Alarm pricked the puzzlement as another thought occurred to him, and he grabbed the lid, checking the address label. Oxford. Yes, she had sent them here. Why here, when she’d known—or thought—that he meant to be in Scotland all summer? He would have been, if not for the last-minute conference—and he hadn’t told her about that.
Tucked in the last corner was a jewelry box, a small but substantial container. Inside were several rings, brooches, and sets of earrings. The cairngorm brooch he had given her for her birthday was there. Necklaces and chains. Two things weren’t.
The silver bracelet he had given her—and her grandmother’s pearls.
“Jesus bloody Christ.” He looked again, just to be sure, dumping out the glittering junk and spreading it on his counterpane. No pearls. Certainly no string of baroque Scottish pearls, spaced with antique gold roundels.
She couldn’t be wearing them, not to an engineering conference in Sri Lanka. The pearls were an heirloom to her, not an ornament. She seldom wore them. They were her link with—
“You didn’t,” he said aloud. “God, tell me you didn’t do it!”
He dropped the jewel box on the bed, and thundered down the stairs to the telephone room.
It took forever to get the international operator on the line, and a longer time yet of vague electronic poppings and buzzings, before he heard the click of connection, followed by a faint ringing. One ring, two, then a click, and his heart leapt. She was home!
“We’re sorry,” said a woman’s pleasant, impersonal voice, “that number has been disconnected, or is no longer in service.”
* * *
God, she couldn’t have! Could she? Yes, she bloody could, the reckless wee coof! Where in hell was she?
He drummed his fingers restlessly against his thigh, fuming, as the transatlantic phone line clicked and hummed, while connections were made, while he dealt with the endless delays and stupidities of hospital switchboards and secretaries. But at last he heard a familiar voice in his ear, deep and resonant.
“Joseph Abernathy.”
“Dr. Abernathy? This will be Roger Wakefield here. Do you know where Brianna is?” he demanded without preliminary.
The deep voice rose slightly in surprise.
“With you. Isn’t she?”
A cold chill washed over Roger, and he gripped the receiver harder, as though he could force it to give him the answer he wanted.
“She is not,” he made himself say, as calmly as he could. “She meant to come in the fall, after she took her degree and went to some conference.”
“No. No, that’s not right. She finished her coursework the end of April—I took her to dinner to celebrate—and she said she was going straight out to Scotland, without waiting for commencement. Wait, let me think…yeah, that’s right; my son Lenny drove her to the airport…when? Yeah, Tuesday…the 27th. You mean to say she didn’t get there?” Dr. Abernathy’s voice rose in agitation.
“I don’t know whether she got here or not.” Roger’s free hand was clenched into a fist. “She didn’t tell me she was coming.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Where was she flying to—which city, do you know? London? Edinburgh?” She might have meant to surprise him with a sudden, unexpected arrival. He’d been surprised, all right, but he doubted that was her intention.
Visions of kidnapping, assault, IRA bombings, drifted through his mind. Almost anything might have happened to a girl traveling alone in a large city—and almost anything that could have happened would be preferable to what his gut was telling him had happened. Damn the woman!
“Inverness,” Dr. Abernathy’s voice was saying in his ear. “Boston to Edinburgh, then the train to Inverness.”
“Oh, Jesus.” It was both a curse and a prayer. If she had left Boston on Tuesday, she would likely have made Inverness sometime on the Thursday. And Friday was the thirtieth day of April—the eve of Beltane, the ancient fire feast, when the hilltops of old Scotland had blazed with the flames of purification and fertility. When—perhaps—the door to the fairies’ hill of Craigh na Dun lay widest open.
Abernathy’s voice quacked in his ear, urgently demanding. He forced his attention to focus on it.
“No,” he said, with some difficulty. “No, she didn’t. I’m still in Oxford. I had no idea.”
The empty air between them vibrated, the silence filled with dread. He had to ask. He took another breath—he seemed to be taking them one at a time, each one a conscious effort—and changed his grip on the receiver, wiping his cramped and sweaty palm on the leg of his trousers.
“Dr. Abernathy,” he said carefully. “It’s just possible that Brianna’s gone to her mother—to Claire. Tell me—do you know where she is?”
The silence this time was charged with wariness.
“Ah…no.” Abernathy’s voice came slowly, reluctant with caution. “No, afraid I don’t. Not exactly.”
Not exactly. Great way to put it. Roger rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble rasp under his palm.
“Let me ask you this,” Roger said carefully. “Have you ever heard the name Jamie Fraser?”
The line was utterly silent in his hand. Then there came a deep sigh in his ear.
“Oh, Jesus Christ on a piece of toast,” Dr. Abernathy said. “She did it.”
* * *
Wouldn’t you?
That was what Joe Abernathy had said to him, at the conclusion of their lengthy conversation, and the question lingered in his mind as he drove north, barely noticing the road signs that whizzed past, blurred by the rain.
Wouldn’t you?
“I would,” Abernathy had said. “If you didn’t know your dad, never had known him—and all of a sudden, you found out where he was? Wouldn’t you want to meet him, find out what he was really like? I’d be kind of curious, myself.”
“You don’t understand,” Roger had said, rubbing a hand across his forehead in frustration. “It’s not like someone who’s adopted, finding out her real father’s name and then just popping up on his doorstep.”
“Seems to me that’s just what it’s like.” The deep voice was cool. “Bree was adopted, right? I think she’d have gone before, if she hadn’t felt it was disloyal to Frank.”
Roger shook his head, disregarding the fact that Abernathy couldn’t see him.
“It’s not that—it’s the popping-up-on-the-doorstep part. That—the way through—how she went—look, did Claire tell you—?”
“Yeah, she did,” Abernathy broke in. His tone was bemused. “Yeah, she did say it wasn’t quite like walking through a revolving door.”
“To put it mildly.” The mere thought of the standing stone circle on Craigh na Dun gave Roger a cold grue.
“To put it mildly—you know what it’s like?” The far-off voice sharpened with interest.
“Yes, damn it, I do!” He took a long, deep breath. “Sorry. Look, it’s not—I can’t explain it, I don’t think anyone could. Those stones…not everyone hears them, obviously. But Claire did. Bree does, and—and I do. And for us…”