1 Off Kilter

by Hannah Reed

  Leith rushed over.

  “Are ye all right?” he asked, squatting down beside me.

  “The binoculars are okay,” I said after a quick examination. “I’m not so sure about me.”

  “Ferget the binoculars.”

  “I turned my ankle. But it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as my hands do.” I sat up with my legs out straight. My hand wasn’t the only place I’d taken a few stabs and jabs. There were several long scratches along the shin of my right leg where the gorse had ripped through the skin. My shin stung, my hands stung, the ankle . . . well, that remained to be seen.

  Leith ran his hands over my ankle, his hands gently prodding. “It isn’t swelling. That’s a good sign. Let’s see if we can get ye on yer feet.”

  With Kelly looking on from the sidelines, Leith helped me up, and I tested the ankle. It seemed all right.

  “Yer lucky ye didn’t fall into the very thick o’ it,” he said. “It would have entangled ye, and we’d have had a hard time gettin’ ye out.”

  “It’s like a hedge filled with small but razor-sharp swords,” I complained, readjusting the binoculars while imagining myself totally surrounded by the stuff.

  “Didn’t I warn ye?” he said with a soft chuckle.

  “I like to discover things on my own,” I quipped.

  “Let’s go back tae the rover and doctor you up,” Leith suggested. “I’ve a first aid kit with me.”

  “No, really, I’m perfectly fine.”

  “Ye don’t look so fine.”

  “We’ve had this same conversation before,” I said, starting to laugh.

  “When ye were kicking the snot out o’ your rental car? Aye, I remember,” he laughed along with me.

  Kelly had left us and now stood on a ledge slightly above, her eyes partly closed in the light breeze, as though she were soaking in the sensations and enjoying them as much as we were. A light scent of . . . coconut? . . . wafted through the air. I’d smelled it throughout our walk but hadn’t been able to place its source until my fall. I’d been more interested in escaping from it to concentrate on its fragrance, but now, bending close to a gorse bush brimming with yellow blossoms, I discovered that the sweet tropical smell really did originate from the gorse. Every rose has a thorn.

  I commented on the flowers on the hills. “Your gorse might be prickly, but it’s so fragrant and pretty when it blooms.”

  “It’s always blooming. We even have a saying about that in these parts.”

  “Oh, really? What’s that?”

  Leith grinned, and said, ‘When gorse is out o’ blossom, kissing’s out o’ fashion.’”

  What could I possibly say in response? My mind went blank, which was becoming a familiar state these days. The moment was about to turn awkward between us. Then I thought of a reply. “I’ll have to use that line in my book.”

  I raised the binoculars to my eyes and focused my attention on something less uncomfortable—the landscape surrounding me.

  “Ready tae go?” Leith asked. “I’ll call Kelly down if ye feel ye can walk.”

  As we turned our attention to the border collie, her head swung sharply away from us. Her ears perked up. I swept my eyes over the rocky slopes in the same direction, and saw something . . . a flash of blue? Up here in the hills, the color yellow dominated the landscape, along with every hue of green imaginable. But blue?

  I adjusted the focus on the binoculars. My heart took a running leap and jumped up into my throat. I pulled the binoculars from my neck and handed them to Leith wordlessly, not wanting to accept what I’d seen.

  Because I’d been looking at an overturned car.

  A blue Citroën.

  Exactly like the one Vicki MacBride drove.

  CHAPTER 29

  “She was on her way toward toon,” the inspector said from our position at the side of the road, where he was investigating angles of trajectory based on tire marks he’d found near the cliff directly above the overturned, severely damaged car.

  By the time help had arrived, I’d dismissed all prior charges, suspicions, and accusations against my friend. All the betrayal I’d felt toward Vicki MacBride had vanished.

  “No one could survive a fall like that,” I said, speaking my fears aloud for the first time.

  “Let’s not give up hope yet,” Leith advised me, putting a comforting arm over my shoulders and giving them a squeeze.

  Two more rescue works hurried past us with a stretcher and began tying ropes to secure it for the descent. All were total professionals who I imagined had experience with these kinds of accidents since the Highland terrain is anything but flat. Emergency workers were busy preparing to traverse the steep slope while the rest of us waited anxiously for the frontline team to start down. When they finally disappeared over the side with medical supplies, I tried to follow along to be right there when they assessed Vicki’s condition. But a sharply barked order from Inspector Jamieson to stay out of the way brought me back to my senses.

  What had I been thinking? The climb up the hill with Leith and Kelly and then back down again (just as difficult as going up), had been child’s play compared to what these rescuers were about to attempt. The first responders had to literally rappel down the side of the cliff. Given that my lack of coordination had already led me to take a dive into a stand of gorse, I’d have only given those trying to help Vicki another accident victim to deal with.

  “It will be a while before the mountain rescue team can extricate her,” the inspector said more gently. “I suggest ye go back to the farm and wait fer word. We’ll make sure yer the first tae know.”

  That certainly had an ominous tone to it. I sensed that Inspector Jamieson expected the worst-case scenario too and was trying to protect me from any potential gory details.

  “Go on noo, lass.”

  I shook my head, emphatically. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I might not be much, but I was all Vicki had at the moment. Who did she have in her life besides me? Was there family other than two hostile half siblings? Vicki’s father was gone. So was her mother. Was there anybody else? Friends in California and London probably; Vicki was so outgoing, someone who drew others to her. But I didn’t have contact information for anyone.

  I knew so little about Vicki MacBride.

  And who would take care of Coco and Pepper? Would they find a new home someplace safe where they could be together? Or would they end up in a shelter? Then euthanized? God, I was getting morbid.

  What a fair-weather friend I’d turned out to be! Whatever happened to the sense of justice that is supposed to be the American way—that everyone is innocent until proven guilty? Vicki may not have been entirely honest with me, but who amongst us hasn’t told a few fibs at one time or another? I hadn’t even given her the benefit of the doubt, hadn’t confronted her with what I knew, hadn’t demanded a reasonable explanation. True, most of us would probably classify our own transgressions as minor compared to hers. Most of us haven’t dug our own graves by withholding important information from law enforcement officials pertaining to a murder investigation. But still.

  Time dragged on at a crawl. Thankfully, Leith was also determined to stay for the outcome. We stayed close together, silent, each immersed in our own thoughts.

  I crept forward a bit closer to the sheer drop, coming side by side with several members of the rescue team; I had to see what was happening. I ignored the familiar signs of my height phobia: sweat forming on my forehead and a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach—and forced myself to look down. The first responders had arrived at the scene of the accident below, investigating the underbelly of the Citroën. I couldn’t make out their expressions or hear their conversations from my position, but I watched as one of them wormed his way under the crushed vehicle.

  A stretcher had arrived on the scene, ready for use.

 
Anticipation was torturing me slowly. Knots of tension pulsed in my head, reminding me of the blow I’d taken, realizing how much worse this was than anything that had happened to me. The same question haunted me: How could Vicki possibly have survived a fall like this?

  That could have been me down there. I was such a rotten driver. But Vicki was a native, familiar with the hills and valleys, the roads so narrow that it was a miracle two cars could even pass each other.

  What had happened to cause her accident?

  I wanted to scream with frustration as more rescuers near me adjusted lines while we waited, getting ready to bring up whatever still remained of my friend.

  “Can’t they give us some kind of preliminary report?” I said, turning on the inspector, understanding that I was taking my tension out on him but unable to stop myself.

  “Ye aren’t their first concern right now,” he answered, clipped and concise. And so true.

  As if my demand had been heard, however, the inspector’s phone rang. He frowned my way and walked off, the phone to his ear and his voice low.

  Leith put an arm around my shoulders again and gave me another reassuring squeeze. “We’ll know soon enough,” he said. “Let’s move back and give them more room tae work.”

  The inspector disappeared from view as we left our position.

  Dead or alive. Which?

  The team that had remained above was peering over the side, leveraging the ropes, having rigged a pulley of some sort, and they were working the lines, lifting up something heavy. I had enough sense to follow Leith a little farther still, well back from the rescuers.

  Finally, the stretcher came into view and cleared the top of the rise. Capable hands grabbed hold of the sides of the stretcher, helped it swing over.

  Oh my God. I gasped in dismay at the awful sight of Vicki’s pale face, closed eyes, and slack mouth.

  Another rescue worker climbed over the side and stood up, looking grim. “Let’s get moving!” he barked to the rest of the team. “She’s alive,” he told us. “But barely.”

  Alive? Alive! Hope surged through me finally.

  Barely alive was far better than the alternative.

  Before, while we waited for news, time had played out one painstaking second at a time. Now, it spun past faster than a speeding locomotive. Faster than the ambulance whose running lights and wailing siren gave me a glimmer of hope. There I was, standing next to Leith, listening to the sirens fade like they were the finale to a musical performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

  And I wanted to give them a standing ovation.

  CHAPTER 30

  Throughout the rest of the evening, I continued to phone the hospital, trying to get information regarding Vicki’s condition but without any degree of luck.

  Coco and Pepper slept with me all night, curling up around my feet, one on each side. In the morning I let them outside first thing to sniff around and relieve themselves, and while they were busy with that, I put fresh water and kibble into their bowls.

  They seemed to enjoy my attention, apparently having decided that I was a fun doggy-sitter, whose job it was to entertain them for a short while until their mom returned. If only they knew the truth about their human companion.

  Finally, Inspector Jamieson called. Vicki had suffered two broken legs, and there was concern about potential internal bleeding. Her doctors were cautious and watchful.

  Vicki MacBride, I realized, was important to me, and if she would only stay alive, we’d sort through this gorselike tangled web of deceit and hidden agendas and deal with whatever came our way.

  I wanted more than anything to communicate with Ami, to share with my friend, but I was afraid to leave the house in case a call came in regarding Vicki. For the first time, I missed Internet service at the farmhouse.

  As the morning progressed without any new news, my hackles began to rise when no one representing the MacBride family had bothered to show up at the farmhouse door to inquire about Vicki. John stayed out in the fields, where I spotted him occasionally working with the border collies to drive the sheep to greener pastures. Kirstine didn’t come around either, but I was sure she had opened the shop and was conducting business as usual.

  They couldn’t use the excuse that they hadn’t been informed, because I knew for a fact that the inspector had made calls to both of them explaining Vicki’s accident and that she’d been transported to Kirkwall Hospital.

  For the MacBrides it must have been a day of rejoicing. I was beginning to think that the MacBride clan was filled with noxious weeds and bad seeds.

  And then, perhaps to prove me wrong on some accounts, Alec MacBride arrived. I was sitting outside on a bench, slathering an antiseptic on yesterday’s worst gorse thorn wounds, applying a final coating to the hand I’d been foolish enough to use to stop my fall, when he walked down the lane from the direction of Sheepish Expressions wearing—Oh no—golfing attire. Did he really think I felt like playing golf?

  “What happened here?” he asked when he saw the red, inflamed scratches I was tending to. “Did that pesky barn cat take his claws to you?”

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “I had a run-in with a wicked bush, something called gorse, while out searching for Vicki yesterday. It turned out to be a very unpleasant experience.”

  “Ah, that stuff is bad news. In fact”—Alec held up his right arm, where I saw several bandages—“the exact same thing happened to me.”

  I barely managed to mask my surprise. “You were searching for Vicki?” I asked, a little incredulous.

  “Indeed. I was looking around near the hills on the other side of Glenkillen.”

  “Isn’t the ocean on the other side?” I asked, still doubtful and trying to trip him up.

  “Along the coastline and to the south,” he explained. “I was still out there when I heard that you and Leith Cameron found her. If not for you, we’d be planning a funeral.”

  “I’m not so sure we won’t be planning one, anyway.”

  “Probably what she intended, after what came out about her.”

  I frowned. “What she intended? You mean you think she wanted to run off that cliff?”

  “Either she was running from taking responsibility for her crime against Gavin, which is the most likely. Or the game was up, she realized that she couldn’t escape, and was ending it all. Either way, it doesn’t make a whit of difference in the outcome. She can’t profit from an inheritance if she earned it by spilling a man’s blood. That’s the law.”

  “What are you talking about?” My voice became clipped.

  He didn’t seem to notice my reaction. “It’s perfectly obvious that Gavin Mitchell knew something important enough to my half sister that she killed him to keep him quiet, to keep the secret safe. And that could only concern my father’s will and the distribution of our inheritance.”

  “You are so wrong about everything.” I found myself getting steamed. “First of all, her beloved terriers were still at the house, an indication that she was not running away from anything. She’d never leave them behind, certainly not without making arrangements for their care. She would have left a note or something, which she didn’t. Besides, simply meeting with the sheep shearer doesn’t make her a murderess.”

  Alec made some kind of huffing sound with his breath to indicate disbelief.

  Then I went a step further, thanks to my growing irritation with the whole MacBride family. “I’ll even go so far as to say that Vicki is innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever,” I said, unable to stop the cascade of words in her support, “And it’s horrible the way she’s been treated by you and your family.”

  “That woman is no relative of mine after all the trouble she’s caused.” He gave me an assessing look. “You really believe she didn’t kill Gavin Mitchell?”

  Well, to be honest I was still on the fence about that on
e, but I couldn’t let him see my doubt. Any indecision on my part and he might attempt to sway me to the other side, and I wasn’t about to become a pawn in this game.

  I dug my heels in further by saying, “Yes, she is innocent. And I’m going to prove it.”

  “I doubt that’s possible. She’s guilty as sin.”

  “I’m going to make you eat your words,” I told Alec with a little threat in my voice.

  “Easy, luv,” he said. “No need to get worked up. Everything will become clear when she wakes up and Inspector Jamieson has a chance to interrogate her.”

  “Interrogate? You mean interview!”

  He still wouldn’t let it go. “Why don’t you face the truth? She was seen with Gavin right before he was murdered,” he went on to say. “We have Bill Morris and Kirstine to thank for that bit of evidence, which might never have been uncovered if it weren’t for my sister.”

  Which I didn’t believe for one second. Inspector Jamieson would have gotten around to those cameras in time.

  Alec continued, “And then the silly cow made the mistake of trying to cover up that fact. May I point out that Gavin was a longtime friend of the family, and we don’t take kindly to strangers intruding in our affairs—or stabbing our friends to death! Especially on our property.”

  Okay, there certainly wasn’t going to be any friendly golf outing today. I’d taken my side. Alec had stated his. He wasn’t as cool and calm as he had appeared previously when we’d discussed his family. I’d brought his loyalty to the surface.

  We glared at each other, at an impasse. But then in the blink of an eye, his expression cleared and he smiled. “Let’s not allow our differences to come between us. I do believe I owe you a round of golf, and I’m looking forward to a delightful afternoon on the course.”

  “Today won’t work,” I said, not letting go of my anger as easily as he had. “Vicki is battling for her life. The last thing I’m going to do is go play a game.”

  He shrugged. “Another time, then.”