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“He said his name was Liam Grant.” He just hadn’t said it last night.
“I dinnae know a Liam among the Grants of Drumnadrochit. Although…” His gaze drifted past her shoulder and upward. “There are some with that name in Dores.”
Dougal had said the same thing. Perhaps Kris needed to take a trip to Dores. If she could discover Liam Grant living in an apartment, working a job, doing something normal, out in the world where people, other than her, could see him, she’d feel a helluva lot better.
“What time was this?”
Kris considered. She and Dougal had gone to dinner: then they’d watched the sun set near the loch, talked awhile, and driven back.
“A little after nine o’ clock.”
“That fits,” Alan Mac murmured.
“What fits?”
He glanced at her as if he’d forgotten she was there, and his lips pursed in annoyance. At himself or her Kris wasn’t sure and didn’t really care.
“Carrie went missing shortly afterward,” he said.
“You think whoever conked me and was interrupted trotted down the road and found her?”
He spread his big, hard hands. “As I said, it fits.”
Guilt flickered, but Kris shoved it resolutely away. She wasn’t at fault here. Whoever was snatching women and drowning them was. That person should feel guilty, although he or she wouldn’t. Because people who did such things didn’t feel.
“The two you’ve found dead,” Kris began, and Alan Mac cast her a quick glance. “Do you know who they were?”
He lowered his gaze to his notes. “Not yet.”
“Not local then.”
“No.”
“What’s your next step?” Kris asked.
Alan Mac had removed his jacket and sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves. Understandable. In sharp contrast to the nip in the air outside, inside was stuffy and hot. He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”
The sleeve on his left arm pulled up. A black line encircled his biceps. It appeared to begin, or perhaps end, much thicker than it ended, or perhaps began, and did not resemble any of the tattoos she’d seen encircling biceps in the states. Those usually had thorns, stars, feathers—his was just a line.
Of course she wasn’t in the states and Alan Mac wasn’t an American. She had no idea what was common in Scotland. Perhaps such a line indicated membership in whatever military service they had here.
She very nearly asked, but Alan Mac straightened and his shirt slid back into place. “We’ll search,” he said. “We have searched after every disappearance.”
“But you haven’t found.”
He shook his head. “You’ve seen the terrain around the loch?”
“Some,” Kris agreed. She really needed to see more. But not right now. There were going to be constables all over the place.
“Mountains. Forests. Villages. Roads. It’s a searchers’ worst nightmare.”
“With five potential bodies,” Kris began, then paused.
“What?” Alan Mac asked.
“Five have been reported. I’m thinking, since you know about them, that they’re local?” Alan Mac nodded. “But you weren’t looking for the dead girls, because you didn’t know.”
“I’m not following.”
