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“If I answer your questions, will you please let me go?”
“It depends on your answers, and I make no promises.” I sat down opposite her. “Who do you work for?”
“The Times. In London.” Tears formed in her eyes, and I watched as she clenched her jaw, willing them not to fall. Not so tough now. She was scared. Good, she should be. The hard exterior she so wished to portray was beginning to crack. I would make sure it did. “My badge is in my purse in the car.”
“So, you’re a reporter.”
“A journalist.”
I pulled the woolen beanie from my head and ran my hand through my dark curls. “Why did you come here?”
“I got a tip.”
“A tip?”
“Yes, on a story.”
“From who?” I asked, taking a sip of whiskey.
She bit the tip of a black fingernail, thinking. “I overheard something at a funeral.”
“Whose funeral?” She started to shiver, so I pushed her glass closer to her. “Drink. It will take the chill from your body.”
“I don’t like whiskey.”
“Well, I didn’t realize I was running a bar here. Whiskey is what you get. Now, whose funeral?”
“Sir Leonard Payne.”
“You’re lying, Navy.” I looked her up and down. Wisps of dark hair, which had come loose from her ponytail, framed her face. I pushed a stray strand off her cheek with my finger and clucked my tongue. “I was at Sir Leonard’s funeral, and I don’t remember seeing you there, and I wouldn’t forget a face like yours. Let’s try that again.”
Her blue eyes, smudged black with heavy makeup, bore into me, and I felt Vortigern shift. He found her attractive. Bloody beast. “My boyfriend was at the funeral.”
“You’re boyfriend?”
“Yes. Sam Atterbury. He’s the one who told me about the secret society. Sir Leonard was his great uncle.”
“And what if there was a secret society?” I finished my whiskey and poured another. “So what? Britain is full of them.”
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered.
“So, you came all the way to Wales to see about a possible secret society?”
“Yes.”
I stood up. “I find that hard to believe. You’re not telling me everything.”
“I promise that’s all.”
“I told you I don’t make promises, nor do I care about them. Do you know what a Dearg Due is?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
I wasn’t going to be able to let her go. As long as there was a chance she was holding something back, I would have to keep her here. “Where are you from originally?”
“America,” she said.
“Yes, I heard in the pub. Where in America?”
