“They’ve got an hour head start.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Skye blurred past the windows—heather and rock and sea cliffs falling away beneath a sky that looked far too calm for what was happening.
Heather pressed her forehead to the glass.
This was her fault.
She had brought Henderson closer. Trusted her. Let her circle Glenoran like a god-damned Great White shark.
All those careful questions. The interest that felt flattering. The way Henderson had lingered near the artifacts at the museum.
It hadn’t been curiosity.
It had beenhunger.
Flynn’s voice cut through her spiral. “We call the police once we’re off the island,” he said. “Break-in. Armed men. No names yet.”
Eleanor nodded grimly. “I’ll handle that.”
Heather swallowed. “And if they’ve already been inside?”
Flynn didn’t look at her. “Then we deal with what’s left.”
The Skye Bridge loomed ahead—steel and concrete and the slow, merciless promise of distance.
Heather watched the island fall away behind them.
Chapter 50
Heather—Present Day
They saw it before they reached the gate.
Flynn slowed the truck, heart pounding hard enough Heather could feel it in her bones.
Three black SUVs sat crooked in the pasture before the cottage with their tires sunk into churned mud and their doors flung open as if they’d stopped in a hurry.
Too much of a hurry.
“Oh, St. Andrew preserve us,” Eleanor breathed from the back seat.
Angus stood between the men and the cottage.
Not wandering.
Not grazing.
Guarding.
The great Highland bull had his head lowered, horns angled forward, massive chest rising and falling with slow, furious breaths. Around him, his cow brethren had formed a loose, shifting wall: bodies pressed flank to flank, hooves sunk deep into the earth like they’d grown there.
A living barricade.
One of Henderson’s men was halfway up the barn ladder, clinging to the loft rail like a trapped animal. Another had scrambled onto the stone wall near the fence, breathing hard, eyes wild.
The others stood clustered together near the pasture’s edge, knives glinting in their fists.
