Heather felt something shift inside her—anger loosening, not gone, but no longer the whole shape of her grief.
Quietly, Flynn asked, “What was the lead she’d found?”
Eleanor hesitated. “Her old research partner. Dr. Flora Henderson.”
Heather’s pulse spiked. “Dr. Henderson?”
“Aye. They’d fallen out over the project. Eilidh thought Flora meant to exploit the find. She said she needed to verify the location before anyone else could.”
“And she went alone,” Heather murmured.
“Aye,” Eleanor nodded, voice grim. “And I’ve carried that guilt every day since.”
Heather’s hands balled into fists in her lap. “We need to talk to Henderson.”
Eleanor looked at her sharply. “You sure? The woman’s not fond of people diggin’ where she’s buried things.”
Heather stood straighter. “Neither was my mom. And she went anyway.”
Eleanor stared a long moment… then nodded.
“You really are her daughter.”
Heather didn’t trust herself to answer.
But inside, something aligned: grief and hope and fury and love forming something steadier.
Not chasing a ghost anymore.
Walking her mother’s path instead.
Chapter 16
Heather—Present Day
Without Flynn’s boots in the hall or his lazy morning whistle drifting from the kitchen, Glenoran felt taller somehow: its ceilings higher, its shadows deeper. The kind of quiet that let you hear your own heartbeat whether you wanted to or not.
Byrdie padded after Heather from room to room, pretending it was coincidence she never fell more than a single step behind. Her tail flicked in complaint if Heather moved too quickly, as if to say: Absolutely not, Mother, we travel as one.
They’d driven back from Dingwall at dusk, the sky bruised purple over the hills. Flynn had kissed her at the door beforeheading for Edinburgh; his crew needed him early. “I’ll meet ye at the museum tomorrow,” he’d promised, his thumb brushing her cheek like a blessing. “We’ll talk to Dr. Henderson together.”
Then he was gone in taillights and the steady fade of gravel crunching, and Glenoran exhaled into silence.
Heather switched on a lamp in the study. Its honeyed glow pooled over Eilidh’s scattered papers. So many dates. So many marginal notes in her mother’s neat, unfussy hand.
She traced Eleanor’s return address with a fingertip, feeling again the jolt of closeness.
“Tomorrow,” she told the room. Or maybe she told her mother. “I’ll ask Dr. Henderson what you didn’t tell anyone else.”
Byrdie hopped onto the desk and sat squarely on a notebook, pinning it with both paws and a look that clearly said: no more secrets tonight.
Heather scratched her ears. Byrdie purred like a tiny generator.
But the day’s revelations hadn’t bought her peace. For every answer, two new questions sprouted in its place. When her eyes finally ached from reading, she turned off the lamp and climbed the stairs. Glenoran murmured around her and Byrdie pattered faithfully at her heels.
She slid beneath the duvet. Byrdie curled into the warm crook of her side as rain blew softly against the windows. Sleep hovered just out of reach.
My mother told me… someday I would buy…
