Page 84 of The Secret Castle in the Highlands

The teenager peered down his long nose at me. ‘Say again?’

‘Don’t tell this woman you’ve told me what’s been going on. Whenever she asks you to deliver a note, just carry on as you’ve been doing, okay?’

Katie’s pink-slicked mouth blossomed into a mischievous smile. ‘You think you stand more chance of finding out who she is and why she’s doing this if you don’t alert her.’

‘Yep.’ I folded up the note again and slid it into the pocket of my dark trousers. ‘I’m Poppy,’ I said after a pause. ‘And this is Katie.’

‘I know who you are,’ he muttered, staring at our wooden office floor for a moment. ‘I’m Ryan.’

‘Okay, Ryan, do we have a deal?’

He rose to his feet, which were flapping about in a pair of black-and-grey-striped trainers. ‘Deal,’ he grunted.

Katie and I watched with barely concealed amusement as he lurched out of the office, looking rather terrified.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘Iknow who our note messenger is.’

Mason’s excitement fizzled at the end of the phone. ‘Seriously?’

I glanced at my reflection in the bedroom mirror and proceeded to tell him about Ryan.

‘So, who has been getting him to do this? Did he give you a name?’

I sank down on the edge of my bed. ‘He says he doesn’t know her name.’

‘Doesn’t he recognise her or know anything about her?’

‘No,’ and I told him about Ryan being new to the area and that I’d told Ryan not to tell the woman that we knew. ‘I figured that way the clues should keep coming and we have a better chance of discovering her identity.’

Mason agreed. ‘I think that’s a great idea.’

I toyed with the end of my blue satin duvet. ‘How are your mum and dad?’

‘Oh, they’re fine. They’re very impressed with you.’ I could hear a smile in his voice as he spoke. ‘They were very keen for you to take them on a guided tour of Port Starr, but I managed to distract them with a nice drive up the coastal road.’

A pang of guilt stole over me. ‘I feel bad about the deception.’

‘It’s not deception,’ insisted Mason. ‘It’s just massaging the truth.’

His words made me study myself in the mirror. What on earth did I think I was doing?

‘Poppy,’ he began. ‘I wondered if you wanted to come over this evening. To discuss where we go from here … with the research, obviously…’ There was a pregnant pause before Mason explained, ‘Mum and Dad are doing their own thing tonight.’

A warning klaxon blasted in my head. I had to think of myself. This situation was on the brink of getting out of control. Actually, now that I thought about everything, I think it already was. I had to rein myself back in. Mason was winding his way deeper and further into my affections, despite my best efforts. ‘Oh,’ I answered. ‘It’s just I’m rather tired. We’ve been flat out here with the cottages and I’d planned to crash out on the sofa.’

There was a disappointed silence for a few seconds. ‘Right. No, I understand you must be exhausted. It’s just…’

I sat up a bit straighter. ‘What is it, Mason?’

‘It’s just … well, I thought we could … we could…’

My heart pinged against my ribcage.

‘I thought we could make some more progress tonight with looking into this Gideon Kelly character.’

Of course. Silly me. Why would I think he was going to talk about something more personal? For a moment, I was tempted to refuse again. My thoughts travelled to the Scarlet Highwayman. Was I prepared to let my emotions and frustrations get in the way of finding out the truth? I couldn’t have that; not when we appeared to be drawing ever closer to discovering who he was. I could handle this. I could handle my feelings for Mason. I just had to keep reminding myself about those two other women. Maybe there was more than two?