Freefall in McGregor Territory: A Survival Guide for a Lost McKenzie
I’m seriously starting to wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Or maybe I’m the victim of some elaborate scheme designed to publicly humiliate me. There’s no other explanation for why I—Alistair Keir McKenzie, heir to the McKenzie distillery—am currently parked on a muddy dirt track at the edge of McGregor land, sitting in the dark like a particularly incompetent secret agent.
Keira’s message had been as cryptic as it was insistent.
KEIRA
Meet me at the south marker at 9 p.m. Park on the forest road. Come alone. Tell no one.
I could have ignored it. Ishouldhave ignored it. And yet here I am, nervously checking my watch (9:07 p.m.), wonderingwhat on earth possessed me to agree to take part in what feels suspiciously like the opening scene of a Scottish horror movie.
A sharp knock on my window makes me jump.
Keira stands outside. She’s wearing a dark jacket, a beanie pulled low over her hair and… are those streaks of camouflage on her cheeks?
I open the door and step out into the cool Scottish night air.
“Did you paint black stripes on your face?”
“Shh!” she hisses, glancing around nervously. “Keep your voice down!”
“Sorry,” I whisper dramatically. “Did you paint black stripes on your face?”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s charcoal. So I won’t be recognized.”
“Right. Because without it, in the pitch-black darkness of a private estate, you’d definitely be recognized by the many night walkers casually strolling through Highland forest trails.”
She shoots me a look that, even in the dim light, could make a Celtic warrior flinch.
“Did you bring what I asked for?”
I frown. “You didn’t ask me to bring anything.”
“Oh. I thought I mentioned it.”
“Mentioned what?”
“Never mind,” she sighs. “We’ll improvise. Follow me—and stay quiet.”
She turns on her heel and disappears into the brush. I hesitate for a second, then lock the car and follow.
Keira moves with the confidence of someone who knows this land like the back of her hand, easily avoiding low branches and treacherous roots that seem personally determined to trip me.
“Are you planning to explain why we’re playing secret agents?” I whisper after a few minutes of silence.
“We’re going to the archives.”
“The archives? Your family’s?”
“No, the National Library of Scotland’s. Of course they’re my family’s.”
I stop dead.
“Wait. You’re taking me into McGregor Castle? Into your private family archives?”
She turns, her face barely visible in the darkness. “That’s why I asked you to come, isn’t it? You showed me yours, I’ll show you mine. Fair’s fair.”
“So this is the kind of game we’re playing now?”
