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“Forget something?” she asked as she opened it.
Her gaze, positioned upward to meet Dougal’s eyes, instead met empty air. A Munchkin giggle drew her attention two feet lower.
Effy didn’t wait to be invited inside. Since she was carrying a plate of something that smelled like raisin bread, Kris didn’t care. The probability of food was worth another visitor so soon after the first.
“I heard ye had a rough night.” Effy set the plate on the table next to Kris’s computer. “Thought ye could use a bannock.” She motioned Kris closer. “It’ll cure what ails ye.”
Kris couldn’t resist Effy’s good cheer, nor the scent of the bannocks. She lifted one—a round, flat brown object the size of a dessert plate and filled with raisins—and took a bite.
“Like a fruitcake,” she said. “Only better.”
Effy beamed for several seconds before sobering. “Ye should not be out in the dark. Didn’t yer mother ever tell ye that?”
Kris choked on the bannock. Her mother hadn’t had time to tell her much. Not even good-bye.
“I’m fine,” she said once she’d recovered, with a little help from Effy’s pounding between her shoulder blades.
“Ye call finding dead bodies a few feet from yer doorway fine?” Effy tsked. “Americans. So much violence in yer lives, ye dinnae even realize something’s bad when ye trip over it.”
Did Effy know that Kris had tripped over the body, or was it just a figure of speech? Only Alan Mac, who shouldn’t be blabbing information to anyone, imaginary Liam, and Edward Mandenauer were aware of exactly what had happened on the shores of Loch Ness last night.
“I’d have ye come into the village,” Effy continued, wringing her pale hands, “but all my rentals in Drumnadrochit are full.”
“That reminds me,” Kris said. “Can I keep this place for a month?”
“A month?” Effy’s pale brows lifted. “Truly?”
“Yes. I…” Kris paused, mind groping for a lie and not finding one. “Hold on.”
She went into the bedroom, pulling out some of Mandenauer’s cash, stalling for a few minutes while she got all her ducks of deceit in a row. When she returned to the living area, she handed Effy the money before she began her falsehood, hoping the older woman would be too distracted by the multiple images of Benjamin Franklin to hear the lie on Kris’s tongue.
“I’ve sold my book. My—uh—publisher loved the idea so much they want me to write it immediately. And since it’s quiet here—” when there aren’t dead bodies washing up on the shores—“I thought I’d just stay until I finished. Did you want me to get that changed into pounds?”
Effy shook her head, still staring at the bills in her hand. “They sent you cash?” Doubt colored in her voice.
“Uh—no. I had that with me.”
“And ye weren’t stopped at Customs?” Now Effy was eyeing Kris as if she were a Colombian drug lord.
“I didn’t have that much.” Kris laughed, and it must have been convincing, because the other woman relaxed, folding the bills over and pulling her dress outward so she could tuck them into her bra.
Kris couldn’t help but see the edge of a tattoo on her breast. Effy didn’t seem the type.
The woman saw where Kris was looking and let her neckline fall back into place before heading for the door. “Ye just be careful out here, ye ken?”
“I’ve lived in Chicago for years,” Kris said. “I’m aware of the dangers that come with the night.” In certain areas of the Windy City, they came with the daylight, too.
“I dinnae think the dangers there are anything like the dangers here.”
Kris tilted her head, peering into the woman’s emerald eyes. She had the feeling that Effy was trying to tell her something. So why didn’t the woman just tell her?
Before she could ask, Effy slipped out the door and headed toward Drumnadrochit at an impressive clip for a woman of her age and size.
Kris went inside and shot a quick note to Lola, asking if anyone had called, or even come by, looking for her. She doubted it, but as Lola was the only person Kris had told where she was going, she didn’t understand how anyone could be asking for her by name in Drumnadrochit. She didn’t like it.
That accomplished, she began to make notes about her show—where she’d film and what she’d say. But her mind wandered to Edward, and when s
he pulled it back she saw she’d sketched the tattoo she’d seen on Effy’s breast.
