Bonnie of Evidence (29 page)

Margi looked aghast. “Oh, my goodness. You’d abandon the poor thing to fend for himself in his hour of need?” She tucked in her lips. “That’s very disappointing.”

“Has anyone read the new biography of Leonardo da Vinci?” Tilly jumped in. “He drew up plans for a flying machine as early as the mid 1400s. From the perspective of a rocket scientist, Mr. Hart, would you consider da Vinci’s blueprints the first embryonic stage of aeronautical or astronautical engineering? And for those among us who are unfamiliar with the terms, perhaps you’d be so good as to explain the difference between the two.”

Smiling inwardly, I settled back in my chair, waiting. Alex threw his head back and groaned.

“Rea
llll
y, Miss Hovick. I so appreciate the question, but I’m not about to bore these good people with a treatise on rocket science. It’d be more exciting for them to watch paint dry.”

“I don’t mind watching paint dry,” confided George, “especially if it’s one of those intense new colors, like marshmallow or clouds. But I wouldn’t mind hearin’ about rockets either.”

I smiled brightly. “Me, too.”

He gave his head an adamant shake. “Absolutely not. I never talk shop when I’m on holiday. Isn’t that right, cookie?” He leaned toward Erik and batted his eyelashes.

“Hey,” Erik droned. “Do you mind? We’re in public.”

“I don’t mean to change the subject,” Margi interrupted, “but shouldn’t we be starting the main course sometime soon?”

I ranged a look around the room, looking for Wally.

No Wally.

“Why don’t I just pop up and see what the holdup is.”

As I hurried through the dining room, I noticed a lot of empty sandwich platters, which meant everyone else was waiting for the second course as well. So where was it?

I passed through the entry vestibule, headed down a connecting corridor, and ended up in a room with a refrigerator, stove, several butcher block tables, and three white-haired ladies wearing neatly starched aprons.

“Hi.” I offered a friendly smile. “I’m part of the tourist group in the dining room. We have a schedule to maintain, because we have to catch a ferry back to the mainland later, so we’re not in
that
much of a hurry, but we really do have to watch our time. So, will you be serving the main course soon?”

“Whit fock fer dool un fae ma pooky,” explained one of the ladies with a quick bob of her head.

How could I
not
have guessed she was going to say that?

I held my finger up in a stalling gesture. “Don’t move from this spot, okay? I’ll be right back. We just happen to be traveling with our own translator.”

I sprinted back into the hall, running into Margi in the vestibule. She held my phone out to me.

“It was dinging inside your raincoat pocket. I thought it might be important.”

“Thanks. While I get this, would you run back and tell Dad I need him?”

It was a text. From Etienne.

“Background check disturbing. Subjects don’t exist.”

EIGHTEEN

I
COULDN’T DECIDE WHAT
freaked me out more—that our platter of finger sandwiches
was
the main course, or that Erik and Alex were honest-to-goodness imposters. The only comforting thing about the day so far was the unrelenting foul weather that was confining us to the bus.

It was raining so hard, tiny estuaries were forming rivers across the road.

Pretty bad when the only ray of sunshine in your day is rain.

The torrential downpour was the reason we were parked in the visitors’ lot at the Ring of Brodgar, our noses pressed to the windows,
squinting
at an impressive circle of standing stones rather than wandering through them. This was to have been the site of today’s geocaching search, but with no one willing to brave the elements, we canceled the event by unanimous consent, which was just as well, considering that Mom had forgotten to turn her computer off last night, causing the battery to run down. No computer meant no coordinates, and disrupted cell service meant no one’s GPS was working.

It also meant that Bernice wouldn’t be harping at me to let her back into the contest until at least tomorrow.

If I lived that long.

“If you rub away the condensation on your window, you can see that unlike Stonehenge, the monoliths of Brodgar still form a nearly perfect ring.” Dad swept his hand in Vanna White style toward the spectacle. “Scientists think it was erected about four thousand years ago, which goes to show that Stone Age people didn’t buy into the idea of built-in obsolescence.”

“Could be they just didn’t know how to spell it,” suggested Osmond.

Something had changed drastically at lunch. Whether spurred by Cameron’s insistence that Erik was Fast Freddie Torres, or Tilly’s polite inquiry about the difference between aero- and astronautical engineering, Erik and Alex had shed their friendly exteriors to become tight-lipped and wary, like two men intent on completing a deadly mission.

And I didn’t know how to stop them.

I stared at the blank screen on my cell phone, willing the signal to come back up. Etienne would know what to do. If only I could reach him.

Wally stepped into the center aisle, his expression apologetic. “We’re supposed to be here for a full hour, but since you’ve decided to scrap this site, I’m going to suggest we head directly to our next stop, Skara Brae. It’s a National Heritage Site with a museum, cafe, restroom facilities, and a top-notch reconstruction of a prehistoric dwelling. Once it stops raining,
if
it stops raining, you can venture out to visit the excavation site of an
authentic
Neolithic settlement. It was discovered in 1850 after a powerful storm swept over the bay and washed all the sand and topsoil off the beach. Ironically, until then, no one ever suspected it existed. Not even the family who occupied the mansion that sits practically on top of it. And the mansion had been occupied since the 1600s. It’s just down the road a piece, so we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Nuts. We were safe on the bus. It was when we split up into smaller groups that we ran into trouble.

I stared out the window, worrying the gloss off my bottom lip. If Etienne were here, he’d tell me not to do anything that would jeopardize either my safety or the safety of our guests. He’d tell me to be smart, remain calm, and stay frosty. But most importantly, he’d tell me not to be a hero.

My updated
Escort’s Manual
was a bit more to the point:
When situations arise that are beyond your control, don’t feel obliged to suffer silently. Share your misery. That’s what your tour director is for
.

“We’ve got a problem with Erik and Alex,” I blurted out to Wally the minute we hit the visitor center. I’d chased him down and dragged him to a quiet corner before he could run off to the men’s room.

He regarded me sternly. “
Un
believable. I thought I might get complaints from folks like the Gordons, but never from you. Look, Emily, whether you like it or not, we’re living in the twenty-first century, and relationships like the one Erik and Alex have are part of the emerging fabric of the times. So unless you’re planning to limit your roster to couples who—”

“I’m not talking about their being gay! I don’t care if they’re gay. They’re planning to kill someone!”

He stared at me, deadpan. “Of course they are.”

“They are! I overhead them talking in the men’s room on the ferry. They’ve already killed Isobel and Dolly—apparently accidentally, because the girls weren’t their intended target. But they’re going to make up for their mistakes today by hitting their real target, and then they’re getting out of Dodge.”

He lifted his brows. “You were in the men’s room on the ferry?”

“I was in the ladies’ room. There’s an air vent between the two. But that’s not the issue! They’re planning to whack one of the guests on our tour. And I think they have guns.”

That got his attention. “Did you see an actual weapon?”

“No, but Erik said something about pulling a trigger. And here’s the other thing. I got a text from Etienne back at the community center. He ran a quick background check on Erik and Alex and he discovered
they
don’t exist
.”

He pushed a long breath out through his teeth, his expression morphing from disbelieving to grim. “Geez. You actually heard them admit they killed Isobel and Dolly?”

“Alex called it collateral damage and suggested that someone named Stu was going to be really ticked off about it.”

“Geez.” He gave his head a quick shake as if to clear his brain. “Okay, so how does Etienne say we should handle this?”

“He doesn’t.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “No signal. Do you think we should contact the police in the nearest town?”

He chewed that over, eventually shaking his head. “And tell them what? That you overheard two guys in the men’s room say they were going to kill someone? It’d be their word against yours, and there’s two of them to deny it.”

I paused thoughtfully. “They didn’t actually use the word ‘kill.’”

“What word did they use?”

“They said they were going to ‘strike.’ But in the context they were using it, I’m sure they meant kill.”

He planted his legs apart and crossed his arms. “They didn’t say ‘kill’?”

“They used a very acceptable synonym.”

He shook his head. “You got nuthin’, Em.”

“But what about the fact that Erik Ishmael and Alex Hart don’t exist?”

“It’s not a crime to be an imposter.”

“Are you sure? What about their passports? Isn’t it a federal crime to put a fake name on a government document?”

“I don’t know! But I
do
know that the local police aren’t going to be able to do anything about your allegations. And I say that with some authority because I’ve been in the tour business a heck of a lot longer than you have, and I know how police in foreign countries deal with American tourists.”

I looked him straight in the eye. “But … what if I’m right?”

“You’re never right.”

“That’s not true! I was right in Holland.” I let out a breath. “Well, kinda right.” I bobbed my head. “About a few things.” I sighed. “Okay. I’m never right. But there could always be a first time.”

“You had to mention Holland.” He forced a grudging smile, admitting, “You did okay in Holland. Look, Emily, I think our main goal should be to get back to Wick and let Etienne and the police sort everything out. Sound like a plan? Because if we miss the ferry going back, I’m not sure anything will have prepared you for the headache of trying to find accommodations for two dozen people on Orkney.”

“Okay, but if it turns out later that I’m right
now
, I’d like to think I did
something
to keep people alive. Everyone’s in the café at the moment, but once they scatter, it’s going to be impossible to keep track of them.”

“Not if they stay inside the visitor center. You can tail Alex. I’ll tail Erik.”

“I can’t tail him in the men’s room,” I objected.

“You can loiter outside the door, can’t you? At least we don’t have to worry about them exploring the grounds. Looks like the bad weather might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.”

“Hey, everyone!” Dick Teig’s voice echoed out from the café. “It stopped raining!”

Wally and I turned our heads in slow motion to glance out a bank of windows that revealed a sudden, inexplicable break in the weather. I compressed my lips. “Do we have a Plan B?”

Wally stared at the scene, seemingly mesmerized. “My mother told me I should have been a podiatrist,” he said in a dazed voice. “I wish I’d listened.”

“That clinches it then.” I felt a rush of adrenalin shoot through my body like an electrical charge. “We need reinforcements.”

He laughed. “And just where do you plan on finding them?”

I looked beyond the ticket counter to the café nestled at the front of the building. “Around the corner. There’s a whole room full of them.” I poked my finger in his sternum. “Here’s Plan B:
You
put a bead on Erik and Alex. I’ll take care of everything else.”

They were scattered at tables throughout the room, enjoying hot beverages with slices of cheesecake and pie. I pulled a chair up to the table where Tilly, George, and Margi were sitting, and in a low, conspiratorial voice, explained what I needed them to do.

“What if they notice us?” asked Margi.

“I want them to notice you. That’s the whole point.”

“Would you mind telling us why you feel this is necessary?” asked Tilly.

“For now, let’s just say I have a hunch, and if my hunch is right, your help will be like a strategic defense system.”

“Marion’s gonna be so disappointed she missed out,” lamented George. “She even brought a wig along this time, just in case you asked her to tail some innocent shmuck you thought should be accused of murder.”