The Presence. Heather Graham

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      She crawled on top of the bed and pulled the covers around her.

      He shook out the paper and took a seat before the fire. But though he tried to read, he couldn’t pay attention.

      He glanced over to the bed. So much for her having difficulties sleeping. Her eyes were closed. She was on her side, facing his way. An angel at rest. Ivory features so artistically sculpted. Full, dark lips, parted just slightly. Arms embracing a pillow.

       Oh, to be that pillow!

      She had to be a shyster, he told himself angrily. No

      matter how innocent or vulnerable she appeared, she couldn’t have just made up his history, not down to the name Annalise. He had to take care around her, despite the fact that she could twist something deep inside of him. Or maybe because of that. Annalise.

      Impatiently he tried to read again, but then he gave up, folded the paper and simply watched her sleep, doing his best to stretch his length out comfortably in the chair.

      After a while, he dozed.

      Then … he awakened with a violent start.

      He didn’t scream; he made no noise. But his dream had been no less the terrible.

       He had seen her … facedown, hair flowing in the bubbling water of the little brook in the forest. Facedown … as he had found the murdered girl.

      He reached for his brandy glass and swallowed the pinch of deep amber remaining within it. He gave himself a fierce shake. Looking to the window, he saw that the dawn was breaking at last. Silently he rose. One more brandy and maybe he could get a few hours of sleep. One more brandy … and he might quell the tension that was ripping up his insides.

      He walked to the door of the dividing bath and then paused. He returned to the bedside.

      She slept, an angel still. That spill of hair …

       It might have been any hair.

      He hardened his jaw and swore softly, decrying his own nonsense. It was fucking dawn. He needed to get some sleep.

      Thayer Fraser shivered as he walked along the path, heading down toward the stream, valley and forest. “A

      nice brisk walk in the lovely morning air!” he said, speaking aloud. “Actually, that would be fucking cold morning air! “ he added. His voice sounded strange in the silence of the very early morning as it echoed off the stone walls of the run-down castle. Eerie, even.

      At the base of the hill, he turned back. Most folks outside the country didn’t know that there were still many such places as this castle—smaller castles, family homesteads, not the great walled almost-cities-within-cities such as the fortified castles at Edinburgh and Stirling. They could be found, and some of them poor, indeed, much smaller than many a manor house. And naturally, in a far sadder state of being.

      He stared up at the stone bastion, beautiful against the sky this morning. There was not a drop of rain in sight, not a single cloud. Ah, yes! This was the stuff of postcards, coffee-table books and calendars, the kind of thing American tourists just had to capture in a million and five digital pictures!

      So far—though they all claimed to be in the bad times together, just as they were in the good—they were all secretly blaming Toni. For she had been the one to find the property on the Internet. She had been the one to write to the post box. And she had been the one to receive the agreement, bring it to her lawyer and then pass it on to all of them.

      So, yes … they were blaming Toni. But pretty soon they’d be looking at him.

      After all, he was Scottish, born and bred. He’d seen the advertisements in Glasgow, and had told Toni that it looked fitting for their purpose.

      “Shite!” he muttered aloud.

      He looked to the forest. Hell, he’d actually never known what they called the damned place. They should understand that. Most Americans had never seen their own Grand Canyon. Why should he be supposed to know about every nook and cranny of Scotland?

      Hopefully they would continue blaming Toni, his American cousin. His kin. With her wonder and exuberance, she had convinced them that they could do it. He could remember first meeting her, how pleased she had been to meet a Fraser, an actual—if slightly distant—member of her father’s family. He’d been bowled over by her. Indeed, he’d found her gorgeous, stimulating, though she’d rather quickly squelched any thoughts of more than a brother-sister relationship between them.

      It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough blokes for friends in Glasgow, but she and her American group had been a breath of fresh air. In Glasgow, it was too easy to get into the old work by day, live for the pub at night mentality. The Americans had nothing on the Scots when it came to alcoholism and drug addiction. The working class was the working class, and therein lay the pub, the delights of escape, drugs—wine, women and song.

      And though Toni might not want a hot roll in the old hay with him, she trusted him. Liked him. Relied on him.

      He smiled grimly. Oh, aye! Americans, God bless them, just loved to look back to the old homeland. Give them an accent and they were putty.

      He stared at the forest again, a sense of deep unease stirring in him. He never had known the damned name of the place, and that was a fact.

      The forest was still as dark as a witch’s teat in the glory of dawn. Dense, deep, remote. And he realized that he was just standing there, staring into it. Time had passed, and he hadn’t moved. He’d been mesmerized.

      It was an effort to draw himself away, to shake the sudden fear that seized him. It was almost as if he had to physically tear himself away from the darkness, as if the trees had reached out, gripped him … and held him tight.

      “Fooking ass!” he railed against himself as he turned and hurried back to the castle.

      Jonathan Tavish sat at his breakfast table, morosely stirring the sugar in his tea.

      His home might be old by some standards—built around 1910—and it might have a certain thatched-roof, quaint charm. But it sure as hell wasn’t any castle.

      Through the window, he could see the MacNiall holding, just as he had seen it all of his life. A dilapidated pile of stone, he told himself.

      But it wasn’t. It was the castle, no matter what else. It was Bruce MacNiall’s holding, because he was the MacNiall, and in this little neck of the world, that would always mean something, no matter how far the world moved along.

      Bruce had been his friend for years.

      “Wonder if he knows what I’ve felt all these years?” Jonathan asked out loud. “You’re a decent chap, Laird MacNiall, that y’are! Slainte, my friend. To your health. Always.”

      He smiled slightly. Aye, he could have told the Americans easily enough that there was a Bruce MacNiall. Then again, why the hell should he have done so? Bruce had never seen it necessary to explain his absences from the village, or suggest that Jonathan keep an eye on things or, heaven forbid, ask his old chum to keep him informed when he was away. And that was often. СКАЧАТЬ