Scotland For Christmas Part 30

Malcolm gazed silently at the landscape over his desk, his lips pressed together. She was sure he was thinking about his sister, self-removed from the world, painting alone in her castle.

"I want to begin to address it," Isabel said. "To stop pretending that we can't discuss it."

Malcolm forced out a breath. Then he nodded curtly. "Aye."

"I also want to do this for Jacob because he deserves to know. He's part of this, too. I know I can't have a life with him, Malcolm. I know what plans he has for his future, and I can't be part of that. I'm sure he's also reluctant to spend much time with us over here, and I don't want to leave my family, but...I can't be silent and do Uncle John's bidding anymore. I can't be an automaton. I can't toe the line and pretend that my feelings don't count. They do count. I am important, what I believe matters, and whether you like me for it or not, you know that I'm right when I say it has to stop. This...thing has reverberated through all our lives and in a sense imprisoned all of us. I want it finished. I want it addressed so it can be healed. Do you want this carried through any longer?"

"No." Malcolm stood and grabbed his coat. "Come on."

"You'll arrange a trip for the three of us?"

"Four," Malcolm said. "My wife is coming."

"Kristin?" she asked, surprised.

"She's a permanent part of my life now, and, yeah, she's affected, too. I've told her everything I remembered, and she sees how it is with Rhiannon. So yes, I want Kristin there, as well. She'll want to see it."

Had he really just agreed to do this? Isabel's hands were shaking in her lap. "Thank you," she breathed out. She stood on trembling legs, ready to go home to tell Jacob. She hoped that this would be enough to help him. There wasn't much she could offer, but this was something.

"We'll arrange the trip for tomorrow morning," Malcolm said as they strode down the hallway.

"Christmas Eve?"

"Yes. And can I tell you something I noticed about Jacob?"

"What's that?" she asked.

"After the reading you gave at our wedding, he held your hand in the pew. I saw it, and it put me on his side. I'm not worried about him betraying us, Isabel. I trust your judgment."

JACOB RODE IN the back of Malcolm's BMW with Isabel beside him. Malcolm drove and his wife, Kristin, sat in the pa.s.senger seat.

They followed a route north to a section of country that struck Jacob as lonely and forlorn. There were mountain peaks in the distance, but the terrain was relatively flat.

He was quiet, and stared out the window. In the front seat, Kristin, the lighthearted one, was talking with Isabel, asking her questions. Was she going to stay in Edinburgh? What did she think of their family's Christmas plans?

Jacob didn't know what to say. He honestly didn't how he felt. The night before, he and Isabel had made love with an intensity that had scared him. He couldn't stay here, no matter how much he wanted to be with her. They both knew that.

He needed to get the facts of his father's death, and then he needed to withdraw.

He was grateful to her for making this opportunity to visit the scene. It couldn't have been easy for her, but she'd done it-she'd made her peace with Malcolm. Now, their visit today would help him get the practical information he so desperately needed.

He could walk the perimeter. He could sift it with Malcolm's recollections, and form his own professional opinion of the operation. His way of making sense of it all.

He touched his neck. The bandage itched him again; he fought the urge to scratch it.

He caught Isabel staring at him.

"Malcolm," she suddenly asked, "how did the kidnapping start? I'm sorry to ask, but...I was so young that I was never really told the exact details." She glanced at Jacob, and he knew that she was trying to help him by getting the ball rolling. "My parents wanted to keep it from me."

Malcolm flicked the turn signal on. They were headed off an exit and into a small town; Jacob hadn't caught the name, but he would make note of it before they left.

"Rhiannon and I were walking down the street in Edinburgh, when three men in a van dashed out and threw us inside," Malcolm said. "That's how it started."

Beside him, Malcolm's wife listened. Jacob had the opinion she had heard the story of his kidnapping before. Isabel was listening as intently as Jacob was.

"I remember being furious," Malcolm continued quietly. "I fought with the attacker, but I was knocked out, and then I don't remember anything else until I woke up in the dark. I didn't know where my sister was, or even if she was still alive."

His voice cracked. "Days pa.s.sed like this. When one of them came into the room, I fought him. Every time I fought, I was either knocked out again or left in the dark with nothing to eat." He made a soft snort. "All I did by fighting was make things worse."

He continued driving. Jacob noted that they were headed down a main street. They'd pa.s.sed what looked like a town center; now they were headed into a small patch of woods.

Jacob felt in his pocket and withdrew the small notebook he'd started. He glanced at street names and sketched a rough map. For a while, no one spoke.

"That's strange," Malcolm murmured. He'd stopped the car, and they were parked in what looked to Jacob like an abandoned parking lot in the middle of an open field.

"What?" Isabel asked. "Are we lost?"

"No. It's true I haven't been here since...then," Malcolm said. "But I'd sworn I would never forget it. After we were rescued, I burned this place into my brain."

"There's nothing here," Jacob said.

Isabel shifted in her seat to glance behind them. "Why don't we ask someone in the pub back in the village?"

Malcolm turned the car around, doing as Isabel had suggested. They drove back to the pub and parked in a s.p.a.ce out front. Jacob carried his notebook with him as he followed Malcolm inside the small, quaint tavern.

"That place," a woman working behind the counter told them, "was taken down years ago. Board by board, carted away."

Malcolm nodded and thanked her for her time. Jacob knew without being told that John Sage had ordered it done.

Jacob took a seat at a table beside Malcolm while the two women visited the ladies' room. "What do you make of that bit of information?" Jacob asked him.

Malcolm shook his head. "Did Isabel tell you that our uncle never paid the kidnappers their ransom demand?"

"No," he said, surprised. "I don't think she even knows."

"She probably doesn't." Malcolm sighed, and then held up his hand to the barmaid to signal four drinks be poured. c.o.kes, he ordered them, and she brought them right away.

"Put this down in your book," Malcolm said to Jacob. "Because I think it goes a long way toward explaining why my uncle is the way he is today. When Rhiannon and I were taken, the kidnappers phoned a ransom demand to him. But Uncle didn't have the money back then. Sage Family Products was in its infancy, and though it may have seemed profitable to outsiders because of some media interviews my uncle had given, in reality, it was a private company, and privately, it was bleeding red. So John felt he had no choice but to bring in the police, against the kidnappers' demands."

Malcolm paused to drink, while Jacob transcribed with his pen.

"All I know," Malcolm continued, "is that we were kept several days too long, longer than the kidnappers had planned, because as each day went by, they became more and more irritable. I heard them screaming at each other by the end. When the rescue did come, it was barely daybreak, and I was asleep out of pure exhaustion. I remember a torchlight shining on me and then being grabbed and hustled out of there by a policeman who deliberately kept my eyes covered."

Malcolm shook his head. "I didn't see anything. I just felt the hard pounding of him running with me, pressed against his shoulder. Bouncing and jostling, you know. Darkness everywhere, except for the beams of light from the cars. Hearing the shouts and the..."

Gunfire, Jacob silently added. But he said nothing.

Malcolm poked at the ice in his cola with a straw. "Before the whole thing had started I'd been a ten-year-old boy, too old to be picked up and carried like that, but by the time it was over, I felt diminished, stripped of all sense of safety. You know, the state of the world that most people take for granted."

Jacob nodded shortly. He understood exactly what Malcolm was saying. In the course of his training, he'd read about such things from survivors of violent acts.

In a sense, Jacob had felt the same when he'd been shot, too. Even though he'd prepared for the possibility, Jacob had been stunned by the feeling of...emotional unsettlement that came in the shooting's wake. Even now, weeks later, those feelings persisted.

"After that," Malcolm said, "I was taken in an ambulance to hospital. I asked how Rhiannon was, I called and called for her, but n.o.body told me anything." He stared into his drink. "I only heard later from my parents that the kidnappers all died, plus..."

"My father," Jacob finished.

"Aye." Malcolm sighed. "Though I have to tell you, even I was confused about that. There was a television movie made, you see, and in it, they changed your father into a policewoman. So, even that was a lie to me." He turned to Jacob. "What was your father's name?"

"Donald Ross," Jacob murmured.

Malcolm nodded. "Donald Ross. I won't forget that name."

The two of them sat, saying nothing. Jacob felt physically ill. Maybe the exhaustion and jet lag were catching up. He closed the book and laid down his pen, needing a rest.

The two women came back to the table and joined them. Isabel smiled tentatively at Jacob. He realized that he wished she'd been there during his and Malcolm's talk. She should have been there. Another loose end that he needed to fix before he left.

And yet, today wasn't what he'd envisioned when he'd first set out for Scotland. He wasn't feeling that composure and self-control he'd expected. The calmness required for doing his job and protecting other people wasn't there anymore.

He needed to think more like Special Agent Ross again. Open the notebook. Observe the situation. Ask questions and obtain the answers he needed, because this was the best opportunity he would ever have.

"Are we going back to that lot?" Kristin asked Malcolm.

Malcolm glanced at Jacob. "Do you want to?"

"No." Jacob shook his head. From an investigative sense, there was no point. What was there for him to draw but wide-open fields? "I'd like to talk with Rhiannon," Jacob said quietly.

"No," Malcolm said.

Everyone glanced into their drinks. Isabel was looking at Jacob nervously. Maybe she was wondering what she'd gotten herself into.

"Actually," Kristin murmured, "I think it's a good idea."

"What?" Malcolm asked her. "How can you say that? You know I'm supposed to protect her."

"I think it will be good for Rhiannon, which will protect her even more in the long run," Kristin said. "Really."

Malcolm and Kristin looked at each other for a long time. Isabel touched Jacob's arm and motioned him away from them. He got up and followed her to a window.

"You saw how Rhiannon is," Isabel murmured. "Do you really think she can help you?"

"I'll take extra care not to upset her," he said.

She still looked worried, so Jacob took her hands. "You know I have to pursue this. I don't have a choice, even though I don't like the thought of Rhiannon hurt again, either."

She blinked, gazing up at him. "I want you to be satisfied that you understand as much about what happened to your father as possible, Jacob."

"Isabel-"

But she was heading back to Malcolm and Kristin, and all he could do was follow her. Her pain was breaking him in two. He didn't see how he could stand it.

This was much too personal. He felt too much for Isabel. He wanted to see her happy, and he well understood what she wanted from him. He couldn't give that to her because something else drove him beyond the surface motions of the investigation. It was something building more and more steam the deeper he dug into the story of this... ghost that had been the father he'd never known anything about, other than he'd been a police officer and he'd abandoned them.

Jacob felt a sudden rush of compa.s.sion for the child he'd been, traumatized by the silence and sadness and pain. In a sense, he was much like Malcolm.

Jacob shook it off and went over to join the other three.

"It will be good for Rhiannon," Kristin was saying to Malcolm. "I really think she's ready."

"I agree," Isabel said quietly. "It will be best for all of us to finally begin to talk about this, including Rhiannon."

"Fine," Malcolm said. "We'll go."

But he turned to Jacob, and Jacob could see that he meant business. "If anything happens to her, I hold you responsible."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THEY DROVE FOR over an hour. Jacob kept track of their progress, staring out the window and watching the route signs change and the scenery transform into rolling hills with mountains in the distance. Technically, he supposed they were in the Highlands.

"I love it here," Isabel murmured reverently, with the accent she didn't try to hide strong in her voice.

It just made Jacob realize even more that he could never take her away from her home. But he pushed that thought aside. "Tell me exactly where we're going."

"To the castle," Kristin answered. "It's near Inverness, where Malcolm and Rhiannon grew up."

Jacob opened his notebook and jotted down his observations. They certainly seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Since they'd left the main motorway, they'd traveled on a meandering, narrow road, wide enough for a single car. If another vehicle wanted to pa.s.s them, one or the other would have to find an open field or a farmer's driveway to pull off in.

"I spent so long in the city," Isabel remarked, "I'd forgotten how rural we are here."

From a security standpoint, a home this remote would be more easily defended. If Jacob had a vulnerable charge that he wished to protect, he couldn't think of a more ideal location.

They came upon the castle all at once. On the outside, it was ancient-looking. A mystical fog seemed to envelop the turret. Jacob wouldn't have been surprised to see a lonely piper step out to play a haunting song. He felt himself holding his breath as the BMW slowed and made the hairpin turn.

The castle was situated in a hollow beneath the road, which seemed odd to Jacob. A wall stood guard over the grounds in a huge ring. To descend to the castle, they needed to stop at a small guardhouse.

A white-haired man poked his head outside. He saw Malcolm driving the vehicle, and a wide smile split his face. He waved them through the gate.

"Who was that?" Jacob asked.

"Jamie. He's been with us forever," Malcolm replied.