Page 51 of Bonetide

He looks up at me sharply. “Sinclair came to your cottage?”

“Yeah. A few days ago.”

He sets his glass down. His face has changed—not worried but definitely alert—his posture stiff, eyes more intense.

“What did he ask you?”

“About the man on my property I reported the other week. He wants me to call him the next time I see that man.”

“And will you call him?”

“No. I don’t know what man he’s talking about.”

I’m tempted to wink so he knows what I mean.

He looks at me for a long moment, the light from the fire dancing on his face hypnotically, his eyes seeming to spark with flames. Suddenly I’m out of breath again.

He picks the glass back up.

“Catriona Carmichael,” he says quietly. “The name sounds familiar. From the village, maybe, but very long ago. She had something to do with your aunt?”

“Seems so.”

“Hmmm.”

We lapse into silence, save for the crackling fire. The whisky is warm in my chest, and the blanket is heavy on my shoulders, and outside, the rain has slackened to a quieter rain, the kind that will fall steadily now for hours.

But I’m not done yet.

“The letters were with a list that had forty-seven names, including Carmichael’s.”

He waits, staring at me curiously.

“I think some of them are the drowned wives.” I go on, as silly as it sounds. “From the folk tales or legends. I think Effie was keeping count.”

“Aye.” He turns the glass in his hand. “She would have.”

“Did she know those women?”

“Hard to say, but that’s the sort of thing she would keep track of.” He peers at me. “The two of you are very much alike.”

Maybe too alike.

“Drowned by what? What drowned the wives?”

A small silence.

“There are stories,” he begins, adjusting himself in his seat. “There have always been stories, and the stories create new stories. This is the Highlands, Iris. Every loch in this country has at least one creature in it according to someone. The fishermen who used to work this coast lived their whole lives by them. Half the place’s names are bloody warnings.”

“Like the Loch Ness Monster?”

The smile comes back, smaller.

“Nessie’s a good soul. She doesn’t bother anyone.” A beat. “But these depths have other things in them, and you wouldn’t want to meet most of them on a bad evening.”

“And yet you just swim in the loch every chance you get.”

“I have nothing to fear.”