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She rubbed her forehead, then reached up and gingerly touched the knot on her temple. Someone had hit her. They’d dragged her to the loch with intent to drown her. Then Liam Grant had saved her. Unless—
“I fell, hit my head, wandered around, tripped into the loch, crawled back here, and hallucinated everything?” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Yeah, sounds like BS to me, too.”
Then she spied two cups on the counter and nearly hooted in relief. Until she realized …
In her delusion, she could easily have made two cups of tea—one for herself and one for her imaginary friend.
“There has to be something.” She peered around the room. Something that would prove to her, and anyone else who asked, that Liam Grant was a reallive boy.
She found nothing.
Determined, Kris opened the door and stepped outside, searching for footprints. Unfortunately, the area around her cottage was too dry. She’d just have to check down by the—
Kris lifted her head and froze just as a tour bus pulled up and belched tourists all over the place. If there’d been any footprints near the loch, any signs of a body being dragged or a struggle, they were soon gone.
A ripple went through the crowd. “Look!” someone shouted; then they were all crowding at the edge, snapping pictures of the same thing. Kris hoped to hell it wasn’t another body.
When she at last crossed the road—there was a lot of traffic for so early in the morning—the tourists had lost interest and wandered down the shore. Kris didn’t see anything that might have caused so much excitement.
She was headed for the house when a sharp splash drew her around. A small, dark something now protruded from the water about a hundred feet away. It seemed like a head-shaped rock, with a hollow well where the eye would be. The sun struck that well just so, making it glitter and appear to move.
When Kris sidestepped right, the shiny “eye” followed. She hustled left and left it went.
“No wonder everyone around here believes in Nessie,” she muttered. The loch was so damned weird.
Kris returned to the cottage and discovered her backpack, which she must have dropped in the struggle last night, sitting next to the front door. She peered inside; her camera was still there and apparently unharmed. By the time she glanced again at the loch, the rock was as gone as Liam.
Hell, maybe it hadn’t been there, either.
CHAPTER 10
After a long, hot shower that eased the worst of her aches, Kris quickly checked her e-mail and discovered among the usual advertisements to either enlarge a penis she didn’t have or buy drugs she didn’t want a message from Lola.
NO ONE’S CALLED. NO ONE’S BEEN BY.
Kris wasn’t sure if she should be glad about that or not. She’d like an explanation. Then again, having someone ask for her in Chicago, then show up here …
Pretty damn creepy.
Most likely the questions around the village had been innocent. Probably a closet writer who wanted to discover how to get published and figured that Kris knew the secret handshake. She heard that happened all the time.
Although after the attack last night, she shouldn’t take any chances.
Kris walked toward Drumnadrochit. She would tell her story to Alan Mac, then let the constable deal with it. She would also go to the bank and swap Mandenauer’s Franklins for some QE2s.
First she’d stop at Jamaica’s. Kris had too many cobwebs on the brain to discuss currency exchanges, mysterious attacks, and potential drownings without coffee, and this morning she wasn’t up to making it herself.
Besides, it was still early. She doubted Alan Mac would be at the station yet and the bank definitely wasn’t open, but Jamaica’s place had lights in the windows and Kris could smell delicious on the air as soon as she stepped foot on the street.
Inside, the owner once again stood behind the counter. As a businesswoman, Kris understood that often the only way to make a profit was to do everything yourself.
“De usual?” Jamaica asked, tilting a cup back and forth like she was shaking dice.
Kris nodded, liking that she already had a “usual.” “I’m a coffee-holic,” Kris said. “Comes from a lot of very early mornings at the computer.”
“You an early riser?” Jamaica asked as she filled the cup.
“Yeah. I like to get ahead before I even go in to work. My favorite time is before the sun’s up.”
