevin said, winking at Toni.

She wasn't particularly amused. “I don't really see how we can ask
Laird
MacNiall to join in with us. He's already doing us such a tremendous favor,” she said very sweetly.

“I don't mind at all,” Bruce MacNiall said, rising. “This was a feast, ladies and gentlemen. If you'll excuse me, though, I'd like to get into the village before your evening events.”

They watched as he left.

“Well, there you go. The chap isn't really half bad after all,” Thayer said. “We'll have to keep an eye on him, though, when he's up there strangling Toni, eh?”

To Toni, his accent seemed to accentuate a real danger for some reason. But the others were laughing, so it was probably just in her mind.

“Ryan, you've just been shoved out of your big moment,” David said.

“Hey, that's okay. It's worth it just to watch that horse of his come racing in and stop on a dime,” Ryan said. He grinned, glancing across the table. “I will miss get ting to strangle Toni, though.”

“Ha, ha,” she said and rose, stretching. “Well, let's see…under the artistic direction of Mr. David Fulton and Mr. Kevin Hart, I did the washing, chopping and
table adornment. Ryan, you can rue your lost opportunity to strangle me while you wash the dishes with your lovely wife and Thayer.”

“Me? But I got to shovel out major horse shite already today!”

“Hey, horses are your thing, and you're the expert. As for KP, we're all in on it. So! Ta-ta, cheerio and all that! I'm off!” And with a smile, she made her exit.

 

Bruce entered Jonathan Tavish's office after a brief tap against the doorframe. Jonathan looked up and arched a brow. “Bruce, I thought you'd be guarding the family jewels, what with that houseful in the old estate.”

“Hardly an estate, and totally a crumbling castle,” Bruce said, taking a seat. “Actually, the more I walk around the place, the more amazed I am. They've taken care of a ton of minor things that I've put off for years.”