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Chapter Nineteen
Alex
What did I do when Catriona MacTaggart left me? I erased her from my mind and went back to the way I'd been before the lass with the fire in her eyes and in her soul wrecked my perfectly arranged life. I've got it all rearranged, back to the way I want it. So what if I didn't leave my loft for three days after that and rang the dean to tell him I have the flu and I can't teach my classes or deal with office hours for the rest of the week? I do feel a touch feverish. The sodding thermometer is wrong.
I love Cat, but I let her believe the opposite. Now I need to deal with the consequences of my actions. Maybe I should have explained everything to her, even my past, and let her decide whether she wanted to stay with me. No, that would've exacerbated the disaster I had already caused. Do I actually love her? Not sure I'm capable of that depth of feeling, so I probably imagined I felt that way because she insisted on telling me she loved me. Yes, that's what happened.
While I pretend—ah, recuperate from the flu, I receive good news. The local newspaper announces that the chief of police has tendered his resignation and has not announced yet where he will go next. To the nick, I hope. But I rather doubt the blighter will ever be arrested for his crimes. At the very least, I hope Raymond Anderson has gotten that wanker blacklisted so he can never work in law enforcement again. As for Miller's henchmen, I might have sort of planted a few incriminating items in their lockers at the police station, items that might have led to the new interim chief terminating their employment. I doubt either of them will get another job in law enforcement.
So what if that was a dirty trick? Those toerags conspired with their boss to frame an innocent woman for antiquities smuggling. They deserve to suffer for that. A darker and much less forgiving part of me wishes I'd strangled the lot of them. Whatever faults I might have, which are admittedly many and varied, I am not a killer.
A con artist, yes. But not a murderer. Well, former con artist. My days of picking pockets and swindling wealthy individuals have been over for a long time.
The week after Cat—ah, a certain person left the country, I realize I need a change of location too. I will never go back to the UK. I'm not wanted by the Met, never even served time, but I don't feel comfortable returning to the scene of my past crimes. I could go to Canada, or even Europe, but that doesn't appeal to me either. I quit my job at Ballesteros University and seek a new position at a different American institution. It's a college that doesn't even offer graduate programs, but I don't give a toss about that. Living in a small town where no one knows me seems like the safest course right now.
How do I spend the years after I lost the love of my life? By becoming the bastard Catriona thinks I am. I pawn the engagement ring and ignore the pang in my chest when I do that. Then I proceed to cultivate a persona that seems most likely to protect me from ever suffering that sort of pain ever again. I adopt an attitude of breezy sarcasm, as if I don't give a fuck about anything or anyone other than myself. Oddly, college girls love that. The silly birds try to seduce me by batting their lashes and speaking in a huskier tone while they ask if I want to "get busy" or "hook up." I decline their advances in my breezily sarcastic way. And those moronic females adore me even more after I rebuff them. Women are insane, and I will never date any of them ever again. I certainly will not marry one.
But I do occasionally find an anonymous partner for a few hours. We always go to a hotel far from where I live. Whether or not I enjoy those encounters is irrelevant. Perhaps I occasionally consider the possibility that I'm punishing myself with meaningless shags. Every time I come inside a stranger's body, I recognize that sex never feels as good as it did with…someone else.
Maybe I perform the occasional internet search to look for anyone called Catriona MacTaggart. I don't want to see her. It's curiosity, that's all. By the time the seventh year has elapsed, I force myself to give up on my obsess—make that my casual habit of searching for women with a certain name. Torturing myself had become a longtime habit before I ever met Cat. Now that torture is well and truly over.
At least that's what I think—until fate intervenes.
I never believed in that rot, and I especially did not believe it after Catriona walked out of my life. But I can't deny the event that occurs now seems far too serendipitous for my taste. I'm now living in Montana and working at Thensmore University as a professor of archaeology and ancient history. I've settled in enough over the past two years that I built a house, the sort that is, admittedly, too bloody enormous for one person and rather gloomy, with its crimson walls and dark trim fashioned from Indian rosewood. The paintings in the entryway feature various deities from mythology. A large portrait of the Fates, the Greek goddesses, occupies the entryway wall. Maybe this house is depressing, but I don't care.
One day, some twat who's probably a student at Thensmore, decides to steal a priceless object from my private collection. Whoever the twat was, he destroyed the lock on the front door and the one that secures my personal collection of objet d'art. The particular item the knob stole has…special meaning for me. I want it back.
So I ring someone I haven't spoken to in years and ask for help. The gent is a social worker, but he has connections at the Met in London. I assume he won't remember me, but he does—and he wants to help. I suppose he empathizes when I tell him what the object means to me, though I do that only out of desperation. What if I am desperate? It's a temporary condition.
My old mate rings me a few days later with the name of a person who might be able to help me. He's an army veteran and a former MI6 agent, fresh out of his tenure as a spy. If anyone can help me and keep it confidential, this is the man for the job. So says my old mate. He gives me a phone number for the bloke. When I ask for his name, I get a shock.
Logan MacTaggart.
I pay for Logan's flight from Scotland to Montana, and my right-hand man picks Logan up at the airport. I wait in my study while Reginald escorts the Scot through the house.
And I finally lay eyes on Logan, Catriona's cousin, the one she had worried about deeply when he was first deployed to Iraq. I rise and offer him my hand. "I'm Alex Thorne. Welcome to Moirai House."
Logan shakes my hand. "Tell me what you want me to do."
"I see you're not a fan of pleasantries."
"No. What do you want me to do?"
Sitting down again, I gesture for him to do the same. "Someone has nicked an item from my personal collection, and I want it back."
"Do ye have any idea who stole it?"
"No. But I suspect it was a student at Thensmore University. I work there."
"Hmm. Why did you contact me and not the police? Or a private investigator?"
I consider Logan for a moment, wondering if he was always this suspicious or if his time with MI6 changed him. Catriona had called him "a sweet boy," but the man sitting across me is not sweet or a boy, not anymore. I've changed too, so perhaps Logan and I share more in common than I thought. "A mate recommended you. That was all I needed to know. Will you take the job?"
"Aye, I'll do it. Do ye have a picture of the item?"
"Yes." I pull a photograph out of my desk drawer and offer it to him. "This is the item in question."
Logan holds the photo and studies it. His brows hike up. He lifts his gaze to me. "If this is a joke, I donnae appreciate a scunner wasting my time."
