Probably coincidental, right? There weren’t a lot of places to live in a small village like Ardnoch.
“Don’t drive any farther,” I ordered as we approached and gestured to a spot outside a neighboring bungalow. “Park here.”
Gillies did as I instructed, and both men looked at me over their shoulders as if to say, “What now?”
If they accompanied me, neighbors would definitely be suspicious. They looked like the Men in Black.
“Wait here.”
“No,” Smithy said flatly. “We’re under strict orders to stay with you at all times.”
“You’re not exactly inconspicuous, and it’s important that no one sees me. Now, I could have easily lost you by taking off through the backyard of my dad’s cottage, but I’m not an idiot, I’m not at my physical best, and going anywhere alone right now would make me a moron.” I leaned into them. “But where I’m going, no one is home. I just need to check some things out. I have my phone. If you give me your number, I’ll call you from up there”—I gestured to the apartment block—“if I need you.”
It seemed to take them forever to deliberate, but finally, Gillies took my phone and typed in his info, replacing Mac as my first speed-dial number. Irritating, but I’d fix it later.
“Great. I won’t be long.” I got out and forced myself to stride with relaxed casualness up to the building. I also tried not to look like I was checking out the building numbers while I actually was. If any of Fergus’s neighbors were watching, I wanted them to think I’d been here before and was perfectly welcome.
Slipping my hand into my pocket as I strutted upstairs to the second floor, I pulled out the bobby pins I’d grabbed from my stuff back at Mac’s. Following the concrete gallery around to the side of the building that housed Fergus’s apartment, I pulled one of the bobby pins apart and hoped I could do this as fast as I used to be able to.
Heart hammering, I got to his door and took another bobby pin in hand and bent the entire thing at a right angle to create a lever.
Inserting it into the lock, hoping my back hid my activities from outside view and I just looked like I was turning a key, I took the other splayed pin, made a loop out of the end for gripping and began to pick the lock.
Sweating, because it took me longer than it should have, I forced myself not to look over my shoulder and sighed with relief as I heard the door click open. Removing the bobby pins, I pushed into the apartment and quietly closed the door behind me. My ribs ached from the tension.
Believe it or not, it was Regan who taught me how to pick a lock with bobby pins. She googled it when she was a teenager for a reason still unbeknownst to me. But I thought it was a neat skill that might come in handy one day.
Thank you, baby sister.
It was dark—the curtains over the front window were shut.
Letting my eyes adjust to the gloom, I tried to hear over the rush of blood in my ears.
Nothing.
Stealthily, I made my way through the small apartment, checking every one of the four rooms, including behind cupboard doors. The apartment was empty.
But the fourth room was behind a locked door.
My heart rate escalated.
A locked door was never a good thing, right?
Making quick work of the lock with my bobby pins, I pushed inside and fumbled for a light switch. It snapped upward, and light flooded the tiny room.
“Holy shit.” A wave of nausea washed over me.
The room was obviously used for storage but scattered across the floor, as if he’d emptied the box and didn’t have time to tidy it, were photo albums, loose photographs, and magazine clippings. Lowering to my knees, I opened the albums and inhaled sharply.
The Adair family.
With Fergus.
Photos of him as a little boy, growing up with them. Most of the shots were of him and Brodan. But there was a cluster of photos of him and Arrochar, and when I saw those, I sucked in a breath.
Were the Adairs that blind?
The way Fergus looked at Arrochar was almost the same as how he looked at Brodan.
Pure hero worship.
There was a photo of Fergus with Arrochar at the ceilidh weeks ago. His arm around her, beaming at the camera. He wasn’t over her?
And the magazine articles were all about Brodan. Every single one of them. His face was blacked out with a marker in all of them.
Shit.
I lifted the lid on another nearby box and found more magazines. Another box filled with every film Brodan had starred in.
Where Lachlan fit in, I wasn’t sure. The messages were left for him, but … these boxes didn’t say proud friend. They told me with absolute certainty that Brodan, in particular, was the focus of Fergus’s obsession.
But why?
I yanked my phone out of my pocket because I had what I needed. We’d go to the police with the post-it notes and cards so they could use it to obtain a warrant to search Fergus’s apartment. The evidence needed to be collected legally, which meant I needed to get out of there and get the notes to the police. Wanting to give Dad the heads up, I scrolled through my contacts trying to find him now that Gillies had taken him off my speed dial.
The phone burst into song in my hand as it rang, and I startled, cursing under my breath.
The number came up as unknown.
Usually, I’d ignore unknown numbers.
However, a strange sensation of foreboding shivered down my spine, and my thumb hit the answer button before I could think about it. “Hello.”
There was heavy breathing down the line.
Chilled, I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if Fergus knew I was in his apartment.
“Hello?” I bit out angrily as I stalked out into the main living space, standing in the middle of the room so no fucker could get the jump on me.
“Is this Robyn Penhaligon?” a voice that was clearly masked using a voice-changing app asked. The accent was Scottish, however.
I swallowed hard. “Who is this?”
“I have Lachlan Adair.”
My heart lurched in my throat. No.
“When I get off the phone, I’ll text you directions to his location. If you want to save him, you’ll shake your bodyguards and come alone.”
Fuck. I wanted to say his name. To say, I know it’s you, you asshole. But the thought of putting Lachlan in further danger stopped me.
“I’m watching you, Robyn. I’ll know if you step on this land with those men at your back.”
He hung up.
Shaking with the rush of adrenaline, I tried to figure out how to get rid of my security. Then I remembered Fergus mentioned he owned a motorcycle.
I was rummaging through his drawers for keys when the text came in.
Pulling up my maps app, I tried to figure out where he was sending me.
From my guess … oh shit.
McCulloch land.
Anger ripped through me as I stormed into the kitchen, wrenching open drawers to look for keys. It had been that old bastard all along!
Finding a key that looked like it could fit a motorcycle, I snatched it and let myself out through the French doors off the kitchen that led onto a balcony. The balcony overlooked the parking lot and was hidden from the street at the front of the building where Gillies and Smithy waited.
Ignoring my aching ribs, I climbed onto a drainpipe attached to the building and shimmied down the cold metal. Even that slight drop to the ground shot shards of pain into my ribs, but I didn’t have time to take a breath.