Page 42 of Bonetide

“Christ.”

“Aye.”

A long silence. MacLeod polishes a glass that does not, by any measure, need polishing.

“They should be scared,” Sinclair says, quiet. “The women on this coast should be very scared, MacLeod, and I don’t know how to tell them that without telling them what they already know.”

“Aye.”

“You’ll spread the word?”

“As I can.”

“Without spreading panic, of course.”

“Well, that’s the trick of it.”

“Aye. That’s the trick.”

I eat one more chip I don’t taste. I push the plate forward an inch. I lift my hand for MacLeod, as if I’ve been doing this all my life, and he comes over with the tab on a small folded slip.

“Thank you, Ms. Galloway.”

“It’s just Iris,” I reply. I lay cash on the slip—too much, because I always tip too much when I’m rattled—and I sling the canvas bag over my shoulder as I stand.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Iris.”

I turn toward the door.

Sinclair is looking at me. Not openly; just enough to see who I am.

I drive the whole way home with both hands tight on the wheel and the same sentence replays in my head.

Dark hair. Tall. Dragged into the water.

Alasdair this morning. Black trousers, black shirt, bare feet on a horse with no bridle, telling me to come down to the rocks after dark, where he’d come up out of the water to meet me.

A lot of the men on this coast have dark hair. A lot of them are tall. Sinclair said the witness couldn’t see clearly. I’m building a case out of nothing.

Except I’m not.

I know I’m not.

I get home. I lock all the doors and check the windows several times.

The light goes at nine and the bay turns slate, then to iron, then black as sin.

I sit at the kitchen window and watch the rocks at the foot of my spit go shadowy, and then darker, and then gone. I don’t walk down to them. I don’t see him come but I also don’t see him not come. The water is too dark by the time I’d have known either way.

It’s not long before I close the curtain and hope he wasn’t out there this whole time, staring at me, taking in all the fear and worry on my face.

I go to bed and fall asleep wondering whether I’ve just saved my own life or done something he won’t forgive me for.

And what I’m going to do about it.

Chapter