“She’s a resourceful girl. Maybe she’s met a man who whisked her away.”
How clever of Mrs. Dawson to offer a plausible explanation for Helen’s disappearance.
“Don’t you think she’d call if that were the case?”
Amber slid the cloak off one shoulder and took a deep breath.
“Have you ever been in love, Philip?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
Amber grasped the edge of the cloak and allowed it to leave her back. The room pitched and swam, causing nausea to rise in her throat. Mrs. Dawson and Philip were deep in conversation, neither of them paying her any attention.
Amber hugged the cloak to her stomach. Mrs. Dawson’s anxiety rose in Amber’s mind.
Mavis, was questioning the sudden appearance of all Mrs. Dawson’s houseguests, worried that they were there to steal some of Mrs. Dawson’s wealth.
“Love makes a person do crazy things.”
The pounding behind Amber’s ear surged through her head and her palms began to sweat.
“Has Helen told you about a man in her life?” Philip asked.
“No.”
Amber felt a twinge behind the word, telling her Mrs. Dawson lied.
“I hope you’re right. That this search for her is in vain.” Philip’s words held the same twinge. He didn’t want Helen to show up with a man on her arm. He lied, but why?
“Do you think she’ll return with a suitor?” Amber asked.
Philip turned and fixed her with a stare.
Mrs. Dawson eyed the cloak and forced her concern away.
“As long as she returns, I really don’t care who she shows up with.”
Again with the lies.
Stepping closer, Amber smiled. “I hope you’re right, Mrs. Dawson.”
Every step closer to Philip felt as if she walked in mud. Something dark hovered over the man, but Amber couldn’t read it. She let the cloak dangle in her arms. When she was close enough to the man, she pretended to trip.
Philip held out a hand to steady her. When his fingers touched her flesh the mud around his emotions splashed away and left dirty, readable water.
Philip Lyons was not an innocent man searching for a friend.
Helen would do well to stay clear of him.
“How clumsy of me. Much thanks,” she told Philip before shaking his hand off. As much as she probably should have held on to learn more of his secrets, the pain of his presence was unbearable.
Mrs. Dawson pushed forward and helped Amber return the cloak to her shoulders. “You’ve hardly recovered from your cold, m’dear. You should keep this on.”
As the cloak silenced the emotions in the room, Amber started to breathe easier.
“I should be going,” Philip said. “Let me know if you hear anything.”
“I will.”
“A pleasure meeting you.” Philip nodded toward Amber and walked beside Mrs. Dawson as they left the room.
Amber slumped into the sofa, exhausted from her brief exposure.
When Mrs. Dawson returned to the room, the cane was gone along with her limp. “My God, are you okay?”
“I’m well.” Yet her hand trembled.
“You don’t lie well.”
“Nay, I suppose I don’t. But that man does.”
“Hold that thought. Let me call Helen and find something to calm your nerves.”
* * * *
Two blocks away from Mrs. Dawson’s house, Philip pressed an icon on his Smartphone and brought up the audio feed.
“Drink this,” he heard Mrs. Dawson’s voice.
Good, they haven’t left the library.
“What is it?”
“It’s stronger than wine. You look like you need it.”
Philip remembered the washed out color on Amber’s beautiful face. Something had spooked the girl.
“Better?”
“Aye. Much.”
The thick accent of the girl sounded clearer than it had when he was in the room. Having just returned from Scotland, he recognized the lyrical tone.
“That man is not concerned about Helen’s well being.”
Philip held perfectly still.
“Are you sure?”
“He lied about the authorities. Lied about the desire for Helen to come home with a man. He’s after her.”
“Could you tell why?”
“Nay. But he won’t let her leave his sight once he finds her. Of that I’m certain.”
Philip fisted his palm.
“We need to warn her.”
He hit the dash of his car. “I knew they were lying. Old broad knows where she is.” He turned up the sound.
“They’re on their way home now.” Mrs. Dawson’s voice sounded farther away.
“Is that safe?”
“Safer than if she were out there by herself. Here she’ll have everyone’s protection.”
Who is everyone?
“Seems we’ve run from one battle to another.”
“Philip is only one man. Not an army you’ve left behind. Come, help me in the kitchen. Baking always helps me calm down.” Mrs. Dawson’s voice drifted away as they left the room.
Philip tossed his phone to the side.
Helen wasn’t lost after all. She was hiding.
The spooky, longhaired beauty knew his secrets.
That wouldn’t do.
* * * *
“Now what?”
Helen ran her hands over her face. “I think it’s obvious. I need to emerge from the missing or risk exposing everyone here.”
“How will you explain your absence?” Myra asked.
“Mrs. Dawson’s already done that. I met a guy. We had a wild fling. Now I’m back.”
Simon winked her way.
“You have to keep Simon’s name out of it,” Lizzy said.
“I know. I’ll make something up.”
“You need to stay clear of Philip. The man wants more than your safe return.” Amber’s somber expression reminded Helen that this wasn’t a game.
“He won’t accost me in public. I can’t see him accosting me at all.”
“You didn’t think him capable of breaking into your home, either. Yet, we saw him do so.” Simon placed a hand over hers as he spoke.
The children were in the kitchen eating chocolate chip cookies with Mrs. Dawson. Cian stood by the door listening to the conversation, as usual, and offering nothing while Lizzy, Myra, Simon, and Amber helped Helen figure out their next move.
The kilts were tucked away along with the medieval swords. The only weapons at their disposal were their gifts. Though that might prove useful to Myra, who could move objects with her mind and Lizzy who could fly away if need be, Helen felt quite useless. Sure, Simon could shift into an animal and take out an enemy, but that wouldn’t exactly go unnoticed in a crowd of people. Even the kids could do some crazy-ass stuff.
Maybe it was time for Helen to try and flick a flame from her fingertips. She rubbed her fingers together with the thoughts.
“I’ll take Amber with me to the office and have you or Cian wait outside for us.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I can’t hide forever, Simon. Besides, we need to know what Philip is after.”
“He’s after you,” Amber insisted.
“He has had access to me for years. Why the sudden need now? There’s something I’m missing here.”
Lizzy kicked her feet up on the coffee table. “What do you know about the man’s personal life? He’s not married, right?”
“No.”
“Family? Brothers, sisters?”
“No clue. I think he said something about his parents being gone. That’s all I know.”
Lizzy glanced at Myra. “I think I might need to call in a favor.”
“Oh?”
“Todd’s old partner, Jake. Only he’s not old.” Lizzy reached for the phone. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. Man is he gonna flip.”
“Is that saf
e?” Myra asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be? It isn’t like we can fake getting older. If he’s still a cop, he’ll have the ability to do a background check on Philip. See if there’s anything in his past to point to what he’s up to now.”
Lizzy left the room with the cordless phone in her hand.
Helen shrugged and glanced at Simon. His jaw was set in a tight line, his expression grim. So much for worry-free days. “He’s just a man,” she assured him.
“We don’t know that.”
“I agree with Simon,” Amber added. “The man felt familiar to me.”
Helen tore her eyes away from Simon. “What do you mean familiar?”
“Strangers try to hide behind a mask of lies and a lack of expression but reading them is easy for me. I needed to lower my defenses to dig deeper into this man. He’s guarded, as if he knows someone is peering into his soul. I think he’s Druid.” Amber pulled her cloak closer to her frame.
Simon stood and started to pace the room. “If he is one of us, there is no telling what he’s capable of.”
Helen didn’t see the problem. Philip might be hiding something, but deep inside she didn’t think he was dangerous. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I’ve never thought of my boss as my enemy. The only way to figure out what he wants is to get near him.”
“No.”
Helen’s head shot toward Simon. “Excuse me?”
“He’s dangerous.” Simon’s tone was final. Good thing they weren’t in his century or Helen might feel obligated to listen. As it was, she didn’t.
“We don’t know that.”
“He’s dangerous until we prove otherwise.”
Myra, Amber, and Cian listened while Simon attempted to put his foot down.
“I think I know the man better than you.”
Simon’s jaw twitched. “You may know him, but we know Druids. We’ve seen what those who are evil are capable of. You haven’t.”
Something inside her shivered. Years of being on her own however, kept Helen from bowing to Simon’s will. Sure, something about Philip had always bothered her. She’d chocked that up to the man’s seeming interest in her as a woman. Now she knew it was deeper than that. Still, he wasn’t dangerous. The only way she’d prove that is to get near the man and prove he wasn’t going to do a thing to her.
Helen didn’t realize how still the room had become until Lizzy stepped back in. “I left a message…ah, what’s going on?” Liz slid to a stop and eyed her son before glancing at Helen.
Seconds ticked by without a word.
“Would someone please tell me what happened?”
Myra cleared her throat. “Helen wants to confront Philip and Simon was explaining how dangerous the man can be if he is in fact a Druid.”
“I don’t want to confront him, just spy on him to find out what he’s after. I can’t do that sitting around here hiding.”
When Liz nodded, Helen thought she had the woman’s support.
“The man broke into your apartment and followed you to Europe to spy on you. He isn’t a choirboy. Doesn’t mean he slices people up, but he’s not innocent.” Lizzy stood before Helen and broke some of the tension in the room. “I have a call into Jake at the station. With any luck, we’ll hear from him soon and we can draw in more information. Laying low for a couple more days won’t hurt.”
“Unless Philip returns and finds me here. Then what?”
“Then you’re surrounded by people who can protect you,” Simon said.
All her life Helen only depended on herself. What happened when everyone in the room returned to their time? Who would be there to protect her then?
No, Helen could count only on herself. She’d learned a thing or two living on the streets. Some of the urban knowledge would come in handy now. “Fine.” Let him think he won. From the look on Simon’s face, they’d be arguing until dawn if Helen didn’t relent.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I can’t believe I’m sitting next to you again.” Jake Nelson stared at Simon’s mother with his jaw on his chest. From what Fin had told Simon of the man, he wasn’t sure how much he could trust him. Jake might have been as close to a brother to Todd at one time, but he hadn’t made Simon’s mother and Fin’s stay in this century easy. According to Fin, Jake threatened to turn Liz and Fin into the police on several occasions, never believing their stories of time travel and magical powers.
Simon wondered what Nelson believed after he saw Fin and Liz disappear right in front of his eyes only two years ago. There was no denying his mother’s or Myra’s age. age, Myra’s, whom Jake had met.
“We didn’t think we’d need to return here either.”
Jake’s gaze swept over Myra’s frame and settled on her protruding stomach. “Isn’t it dangerous for you to…travel in your condition?”
Myra rubbed her belly. “We seem to be doing fine.”
“Where’s Todd?”
Worry filled Myra’s face. “Home. For our safety, and that of the children, we needed to travel without him.”
“Children?” Jake no sooner asked about them before several sets of footsteps ran down the hall and into the living room.
Fiona and Aislin sailed into the room at a run, Jake and Kyle fast on their heels.
“I tagged you!” Kyle hollered.
The ground under them started to shake when the girls came to a stop.
“Aislin, stop that,” Myra scolded her daughter, knowing it was her making the earth tremble beneath their feet.
Aislin slid behind her mother’s back and the room quieted. “Sorry.”
Myra reached around her daughter and pulled her close. “We have company.”
Jake and Kyle, both out of breath, stood taller and eyed Jake Nelson quietly.
“Jake,” Myra called her son to her side. When he made it to her, she lifted her hand in the older Jake’s direction. “Honey, I want you to meet the man your father and I named you after. Jake Nelson, this is our son, Jake Blakely.”
Jake Nelson’s speculative expression slid from his face like butter from hot bread. Little Jake was an exact replica of Todd and Nelson could see it. Todd’s son proudly put out his hand for the other man to shake.
“My father speaks of you all the time.”
“Does he?”
“Aye. Says you’re the brother he didn’t have.”
Nelson pulled in a quick breath and blew it out slowly. “When you see him again, tell him…tell him I feel the same.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Liz encouraged the children to play in another room while the adults talked.
“So, you’re Simon?” Jake said after the kids left the room.
Simon nodded.
“You realize you’re supposed to be a teenage kid, right?”
“I was at one time.”
Jake moved his gaze to Helen. “And you’re the latest ‘missing’ woman. Am I to believe that every missing person on the books is a time traveler?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Liz told him. “We’ve been free of visitors for over a decade. Helen stumbled upon us. We didn’t search for her.”
“Are you a Druid, too?”
Helen shrugged. “So I’m told. Hard to argue with the things I’ve seen in the last month.”
Liz spent a little time bringing Jake up to date on the reasons for their twenty first century visit. When they broached the need for Jake’s help, Simon and Helen took over the conversation.
“You want me to check this Philip guy for priors?”
“We’d like to know anything you can find out about him. Family, friends…places where he spends time outside of work.”
“I’m not a private investigator. I’m a cop.”
“He broke into my apartment. I saw him leaving.”
“Did he take anything?”
“No,” Helen said. “But then he followed me to Scotland.”
Jake removed a small notebook from his jacket pocket. “Spell
his name.”
Helen rambled off the spelling and offered his place of business with an address and phone number. After Jake stuffed the book away, he turned to Liz. “I’ll see what I can find. How long do you think you’ll be here?”
She shook her head. “We don’t know. But unlike before, we know we can get back and how. Helen has the key.”
Jake narrowed his eyes in Helen’s direction. “Seems to me if this Philip guy wanted to harm you, he would have by now. My guess is he’s searching for something. Something you have.”
“I don’t have anything. Before my trip to Scotland, I was an open book to the man.”
Jake stood and everyone in the room stood with him. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
At the door, he stopped. “Do you plan on disappearing again, Helen?”
The hair on Simon’s arms stood on end. Helen glanced his way with a flicker of uncertainty in her gaze. “N-no, not permanently anyway.”
“Then you might consider coming into the station sooner than later. Tell everyone you’re not a missing person and call off the search. Suspicion is higher when you’re found. Considering you’re the only one here with an identification that can be traced, it wouldn’t work well for anonymity to be found here.”
“Right.”
Simon stepped forward. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
Jake’s left eye twitched but he didn’t argue as Simon led him out. The others stayed behind.
“What else can I do for you, Simon?”
Smart man. “About identification. Maybe you could give me a name of someone who can create such a thing.”
“False ID would be illegal.”
“We both know I’m not a criminal. I need to protect Helen and don’t need to worry about being detained for deportation. Though I’m not sure where they would deport me to.”
Jake snorted. “Don’t you have some kind of special power that would help you get away?”
Simon flicked a finger in the air and a small flame shot in the sky. “A diversion wouldn’t stop the police from searching for me. Revealing to the world what we’re capable of would be catastrophic. We don’t need reporters camped out here.”
Reaching for the car door, Jake opened it and shifted one foot on the ledge. “I’ll see what I can do. But you didn’t get the information from me. I like my job, and have this crazy desire to eat. I was on probation for over a year after your mom and Fin disappeared the last time. I’m only helping because of Todd. But I have to look out for my kids first.”
Highland Shifter Page 21
