“Guess we’d better multitask,” she said.
Steam billowed out of the tiny shower. Their laughter echoed against the tile, soft and unhurried. Their bruises looked worse in the light; she kissed each one of his anyway. When they finally emerged, damp-haired and flushed, the phone buzzed on the counter.
Flynn answered, listening. “Aye, Detective. We’ll be in Inverness again if needed.” Pause. “Naw, we’re all right. Bruised but breathin’.” Another pause, his eyes narrowing. “Understood.”
He hung up, exhaling deeply.
“They’re keepin’ Kerr and the other numpty under watch. Henderson’s been questioned but ‘cleared of involvement.’”
Heather groaned. “Of course she has.”
“She’ll lie low for now. But we’re not done.”
Heather sighed, irritated at the riot that was her auburn curls. She threw it into a messy bun. “Then we go home. To Glenoran.”
The house greeted them with silence. Afternoon light slanted through the broken shutters.
Flynn set down their bags and scanned the floor. “Let’s start with the library. It’s the worst of it.”
The room looked like a battlefield—books scattered, shelves gaping, dust floating in golden beams. Heather crouched near the hearth, fingers tracing the edge of the new oak planks where the old floor peeked through beneath.
“Flynn,” she said softly. “Look.”
He joined her, following her gaze. Some of the original boards were pried up and splintered at the edges, as if someone had been mid-search when they were interrupted.
“Did your crew replace this section?” she asked.
“Aye,” he said, crouching beside her. “We laid the new oak right over the originals. But these old planks—those would’ve been part of the foundation. Nobody’s touched ‘em since.”
Heather’s pulse quickened. “They must’ve found something, or were close to it.”
Flynn grabbed a pry bar and winced as he eased one of the loosened boards up—his shoulder still aching from the attack at Glenoran. The smell of dust and centuries spilled out as he shone the flashlight down.
At first, only shadows. Then… a glint.
“There,” Heather breathed.
Flynn reached into the hollow, lifted out a small wooden box, its surface carved with the same faded thistle motif she had become so acquainted with, and a faint F entwined with M.
Heather’s heart caught. “F? Mackenzie…?”
They carried it to the desk. The lid creaked when she opened it. Inside lay a small leather bound diary, a tarnished silver brooch in the shape of a Celtic knot, a thin gold ring, and a folded parchment originally sealed with what looked to be black wax, now crumbling and brittle.
Flynn lifted the ring, turning it in the light. “A wedding band.”
Heather opened the diary carefully. The first page bore a single inscription, ink faded to sepia:
For him, and for the ones yet to come.
— Fiona Cameron Mackenzie, 1748
Heather’s throat tightened. “Fiona. Harris’s wife. This is her.”
Flynn touched the parchment. “And this?”
Heather carefully unfolded the brittle paper, trying to preserve the crumbling wax seal upon it. Inside was a short letter, the handwriting unfamiliar but precise:
To the Widow Mackenzie of Glenoran,
