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Just like in the trees. Thick, numerous, even in the bright sunlight, the shadows reigned, dancing between the trunks and making her think all sorts of strange things.
Then there was the loch. Boats of all kinds floated there. Someone could be watching her from one of the decks with binoculars. Would that make her skin prickle as if a thousand ants marched across it?
Maybe. But what she really didn’t like was the large gray rock in the water. The one that shone like monster skin, appearing and disappearing beneath the turbulent waves.
Kris shook her head. Even if the rock wasn’t a rock, it didn’t have eyes. At least not where she could see.
“You’re losing it, Kristin.”
What was wrong with her? Wondering if Liam had thrown her in the loch. Thinking Jamaica could be a human-sacrificing witch. Believing that whenever she walked to and from the village someone was following her. It was probably lucky she didn’t have a gun.
Except she did. Tucked into a drawer at the cottage.
However, she didn’t think she should walk around Drumnadrochit packing. But she could carry the—
“Damn,” Kris muttered. The silver knife resided in her backpack up on the bluff from which she’d taken a nosedive. Should she run up there and retrieve it or shouldn’t she?
“Shouldn’t,” Kris decided. The last time she’d been there she’d nearly died. Revisiting the scene of the crime would be a good way to experience a repeat performance. Although …
She could take the gun.
Kris let out a derisive breath of air at the circular nature of her thoughts. She wasn’t going to shoot anyone with a silver bullet any more than she’d have been able to stab them with a silver knife.
Kris glanced again at the loch, but the dark gray hump was gone. She watched for a few minutes, waiting for the water to draw back and show it again, but it didn’t.
Could the tide have changed the level of the loch that quickly? Did a lake even have a tide?
The cottage came into view, and Kris had the sudden urge to run into the house, slamming, then locking the door behind her. Or perhaps falling onto the green grass and kissing it as if it were a long-lost friend.
She did neither. If someone was watching her, she didn’t want them to know that she knew it. She didn’t want them to think she was afraid.
Kris had been on her own a long time. She’d worked in television. And if there was one thing she’d learned, it was this: If you ran, you got chased. If you were afraid … they chased you faster.
So she strolled up the walk, reached into her pocket for the key to unlock the door, then remembered she had no key, the door was broken, and she’d completely forgotten to tell Effy about it.
“Fan-damn-tastic,” Kris muttered.
She shouldn’t even go inside. If the loch, the trees, the damned empty fields scared her, a house she’d left unlocked for over an hour was really going to be fun.
She should walk back to Drumnadrochit and insist that Rob come out here and fix the thing immediately.
Kris glanced over her shoulder, her gaze drawn to the loch, the trees, the still-empty road. The breeze that was actually quite warm gave her a nasty chill.
“Maybe later,” she said, and reached for the door. She paused, frowning, with her hand on the knob.
The door had already been fixed.
*
Kris stilled, then stared at the door for a very long time, before stepping back and staring some more. Liam wanted to join her, both on the porch and inside.
He peered at the bright sunlight, and he wished it would go away. While it blazed, he was stuck at the loch, unable to do anything but his cursed duty. It seemed like he’d been doing it for eternity.
Of course he hadn’t been doing a very good job this morning. Instead of trolling north and south, then patrolling either shore, he’d watched Kris’s house until she’d come out and then he’d watched her.
From the way she kept gazing at the trees, the loch, the hills, she knew he was there. He should be ashamed of himself, but he wasn’t.
Someone was killing women. They had tried to kill her. They planned to blame it on Nessie.
