Labyrinth

by Tarah Scott

  LABYRINTH

  Tarah Scott

  Also by Tarah Scott

  Born Into Fire

  Lord Keeper

  The Pendulum: Legacy of the Celtic Brooch

  When a Rose Blooms

  Double Bang

  Coming Soon from Silver Publishing

  My Highland Love

  Coming Soon from Total E-Bound

  Hawk and the Cougar

  An Improper Wife

  Copyright © 2012

  Tarah Scott

  http://www.tarahscott.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Melissa Alvarez at Book Covers Galore for creating another cover that is absolutely perfect.

  My undying gratitude to Kimberly Comeau, the greatest (and most patient,) editor who lives.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to Elly Mae. (You know who you are.)

  May you and your opossum live long and prosper.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Viagra

  Chevy Nova

  Pontiac Grand Prix

  Mustang

  Alpha Romero

  Labyrinth

  It’s a Mississippi Deputy Sheriff’s duty to bring a serial killer to justice…even when he’s a three hundred year old Scottish lord.

  It’s an SAS agent’s duty to save her.

  There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

  Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

  Chapter One

  Murderers weren’t born. They were made. At least, that’s what Margot had told herself these last four years. She opened the door to Castle Morrison and stepped inside the small entryway. Her hand tightened on the strap of the duffel she carried. She’d left Mississippi behind fifteen hours ago and was now on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, about as far north as a person could get in the Scottish Highlands. The countryside was just as remote as Wilkinson County, and probably just as wild.

  Gooseflesh crept across her arms with an unexpected desire to turn and head back home—back to her father, the job she’d left behind and the front porch swing that squeaked too loudly on sultry summer nights. Exhaustion, she told herself. That and the fact she was about to face a murderer.

  She took three paces through the arched doorway into the reception area and stopped. Caterine Bowers, the new owner of Castle Morrison, stood alongside a young brunette behind a mahogany reception counter at the far end of the room.

  Cat hadn’t changed in the four years since Margot had seen her. The boys back home had gone wild over her perfect thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six body. With lustrous, jet black hair that brushed her waist and the feminine walk she’d perfected, she’d fucked her way through half of Wilkinson County. Margot didn’t blame her for that. Hell, she’d had her share of those southern boys. It was the fact Cat had murdered Donny four years into their marriage—and gotten away with it—that Margot hated.

  Cat’s invitation for Margot to visit her in Scotland offered the opportunity that had been lacking when Cat fled to L.A. six months after Donny’s death. Eighteen months later, Cat dropped off the radar. Margot couldn’t let that happen again—couldn’t let Cat murder again. And she would.

  Cat looked up from the papers she and the brunette were studying. The emerald green eyes that had gotten her name shortened from Caterine to Cat lit up. Margot chilled. As Deputy Sheriff of Wilkinson County, she’d convinced criminals she was their friend in order to get their confessions. But none of those criminals had been her best friend…and none of them had murdered her husband—Margot’s cousin. So how was she going to hide the fact she was here to prove that Cat killed Donny?

  Lie.

  Margot smiled. Cat skirted the counter and hurried toward her. Margot dropped the duffel and started forward. They met in the middle of the room and Cat pulled her into a warm hug. Margot relaxed as if embracing the same friend she’d shared everything with, from make-up to Jimmy Thornton in the twelfth grade.

  Cat pulled back and looked into her face. “You look exhausted.”

  Margot startled at hearing the clipped Yankee tones coming from Cat’s mouth. What had happened to her Mississippi drawl? The four years she’d been gone from Mississippi wasn’t nearly long enough to lose that southern inflection.

  Margot gave a tired smile. “Beyond exhausted.”

  Cat grinned. “Sorry, there are no direct flights from Wilkinson County to Scotland.”

  “Wilkinson County?” Margot grunted. “There aren’t any direct flights from anywhere in Mississippi to Scotland.”

  Cat slipped an arm around her shoulders. Margot forced herself not to stiffen when Cat gave her a squeeze.

  “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” Cat looked past Margot, and Margot glanced back to see her cab driver standing at the counter, her suitcase and duffel beside him on the floor.

  “Hold on.” She started to pull free.

  Cat’s arm tightened around her. “Never mind. Dahlia, see to him, will you please, and have Margot’s bags sent up right away.”

  The brunette smiled and turned her attention to the driver.

  Cat directed Margot across the foyer to a staircase on the left wall. “You’re going to love Morrison Castle,” Cat said. “There’s nothing like it in Wilkinson County.” She released Margot and went ahead of her up the stairs.

  Margot followed, grimacing when the entrance disappeared around a hard right turn and the narrow stairwell closed in behind her like a coffin. Her legs moved as if slogging through mud and she released a tired breath when the stairs finally opened into a hallway that was expansive by comparison. Cat turned left.

  Margot looked back at the slit in the stone wall that held the staircase. “Those stairs would challenge the most seasoned spelunker. How do people pass on them?”

  Cat laughed. “The Scots are big on togetherness.”

  Margot imagined two men coming face to face, backs pressed against opposite walls as they sidled past one another. If the men were anything like the large specimens she’d seen working the castle grounds, they would exchange more than just greetings.

  “Staircases were built narrow,” Cat said, “so an enemy had to charge up one man at a time, which gave the defenders a chance to kill them before they reached the upper levels.”

  They passed four doors before Cat stopped. “This is the last of the unrenovated rooms. I didn’t want you to have to worry about moving while you’re here.”

  She opened the door and stepped inside. Margot followed, catching sight of the bed. The brandy colored quilt looked like heaven on earth. She halted, her attention riveted onto a painting that hung over the fireplace where a low fire burned. The painting’s three dimensional depiction of Castle Morrison made the picture feel as real as the wing backed chair sitting in front of the low burning fire in the fireplace.

  Battlemented towers on each corner of the oblong castle rose above the keep’s three stories. Like a velvet caress, ivy crawled up the
stone surrounding the heavy, central oak door. Sunlight glinted off narrow, stained glass windows as clear and vivid as newly cut glass.

  “Damn,” Margot breathed.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cat asked.

  “Magnificent. Who’s the artist?”

  “Unknown. The picture’s three hundred years old.”

  “Three hundred? But that’s impossible. It’s so…”

  “Perfect?” Cat said.

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Margot crossed to the fireplace. The castle came into sharper focus as if she had hit the zoom button on her web browser. “The detail’s amazing.” She reached a hand to touch the ivy, then thought better of it. Three hundred year old paintings weren’t meant to be touched. She faced Cat. Hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she recognized the feeling of being watched. That’s what happened when you stood in the presence of a killer.

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Your luggage,” Cat said. “Come in,” she called.

  The door opened and a young man entered carrying Margot’s luggage. He murmured a hello, then lifted the suitcase onto the stand to the left of the door and set the duffel on the carpet beside it.

  He faced them. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Hold on, sugar.” Margot started toward the duffel where she kept her money, but Cat lifted a hand.

  “No tipping here at Castle Morrison,” she said.

  “I don’t mind.”

  Cat shook her head. “The caliber of guests who stay here don’t tip.”

  “That rich?” Margot asked, as if she didn’t already know the answer. Castle Morrison was a new brand of hotel where the obscenely wealthy squandered their money on the “seventeenth-century-Highland-experience.”

  “The richest of the rich,” Cat had boasted a week ago when she called to invite Margot to Scotland.

  Scottish castles didn’t come cheap—Margot had checked. Castle Morrison sold for three-hundred and seventy-two thousand. Total renovations would set Cat back a cool million, but she would make up the expense in the fees guests paid for the privilege of sleeping in a Scottish castle. A two-week stay ran sixteen thousand pounds—twenty-five thousand American dollars. Cat had a waiting list that stretched into next year. In the next twelve months, she stood to gross twenty-one million dollars.

  Helluva business deal, Margot had noted after Cat’s call a week ago. But what woman bought a Scottish castle with the money she inherited from the husband she murdered?

  Even better: what murderer invited her cop friend to visit?

  “Thank you, Toby.” Cat looked at the bellhop. “That’ll be all.”

  He nodded and left, as Cat faced Margot. “You can put your things in the wardrobe.” Cat nodded to a modest built-in armoire on the far wall.

  Margot released a sigh. “If I don’t get some rest I’ll get cranky.”

  Cat laughed. “And none of us want that.” She crossed to the door. “Come downstairs when you wake up.” She grasped the door handle, then paused and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, stay off the balcony. The wrought iron railing is dangerously loose. I don’t want you falling into the water below.”

  Margot jerked her gaze onto the French doors that opened onto a balcony. A shiver snaked up her spine, and ex-Deputy Sheriff Margot Saulnier jumped at the soft click of the door shutting.

  Chapter Two

  Margot turned right and another hallway in the castle stretched out before her, this one in deeper shadow than the last. She glanced behind her. A single sconce created an eerie shadow dance across the stone walls and floor. She startled at sight of a heavy oak door on the corner of the bend in the hallway. The doorway hadn't been there when she’d walked past. Besides, how could a room be built on the corner of two hallways? Margot hesitated, then faced forward, took one step, another, and another until a door came into view on the left.

  She stopped at the door, grasped the handle, and pressed down on the latch. The soft click of latch releasing from catch sent a prickle up her arms. In the last two hallways, door after door had been locked. Her fingers trembled on the handle. Well damn, what would the boys back home in Wilkinson County think of Deputy Sheriff Saulnier unnerved by an unlocked door?

  Margot released the handle and pressed against the wood, easing the door open. To her right, low flames bobbed in a fireplace. A sword and dagger hung over the mantle. The blades pointed toward an antique bowl and pitcher sitting on a small table between an open door in the corner of the room and the floor-length curtains opposite her.

  She leaned forward and peered around the door. An ornate four-poster bed stood against the left wall, gray draperies swaged between posts. The burgundy quilt that covered the bed was turned back as if in invitation to crawl between the snow-white sheets. An odd sense of familiarity nudged. Had she been here before?

  Hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention. She swung her gaze to the right and sucked in a breath. A man stood in the corner doorway. Intense brown eyes stared back at her just as they had that afternoon when she’d seen him standing in the main entrance of Castle Morrison.

  Butterflies tickled the inside of her stomach. Standing this close, she wanted to run her fingers through the tousled dark curls that brushed his shoulders. Low firelight softened the square jaw shadowed by stubble. The green and red checked sash that had draped his shoulders earlier now hung loosely about a kilt held in place by a thick leather belt and buckle. A crisp, white shirt stretched taught across his muscled chest. Margot released a silent breath. Memory hadn’t done him justice. He seemed taller, broader…more dangerous.

  His eyes narrowed. “How did ye get here?”

  Despite the soft burr that caressed her like a summer breeze heavy with damp heat, she couldn’t miss the recrimination in his voice. She didn't know how she’d gotten here, any more than she knew how he had appeared in the painting of the castle that hung over the fireplace in her room. When she'd arrived at Castle Morrison that afternoon he hadn't been in the picture. But she'd woken from her nap two hours later to see him standing in the main entrance, his expression of anticipation painted in exquisite detail. He’d been waiting for someone. A woman, she realized.

  “Did your lady friend show up?”

  Surprise flashed in his eyes, but vanished in thin-lipped disapproval. “You will return from whence ye came, if you have any sense about you—” his tone suggested she had no sense, “—and quickly.”

  His gaze raked her body, and she glanced down at the gold colored, satin pajamas she’d worn to bed. Her nipples stood at attention. Tit for tat, she figured, and shifted her gaze past the kilt to his bare legs. Her pulse skittered. She’d heard that Scots didn’t wear underwear under kilts. No doubt about it, underwear or no underwear, that outfit would get him arrested in her hometown of Woodville, Mississippi. The entire population, a whopping one thousand, two hundred and fifteen, would show up, Bibles in one hand, rifles in the other, to ensure he dressed as every God fearing person was meant to dress.

  “I felt certain you had more sense than the others,” he said, then added in a mutter, “Foolish girl.”

  “What others? You know me?”

  “If you believe he will let ye escape—”

  Awareness zipped up her spine. She glanced sharply behind her through the open door.

  “What is amiss?” he demanded.

  The faint crash of waves caught her attention and she looked to the curtains at the far side of the room. Memory struck a cord. She had been here before—or in the castle, that is. This was Castle Morrison. She’d arrived that afternoon. Desire ripped through her.

  Margot yanked her attention back onto the man. “You wouldn’t be dabbling in bayou magic, would you, sugar?”

  She’d never put much stock in the black magic the women back home secretly practiced, but neither had she felt anything mess with her insides like that.

  “Magick?” he repeated.

  Unease brought th
e hairs on the back of her neck to attention. “You stay right there,” she ordered, and turned back to the hall.

  Margot glanced right, then left, and spotted another door up ahead on the right. Well, damn, another door had magically appeared. An uncomfortable flush warmed her as she took a step toward it. Another wave of longing tightened her belly. Strong fingers closed around her arm and yanked her back into the room. The door slammed shut with a crash and he shoved her against the hard wood. Margot yanked her gaze onto the stranger’s face. He stared down at her, the dark irises swirling as if a tornado raged in their depths. She sucked in a breath. Bayou magic, if ever she’d seen it.

  A prickle dug into her flesh like tiny needles, but she kept her gaze locked with his. “I don’t take kindly to be accosted.” She tried stepping past him.

  He shoved her back against the door. “Do no' be a fool.”

  “Not many folks call me a fool to my face.”

  “If you answer his call, you will be a dead fool.”

  She tensed, but said in her cool cop’s voice, “That sounds like a threat.”

  “No threat. Fact.”

  “I like threats even less than being accosted.”

  His eyes darkened. “He shall not have another victim.”

  He yanked her to him. His belt buckle dug into her stomach, but the pressure of his erection against her belly caught her attention. The need to impale herself on him halted the fist she had ready to punch his belly. Sweet Christ, it had been some time since she'd had a man, but had it been so long that the first hard cock to come along was enough to induce her to fuck a stranger?

  He unbuttoned two buttons of her pajama top and pushed the sleeves down her arms. Cool air puckered her nipples even tighter. His gaze dropped to her breasts. It hadn’t been so long she'd forgotten the meaning of his sharp intake of breath. Desire pooled between her legs. Hell, it seemed that needing to be fucked was enough after all.