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She tapped the screen of her laptop. These were not facts. You could sacrifice a whole baseball team to Obi and still not have enough juice to fuel your Magic 8-Ball. Because—

“Magic isn’t real,” Kris said.

Of course whoever was killing people might not know that.

CHAPTER 16

Did she truly believe that Jamaica was sacrificing women to the snake god she had tattooed on her ankle?

Not really. If Jamaica had anything to hide, she wouldn’t have told Kris about her past at all. And she’d have covered the damn ankle.

Kris Googled Jamaica Blue anyway. All she found were coffee sites, one of them Jamaica’s own. Kris hadn’t expected anything else.

She could ask Alan Mac what he knew about the woman, but he already thought Kris was paranoid, with a side order of nuts. What would he think if she started talking about witchcraft, human sacrifices, and snake gods? Nothing good.

Kris spent the rest of the day answering e-mail. It took the rest of the day because the Internet had decided to flicker on and off at will. Frustrating, but nothing she could do about it beyond curse impotently. During “off” times, she made notes about what she’d learned thus far. She even took a nap, the lock on the door and the knife on her night table allowing her to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the stray thought that whoever had fixed the door might have kept a key for themselves woke her up. She needed to find out who had done that. If it was Rob or Liam, she was all right.

“Or not,” she said as she readied herself for the return to Drumnadrochit. Where was it written that old men and hot guys couldn’t be murderers?

Nowhere that she’d ever seen.

Kris headed to the village long before the sun went down. She didn’t plan to be out alone in the dark, even though she hadn’t been any less wigged about it in the daylight. She told herself she needed the extra time to stop at Effy’s.

A short while later Kris entered Drumnadrochit for the second time that day. She passed by the coffee shop and was surprised to discover a Closed sign perched in the window. She could have sworn the place stayed open later.

Kris continued on to Effy’s. She wasn’t there, and neither was Rob. Turning away, Kris looked up and down the still-bustling street. Where was everybody?

She hung around, figuring one or both of them had to come back sooner or later, but as it got to be later and the sun dipped below the western horizon, casting the loch and Drumnadrochit into shadow, Kris gave up and left for MacLeod’s.

She turned the corner just as a slim, dark, familiar figure approached the pub. Kris opened her mouth to call, Liam! but before she could, he slipped inside.

The scuff of a shoe on pavement had her glancing over her shoulder. Just past dusk, and the streetlights had not come on, but a golden glow spilled from the windows of several shops. Instead of being inviting, the contrast of flickering light and encroaching darkness made the shadows dance like demons around the bonfires of hell.

Kris hurriedly crossed the street and went in.

At MacLeod’s the lights were on and everyone was home. Except Liam. She didn’t see him anywhere.

Kris frowned. She’d watched him walk in only a few moments ago. Could he have strode right through the bar and out the back door?

Why? Unless he’d ducked around the corner to watch her from the shadows, scuffling his shoe just enough to make her paranoid.

Kris sighed. No one had to make her paranoid. She was already there. She glanced around again, certain she’d just missed him in the crush.

However, though Liam wasn’t tall, he was distinctive. Gorgeous shone like sun through the clouds. Right now all she saw was a storm.

Effy and Rob sat at the same table in the corner, drinking as they’d been the last time she’d seen them, and they appeared to be having the same argument, if the sloshing of Effy’s ale out of her glass and onto the table was any indication. Since Kris had been searching for them, too, she put aside the issue of Liam Grant and crossed to the Camerons.

Though people moved when she said, “Excuse me,” no one greeted her or even smiled. She felt a little out of place, perhaps because she was an American in a local Scottish bar.

No one would ask her, or any other foreigner with money, to leave. But that didn’t mean they had to welcome her into their place.

As she approached the Camerons’ table, Effy gave her brother an evil eye that seemed so out of place on her cherubic face Kris stifled a laugh.

“No fool like an old fool,” Effy snapped.

Rob took another swig of his ale and said nothing.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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