Page 68 of The Highland Heist
“And snowflakes,” Grace muttered into his shoulder, burying herself as deeply into him as her body allowed. “Snowflakes are just lovely. I’m sure Zahra will love seeing snow.”
Thunder rumbled again, but Grace could only focus on the comforting weight of Frederick’s arms around her. She hated thunderstorms. She’d gotten better over the years—she didn’t hide in small, enclosed spaces during them anymore—but the irrational terror still had a way of creeping in. How could she help it? It had started during a storm the night her mother had died, giving birth to her baby brother. Her mother’s screams had been drowned out by the storm, until those screams stopped forever.
She tried to take a deep breath to regain some sense of control, but it got caught in her throat, lodged there like a sob.
Silly. Weak. Detectives were not afraid of storms. And mothers certainly shouldn’t be.
“It’s just a storm, darling,” Frederick murmured against her hair. “But I know you could use a little distraction. And I’m never hesitant to provide one.”
She nodded, tightening her grip on him as she searched for a semblance of reason, but sometimes fear was far more persuasive than reason.
“Run along to our room, and I’ll let the policeman know we will be packing our things for the next hour, so that he will keep watch over Mrs. Lindsay.”
Grace looked up at him and sniffled. “I’m not a coward, Frederick.” Just to reassure him.
“I know.” He smiled in the dashing way she felt all the way to her toes. “But being afraid does not make one a coward. I’ll not be far behind.”
With that promise from his very kissable lips, she turned and started toward the main stairway, covering her ears as she went. But before she could escape to the relative safety of their room, a sharp knock came from the front door.
She froze mid-step, her hand instinctively covering her ears against the growl of thunder. Who would be knocking at the door in the middle of a storm like this? Another knock came—this time harder, more insistent. Grace glanced down the hallway. With the servants absent and the house eerily quiet, she had little choice but to investigate herself. Could it be Detective Johnson? Perhaps he had more information about Mr. Barclay—some piece of the puzzle they’d missed. Her gaze flicked to the stairs again, lingering on the safety of her room … and Frederick’s promise to distract her.
Maybe she wouldn’t answer after all.
The knock came again, followed by a muffled voice. “Please, open the door. Lillias!”
Grace’s blood ran cold. The voice was familiar—impossibly so.
Every concern about the thunder fled her mind completely. She may pretend to believe in ghosts, but she didn’t really believe in them, though she’d been on an alarming number of ghost hunts in her life. This voice was not the mumbled, distant sound of a phantom. It was unmistakablyalive.
She took a step toward the door.
“Lillias,” the voice called again, followed by a desperate series of knocks that only made Grace’s pulse race faster.
Could it be? Could her mind really be playing such a cruel trick on her? Was this a hallucination brought on by the storm, or—she straightened, her fear pushing aside some of the dread clouding her thoughts. Well, there was only one way to find out.
With a quick turn of the lock and a pull of the door, Grace swung it open.
But instead of proving herself wrong and sane.
She proved ghosts were real.
Because standing in front of her, drenched from head to toe, his face pale and body trembling, stood Anthony Dixon staring right back at her.
“Grace?”
Her breath caught, as though her lungs had decided to skip a beat in protest. The ghost knew her name. Of course, it knew her name—every legendary spectre knew its victim’s name. Dickens’ ghosts all knew Scrooge’s name. King Hamlet called his son by name. Did the headless horseman know Ichabod’s name? She couldn’t remember.
“What are you doing here?” Tony’s ghost asked her as he leaned a palm against the outside doorframe, as if to steady himself. “Are you going to let me in?”
Let him in? Oh no! Every legend where someone let a spectre in the house ended very badly for the living people.
So she did what any rational person afraid of storms who was talking to their dead brother-in-law should do.
She shut the door in his face.
Chapter 17
Frederick rounded the hallway to see Grace as she stared out into the storm with the front door wide open, her face much too pale to be normal. He hurried his pace.
