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He raised his brows with an amused chuckle. “What?”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Ha! Gotcha. Funny, right?”
But he didn’t laugh. He narrowed his eyes as he chewed on the last of his cone. “Not really. You don’t look too amused.”
Rogene wiped her sweaty hands against her skirt. “Well. Then I suppose I was with Cameron, taking a break from everything and going AWOL for once in my life.”
David rested his hand on her arm, looking concerned. “You’re acting weird, and I want to know why. So, suppose you’re telling the truth. How did you travel in time?”
“Forget it,” she said. “Does time travel sound more believable than me running away with a guy?”
David chuckled. “No offense, but yeah.”
“Well, offense!” she said. “Excuse me, I’m not so bad looking.”
“That’s not the issue. The issue is you’re so organized and controlled. You’d never just take off for several weeks.” He paused, eyeing her. “So maybe you were kidnapped. Are you covering for someone? Do you have Stockholm syndrome?”
“I don’t have Stockholm syndrome. And I wasn’t kidnapped. And I’m not protecting anyone. I don’t want you to think I’m insane.”
“Okay, don’t worry about that. Just tell me what happened.”
Rogene groaned. “Ugh. Okay. I’ll tell you, but remember you asked for it.”
“Sure.”
And then she told him. About Sìneag. The rock. Angus Mackenzie being allegedly her soul mate. About the slap. The church and Father Nicholas. Then going back to Eilean Donan. Euphemia. Writing the contract. Bruce’s letter. Angus falling in love with her and canceling the wedding. The kidnapping. Her journey to retrieve him. Their trip back. Her telling him about Paul Mackenzie and them breaking up. Her traveling back.
By the end, she was telling the story through hysterical, childish sobs. David hugged her and she pressed her forehead into his shoulder, smudging her running makeup against his T-shirt.
She cried for some time, letting the ache pour out of her like bad blood, letting her brother soothe her.
When she could finally speak, she looked up at him, wiping her eyes. “So, what do you think?” she said. “Do you believe me?”
He stilled, looking at her as though trying to decide how to tell her she was actually naked in a public place. “Uhm. I believe you seem to believe your words. You’re not a great liar or a great actress. Never have been. So I can’t imagine you’d be so upset if you didn’t believe this to be true. Which makes me wonder what kind of pills you were given. And where you were held while you were hallucinating like that. And what the fuck they did to you while you were unconscious. You need to tell all this to the police.”
Rogene sighed. Of course he didn’t believe her. “Sure. I need to talk to the police again.”
“I’m serious. Someone dangerous is out there, kidnapping women and drugging them.”
“Probably,” she said. She felt rejected and misunderstood, and although she knew that chances of him believing her were slim, she still felt hurt.
“Anyway, enough of that,” she said. “Shall we go to the pub? You can’t drink, of course, but you can hang out with my colleagues and me.”
David looked at her with concern. “Uhm. Are you sure you want to go in this state? You look…like a panda.”
“Ah, damn it.” She sighed and brushed her hair with her hands. She retrieved her phone and unlocked it. The photo of Angus appeared on the screen. She’d looked at it for luck before her presentation, and her photos were still open. She tapped the camera app and pressed on the camera-reverse icon to take a look at herself and correct her makeup, so the photo disappeared.
But David frowned. “Who was that?”
She swallowed. “No one.”
“No. Show me. Come on.”
She sighed and returned the photo to the screen. There he was, overexposed by the flash against the dark background of the underground room. His beard, the small scars on his face, the black eye and the wound from Euphemia’s whip, the clothes, the sword…all authentic. All real. A sconce with a torch was visible on the wall, too.
“He looks like he has a cool costume,” David said.
“That’s not a costume,” she mumbled.
