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He jumped in front of her, and she recoiled with a start. “Hi.” Caleb pulled back the jacket’s hood.
It wasn’t Jane.
The woman couldn’t have been older than seventeen or eighteen, and she was obviously terrified.
Caleb gripped her arm and inspected her slightly scuffed left sleeve. “This isn’t your jacket. Where did you get it?”
The woman spoke with a Shetland dialect. “She’s mine, sir. I promise you that.”
“Stop lying. This jacket belongs to my friend.”
The woman pulled away. “No, sir. She was given to me just a peerie bit ago.”
Caleb cocked his head. She appeared to be too frightened to be lying. He showed her Jane’s photo on his phone. “Do you recognize her?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s her! She gave me this jacket.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Don’t know. She took it off and told me the jacket was mine. All I had to do in return was pull up the bonnet and walk this way for twenty minutes, then walk back.”
Caleb cursed under his breath. Of course. Why had he even bothered to ask? For an instant he’d been afraid something might have happened to Jane. But Jane knew he was hot on her trail. Just another bit of sleight of hand. He glanced back down the path.
“How long ago? Where did you see her?”
“Mmm, not quite ten minutes ago. We were over near the old boathouse.”
“Boathouse?” He looked back. Far in the distance, he spotted what appeared to be an old shack and dock at the water’s edge. And at about the same place, a small motorboat was puttering out into the loch.
Jane!
Caleb sprinted down the path.
***
Jane gripped the tiller and headed toward the loch’s gentle curve. She would miss that Burberry jacket; it had been like an old friend. But it was worth it to buy her the time she needed to board the boat that MacDuff always left at the Rannoch boathouse. She gunned the outboard motor, but unfortunately the tiny boat wasn’t built for speed.
It didn’t matter. It was fast enough to lose Caleb.
She turned toward land and raised her binoculars. Caleb was running like hell toward the dock and boathouse, holding his phone to his right ear.
For what purpose? Coordinating with someone for an interception? It couldn’t possibly happen fast enough to catch her. He pocketed his phone and ran into the rickety boathouse, practically tearing the door off its hinges.
He probably hoped to find an old rowboat in there, but she’d peered in and saw only a few old cobweb-covered life vests, melted candles, and beer cans.
Tough luck, Caleb.
A minute passed. Then another.
What in the hell was he doing in there? Still strategizing on his phone?
A strong wind blew across the water, and the boathouse’s tiny wooden frame shook. The shaking continued even after the breeze abated.
She tensed. Suddenly the old structure looked extremely fragile.
The roof gave way!
A moment after that, the entire structure collapsed.
