“A city.”
Those huge rectangles were buildings, he realized, lit against the night sky. How could that be? It looked like no city Hugh had ever seen, and he wasn’t naïve. He had seen much of the world and what it had to offer. He had seen the soaring spires of the greatest castles in Europe, but none of them had reached such heights as this. And the tallest one of all seemed to be held up by nothing more than thin legs. These buildings touched the heavens and were lit with a thousand colorful lights. Blue lights flashing against the sky. Red ones. How?
A tremor snaked its icy chill through Hugh’s chest.
What a fool he had been to think that one world was much like next. To think that he was equipped to face what lay before him. To think that he might even do it all alone. It had all seemed so simple in Sorcha’s home, with walls blocking out the horrible reality of his situation, when there was some joy to be found for an inquiring mind.
But this?
When faced with such a harsh reality, Hugh realized he had about as much influence over his own life as an ant did beneath a man’s boot.
“How am I to survive this, Sorcha? I had thought I might …” he whispered into the brisk night air, shaking his head. “But, nae. This place is foreign. Nae even that. I might hae become accustomed tae a foreign land, but this is alien tae me. ’Twas a simple thing yesterday and today during our journey tae hide beneath bravado and humor. Tae ignore what I knew deep in my soul and cast aside my … fear.” Hugh swallowed as he finally said the word, which was almost as alien to him as this land. He had never truly felt its power before. Never understood how it could seize a man’s soul. Not even in the heat of battle had he felt such terror.
“Hugh,” Sorcha whispered, breaking her own rule to reach out and squeeze his shoulder sympathetically.
Hugh did not pull away as he normally would have in the face of such compassion. Indeed, he longed to give in to a childish impulse to lay his head against her soft bosom and be cradled like a bairn in need. “I ken nothing of this world, Sorcha. Nothing at all, and it is that verra ignorance that frightens me more than anything else.”
“The one good thing about ignorance, Hugh, is that it can be cured,” she told him. “I can teach you what you need to know.”
Hugh raised a haughty brow, and Sorcha answered it with a sheepish grin, adding, “And what I can’t teach you, books and the power of the Internet can. You’ll be fine. We’ll get through this together.”
He envied Sorcha her conviction on the matter. “I wish I had such faith.”
“I thought you medieval men were all about faith and religious quests.”
“I hae told ye before, I …” Hugh started irritably but halted at the sight of her mischievous grin. “Ye think to solve all our woes wi’ humor.”
“Great minds think alike. It worked for you, right?” Sorcha drew her jacket more tightly around her, hugging her arms tightly over her chest. “Now, let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
Hugh took off his sport coat and threw it around her shoulders. Sorcha was a study in contradiction. Bold enough to brave the authorities of her own country but not the cold. Wary but trusting. Solemn but humorous. Her words of wit had often been biting in their humor, but when Sorcha had lost herself to laughter that afternoon in the car, her bonny face had lost all traces of the sadness that seemed to always linger there, replacing it with unmitigated joy.
That laughter had lit her eyes and softened her features, her winsome smile blinding white and radiant. The sight of it had filled his heart with the same light. Hugh had never seen anything so enchanting. He had wanted to frame her face in his hands and kiss her thoroughly, sharing in that joy. Their agreement kept him from doing so, but the sight had inspired more desire in him than her scant nightwear of the previous evening.
Now, she burrowed deep into the warmth of his jacket and smiled up at him freely, as if their shared laughter had demolished any barriers between them. As if somewhere along their journey she had crossed over the line between benefactor and friend. “Won’t you be cold?”
The cold wind could hardly cool the desire warming his veins. Hugh could only scoff. “Ye would ne’er hae survived in my time.”
“Let’s get you through mine first, then maybe we’ll test that.”
A smile tugged at the corner of Hugh’s mouth and he bent in a courtly bow. “I will expect ye tae honor yer challenge.”
“Mrs. Manning,” Phil Jameson called as he pounded on the door to the townhouse one last time before stepping back and nodding to the nervous man at his side. “If you could, please.”
“I have to tell you that I can’t imagine Mrs. Manning being in any kind of trouble,” Rogers, the townhouse’s landlord, said as he shakily inserted his master key into the lock.
Jameson didn’t deign to respond. While it was true that he didn’t have any evidence against Claire Manning, he was certain she was aiding the anomaly in some way. Only three people had left the campus before the lockdown. But of the three, only Claire and one other had been seen near Fielding’s office. After hours of watching the video surveillance, he had pulled the feed on her as she had driven past the security gate. There had been something in her expression—not fear but enough of something—to make her the likely culprit. None of the others leaving the lab had looked even mildly suspicious.
Only her.
She had been forced into helping in the escape, he knew it. Now all he needed was the proof.
The only thing that didn’t make sense was her behavior when he had come to this townhouse before. She had been breezy then, deliberately so. When compared to the expression captured on the video camera just hours before, the change between them was primarily what had caught and held his mistrust.
“Search every room,” Jameson ordered the fistful of men under his command, a combination of NSA and INSCOM personnel charged with the suppression and containment of the lab breach. The men fanned out through the townhouse, leaving Rogers lingering nervously at the door. “Bring me something.”
“I can’t imagine why you would think that this Manning woman helped at all,” Agent Nichols, his INSCOM counterpart who was in joint command of their task force, said. “There is nothing to link her to the experiment.”
“Call it a gut instinct,” Jameson said, though the question plagued him as well. Why? He had seen the footage from the cellblock that Fielding’s office had become. The escapee was a brute of a thing, capable of killing Claire Manning without effort. Clearly, it had forced her aid to escape. So why hadn’t she confessed when she had the chance? What could it have threatened her with?
Jameson looked around the townhouse. Everything was tidy and neat. The sink was empty, and the dishes in the dishwasher were clean. There were no signs of either an unwanted guest or a forced departure.
“Jameson, sir,” one of Nichols’ junior INSCOM agents called out.
“What do you have?”
“Not much, sir. No purse or keys, but that doesn’t mean much. Nothing else looks to be missing, though it would be hard to tell from a woman’s closet if she took anything from it,” the junior agent, Majors, said.
“Come on, people!” Jameson barked irritably. “There must be something!”
“Sir, I think I have something!”
Jameson turned to find one of his own agents standing at the head of the stairs. “What is it, Marshall?”
“We’ve found what look to be traces of blood in the shower drain, sir.”
Was it Claire Manning’s or the anomaly’s, Jameson wondered? It didn’t matter. The blood was enough. For him at least. “That’s it! Let’s get a BOLO out on Mrs. Manning’s car. I want to know where they are and where they’re going!”
Nichols raised a brow. “On what grounds? A little blood? Gut or not, in my opinion, you’re barking up the wrong tree here, Jameson.”
“And when I find Claire Manning harboring our anomaly you will be proven wrong.”
Chapter 14
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nbsp; Claire punched the four-digit code into the garage door opener mounted on the wooden frame of the door and was rewarded by the whine of the small engine as the door began to rise. Rushing back to the car, she pulled Goose into the empty bay next to her Uncle Robert’s bulky Chevy Tahoe before turning off the engine.
“Well, here it is. Our hideaway until we can figure out how to get away.”
“Again, I cannot thank ye enough, Sorcha,” Hugh said solemnly.
“You can thank me by hauling in the groceries,” Claire said cheerfully, determined to keep the atmosphere as light as possible following Hugh’s heart-rending confessions aboard the ferry. That sudden vulnerability had torn at her heart and she had nearly given in to the impulse to hug him, to soothe away his fears. For the remainder of the trip, they had stood side by side at the rail with their backs to the city skyline while Hugh had ruminated on his troubles. All Claire had been able to do was absorb the warmth of his blazer and fight the urge to bury her face in the collar, breathe in the manly scent, and bask in the warmth in his eyes.
Now, she got out of the car and went to the interior door, hitting the button to lower the garage door, effectively hiding the car from plain sight. “I’ll go turn on some lights and then, before you even need to ask, I’ll cook you some dinner.”
Hugh’s dazzling smile flashed in the dim light provided by the garage door opener. “It pleases me that we are getting tae know one another so well.”
Claire shook her head with a chuckle, glad that he was retaining his sense of humor through all this. “I hate to disappoint you, but you’re really not that much of a mystery, Hugh.”
The Scot merely grunted humorously at that and went to the back of the Prius to retrieve their meager luggage and the groceries they had stopped to buy at a market not far from the ferry depot before Claire had guided her car through the winding, wooded roads that led to the north end of Bainbridge Island.
‘Uncle Robert’s’ home was just north of Fay Bainbridge State Park, looking out over Puget Sound to the east and Port Madison to the north. The style of the house itself was a little modern meets Capetown chic. The exterior that wasn’t covered in plate glass was sided with cedar shakes. That was about as traditional as it got.
The inside was pure modern luxury, with an expansive kitchen of dark walnut, granite, and stainless steel that would make any chef weep with joy. It had all the best toys, from the 60” Wolf range and 72” Sub-Zero refrigerator to the built-in cappuccino maker. Claire fanned her fingers over the cool granite of the enormous center island and looked out the huge bank of plate glass windows that faced Puget Sound. The windows were black against the night beyond, with not a streetlight to pierce the darkness, but they did reflect her image as clearly as a mirror and Claire stared at herself in wonder.
She was alone in the veritable wilderness with a man she had met—she used the term loosely—just thirty-six hours before, a hugely powerful, yet oddly gentle Scotsman from another time. She had basically ordered Robert to make sure no one else knew about it and was entirely comfortable with that.
Wowzah, how her life had changed.
“Are ye well, Sorcha?” Hugh asked as he dropped the grocery bags on the counter.
“Fine. Fine. I’m fine,” she intoned, waving her hands, moving around the island to put the perishable groceries into the fridge and simply arranging the others off to the side. She didn’t want to infringe on Aunt Sue’s kitchen more than necessary. “Just tired, I guess. It was a long drive.”
“If ye’d care tae instruct me, I could assume that duty in the future,” he offered.
“Ha! Don’t hold your breath,” she sallied as she searched for a cutting board and knives to start slicing the zucchini and squash she planned to grill along with some mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. “I imagine you have a hell of a speed demon buried deep in you. There’s a wine fridge over there,” she said, pointing with her knife. “Why don’t you pick us out something? I know I could use a drink.” She’d have to remember to reimburse Robert later, Claire thought, making a mental reminder. “Or there might be some beer in the fridge in the garage.”
Hugh shook his head. “Yer beer tastes like piss.”
Claire choked on a bubble of laughter. “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.”
With a broad grin, Hugh turned as directed toward the wine bar but paused and asked with blatant curiosity, “What is this?”
The question was so common between them by that point that Claire barely looked up. “It’s a jigsaw puzzle. Uncle Robert loves them and always keeps one out on the table to work on. He usually picks the hardest ones and never finishes them. I think he bronzed the only one he ever completed as some kind of trophy.”
Silence prevailed, drawing Claire’s attention more fully than the question, and she looked up to find Hugh thoughtfully studying the puzzle before he picked up a piece, setting it neatly—and accurately—in place. Claire’s brows rose, but her jaw sagged when he immediately placed another. “Are you kidding me?” she said, then snapped her mouth shut. “How the hell are you doing that?”
Hugh just shrugged. “I’ve always been good wi’ puzzles of all sorts. Wi’ seeing patterns in things.” He picked up another and then another, putting them in place.
“Remind me after dinner to have you watch a little movie called Rain Man. Somehow I think it’s right up your alley.”
“It troubles ye, this skill?” he asked, tilting his head inquiringly at her tone.
“Nope, it just puzzles me,” Claire quipped, then smiled at her own pun before turning to flip on the infrared grill at the center of the Wolf cooktop. She tossed the vegetables in olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper before dumping them on the grill.
Hugh returned to the kitchen with a bottle of wine and a relaxed grin, searching the drawers in companionable silence for a corkscrew, and the cupboards for glasses. Moments later he was handing her a glass. “It says it’s an Oregon Pinot Noir. I’ve ne’er heard of the region so I thought tae be adventurous and try something new.”
Claire clinked her glass to his and raised a teasing brow. “Trying something new? How shocking! I’m sure you’ve never before had a chance to do that!”
“Nae, ne’er,” he rejoined with equally playful facetiousness as they drank.
Claire felt those smiles, his and her own, all the way down to her soul. The banter was nice, lighthearted. Enjoyable. Hugh Urquhart, for all fate had dealt him, was turning out to be a pretty likeable guy. There was nothing like a road trip for a bonding experience, and Claire felt that somewhere between the KitKat and the Whatchamacallit, she and Hugh Urquhart had become friends. The tension born of wariness and uncertainty was definitely gone, even if another sort of tension had taken its place. Claire decided that continued denial in that area would serve her well. “Give me five minutes for your steak and we’ll be ready to eat.”
Hugh nodded and looked around the room before opening one of the glass-paned French doors and stepping out onto the huge deck that ran the length of the house. Puget Sound was just feet away, however though the moon reflected of the smooth waters, it was too dark to have much to look at. A moment later he returned. “’Tis a charming cottage, quite—what was the word ye used? High-tech?”
“Uncle Robert does like his toys,” Claire said by way of agreement. “Feel free to look around. There’s a pretty nice library past the living room. Robert and Sue are both big readers.”
Hugh nodded and wandered that way, looking this way and that as Claire poked a meat thermometer into the filet mignon she’d put on the grill with the veggies. The steak had been expensive and certainly they wouldn’t be eating this way every night, but she was sure that Hugh would appreciate some red meat.
A short while later, she heard him call from the other room, “I found one of Arouet’s books! I can scarcely credit it, though it is a work I’m nae familiar wi’. How can I tell when was it written?”
“The date should be beh
ind the title page,” she called from the kitchen. She flipped the big steak with the tongs and tested the top of it with her finger for doneness. Satisfied, she filled two plates with the grilled vegetables and turned to retrieve the steak. “Come and get it!
Hugh emerged from the library with the book open in his hands. “It wasnae written until after I left Europe. Many years after, in fact.”
“I’m more surprised there is even a book in there by this Arouet guy. What is it called?” Hugh snapped the book shut and held it out to her, but Claire didn’t need to take it from him. The tongs holding his steak were forgotten in her hand as she stared agog at the title clearly visible on the cover. “That’s Candide,” she said in disbelief. “I thought you said your friend’s name was Francois something.”
“Aye, Francois-Marie Arouet,” Hugh nodded, flipping the book open once again. “He wrote some of his work under the nom de plume Voltaire. I confess I ne’er thought it would last.”
“You knew Voltaire?” Claire asked dumbly, punctuating the words with a wave of the steak.
“Aye, I met him in Frederick’s court in Berlin and stayed wi’ him at Chateau de Cirey for many months, though his mistress dinnae appreciate my presence,” Hugh said offhandedly as he perused the first several pages of the book. “They had a wondrous library of over twenty thousand books.”
“You knew Voltaire?”
“Aye, Sorcha, did I nae just say so?” Hugh raised a brow, cautiously eyeing the meat she was waving around. “Perhaps ye should put that down while it is still edible. Voltaire, as ye call him, had some interesting notions on politics and religion as well. I always thought it would be interesting tae witness an exchange between him and Hume on the subject. I daresay that would hae been quite a remarkable debate.”
Claire groaned, finally laying the steak to rest on the plate. “Not David Hume?”
“Aye, we went tae University in Edinburgh together. Hae ye heard of him?” Hugh asked, still engrossed in the book. “I know many of his first writings were nae met wi’ success.”
A Time & Place for Every Laird Page 11
