Page 32 of Lachlan

Lachlan stepped forward so that he now stood partially in front of her.

As protection?

“Take a look at yourself, Hunter,” he rasped. “You announced McGregor is dead, and your clothes are covered in his blood.”

“Sorry.” Hunter shot Belle an apologetic glance as he dropped onto one of the kitchen chairs around the table. “We watched that boy grow up, and finding him like that…” He sighed heavily before looking at Belle again. “To answer your question, yes, the snow might have softened his landing if they hadn’t dropped him so that he hit and bounced off the side of the mountain several times before he hit the ground.”

Belle winced at the horrible death given to Ben. No one deserved to die like that.

Hunter looked at his brothers. “I made the decision to clear up the places of impact and the spot where he finally landed before moving him to the bottom of a sheer drop on the other side of the mountain. It will explain the extent of his injuries. Hamish and several men from the village will find him there when they go upthe mountain to look for him.” He glanced at Belle. “They believe he went searching for you on his own.”

She swallowed. “Which means they’re going to hold me responsible for his having died while doing so. Probably because I am,” she added achingly.

“You are nothing of the sort!” Lachlan reached out to grasp the tops of her arms. “You are not responsible for McGregor’s greed in accepting money for stealing Sister Agnes’s journals from you.”

“But—”

“What happened to him after he entered into that agreement was entirely on him,” Hunter agreed. “Is it sad that he’s dead? Of course it is. His family will no doubt miss him terribly. But he made his own choices and brought about his own death through greed, along with a hearty dose of a lack of concern for the welfare of anyone else involved.”

Lachlan nodded. “Considering he left Belle for dead on the mountain, I personally can’t summon up a bit of sympathy for him. For Hamish and Morag for the loss of their son, yes, but not for the greedy young man who treated you so dishonorably and was then murdered by the same treasure hunters he had decided to do business with.”

“How did they even know you had the journals, let alone what was in any of them?” the quiet Ranulf prompted.

Belle had wondered about that too, since she’d realized the journal was missing from her backpack.

The only explanation she’d been able to come up with was that the thieves must have been alerted by the searches she’d madeonline. They had been extensive, especially in regard to the location of the convent where Sister Agnes had lived and any connection she might have had to dragons or dragon shifters.

If the hunters had red-flagged certain words online, it would have been easy, once alerted to her searches, for any decent hacker to follow that digital trail back to her. Especially when she’d done most of her online searches at the library, which was an unsecured connection and so could be hacked. It would have been an easy step from there for the hunters to be able to learn her name and home address.

Which was probably where Ben had entered into their plans. Despite living in the same house, he and Belle weren’t friends, and the temptation of the money the hunters had offered must have been too much to resist.

Besides, it had probably seemed like an easy task to Ben at the time: break into Belle’s room, steal the journals, and then collect his money.

It had been some time since Belle had even looked at the other journals in the box at the bottom of her wardrobe. Now that she knew of Ben’s involvement, she was even more convinced that he had stolen those journals from her room before Christmas.

Unfortunately for Ben, whoever was looking for dragon treasure would have quickly discovered that, although the journals were written by Sister Agnes, not one of them had anything written in them about the dragons Belle had so thoroughly researched online.

Which was how the treasure hunters must have realized there had to be another journal.

A journal Ben had found a way to steal after she joined him and his family for Hogmanay in the Highlands.

Lachlan was right. During none of those actions had Ben seemed to give her continued well-being a thought.

He certainly hadn’t seemed in any hurry to tell anyone or rescue her once he realized she’d gone off on her own up the mountain.

She accepted Hunter and Lachlan were right, and Ben had been complicit in his own death.

“I’m sure you’re right.” Hunter nodded after Belle had shared her thoughts with the three brothers. “I took this from Ben’s backpack.” He held up a mangled laptop. “It’s pretty damaged from the fall too, but if I can save the hard drive, it might give us a lead on who these treasure hunters are and how to find them.”

The laptop looked pretty beaten up to Belle, but that didn’t mean the hard drive wasn’t salvageable.

Hunter huffed. “I doubt any of them realized that the dragons they were seeking live only a couple of miles from the village where Ben resides with his family.”

Belle grimaced. “They might once they’ve translated and read that missing journal.”

Ranulf nodded his agreement. “Which is why we will have to seriously consider bringing forward our need to disappear for five or six decades.”

She gasped her alarm. “You’re going away?”

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