Barefoot in the Dark

by Suzanne Enoch

  “I just like the color – the patina – of the old varnish on the wood,” she said absently. “It looks deep, like you could stick your finger into it.” She faced him. “That was a quick conversation with Reggie. Was anyone killed?”

  He dragged a chair around beside her. “So, I shoved open the library door, ready to remind Reg that the books he was flinging about were mine, and that if he wanted to remain here he would respect my property. In—”

  “Diplomacy, thy name is Rick Addison,” she put in, grinning.

  “Hush. I’m not finished yet. So, I shoved open the door, ready to demand respect, and what should I see but Reggie’s arse in the air, naked as anything, on my Persian rug with Miss Nyland beneath him.”

  “You didn’t,” she said, sotto voce, her green eyes widening with what could only be glee.

  “I did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “They yelled at me to get out, I told them to lock the door next time and not to damage the books, and I came up here to tell you.”

  Laughter burst from her chest, bubbly and genuine and infectious. “You mentioned the books anyway!”

  “Of course I did.” Chuckling, he snagged one of the crisps from her bag.

  “You are so awesome.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Samantha leaned her head against his shoulder. “Just keep in mind that now he’s embarrassed, so he’ll probably try to catch you doing the same thing.”

  “That would be unwise.” Especially if Reggie brought along a camera. God, what a disaster that would be. His amusement cooled considerably. “We’re double-checking the locks from now on.”

  With a distant thud the lights flashed out, leaving them in the early evening gloom. “Power’s oot!” began echoing through the house.

  One low note sounded from the piano, echoing into the silence. Beside him Samantha didn’t move, but he could feel her coming alert. “You heard that, right?” she whispered.

  “Probably a mouse in the works,” he returned, sending the dark corners of the room a glance, anyway.

  “Mm hm. Any objection if I call Stoney and have him send me some gear? Infrared camera, temperature monitor, stuff like that?”

  He looked down at the top of her head. “Ghost hunting?”

  “I’m asking because if anybody’s here, they’re probably related to you. It’ll be fun.”

  Back in Florida he might have scoffed at the notion, but this wasn’t a luxury mansion built in the 30’s, full of sun and sounds of surf. This was Britain, a few hundred miles from where the two of them had uncovered a family heirloom that had produced so many coincidences he could barely call them that, and with a few hundred – or thousands, rather – years of history literally beneath their feet.

  “I have no objection,” he said aloud, standing and pulling her to her feet. If she preferred to look for invisible things rather than hidden things here at Canniebrae, he had no objection whatsoever. Maybe she could even pull Reg and his Viking into the hunt. If anyone could distract the undistractable, it would be Samantha.

  9

  Friday, 9:20 a.m.

  “Yeah, I can swing by and pull the infrared goggles out of storage,” Stoney said, his voice cracking and distant on Rick’s office phone. “What the hell’s an EMF detector?”

  “It detects electromagnetics,” Samantha returned, resting her elbows on whatever business deal Rick had left on top of his desk. “Power lines, ghosts, stuff like that.”

  “Uh, huh. So now you’re a ghostbuster.”

  “Yep.”

  “I was being sarcastic. What’s up? Really?”

  She smiled at the phone. “A bit of a mystery. Maybe even a ghost. You have the whole list? Four stationary night-vision cameras with infrared, four portable ones, a monitor and cables, four digital recorders, my infrared goggles, and say six walkie-talkies with at least a two-mile range.” If they couldn’t use cell phones, maybe walkies would solve the big house problem.

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” he finished. “I’ve got it. Not my first rodeo, kiddo.”

  “It is your first ghost hunt.” Samantha leaned out into the hallway, then ducked back into the deepest corner of the office. “I have no internet or cell service here,” she continued, lowering her voice. “Look up anything on Scottish highwaymen or known serial robbers in the area around Balmoral and before the 1900’s, will you?”

  Silence crackled back at her. “You catch a whiff of something?” Stoney finally asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just looking for some info. Not a score.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. In the meantime, I’ll express ship your ‘ghost hunting’ equipment.” The way he said the words, she could practically hear the air quotes.

  “There could be treasure and ghosts,” she retorted, keeping her voice as quiet as she could manage and still be heard over the bad connection. “But I’m mostly curious about the treasure. The equipment might help me look for it. Info to me only, dude. Okay?”

  “Yep. Oh, and Aubrey wants to know if you like the name Max Zellicon, or if it’s too on the nose.”

  “Too on the nose for what?”

  “For you. I think he’s writing a book about you.”

  She held the phone away from her ear to scowl at it. “One, I am not a Max or a Maxine. Two, no effing way is he writing a book about me. If he does, he’s fired. You tell him I said that.”

  “He said I could be Wallace Granite. But okay, I’ll tell him.”

  “If that was your name, I’d be calling you Granny instead of Stoney. Think about that.”

  “You’re an evil woman,” Walter Barstone returned. “I’ll let you know your stuff’s ETA as soon as I get it shipped. Up to you to figure out what to tell his lordiness.”

  “Thanks, Granny.”

  She heard him snort as the call cut off, and leaned against the wall once she’d set the phone’s receiver back into its cradle. Aubrey couldn’t have been serious about writing a book based on her. Aside from the fact that he knew almost nothing about her before the past year or so, The Adventures of Max Zellicon would send a lot more suspicious glances in her direction. She couldn’t afford that either for herself or for Rick.

  If Stoney couldn’t give her some assurance that Aubrey had stopped his semi-biography or whatever the hell he thought he was writing, she would have to give the former professional lady’s escort a serious talking to. Just the idea of a story about a thief and a rich guy, however much he altered the details, gave her the shakes.

  Two sets of footsteps left the stairs to turn in the direction of Rick’s office. Her first instinct was to sink beneath the desk, but for crying out loud, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Not even slightly shady, really. She was legit here.

  The footsteps stopped before the half open door. “Rick?” Reggie asked, rapping his knuckles against the doorframe. He leaned in. “Samantha. I don’t suppose you have any idea where Ricky is, do you?”

  “Last time I saw him he was out on the drive with two utility guys. They want to drill holes for the internet router and the satellite, and he doesn’t like that idea very much.”

  Eerika stepped in around Reggie. “Thank goodness you’re here, Samantha.”

  “Was I missing?” she asked, before she could rein in the sarcasm. Oh, well. She was supposed to be a touch upper-crusty, after all.

  “What? Oh, ha ha. No. I’ve heard the village is very quaint, and I want go. But Reginald won’t take me. We must go find a bakery and a kilt shop, and of course some shoes. Say you’ll come.”

  A bakery, a kilt shop, and shoes. What came next in the way of quaint Scottish village shops – a bagpipe boutique? But this was what girlfriends of guys with money and good bloodlines did, right? Go to out-of-the-way places and buy expensive shit? She could use the practice, she supposed. Plus, Eerika knew more about Reggie than she did, and that could be useful. “Sure. I’ll grab my jacket and meet you downstairs.”

  The
Viking flashed her a pearly white smile. “Splendid.” She put her well-manicured hand on Reggie’s shoulder and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You boys go have your fun. Samantha and I will be back after lunch.”

  Huh. Now a peek in the windows of three shops had turned into a four-hour excursion. Well, she’d gotten more accustomed to Rick’s lifestyle over the past year. It couldn’t hurt to learn a few things about how to be a girl blueblood from a girl blueblood.

  While Eerika went to find her clutch and shopping shoes, whatever the hell they were, Samantha snagged her light jacket off the bed post in the master bedchamber and trotted downstairs. In the foyer Yule was actually using a ruler to center a vase of thistles on the side table, and she paused on the bottom step to watch that for a second. Thank crap her dad hadn’t been a vase measurer, because she wouldn’t have been able to follow his footsteps and still keep her sanity. She did get the whole thing about running a small army of household staff and taking pride in good work, but that world was way too small for her.

  “Miss Nyland and I are going into the village, Yule,” she said, resisting the urge to hop down the last step into the foyer because she supposedly had a bum ankle. “I think we’re having lunch there.”

  The butler nodded as he folded up his ruler and stuck it into an inside pocket of his black dress jacket. “The forecast is for sun, so ye’ve chosen a fine day for an outing.”

  “Thanks. Let her know I’m getting the car, if you don’t mind.”

  “I dunnae mind at all, Miss Sam.”

  Rick was still on the front drive, now looking at some skinny brown PVC pipes that she figured the cables would be run through. “Eerika and I are going into the village,” she told him, interrupting a pretty impressive scowl.

  “There has to be a way to run cable without either drilling a hole through the stone or having pipes crawling up the outsides of the walls,” he grumbled. “We managed it at Rawley Park.”

  “Rawley Park’s walls aren’t solid stone,” Samantha noted.

  “Not helpful.”

  “Well, do you have a dungeon here?” she asked, only half joking.

  “I have a wine cellar which may or may not have been a dungeon at one time.”

  “Ooh, that means it totally was. Why haven’t I seen it, then? Anyway, if you want to bother digging trenches through heavy dirt and permafrost, you—”

  He planted a kiss on her mouth. “I’m there. Be patient with Miss Nyland.” Brushing his fingers against hers, he faced the two utility guys. “Make some calls, lads. We’re going in through the cellar.”

  The keys for the four cars – well, one car, MacGyver the jeep, an old SUV that they used for bringing up supplies, and a three-wheeled…thing – hung on nails on an inside post in the stable. She snagged Mac’s keys and hopped into the red jeep.

  With the sun out, she was tempted to unsnap the plastic roof, but Norway had probably spent five hundred bucks on her hair, and Rick had just reminded her not to rile the near in-laws, so she left the top on the jeep. Instead she turned the key and fed the beast some gas, grinning as it roared to life.

  Eerika came out the front door as Samantha pulled up. Apparently shopping shoes had two-inch heels and were bright blue, and were worn with a matching over-the-shoulder handbag and a pretty, patterned cardigan. The whole outfit screamed, “look at me, I’m rich and sophisticated,” even with slim-fit jeans and a pink heart T-shirt. To Samantha’s eyes the ensemble also said “steal my purse because I’m rich and I’ll never be able to catch you in these shoes,” but this wasn’t New York or Paris, or even London.

  “Ready?” she asked, leaning left to shove open the passenger door.

  “Oh, brilliant,” the Viking said with a bright smile, and clambered into the seat. “It’s so rugged here!”

  “It does have that backwoodsy feel,” Samantha agreed, putting MacGyver into gear and resisting the urge to stomp on the accelerator. Not everyone was an adrenaline junkie, and Eerika seemed to be trying very hard to look…perfect.

  “I half expect to see William Wallace emerging from the trees. But there haven’t been as many kilts as I expected.”

  “Well, it’s autumn. Nippy and way fewer tourists.”

  “Oh, yes. London’s crushed with tourists in the summer, all of them asking where the nearest MacDonald’s is.” She put a hand to her mouth. “I don’t mean you, of course. You’re not one of those.”

  One of those what? Normal Americans? No, she wasn’t. Until six months ago she hadn’t even had a real driver’s license. As for her passport… Well, that beauty was worth every one of the ten thousand bucks it had cost her. Getting a legit one of those after she married Rick was going to be tricky. “Thanks,” she said aloud, because it seemed like she should say something. “Do you come to Scotland often?”

  “This is my first time. It’s so odd, isn’t it? I’ve lived in London for my entire life, I’ve been to Paris and Milan and New York, and I’ve never been to a place just north of me, on the same island.”

  Samantha hoped they weren’t going to start listing all the places they’d ever visited. MacGyver skidded a little on the muddy track, and she downshifted to take the next curve. “There are a couple of states I’ve never been to,” she returned, though Idaho and Alabama were on her to-do list. “There are only so many hours in a day.”

  “And only so many days in a year,” Eerika added. “Precisely. One must hit the highlights first.”

  So, Scotland wasn’t a highlight for Miss Nyland and her shopping shoes. Samantha liked figuring people out, but this was already exhausting. Maybe she needed to try edging a little closer to upper class. “Rick said Reggie has a flat just off Cadogan Place. That must be lovely. Do you share it with him, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Eerika chuckled. “You Americans are so direct. I’ll just say I have a toothbrush there.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But what about you? How in the world did you manage to catch Richard Addison’s eye – much less get him to ask you to marry him? I think half the single women in the world wept that day.”

  That was a total exaggeration, though she did get vilified a lot on the Rick’s Chicks Facebook page. She knew that because she liked to check in on them. They liked to appear outside the Solano Dorado gates on odd days, trying for a glimpse of Rick. She liked having a heads-up for things like stalkers. “He hired me to find some stolen artwork, and we just hit it off. It helps that we’re both into art and antiques.” She’d told that version so many times she could almost believe it herself, if not for the bomb shrapnel scar on the back of one thigh.

  “I know what you mean. I learned so much about cars when I met Reginald. Men love women who share their interests.” She abruptly went digging into her purse and produced a pen and paper. “I’m writing that down. My producer will love it.”

  “Your producer?”

  “Oh, yes. We’re working on a show for me. Something that follows me through my day, while I dispense advice and have fabulous adventures.”

  Wow. Somebody liked herself a whole lot. “Oh,” she said aloud. “Cool.”

  Aside from the self-absorption, the way Eerika viewed Reggie’s interests sounded a lot like the way Samantha viewed a mark she meant to rob. If she needed to get close, she found out what he or she liked and did some research. From the beginning she and Rick had shared an interest in the art world – and while her plan to steal something he owned had brought them together, she’d never faked a damned thing where he was concerned.

  She hadn’t realized how long the silence had stretched out until Eerika put a fake-sounding laugh into the middle of it. “I just realized how very mercenary I must sound. Everyone wants to do their own show, after all. But I already have contacts, and an absolutely unique hook. I can’t tell you, of course, but it will be fabulous. A guaranteed smash hit.”

  “Is Reggie going to be involved?” Samantha asked, smothering a shudder. Norway might be excited by the idea of being on ca
mera, but that kind of thing gave her former thief self the shivers.

  “Reginald’s all for it. He says he keeps me grounded, but I give him wings. And those Addison boys are very driven, aren’t they?”

  Firstly, at least one Addison wasn’t a boy. Considering where she came from, Samantha wasn’t about to start an argument over who was good for whom, though. Instead she pasted on a grin. “You’re preaching to the choir, sister.”

  Eerika’s chuckle sounded a little more real this time. “Of course I am. And we are sisters, of a sort, aren’t we?”

  Sure, they were. “The very definition of,” she said aloud, as she turned MacGyver onto the cobblestone main street of the village. “Bakery, or search for the kilt shop? Or shoes?”

  “Kilt shop. Oh, and perhaps we could find where they make the bagpipes.”

  Huh. So this was the hell she was signing up for. Still, learning the layout of the entire village couldn’t be a bad thing. If they had a museum or a historical society, she would slip back into Orrisey with a few questions – and without her brand new, man-eating, fame-hunting sister.

  By the time the local utility workers had made arrangements for a bulldozer and a trencher to come up in the next couple of days, Richard felt ready for a jaunt into the village, himself. Simply because it was a small matter to drill a hole beneath the eave of most houses didn’t make it acceptable to do so with a castle that predated America by over five hundred years.

  As for handing Canniebrae to the National Trust, over his dead body. He had a plentitude of respect for the Trust, but this was his place, his property. His headache. Stomping mud off his hiking boots as he went, he headed for the front door.

  Yule opened it before he could reach for the handle. “M’laird, Master Reginald says his father would like a word with ye,” he intoned. “Ye’ll find Laird Rowland and Lady Mercia in the garden.”