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“You may remember, Rob Cameron’s my cousin. And he’s in lodge, of course. I was knocked off my perch to hear this about him. So I thought I’d maybe come out to Lallybroch, have a word with you and your husband”—he lifted an eyebrow, but she didn’t respond to this obvious hint about Roger, and he went on—“see that Jem was all right—are ye all right, Jem?” he broke off to ask seriously, glancing at the boy.
“Oh, aye, fine,” Jem replied airily, though he seemed tense. “Sir,” he added belatedly, and licked a smear of chocolate ice cream off his upper lip.
“That’s good.” Menzies smiled at Jem, and Bria
“Yes, there was,” she said grimly, shifting Mandy’s weight on her lap, “and Rob Cameron made it.”
He grimaced, drew a deep breath, but nodded.
“I’d like to help,” he said simply.
“You definitely did,” she assured him, wondering what on earth to do with him now. “Ick! Mandy, you’re dribbling all over everywhere! Use a napkin, for heaven’s sake.” She swabbed Mandy’s face briskly, ignoring her daughter’s cranky whine. Could he help? She wanted badly to believe him; she was still shaking internally and all too ready to grab at any offer of assistance.
But he was Rob Cameron’s relative. And maybe he’d come out to the house to talk, and maybe he’d come for some other reason. He might, after all, have intervened to keep her from blasting Rob into bloody shreds, rather than to save her and the kids from Rob and his masked sidekicks.
“I spoke to Ernie Buchan,” Menzies said, nodding toward the plate-glass window. “He, um, seemed to think that you might not want the police involved?”
“No.” Bree’s mouth was dry; she sipped the lukewarm tea, trying to think. It was getting harder by the moment; her thoughts scattered like drops of quicksilver, wobbling away in a dozen directions. “Not—not just yet. We were at the police station half of last night. I really can’t deal with any more questions tonight.” She took a deep breath and stared at him directly.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “I don’t know why Rob Cameron should have kidnapped Jemmy—”
“Yes, you d—” Jem started, and she whipped her head round and glared at him. He glared back, red-eyed and clench-fisted, and with a jolt of alarm she recognized the Fraser temper, about to go off with a bang.
“You do so know!” he said, loudly enough that a couple of truckers at the counter turned round to look at him. “I told you! He wanted me to—” Mandy, who had started to drop off again, jerked awake and started to wail.
“I want Daddeeeee!”
Jem’s face was bright red with fury. At this, it went white.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he shrieked at Mandy, who yelped in terror and screamed louder, trying to scramble up Bria
“DADDEEE!”
“Jem!” Lionel Menzies was on his feet, reaching for the boy, but Jem was absolutely beside himself, literally hopping up and down with rage. The entire restaurant was gaping at them.
“Go AWAY!” Jem roared at Menzies. “DAMMIT! Don’t you touch me! Don’t touch my mam!” And, in an excess of passion, he kicked Menzies hard on the shin.
“Jesus!”
“Jem!” Bree had a grip on the struggling, bawling Mandy but couldn’t reach Jem before he picked up his dish of ice cream, flung it at the wall, and then ran out of the café, crashing the door open so hard that a man and woman on the verge of entering were forced to leap aside to avoid being knocked over as he rocketed past.
Bria
The room was silent, save for Mandy’s sobbing, though this was dying down as her panic subsided. She burrowed into Bria
“Hush, sweetie,” Bree whispered, bending her head so that Mandy’s curls brushed her lips. “Hush, now. It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”
A muffled mumble ended with a tearful “… Daddy?”
“Yes,” Bree said firmly. “We’ll see Daddy soon.”
Lionel Menzies cleared his throat. He’d sat down to massage his shin but left off doing this to gesture toward the door.
“Had I … better go after Jem?”
“No. He’s all right … I mean … he’s with Ernie. I can see him.” They were in the parking lot, just visible in the glow of light from the neon sign. Jem had ca
“Mmphm.” It was the waitress with Menzie’s butty, her stolid face melted into sympathy. “The wee lassie’s tired, nay doubt.”
“I’m sorry,” Bree said feebly, and nodded at the shattered dish and splotch of chocolate ice cream on the wall. “I’ll, um, pay for it.”
“Och, di
She trundled off. Without speaking, Lionel Menzies popped the tab on his can of Irn-Bru and shoved it in her direction. She picked it up and gulped it. The advertising implied that the stuff was made from rusty iron girders salvaged from Glasgow shipyards. Only in Scotland would this have been considered a good selling point, she reflected. But it was about half sugar, and the glucose hit her bloodstream like the elixir of life.
Menzies nodded, seeing her straighten up like a wilting flower revived.
“Where is Roger?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know,” she said, just as softly; Mandy had given a final hiccuping sigh and fallen heavily asleep, face still buried in Bria
He grimaced, looking unhappy and strangely embarrassed; he was having trouble meeting her eyes.
“I see. Mmphm. Was it—I mean, did he … leave because of what Rob … er … did to Jem?” His voice dropped even lower and she blinked at him. Rising blood sugar had brought her thoughts back into focus, though, and suddenly the pe
He thought Rob had abducted Jemmy in order to—and Jemmy had said, “You know what he did,” and she’d shut him up sharp … and she’d said she didn’t want the police involved … oh, dear Lord. She took a deep breath and rubbed a hand over her face, wondering whether it was better to let him think Rob had molested Jemmy—and was now trying to murder her in order to cover that up—or to tell him some halfway believable version of some part of the truth.
“Rob came to my house last night and tried to rape me,” she said, leaning over Mandy’s head in order to keep her voice low enough to escape the flapping ears of the truckers sitting at the counter, who were glancing covertly over their shoulders at her. “He’d already taken Jem, and Roger had left to try to find him. We thought he’d taken Jem away to … to Orkney.” That seems far enough. “I … left messages; I expect Roger’ll be back any time now—as soon as he hears that Jemmy’s been found.” She crossed her fingers under the table.
Menzies’s face went blank, all his previous assumptions colliding with new ones.
“He—he—oh.” He paused for a moment, mechanically took a swallow of her cold tea, and made a face. “You mean,” he said carefully, “that you think Rob took Jem in order to lure your husband away, so that he … ehm … could—”
“Yes, I do.” She seized on this suggestion gratefully.
“But … those other people. With the—” He passed a hand vaguely over his head, indicating the balaclavas. “What on earth … ?”