She made herself a mug of tea and sat back down. She hadn’t kept up with the others who’d been in Nicky’s group. After that horrible night, she’d never wanted to see any of them again. But now she was wondering what had become of them.
She spent the rest of the day researching and reading.
Two
“What do you think she’s up to?” Jack asked.
They were on an overnight flight to London, first class courtesy of Sara. Kate and Jack were in the center, each with a seat that made into a bed, while Sara was across the aisle. Their TVs were turned off.
“Are you asking if I believe Aunt Sara just wants a vacation and that she’s actually thinking of writing another romance?”
Jack gave a one-sided smile. “That’s exactly what I’m asking.” He waited for her answer.
“It’s a mystery.”
He chuckled at the double entendre: a mystery as to why and possibly a mystery to be solved.
Kate changed the subject. “Was Gil okay taking over your business?”
“He was glad to get rid of me. He said I was so emotionally involved with the remodel of the Morris house that I was a pest and...” Jack trailed off, not wanting to repeat his foreman’s language. “He’ll do fine.”
“You need a vacation.”
“What about you? Think Kirkwood Realty can live without you?”
Kate stretched her legs on the long seat. Just months ago she’d sold her boss’s big house, and the commission was enough to allow her to take some time off. She’d been able to send money to her mother and had indulged her love of clothing with a few designer outfits from The Outnet. She did love a bargain! “I think they’ll do very well without me. What do you know about this hotel?”
“Only that years ago Sara shelled out a lot to restore it.”
“This must have been before she got together with you or she would have sent you with your tool belt to do the remodel.” Sara had been a silent partner in Jack’s construction company since he was eighteen years old.
“Okay, so what’s the truth?”
“I think she’s bored,” Kate said. “For many years she wrote two books a year. That’s a quarter of a million words. Then she retired. She had nothing but free time.”
“So she traveled a lot. Saw the world.”
“Yes, then she bought that big house and had you remodel it. That was exciting.”
“Me or the house?”
“The house, of course.” Kate was smiling.
“And we moved in with her.”
“That was definitely exciting,” Kate said.
“Especially since we solved a few murders.”
“For which we got no credit.”
“You want people knocking on your door asking you to help solve what happened to their great-uncle fifty years ago?”
“I thought this conversation was about Aunt Sara,” Kate said. “If it’s about me, I’m going to sleep.”
“Beside me,” Jack murmured.
“Behave or I’ll switch seats with Aunt Sara.”
Jack made a sign of hand over heart.
“Why is she sending us off to faraway Scotland while she stays at Oxley Manor?” Kate asked.
“To give us time to be alone? Just us in all that heather? Hey! Did you know that my ancestry allows me to wear the full Scottish regalia? How do you think I’d look in a kilt?”
For a moment, Kate blinked at that image. Jack was a very handsome man. She shook her head a bit to clear it. “Back to my aunt. In the last year—”
“Of peace,” Jack said.
“Yes, in a year of peace and quiet, Aunt Sara has kept busy, but...”
“There’s been nothing to keep her brain fully occupied.”
“Right. I think maybe she’s going toward something rather than away from it,” Kate said.
“What makes you think that?”
“I, uh, did a little snooping about this hotel.”
“No! You? Innocent Kate?”
She narrowed her eyes, but he just smiled. “In 1994, some friends were having a party at Oxley Manor. Two of them walked out the door and were never seen again.”
“A male and a female?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds normal to me. They just wanted to get away from everyone they knew. I’ve felt the same way many times.” With a glance at Kate, he said, “Before I met you, of course. What else was there?”
“That’s all I could find. It was a tiny piece in a local newspaper.”
“Doesn’t sound very mysterious. What made you think it has anything to do with this trip?”
“It was important enough that Aunt Sara was using the clipping as a marker in the book she was reading. It was about true crimes. Don’t look at me like that! I was curious about the book and the paper fell out.”
“You think she’s planning to stay at the hotel to research what happened while you and I go to bonny Scotland? I like that idea.”
“You’d leave her alone to investigate all by herself?” She sounded shocked.
“She was researching her novels before I was born. Don’t tell her I said that! She hasn’t discovered that she’s no longer about twenty-six.”
Kate looked at him. “Aunt Sara might not know her age, but we do.”
Jack groaned. “Please not a mystery to solve. I want a vacation in the Highlands. I grew up in Florida. I’m curious about cold weather. It gets to sixty-eight and I turn on the heat. Sara bought me a sweater for this trip. It’s made of wool.”
“I grew up in Chicago and cold is overrated. And no one is keeping you from going anywhere.”
“You’re going to let me run around the Highlands in a kilt all by myself?”
“If that’s what you want to do, yes.”
Jack closed his eyes and said nothing.
“There’s no law saying you can’t wear a kilt in England,” she said softly.
Smiling, Jack opened his eyes. “I think we should wait until we get there and see what’s going on.”
“We have a plan!” Kate pressed the button to flatten her seat for sleeping.
“Why do I feel like I’ve just been manipulated?” he asked.