Heather stood on Glenoran’s steps wrapped in a silver blanket someone had pressed around her shoulders. Every pulse beat echoed behind her eyes. The adrenaline that had carried her this far drained fast, leaving her shaking when it departed.
Flynn’s arm came around her waist, solid and grounding.
“They’ll handle it now,” he murmured.
She nodded, but her voice cracked. “They need to know what he said.”
“And they will.” He guided her toward the sitting room, where two constables waited with notebooks. “Tell them everything. Every word.”
Inside, the house was chaos: muddy prints, overturned chairs, the smell of rain and blood tangled in the air. One officer crouched near the hearth taking photos; another catalogued the weapons the men had brought and laid out on the table.
Heather gave her statement as best she could. The words felt foreign in her mouth—attack, assault, confession, drowning. When it was done, she sat hard on the edge of the sofa and pressed her palms to her temples.
The pain from Kerr’s hit was catching up now. A deep, blooming throb along her cheek that felt personal. Flynn knelt in front of her, thumb tracing just below the bruise.
“Breathe, mo chridhe,” he said quietly. “In. Out.”
“I can’t stop seeing it,” she whispered. “His face when he said it.”
“I know.” His voice roughened. “Butyou’restill here. I’m not going anywhere.”
A detective entered then, a woman in a rain-spotted trench coat, hair pulled tight.
“We’ll want you both at the Inverness station tomorrow to give full statements,” she said. “We’ll also need to confirm the injuries for the report. Would you like to go to hospital, or will the mobile EMTs do?”
Flynn nodded. “The EMTs will be fine.”
The woman’s gaze lingered on Heather’s bruised cheek, softening. “You did well tonight, Ms. Campbell. Most people would’ve run.”
Heather almost laughed, turning toward Flynn. “Not my style these days.”
When the officers finally cleared out, the house sagged into silence again. The front door hung open, rain misting across the threshold. Flynn closed it, slid the bolt, then took her hand.
“Come, lass. Let’s see the damage.”
They moved room to room through Glenoran, the beam of Flynn’s flashlight cutting across the wreckage. In the study, drawers were yanked out, papers scattered like feathers. In the library, whole shelves had been stripped: books piled on the floor, spines split, dust still drifting in the air.
“They were tearing the place apart,” Flynn sighed. “They weren’t here to hurt us first. They were searching. I wonder if they even expected us back from Skye yet.”
Heather crouched beside a toppled chair, fingertips brushing the edge of a fallen atlas. “Looking for the journal. For her notes.”
He looked at her. “But you’ve got them.”
She nodded, throat tight. “They were so close—and still blind.”
Flynn exhaled slowly. “They knew about the hymn and the translation, but not the map.”
“The map,” Heather repeated. “Mom’s words. That’s what makes sense of it all. If only I could figure out what it means.”
He pulled her gently to her feet. She rested her head against his shoulder, the house creaking around them.
“Do you think Flora Henderson knew?” she asked.
Flynn’s jaw flexed. “If she did, she’ll be coverin’ her arse come dawn.”
Heather gave a hollow laugh. “She’ll call it a tragedy of misunderstanding.”
“Aye. And she’ll still be watchin’.”
