1 Off Kilter Read online

  I thought about what Leith and others had said about the sheep shearer. “If what you say is true, then maybe his death was a random act,” I suggested, taking a sip of my brew and finding it deliciously rich and malty. “Like a robbery that went wrong. Gavin could have surprised someone in the act, maybe arrived home unexpectedly, they struggled, then the intruder picked up the shears and it ended badly. A robbery-turned-murder.”

  “It’s certainly a possibility,” Leith agreed. “But it takes a certain type o’ wicked person tae kill another human in that manner.”

  I agreed. A stabbing was so . . . personal. “We have more shootings in the United States,” I admitted. “We’re a land of guns. And frankly, if I had to choose between dying from a gunshot wound or a deadly blade, I’d take the shooting any day.”

  “Guns aren’t all that common here. Ye read mostly about stabbings in the newspapers,” Leith explained. “But this is the first time one’s happened in our village. Inspector Jamieson is good at his work, though, and with a bit of luck tae go along with his skill and experience, I trust he’ll get tae the bottom of it.”

  “I spoke with him at the farm before you came back to pick me up. He came out to talk to Vicki, but he had a few more questions for me as well.” I decided to withhold the fact that he seemed to be targeting Vicki in his investigation. “He doesn’t seem to have overlooked anything. I have faith that he will find the killer.”

  “He throws himself intae his work, that’s the truth.”

  “That must be hard on his wife,” I said, thinking of the wedding ring on the inspector’s finger.

  “She died a few years back,” Leith told me. “She fought the good fight, but in the end the cancer got her. Too young.”

  “No children?”

  “He has a son, but from what I hear they aren’t close.”

  We sat quietly after that, and I thought about how we all suffered our own losses—be they divorce, terminal disease such as my mother and the inspector’s wife endured, or sudden death, as had been the sheep shearer’s fate.

  “Did Gavin Mitchell have any family?” I ask after a few moments of internal musing.

  “He was a lifelong bachelor, the last of the Glenkillen Mitchells. And if he enjoyed the company of a woman on his travels, it was beyond my ken.”

  “I’ve been reminded of just how precious time is. And of course, I have regrets.”

  “Aye, we all have those.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t seem to have a care in the world.”

  “Now, why would ye be saying that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Leith raised his glass to his lips. Just before taking a drink, he said, “We all get tae keep our own secrets, now, don’t we, Eden Elliott?”

  CHAPTER 10

  I spent the evening holed up in my room hovering over my laptop, thankful for the Whistling Inn’s Internet connection. Checking my e-mail, I found that Ami had sent several, all variations on a theme: “Is the guy who saved you on his white horse, single? Cute? You really need to get back on the horse that threw you. Ha-ha. Have you checked out kilts yet? And if not, why not?”

  “Okay,” she’d written in the last one, “so maybe your introduction to Scotland wasn’t the smoothest (although I’m telling you, that guy has serious possibilities), but at least you made it to the Highlands in one piece. The rest of your trip will probably be smooth sailing from here on out.”

  If only.

  Back in Chicago, Ami wouldn’t have been awake yet. She wasn’t an early riser, and with the time difference she wouldn’t see my return e-mail for several hours more. I could only imagine her expression as I wrote up the events that had occurred since my comparatively tame earlier adventure with the rental car breakdown. Finding the sheep shearer’s dead body, and my subsequent introduction to a Scottish murder investigation, sure trumped a little car trouble!

  After giving it a bit of thought, though—and to give myself a little breathing space from my overly concerned friend—I went back and downplayed the criminal aspects of my trip and added a little scolding about her pushiness. “You,” I wrote back, “are so transparent! Please read my virtual lips: I. Am. Not. Looking. For. A. Romantic relationship! Now I’m off to write.” And I signed off by reassuring Ami that “I might go off-line here and there but only to devote time to the novel. Don’t worry about me. Everything is peachy!”

  Right. Just peachy.

  With that, I closed my e-mail and turned my attention to my work in progress, Falling for You.

  My heroine, Gillian Fraser, returns to her hometown in Rosehearty, Scotland, after having her heart broken and is working for her brother’s dive shop, taking divers out into the North Sea to explore shipwrecks and view sea life. (I’d done some fascinating research on diving but knew I’d have to get out there to experience it firsthand as well sometime.) She encounters rugged, sexy Jack Ross, wealthy owner of a local distillery who doesn’t believe in love at first sight until he meets Gillian, and then . . .

  Well, this was where I was a bit stuck. Could Gillian and Jack discover a love strong enough to last?

  I certainly hadn’t.

  But this was fiction. Anything could happen, and I had every intention of making their relationship work.

  So, with renewed commitment, I lost myself in the story, adding some of the Highlands’ amazing scenery into the first chapters. My best friend might have been correct when she told me I had to experience its beauty to make it come alive on the page. I wrote, or rather revised, until around midnight, when I’d finished reworking several chapters. Writing always transports me to a place far removed from the real world, but now my blurring vision told me it was time for bed.

  I changed into my standard nightwear, a well-worn oversized T-shirt, and climbed into bed. I’d kept busy all day, surrounded by people and activities, so I hadn’t had time to think much about the murder victim, or the protruding sheep shears, or all the blood on the floor. Until now. Those disturbing images would be with me for a long time, maybe forever.

  Unlike last night, tonight sleep eluded me. I tried counting sheep, which seemed apropos, considering my current location. I’d never counted sheep before, but it must have worked, because the next thing I knew, the clock on the nightstand had fast-forwarded several hours and someone was shouting in the hallway.

  “Where’s it coming from?” I heard a man yell. He sounded close, right outside my door. “We have to find the source!”

  Right then, I smelled smoke, the feeling of it raw in my lungs, leeching precious oxygen from the room. I slung the covers aside and leapt from bed. At the same time I heard banging on my door.

  “In here!” More banging. “This way. Break it down if you have to.”

  I quickly unlocked and flung the door open before whoever was out there started smashing it in. A wave of bodies rushed in, almost trampling me in their haste. Something in the air was seriously irritating my eyes.

  Glancing into the hallway, I could see that the other guests were awake and making their way toward the exit.

  Voices continued to shout.

  “Wait outside!”

  “Go on, hurry!”

  “Fire!”

  Someone opened my bathroom door. Thick smoke billowed out. I began to cough.

  “Everybody get outside!”

  It finally registered with my confused, oxygen-deprived mind: The inn was on fire! I had to get outside before I inhaled any more smoke. My throat contracted, and I found myself coughing uncontrollably. How long had I been sleeping while smoke was wafting into my room? It didn’t matter. I was alive, and if I wanted to stay that way, I had to get out.

  My mind was a jumble. Should I take my things with me? Money? Passport? I couldn’t think straight with all the commotion. Someone decided for me. A man gave me a shove. “Get going i
f you want to see the light of day.”

  My gaze fell upon my laptop. I grabbed it and ran out into the hallway, tripping along, realizing I was one of the last guests to vacate when Jeannie practically shoved me from the building. She followed swiftly behind me, glancing back, a worried expression on her face.

  “Is your father out?” I called to her.

  “Aye. He’s safe and sound,” she answered, moving off.

  A fire-and-rescue truck had arrived, a miniature version of the kind of fire trucks I was used to seeing in America, immense vehicles with every kind of lifesaving piece of equipment and long, powerful hoses. This one seemed dinky in comparison. Could it really get the job done?

  Outside, fresh, cool air cleared my mind. I shivered while taking a quick inventory of all I’d left behind . . . which amounted to almost everything. Except for my manuscript, tucked away safely inside a file on my laptop. We all have our own priorities in an emergency, and this had been mine. Adding my cardigan or a blanket to the list would have been a nice touch.

  As I stared up at the building, at the window of my room, where smoke rolled out through the now open window, one of the other guests turned to me, angry and fearful. “This is yer fault!”

  “Mine! What?” I’d had nothing to do with this.

  “Smokin’ in bed, that’s wha’!” another guest decided.

  “I don’t smoke,” I said in my defense. “I’ve never smoked. Maybe it was faulty wiring.”

  No one seemed convinced.

  By now, the emergency fire brigade was taking charge, rolling out hoses, handing out equipment, all operating as one well-oiled machine. Thankfully, I hadn’t seen any flames inside, but smoke was still making its way out of the building. Had the fire been contained? Please, be contained. I kept glancing down the street, hoping another fire truck would arrive. Because this little one could use some help.

  “Aren’t more trucks coming?” I asked whoever wanted to listen.

  “This is the only one within close tae fifty kilometers.” Metric conversion isn’t my strong suit even on a good day, and it must have been apparent because the person speaking helped me out. “That’s about thirty miles.”

  The only one within thirty miles? From my extremely limited but highly memorable experience with the Highlands’ narrow, windy roads, I knew it could take a good hour or longer to travel thirty miles. It had taken me much longer than that coming the forty or so miles from Inverness. By the time backup arrived, the entire town might burn down.

  No flames yet, though.

  “It’s yerself again,” I heard from behind me, and I turned to find Inspector Jamieson addressing me in a rather resigned, exhausted manner. “I haven’t had a good night’s rest since ye arrived. It’s like having a newborn pup keeping me up till all hours o’ the night.”

  His gaze traveled down to the hem of my shirt, reminding me that all I was wearing beneath it was my underwear. He quickly turned his eyes elsewhere. “Yer shivering, lass. We’ll have tae get ye covered up somehow,” he said. “And find ye lodging elsewhere.”

  I hadn’t thought about actually abandoning my room and all my belongings for longer than it took to contain the source of the smoke. I clutched the laptop. “My car keys are up in the room, my money, everything. How can I go anywhere?”

  The inspector’s look shifted over my shoulder. “I’m guessing a ride is here fer ye,” he told me.

  A ride? Sure enough, as I turned in bewilderment, I saw Vicki MacBride making her way toward me with a blanket under her arm. Inspector Jamieson moved off as Vicki swept me into her arms and squeezed.

  “I can’t breathe,” I managed to choke out when she didn’t let go.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, releasing me and wrapping the blanket around my freezing body. “It’s that I’m relieved is all.”

  “How did you find out about the fire?” Small-town gossip couldn’t have made its way to the farm—and certainly not to Vicki—so quickly. She nodded to where I now saw the volunteer police officer from earlier talking to several inn guests. “Sean Stevens called and warned me that you might need a friend,” she said. “I almost had a heart attack when the phone rang at that hour of the morn, but I’m glad he let me know.” She looked down at my bare legs, still exposed to the crisp night air.

  “Everything I own except this computer is up in my room,” I told her. “Passport, cash, shoes, everything.”

  “Come home with me, then, and we’ll fix you up.”

  “I can’t leave yet. What if they let me back into my room?”

  Vicki took a moment to study the situation—the fire truck and the smoke still escaping from the open window. “It won’t happen for hours, if then. Plus, you smell like a chimney and you’re half-naked under that blanket. Let’s get you a shower and you can wear one of my nighties. It’ll be a bit big for you, but I suspect you won’t mind.”

  Vicki led me to her car, where her two West Highland terriers, Pepper and Coco, were waiting for us.

  Glancing up into the cloudless sky, I thanked my lucky stars for this new friend. I didn’t know what I would have done without her.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next morning, Pepper and Coco greeted me by jumping up on the bed, an amazing feat, considering their small sizes. The Westies lavished me with attention in the form of wet kisses and moist, cold nose rubs. One of them rolled over for a belly rub. “You must be Pepper,” I said, spotting a telltale black marking.

  Outside the window, the sky was steel gray and rain streaked the glass. Vicki had given me a nightgown at least three times too large and then had ceremoniously thrown my odorous, sooty T-shirt in the outdoor trash.

  What day of the week was it anyway? It took a moment to remember that it was Saturday.

  “I’ve got porridge cooking on the stove,” Vicki said when I made an appearance in the kitchen. She looked much fresher than I felt. “And I put the kettle on when I heard you stirring. You sure slept a long time, but I expect you needed it.”

  She placed two individual pots of tea next to place settings, then sunk down in one of the chairs. “The tea has been steeping long enough. Go on, sit.”

  I sat down and looked around the kitchen. It was large, a combination kitchen and dining room, with a built-in washer and dryer.

  I imitated my hostess by pouring a cup of tea and adding a dash of milk from a small pitcher. After taking a sip, I judged it to be the way I’d drink tea from now on. Delicious.

  “How do you make your tea?” I asked her. “It’s wonderful.”

  Vicki beamed. “Nothing to it really. Just steep one bag of tea for each cup, then add one for the pot. And don’t forget to cradle the pot in a nice tea cozy.”

  She made it sound so simple.

  After a few minutes, she rose and transferred a bowl of dark fruit from the counter to the table.

  Vicki confirmed my suspicion. “Prunes. They’re good for you.”

  Had I ever eaten prunes before? Not that I recalled. But after tasting them, I decided I liked prunes.

  Next, she scooped up porridge from a pot on the stove, filled two bowls, and came back to the table.

  “I have news,” she told me, placing one of the bowls in front of me. “Some good. Some not so good.”

  “Great,” I said with a dab of sarcasm.

  “Which would you prefer to hear first? The good? Or the not so good?”

  “The good news,” I decided, digging into the bowl of oatmeal.

  “Well, first is that that nice Officer Stevens fetched your car and dropped it off this morning with the help of another bloke. The keys are in the vase next to the door.”

  I wasn’t sure that was good news.

  “And the Whistling Inn didn’t burn beyond repair,” Vicki said. “But your wing suffered smoke damage, and apparently the fire was set off in your room. No question a
bout it. How do you suppose that happened?”

  “I have no idea,” I said stiffly. “I hope you’re not implying that I set it intentionally.”

  “Nothing of the sort. You see, though, here in Scotland, and in most parts of the UK, we have a real fear of fire and take every precaution against it.”

  I suspected as much, considering every establishment I’d entered had fire extinguishers front and center.

  Vicki went on, “For example, we don’t typically have electric outlets inside bathrooms like you do in the States. Lord, that’s just asking for trouble, in a Scot’s opinion. But there may have been an outlet in yours for men’s shavers only and a sign warning as much. You didn’t try to stick the hair dryer plug into it, did you?”

  I shook my head. “No, of course not.”

  “The voltage here has twice the strength of that in the States. If you tinker around and get a zap here, it isn’t a little shock to the system like you’re used to. A bolt of it will drop you dead in your tracks. That’s a future warning from a friend who doesn’t want to see you perish.”

  I hadn’t touched the outlets, but it was apparent Vicki didn’t believe me. And if she didn’t, nobody else was going to believe me, either.

  “Well, however it took place,” Vicki said, “good thing somebody on the street noticed smoke pouring out your open window or we might not be having this conversation. You’d be dead from smoke inhalation, and then I’d have lost a friend as soon as I’d found her.”

  I lost my appetite with the spoon midway to my mouth. Open window? I hadn’t left the window open. I’d seen one open when I watched from the outside, but I’d assumed a firefighter had opened it.

  I set the spoon down. “Are you sure the window was open? Who told you that?”