Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“I think we should put protection on Aria until we know what we’re dealing with,” I suggested, hating the thought of putting Aria through that but needing to know she was safe. “This letter obviously refers to her.”
“Aria’s off the estate right now.”
I stumbled to a halt just as I got out of the elevator. “What do you mean she’s off the estate?”
“She left the estate two hours ago. She’s running an errand for Lachlan in Inverness. I’m sure she’s fine, North, but I’ll send someone after her if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Aye, aye, it’ll make me feel better.” I continued to my room and noted the housekeeping cart was outside it and the door was open. Great. I just wanted into my fucking room. Something had been wedged in the door to keep it open.
A prickle on my nape gave me pause.
I glanced down the corridor both ways, looking for other housekeepers. Then I looked back at the door and the ice bucket that propped it open.
Why would housekeeping need to prop open the door?
“Walk … the letter didn’t have an address on it. The hotel said a courier service delivered it, but …” I pushed open my door without stepping inside and saw my clothes had been strewn everywhere. And sitting in an armchair facing the door, waiting for me, was someone I hadn’t seen in years. Understanding crashed over me, and I swayed with the immensity of it. “Walker … I know who’s been sending the letters.”
“Who?” he barked in my ear.
“Barbara Benny. Darren Menzie’s mum.”
“Who? How?”
“Because she’s in my hotel room.” I hung up the phone as I stepped into the suite. Somehow, deep down, I think I’d always known the letters were about what happened to Gil. What we’d done as boys. What I’d failed to stop Darren from doing. I must have moved the ice bucket because the hotel door clicked quietly shut behind me.
Thirty
ARIA
Lately, I’d been feeling restless. Not with my life in Scotland—I loved my life in Scotland, even more now that I was starting to have one outside of my job. But being without North for most of the week left me feeling a little unmoored. Like there was something I should be doing and wasn’t.
It manifested itself in ways such as wanting to be out of my office more and volunteering to drive to Inverness to drop off a contract renewal with the estate’s solicitors. It was pretty urgent, and Lachlan had intended to drive it over since it would be quicker than mailing it. But I’d offered instead. So that’s why, instead of ending the day driving ten minutes home, I was driving an hour toward the city before the solicitors’ office closed.
Feeling out of sorts was probably the reason I answered my mother’s call, twenty minutes from my destination. I’d been avoiding talking with Mamma as much as possible, making excuses to cut her off when she started asking about North or complaining about Allegra moving to the East Coast after the summer. Now I was trapped in a car with her musical accent filling the interior.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Mamma stated right away.
“I have not,” I lied. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Sì, sì, getting your papa to call in favors so you can be on the set of your new boyfriend’s film. A man I still have not met. Did you know he played a serial killer in his last movie?”
I rolled my eyes, my hands tightening around the wheel. “It was a TV show. And he’s not actually a serial killer, Mamma.”
“I know this. But it is a very dark part to play. What does this say about him?”
Oh, for God’s sake. “What does it say about Dad that he made a movie about an alien that was a serial killer? Or an assassin? You remember he made those, right?”
Mamma tsked. “I’m your mamma. I can be upset that I haven’t met this man. And he’s a Scot. Scots are earthy. Not sophisticated.”
“Untrue. And especially about North.” I tried not to let her irritate me. “Anyway, how are you?”
“Uh, well, one of my daughters would prefer to flee to the other side of the country than be near me, and the other fled across the ocean to start a life with a Scotsman.”
My agitation simmered. “One: Allegra is going to one of the best schools in the country, not fleeing you.” It’s not actually about you, Mother! “Two: I moved across the ocean to start a career for myself. North was just a happy bonus two years later.”
“And what of your papà? Me? Do you not want to be close to us?”
I wasn’t going down this road with her again. “You know that’s not true. You and Dad have your lives. We have ours. We make time for each other. That’s how families work.”