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“That appears to be the new national pastime,” Kris said.
“If ye saw that someone, then you were followin’ us, too,” Liam pointed out.
Now Marty glanced at Liam with interest. “You saw them?”
“Or perhaps just you.”
Marty opened his mouth to reply, and the trill of a cell phone split the air. His hand went to his pocket. He pulled one out, glanced at the display, hit the mute, and stood. “I have to go.”
“It’s the middle of the night.” Kris stood, too. “Who’s calling you?”
But he was already heading for the exit. “I’ll be in touch,” he said.
Kris laughed, the sound as derisive as a playground bully’s.
Marty turned, expression bleak. “You have every right to doubt me. I don’t blame you. But I stayed away for your own good, Squirt. I did it to protect you, not to hurt you.”
A chill trickled over Kris. “What are you involved in, Marty?”
He shook his head and went out the door.
Kris ran after him, but the mist had come in, swallowing her brother as if he’d never even been.
She stared into the fog, ears straining for the rev of an engine—car, boat, cycle—or the flap of shoes on pavement. All she heard was the distant splash of the loch.
“That was weird.” Kris closed the door and turned.
Liam peered out the window, beyond which the mist swirled. “Weirder than ye think, lass.”
“Weirder than the brother I haven’t seen in seven years showing up in Scotland when hardly anyone knows I’m here?”
Liam’s gaze switched to hers. “No, that was the weird I was talking about.”
Kris smiled, though the effort wasn’t her best.
“What does yer brother do for a living?” Liam asked. Kris spread her hands. “Ye dinnae know?”
“I haven’t heard a word from him since I was eighteen.”
“Mmm,” Liam murmured. “He said he’d stayed away from ye to protect ye. Which makes me wonder what he needs to protect ye from. Considering there’s someone out there who’s been tryin’ to kill ye.”
There had been so many things going on, so many things being said, Kris had forgotten about that one. And really, that was the one she should have remembered.
“What did he study in col
lege?”
“Business.” Kris frowned. “Psychology? Maybe English.”
“I take it ye’re not a close family.”
“We were.” Kris tried to leave it at that, but she couldn’t. “Then my mother died.”
“Ach.” Liam touched her hair in that way he had that almost, but not quite, made everything all right. “It’s sorry I am to hear it.”
“Water under the bridge,” Kris said, though it wasn’t. It never truly would be. “After that Marty and my dad couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
Liam’s lips turned down. “Perhaps not you so much as the place where they still saw her even though she was no longer there.”
