Inside, Heather forced herself to move with purposeful nonchalance. She draped one of her sweaters over the sofa arm, letting a sleeve spill onto the cushion. Flynn placed a half-used roll of duct tape on the coffee table, alongside an abandoned mug and a screwdriver he “accidentally” left askew.
Heather dropped a grocery bag beside the kitchen counter, letting a loaf of bread peek out. She placed her recent library book on the armchair, deliberately cracking the spine.
Flynn scattered his work jacket over a dining chair, boots left toe-inward like he’d kicked them off after a long day.
A casual, lived-in normalcy.
An illusion.
Heather stepped back, surveying it. “It looks… normal. Nothing suspicious.”
Flynn brushed dust off his hands. “Aye. Looks like we’re just pickin’ up our life again.”
Except for the hearth hiding a secret that could rewrite Scottish history.
She caught his gaze over the mosaic of staged domesticity. They didn’t smile.
They locked Glenoran behind them again.
They drove without talking—exhausted, wired, too full of the night before to put anything into clean sentences. When they reached Flynn’s cottage once more, Byrdie greeted them withindignant chirps, offended that they’d left her in charge for more than three hours.
“Sorry, yer Majesty,” Flynn muttered, rubbing her head.
They shut the curtains. Always the curtains now.
The secret duffle thumped onto the floor—too heavy for ordinary objects, too soft to be metal alone.
Flynn exhaled once, slow and deliberate. “Right. Coal cupboard.”
Heather led the way to the fireplace alcove, crouching as Flynn swung the old cast-iron door open. Inside was a shallow space smelling faintly of soot and old winters. An iron bar hung loose across the back where coal once piled high.
Flynn reached in, testing the shelf. It was solid.
Perfect.
He lifted the heavy duffle first, gently easing it onto the shelf. Heather slid Fiona’s diary and pages onto a cloth Flynn had set down.
Flynn stepped back, wiping his forearm across his brow. “Nobody checks a coal cupboard anymore,” he said. “And nobody but us lights this fire.”
“This is safer than Glenoran,” she reminded him. “Nobody but us and a fewcooscome out here unless they have to.”
He closed the door, snorting to himself, and the latch clicked softly.
It was done.
Later, they splayed Fiona’s map across the kitchen table, securing the edges with mugs, a salt shaker, and Byrdie’s suspicious paw. The painted lines looked even more deliberate now—Culloden, Arkaig, Skye.
Heather traced the arc toward the island. “Skye wasn’t an accident. Fiona didn’t leave anything to chance.”
“Aye.” Flynn tapped the little painted horse with a knuckle. “Dubh. The saddle.”
Heather chewed her lip. “We need to figure out who Flora MacDonald trusted. Who inherited the horse. Or the saddle. Or both.”
Flynn was already pulling up searches on his laptop—old estates, museums, tack restorers, family lines tied to Trotternish and Sleat.
Heather scribbled notes.
“Someone has it. They just… don’t know what they have,” she murmured to herself.
