Reckoning (Book 4 of Lost Highlander series) (11 page)

The details they gave him were sparse. He knew Lachlan was from the past, but didn’t know that she had a distant ancestor who was purest evil, and who was now trying to take over her soul. They mostly made it seem like they were just extremely interested in genealogy, to the point that Piper had to pop back to the eighteenth century now and again to gather facts.

“What did you bring us?” Evie asked, holding out her hands like an eager child.

Herb smiled indulgently at her, and handed over his entire satchel full of papers. Piper suspected he had a small crush on Evie, which was inevitable after having spent so much time with her while Piper was in time travel limbo.

Evie was gorgeous, funny, sweet and brilliant. Piper could never begrudge her the constant fawning most men ended up doing over her, because she was completely clueless to it.

Her face fell when she opened the package to find a stack of boring looking, completely modern papers. “What’s all this?”

“The papers that Fenella filled out to have her estate turned over to the conservancy foundation. Weeks of work, that, including wrangling with the government. Then she changed her mind and it all went to Piper. There were a dozen of us who didn’t sleep for three days getting it all sorted.”

“But what changed her mind, Herb,” Piper said patiently, before Evie’s head exploded. “That’s what we need to know.”

Herb accepted a cup of tea and sat down, scratching his head with a worried look on his face.

“Did she swear you to secrecy?” Evie asked.

“No, it isn’t that,” he said. “I wish I knew. She had a letter from her son-in-law, that’s all I know.”

“Son-in-law?” Piper asked, stumped. She remembered her mother complaining about some old codger in Las Vegas. Was he still alive?

“Aye, it came out of the blue, she said. From the states. I never saw the letter, but she was adamant about changing her will. It was all to go to you.”

Piper hadn’t realized how much she wanted to get to the bottom of things until the crushing disappointment of reaching another dead end hit her square in the chest. She could tell Evie felt it too, biting on her lip and staring out the darkening window.

“I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I would have thought it might be in the safety deposit box she left especially for you, my dear, but I suppose she must have destroyed it.”

Piper didn’t register his words until Evie coughed. “Special safety deposit box? Oh God, I think I did know about that. I just …”

Her great-grandmother had left her so many things to go through. Hundreds of boxes had been labeled for her special attention. There were too many bank accounts and charitable organizations to keep track of, the secret safes that kept popping up in walls, the books with cryptic messages written on their pages— it was all so much to sort through, even before she found a massive, angry Highlander from another century in the tower. Evie looked at her as if she’d committed a crime, but surely she had to be forgiven for overlooking that one little thing?

Evie already had on her coat. “We’re going now,” she said. Piper glanced at the clock, not wanting to be the one to tell her it was well past the tiny village bank’s operating hours. “No, don’t look at the clock, we’re going now. Sam can call the manager, he knows him from birth, no doubt. You, go find your key.”

Herb and Piper exchanged a look. Herb nervously made his excuses and made them promise to call if they needed anything else, but he was going to have to be on his way. After she ran upstairs and found the deposit box key in a drawer of a musical jewelry box, Piper let Evie stuff her into her coat and drag her to the car.

“We can get Mags, save Sam a trip up here tonight,” she said as she pulled out of the drive and carefully wound her way down the long road into the village.

It was dusk and the lights of the town square shone welcomingly as they pulled up in front of Sam’s book store. It wasn’t technically a parking place, so Piper slid over to the driver’s seat to drive around while Evie jumped out to cajole Sam into doing her bidding.

When she drove back around several minutes later, Sam stood outside on the curb with Evie and Mags, the picture of an adorable family, if she ignored the crazed look in Evie’s eyes. Sam leaned over and poked his head in the passenger window while Evie got Magnus settled in his seat in the back.

“Robbing banks now, are we?” he asked.

She scowled at him. “Did you get a hold of Mr. McReynolds?” she asked, trying to pretend nothing was amiss about making a bank manager come out after hours to open up her safety deposit box. It was embarrassing enough being a billionaire without throwing it around and making people jump through hoops.

“Aye, it’s him and his wife’s twentieth anniversary. He was getting ready to come out for dinner at Maison Craig anyway, so it’s hardly out of his way.” Sam smirked at her.

“Oh God,” she groaned, feeling worse by the minute.

“It won’t take him but a second to let us in and out,” Evie said from the back, throwing Sam a dark look. “You never ask for special favors. This is important.” She pushed past Sam to get into the passenger seat and set to ignoring him. Piper wondered if their first week living together again wasn’t going too well.

“You sure you don’t just want me to keep the lad?” he asked, leaning in to kiss Mags goodbye.

She looked pained at having to be beholden to him for anything, but finally relented. “Okay, that would be helpful, thanks. I’m going to be quite late probably, so don’t wait up.” She barely looked at him as she spoke and the second he had Magnus back out of the car, she waved her hand for Piper to drive off.

“Don’t ask,” she said in a warning voice as they pulled away.

Mr. McReynolds waited for them in front of the bank, a wide smile on his face. He looked the complete opposite of annoyed, which made Piper feel infinitely worse. She had called Maison Craig and told them she would be paying for the McReynolds’ meal that evening and to give them a special bottle of their best champagne, but she still apologized profusely as he let them into the building and led them to the back room where the deposit boxes were.

The bank was a small branch of the Bank of Scotland, with one teller window and this tiny room containing two rows of locked boxes built into the wall. The building shared space with the post office, and the other wall of the room had two rows of post office boxes. It wasn’t exactly high security, the room hadn’t even been locked, but the village wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime, either.

Mr. McReynolds actually looked excited when he and Piper used their keys to get the box out of the wall. His eyes were bright with anticipation as they set it on the counter.

“Thank you,” Evie said dismissively.

“Of course, of course, just let me know when you’re finished.” He slunk out of the room.

Piper unlocked it and stood there with her hand on the lid, holding it open a fraction of an inch, while she pondered what she might find. The box could hold anything. Answers to her heritage, or more mysteries. It could be filled with junk jewelry, bags of diamonds, photographs. It could be empty.

“Open it,” Evie pleaded.

“Shouldn’t we take it home and look at it there?” she asked. “It’s probably a lot to go over.”

Evie stared at her, hands clasped together under her chin. “I won’t make it,” she promised.

Piper let out a long breath and flung open the lid in one fell swoop, like ripping off a band-aid. They nearly collided as they leaned over to see what was inside. Piper laughed when she saw it was just two things. A regular envelope with a US airmail stamp on it, addressed to Fenella, and a manilla envelope that looked crisp and new, completely unmarked.

Evie opened the letter and held it out to her. Piper scanned the familiar handwriting and read it aloud. “Dearest mother, I ask that you might forgive me for running away. I hope that I didn’t cause you too much pain. I pray I do not cause you more. I beg you to follow the enclosed map to find further instructions. I am sorry every day. Your daughter, Rose.” She looked up to find Evie frowning at the manilla envelope that remained in the box. “That’s so sad, but there isn’t an enclosed map.”

“When did she write that?” Evie asked, still looking at the envelope as if it was a snake about to strike.

Piper saw the date on the letter was from the year Rose died, but the postmark on the envelope was recent, just a couple weeks before Fenella passed away. Rose must have instructed her second husband to hang onto it and send it to Fenella when she was near the end of her life. He’d either kept tabs on her somehow, or had just taken a lucky guess.

“That’s either the map or the further instructions,” she said, placing the letter back in its envelope and flicking the larger manilla envelope with her fingernail. She was surprised to find Evie hadn’t already torn it open and memorized the contents. Her friend’s sudden lack of excitement unnerved her. “It’s kind of odd,” she mused. “I’m not getting any freaky, otherworldly feelings from any of this.”

Evie nodded. “That’s good, I guess. Are you going to open the other one?”

Feeling like she’d been granted permission, Piper took it out of the box and pinched open the clasp, trying to steady herself. When it was open, she slid the piece of aged parchment out onto the bank counter, immediately recognizing Rose’s handwriting. Once again almost clapping their heads together in their haste to read it, they leaned over it, hurriedly scanning the page, reading bits out loud.

“Want you to know I’ve found happiness,” Piper murmured.

“Beg you once again for forgiveness and hope you’ll understand,” Evie said a moment later.

They both stopped at the last line and looked at each other. “Above all else, the land must go to the child of Finley Temperance.”

“That’s you,” Evie said. “She wrote a letter while she was in the past, saying the land would need to go to her daughter’s child.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “She must have hidden it somewhere in the castle or on the estate grounds in case something happened to her when she got back. Except, how could she have known at that time that she’d make it back or if your mom would have a kid. And why didn’t she just write that stuff in her modern letter?"

Piper kept staring at the words on the page, trying to make sense of them. She read them over four times before looking at the top corner where her grandmother had scrawled the date. For an instant the lights in the room flickered and her legs threatened to give out. Unable to make a sound, she pointed at the date, grabbing Evie’s arm and shaking her.

“Look,” she gasped.

It took Evie a second to make the connection, then she shrieked, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth.

“Is everything all right?” Mr. McReynolds called through the door.

“Yes,” they both shouted, though everything was far from all right.

The date on the parchment was twenty years after the dates written in Rose’s teenage diary.

“This old letter is probably more recent than the modern one,” Evie said through her hand. “Rose didn’t die.”

Piper couldn’t drag her eyes from the date on the letter. 1793. “She went back.”

They sat in the kitchen, reading and rereading the letters. Piper didn’t know how they’d made it home from the bank, didn’t remember saying another word to Mr. McReynolds.

“Do you think she’s still alive right now?” Evie asked.

Piper hadn’t considered that. It was shocking enough that her grandmother had faked her own death more than twenty years ago so that she could return to the past. That she might be alive right now in that time made Piper struggle to catch her breath.

“I-I don’t know,” she stammered.

When she was able to accept the possibility, she realized this had to be what all her dreams were about. Finding the diary had been a first stepping stone across the vast river of her convoluted history. Knowing that her grandmother might still be alive had to be a bridge leading directly to the answers she craved.

Rose had known Daria, knew what she was capable of. Now she was reaching out to her— but why? In hopes that she could help? Piper laughed out loud at that, then remembered Evie was still in the room.

She picked up the letter from Rose’s second husband and inspected the envelope with his return address. “There was a memorial service in Vegas, my mom went without me and dad.” Piper clenched her fists in her lap. “He had to be in on it. He had to know something, some reason to lie to us about that, and fake a funeral.” She was so angry at him that she had to stand up and walk around, afraid of what keeping her emotions pent up might do. “Why would he do something like that? He lied to us, to my mom.”

“She was the one who chose to leave,” Evie said gently.

Piper whirled on her. “Daria forced her to leave in the first place. She was making her see things, driving her crazy. Rose had to leave to save my mother’s life. Then she wanted to get back to her husband, her one true love.”

She took slow breaths to calm herself. She knew all too well what it felt like to be separated from the love of her life. No matter how hard she tried, or how brave of a face she put on, she wasn’t over it, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get back to Lachlan if she could.

Evie looked at her, her face full of fear, pity? Piper was too upset to be able to tell, but it was clear Evie didn’t understand. She continued pacing, feeling like her blood might actually boil. All the secrecy, and why? For what purpose?