Legacy of the Highlands (15 page)

Although Diego had assured her that he’d
never come on to her, she was aware that the promise was becoming
harder for him to keep. The strong embrace he’d wrapped her in when
he’d arrived the night before, the way he touched her whenever the
opportunity presented itself, and the more frequent use of his pet
name for her were all signs that she couldn’t ignore. And she
wasn’t immune to him either. Her physical reaction whenever he was
near made her question her own willpower. There was unmistakable
electricity between them and each knew the other felt it. These
feelings shamed her, yet what could be more natural than to want
the solid comfort of a man’s body? She didn’t want sex necessarily.
What she craved was skin-to-skin contact, although it was a given
that sex would be the price she’d have to pay. It would be up to
her to decide whether that price was too high.

By the time Alex finished her shower and
padded barefoot to the kitchen, Diego was gone. She spotted a note
next to the coffeepot and was amused that he knew her well enough
to realize it would be her first stop. Caffeine fix in hand, she
sat at the table and opened the folded sheet of paper.

“Alessandra” it began. Diego’s mother always
called her that — Italian for Alexandra — and she wondered why he
had, then she continued to read. “I have to take care of some
business today. I know you’re surrounded by memories and I don’t
want to intrude on your privacy. I’ll be back by 6:00. Let me
choose the restaurant tonight...one that takes reservations and has
waiters.” His attempt at humor made her smile, probably the
response he’d intended. “I hope today isn’t too difficult. If you
need me for anything at all, you can always reach me on my mobile.”
It was signed with a flourish, “Yours, Diego.”

A few streets away, Diego stood at the window of his
Ritz Carlton suite gazing at the tranquil greenery of Boston Common
directly across Arlington Street from the luxury hotel. He’d been
working since early morning and the sleeves of his fitted white
shirt were rolled up to just below the elbow, revealing deeply
tanned, muscular forearms sprinkled with silky black hair. He’d
abandoned his necktie hours earlier and the shirt’s collar was
open. He slowly ran his knuckles over his eyebrows to massage away
the tension in his forehead while he gazed at the park, hoping some
of its calm would transfer itself to him, but he couldn’t get his
mind off Alex.

He wasn’t sure whether it had been wise to
leave her by herself, but she had his mobile number and she hadn’t
called so she must be okay. She insisted that she was strong and
although he knew it wasn’t true yet, he vowed do everything in his
power to help build her confidence even though that conflicted with
his equally strong need to protect her. He told himself that if she
were to move on with her life, she’d have to have absolute belief
that she was strong again, so for now he’d hold back. When she was
ready to start the next phase of her life, he had no doubt that it
would be with him.

He forced thoughts of Alex aside to focus on
everything Serge had told him when he’d reported in from London a
few hours earlier. He was making progress, but it was a slow and
tedious business. “This is like peeling back the layers of an
onion. You’ve got to be patient,” he’d reminded Diego although they
both knew that admirable trait wasn’t one that Diego possessed. The
former Mossad agent’s intelligence sources in the U.K. had
confirmed that Will’s father was part of a covert Scottish
nationalist group. For Alex’s sake, Diego hoped that John Cameron
wasn’t even remotely involved in his son’s death, although it was
starting to look bad.

Serge’s contacts told him there’d been
chatter about schisms in Scotland’s oldest and most secretive
independence movement. Some of its members, frustrated by the
snail’s pace of the mainstream Scottish National Party’s political
efforts, were determined to win Scotland’s freedom from England by
any means, including violence. His sources confirmed John Cameron’s
tie not only to this Group of One Hundred, but also to a man named
Mackinnon, the same one Alex remembered meeting when she and Will
were in Scotland. Serge told Diego that he would check into the
man’s well-established retail business in Inverness to see if it
was a front for the group.

“Mackinnon’s son was convicted of conspiracy
to commit terrorism and is serving a long jail term,” Serge told
his employer. “Evidently he was involved in building bombs to use
in I.R.A.-type terrorist attacks. His group came pretty close to
detonating them in London. I imagine the senior Mackinnon’s not a
happy man, and his connection to John Cameron and Alex is of
interest.” He assured Diego that he’d check it out.

Diego poured himself a whiskey and began to
pace as he tried to tie the various threads together. While he and
Alex were in Miami, he’d pushed her to recall every detail about
the week she and Will had spent in Scotland. He wasn’t surprised
that the Mackinnon that Serge said was connected to Will’s father
was the same man Alex had told him about. She’d remembered that
they’d gone into a gift shop in Inverness and its proprietor had
talked Will’s ear off about his family’s history. The man had asked
a lot of questions and then gave Will a replica of some old
document to pass along to John, but she didn’t know if Will had
ever followed through.

“Was there a reason that you and Will went to
that particular store?” Diego probed. “There must be a lot of gift
shops to choose from in a touristy city like Inverness.” Diego had
probed.

“We’d met some guy in our favorite London
pub, a Scot…I’m pretty sure that his name was Ewen...and when he
heard we were going to Scotland, he suggested that we go to this
store since the owner was a friend and wouldn’t rip us off.”

Diego had passed the information along to
Serge who agreed that Alex and Will might have been set up. He said
he’d try to track down this Ewen character.

Serge effortlessly slipped into the role of a
well-bred English barrister to visit the upscale Mayfair pub where
Alex recalled meeting Ewen. The former spy was clothed in a Savile
Row suit, hand-sewn leather shoes and completed the metamorphosis
with an expensive black umbrella carried like a proper Londoner. He
impressed the barman with his generous tips and the after-work
regulars with his skill at darts and his knowledge of English
football. They took no notice when he began to slip some questions
about Scottish politics and the elusive Ewen into their comfortable
male banter.

“Oh, that bloke’s been gone for a while,”
recalled the barman as he expertly built another Guinness for
Serge. “I remember your Ewen because we don’t get many Scots in
here. This one was pleasant enough when he was sober, but he’d
shoot off his mouth whenever he’d had a bit too much. Liked to
drink the expensive stuff — single malt whiskey, I recall.”

“Shoot off his mouth?” Serge replied, urging
the publican to elaborate as he took a sip of the dark brew.

“Oh, he’d go on about how the Scots were
oppressed and exploited by us English pigs, that we’d stolen their
country and now we were robbing them of their oil. That talk may be
fine in Scotland, but here in London it’s none too smart. I’d toss
him out for his own safety when he got like that. First it was the
troubles with the Irish and now it looks like the Scots may be up
to the same business. Ah, well.” He shook his head in resignation
as he wiped the bar with a clean white cloth then smoothly filled
orders for other patrons before resuming his conversation with
Serge. “A posh Mayfair pub like this isn’t the place for brawlers.
My clientele won’t have that and neither will I. Talk is that this
Ewen went off to America. The last time he was in — it was about
two, maybe three months ago, I seem to recall — he had another Scot
with him…a strapping young lad, but Ewen did all the talking. He
blathered about the two of them having some job in the States, but
he didn’t say what it was they’d be doing. Personally, I was glad
to see him go. He was trouble, he was.”

He slid another Guinness across the bar to
Serge, its creamy head forming a perfect dome atop the black
liquid. “Might I ask what your interest is in this man? Is he in
trouble with the law? Or is it that he’s heir to a huge fortune
left to him by one of your posh clients?” the barman asked,
grinning at this improbability.

“I wish I could tell you, but it’s to do with
a legal matter. Confidentiality, you know. Might anyone else have
some idea as to his whereabouts?” asked Serge.

“I’ll ask the gents then, shall I?” the
barman said genially as he moved toward a small group of regulars.
“Ned, John, Charles — a question, gentlemen, if you please. Our
barrister friend is trying to find that big Scot who was fond of
shooting off his mouth. You know the one. Have any of you seen him
recently or do you recall what he was to do in America?”

“Nah,” came the chorus of responses.

“He did boast that he’d have enough of the
ready to buy a round for the bar when he got back. I wouldn’t
forget a promise like that,” recalled Charles.

“Right, Charlie! So we can add liar and
braggart to our Ewen’s list of less than admirable traits,” added
Ned.

“He’s gone and good riddance I say,”
commented John as he waited for the barman to draw his pint of
bitter. Glass in hand, he moved closer to Serge, casually leaned
his elbows on the bar and slowly sipped his drink. He ran a hand
through his copper-color hair and turned toward Serge.

“Not many Scots in London,” he began softly,
“but you might try a pub called the William Wallace over in
Marylebone. It’s near the Baker Street tube stop. That’s where I’d
look for this Ewen if I had a mind to.”

Serge morphed into a Scot on holiday to visit the
Wallace pub that evening, but no one there seemed to know Ewen. The
man had obviously left London. It was time for him to move on
too.

He spent the next couple of days gathering
the tools of his trade from a few trusted former associates, then
loaded it all into a rental car and headed to Scotland. Everything
he’d learned so far led back to James Mackinnon and his Inverness
gift shop. It was time to pay the man a visit.

John Cameron was panting and dripping with sweat as
he neared the top of the Empire State Building’s 1,860 steps on his
home gym’s StairMaster when the doorbell rang. Anne was still
asleep and the housekeeper had left for her weekly trip to the
local farmers’ market. There was no one there to see who was at the
door but him. He grabbed a plush white towel and wiped the sweat
from his face as he took the stairs two at a time.

When he opened the door, a stocky deliveryman
was ambling back to a van, double-parked outside the Cameron’s red
brick townhouse.

“Wait!” John shouted and the man stopped and
reversed direction. “Sorry it took me so long to answer the
door.”

The messenger grunted a reply as he thrust a
manila envelope into John’s hand along with a clipboard and pen.
“Sign theyah,” he said, his speech tinged with a thick South Boston
accent.

John scrawled his name, grabbed a bill from
the tip dish on the hall table, and handed it to the messenger.

“Tanks,” the man said, a grin spreading
across his pockmarked face as he noticed the bill was a five and
not the usual single. Some people didn’t tip him at all. He’d be
happy to make more deliveries to this ritzy Louisburg Square
address.

John brushed aside the desire to resume his
short-circuited workout or shower, and instead headed directly to
the wood-paneled library on the townhouse’s second floor. The room
was a masculine oasis with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, worn leather
furniture, a faded Oriental rug, and lighting designed for reading.
He felt at peace in this quiet space, where Anne never ventured and
the scent of sweet tobacco smoke lingered. The ritual of filling
one of his many pipes with fragrant brown leaves, tamping it all
down, and finally igniting it always helped him to relax. Anne and
the housekeeper thought it was a filthy habit, but he didn’t care.
A man could do what he wanted in his home and this house was very
much his. Camerons had lived in it for generations. Some day it
would have been Will’s. He closed the door and turned the latch to
ensure that he wouldn’t be disturbed, then settled his tall frame
in a well-worn, brown leather chair, lifted his feet to the
matching ottoman, and laid the envelope on his lap.

Minutes passed as he drummed his fingers
nervously on the innocent-looking packet. He knew who’d sent the
envelope by its distinctive seal, but this was the first dispatch
he’d received since Will’s death and this particular missive filled
him with dread. He didn’t have to open it to know he was fucked.
He’d prayed they’d never find out what he’d done, or if they knew
they would let it go. He’d been deluding himself and he knew that
once he slit open this envelope his life would be irrevocably
changed. He’d been expecting something — he wasn’t sure what — that
would clarify, explain...either ease his guilt or send him to
purgatory. He turned the envelope this way and that as if he could
divine its contents simply through touch. He was sweating,
nauseous, breathless, and his heart was racing. He almost wished
for the massive coronary that his anxiety mimicked. A quick death,
yes, that would be best. But his body didn’t cooperate.

When he could no longer stand it, he broke
the flap’s archaic wax seal and half expected the thing to blow him
to bits. He set his shoulders and tried to prepare himself for
whatever was inside. His fingers shook as he frantically flipped
through the envelope’s meager contents and then he froze, unable to
tear his eyes away from a photo of Will, his son, his baby boy,
lying on the ground, sightless eyes open wide, staring at nothing.
Blood was pooled around his head. “HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS!” was
scrawled across the photo in bold, black letters, large enough for
a blind man to see. Will was dead because of him. It was true.