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  The sleet and rain sluiced beneath the folds of his plaid, and the wet ground of the moor rooted his feet. Suddenly the mist parted, revealing a flash of a gold button here, a fluttering standard there, the steaming breath of a mounted soldier's horse.

  He looked to his left, and to his right, but for the first time in his life he did not know the men who were fighting beside him. His own men, his tenants and tacksmen and cousins, would be on the road to Carrymuir by now.

  Like him, they had seen the sea of ten thousand sassenachs, heard the rolling cannons, listened to the conflicting commands given to the Highland army. They had seen the zealousness on Prince Tearlach's smooth face and had known that they simply could not win.

  When, in the wee hours of the dawn, he had gone to strike his bargain with the Duke of Perth, he knew that his argument was purely a matter of logistics. He had agreed to lead his men, he told Perth. That did not mean he himself would be fighting.

  It was a technicality; any oath he'd made would naturally imply he'd be fighting alongside, since no laird would expect his clan to do what he himself would not. But in this case, he was willing to bend the truth to protect the others. And he knew when he offered the commander the choice of a ragtag band from Carrymuir or his own skill in combat, it wouldn't be much of a choice at all.

  He wondered, as he slogged across the moor for the third time, his leg bleeding from a lucky round of Sassenach grapeshot, whether any of these fools realized he did not want to be here at all. He didn't want to face one more bloody English soldier, or step on the still-heaving backs of Scots fallen four deep.

  He wondered what God was like. He hoped that heaven resembled Scotland.

  He murmured the paternoster over and over to hear the sound of his own voice. Seeing a sassenach just turning his way, he lifted his left arm high in the air. He brought the sword down at the man's neck, cleaving it wide, feeling the hot blood melt the sleet on his chest.

  Cameron MacDonald sank to his knees and vomited; tried to remind himself that he had given his word to fight to the death. He did not much relish dying, but aye, it was a fair trade. He loved the people of his town too much to see them suffer.

  And had he the chance, he'd do the same all over again.

  Angus MacDonald sat up in his narrow bed. Having heard the gossip during one of his lucid moments during the day, it did not surprise him when the ghost of his great-grear-great-great-uncle Cameron came to haunt him in the hollow of the night. And it surprised him even less that Cameron MacDonald I was, in death, no less unconventional than he'd been when he was alive. No rattling chains and slipping through doors, not for him. No, he came to Angus in the guise of a dream, a spectacular frenzy in which Angus seemed to be seeing through Cameron's own eyes as he thundered across a moor, waving a broadsword.

  "I shouldna have expected anything different," he muttered, talking to himself as he pulled on a pair of twill trousers and a pilled Shetland sweater. Once, when he'd been caretaker of Carrymuir, he'd seen the ghost of Mary Queen of Scots herself, sailing away from Loch Leven Castle dressed as a laddie, as she'd been when she escaped its prison hundreds of years before. It had left him with a queer feeling in his stomach and a beating in his head not unlike a hangover--sensations he felt right now.

  Angus knew that although most people would dismiss him as someone in the throes of Alzheimer's, he was really a victim of collective memory. It was a sort of reincarnation, a resurrection of some other clan member's thoughts. He happened to be privy to whatever was plaguing Cameron MacDonald I. And tonight, Cameron MacDonald I was not pleased with the actions of Cameron MacDonald II.

  "I dinna know what he can be thinking," Angus said, pulling slippers onto his feet, because they were the first footwear he could find in his bedroom. "Young Cam always has to be reminded about the way of things."

  Angus, in fact, had been the one to convince Cam to return to Wheelock and become police chief after his father's death. Almost exactly eight years ago, Cameron had come to Scotland to tell Angus about Ian's accident. At the time, Angus had been seventy-four, caretaker at Carrymuir all his life, although his wife had died twelve years earlier and all his relatives were living in Massachusetts. Young Cameron, who was a bit of a wanderer, had volunteered to sit at Carrymuir for several years to spell Angus, but Ian's early death had altered the plans. Cam had taken Angus to the tavern for a wee dram, knowing that he, like everyone else, would take the loss of a clan chief hard. He spread his palms over the scarred wooden bar and told him of the ice, the tractor-trailer, the bend in the narrow road. He said this all in a monotone, because it wasn't quite real to him yet, and he mentioned, as the doctors had, that his father had felt no pain. When he was finished speaking, Angus looked up at him, his eyes bright and dry. "Aye, well," he said, "so I'll be stayin' here a wee bit longer."

  To Angus's horror, Young Cam had wanted to trade. He'd stay at Carrymuir, he said, and Angus could go home and take over the clan. The thought had shaken Angus more than his nephew's death; you simply couldn't cross the lines of leadership like that.

  Even now, Angus remembered the shine of Cam's brow and the set of his jaw as he fought his own birthright. It's no' a real title, he had said. There's nothing I can do as chief that ye canna do better.

  PLACE:

  Wheelock Inn, Main St., Wheelock MA

  Angus had shrugged, finished off his whiskey, and stared at the boy. He wondered if Cam realized chat he had slipped into Angus's own Scots burr, not because of a familiarity with the pattern of speech in Carrymuir, but simply because it had been bred into him. "Duty is duty," Angus had said, "and a laird is a laird. And be there a clan or no', lad, ye canna doubt your own blood."

  Of course, stubbornness had also been passed down over the generations of MacDonalds, so Angus had accepted a compromise. Cam returned to Wheelock, but so did Angus, and the lands and grand house at Carrymuir were left to the Scottish National Trust.

  Every morning over his rainbow banquet of vitamins and heart medication Angus forced his mind back to Carrymuir, so that he would not wake up one morning and find that he could not remember it any longer. He pictured the strong stone house, the fireplace in the great hall, the sheep that spilled about the old crofters' huts like a current. He did not let himself dwell on the fact that Carrymuir, which had never been taken by Campbells or English or anyone else, was now overrun with tourists.

  But he did not have time for that now. Angus pulled his bathrobe on over his clothes, and at just after three in the morning, began to walk in his slippers the mile from his small home to the Wheelock police station, where once again he would be his great-nephew's conscience.

  INVESTIGATION REPORT Wheelock Township Police Dept. Case # 95-9050

  STATE vs. MacDONALD, James Reid White male, age 36, D.O.B. 3/14/59. Place of birth: Boston MA Ht. 6'4", wt. 200 lbs. green eyes, auburn hair

  CHARGES: Murder One

  DATE:

  September 19, 1995

  EVIDENCE: 1

  Pillowcase

  2 . Rug samples

  3. Shoes worn by suspect

  4. Samples of hair (victim)

  5. Samples of hair (suspect)

  6. Autopsy report

  7. Photographs of crime scene and victim

  8. Voluntary statement from suspect

  Allie brewed her own tea. It was a very English thing to do, and

  Cam sometimes laughed at her, saying she'd better keep quiet about it or all the good Scots would run her out of town. At first she did it because she was a stickler for detail. In the same way she could sense a stray frond of grass ruining an arrangement, she could taste the commonplace seeping from a bag of Lipton's as strong and as bitter as arsenic. But she'd learned to tolerate it and now she brewed her own tea only because Cam usually made a comment about it.

  Allie did at least a hundred things each day simply because of their effect on Cam. They bound him to her: she'd drop his shirts off at the cleaners without being asked, or lay out a
bowl of cereal for him before she went to bed so it was there in the morning, or, as in the case of the tea, open herself to teasing just to guarantee an exchange of conversation. She made his life run so smoothly that he never had to wonder about those little details that plague everyone else--like turning the clocks back in the fall, or always having enough milk in the refrigerator, or keeping handy the right size batteries for whatever piece of electronic equipment he was fixing. She told herself this was something she wanted to do, a silent promise she'd made on her wedding day to the handsome, magnificent man standing beside her. If every day flowed seamlessly into the next for Cam, he'd never have reason to wonder, What if?

  It never occurred to Allie that this was very similar to behaviorally drugging Cam. Or that every selfless errand she ran for her husband was another silken strand that wrapped him tight, like a spider trapping her prey with guilt. Or that Cam was strong enough, and sure enough, to break out of any hold or system Allie could ever create.

  Then again, maybe this had occurred to her, and that was the reason she continued.

  Sometimes, when Cam was working the midnight-to-eight shift, and Allie was lying in bed, she let her hands move restlessly over her own body. She pretended that Cam would notice something ridiculously simple--like the fact that all his socks were neatly paired and folded in his underwear drawer--and would turn to her with the same look on his face that Allie often gave to him. Allie, he'd say, his eyes burning with wonder and worship, have you done all this for me?

  Cam had gone back to the station in the middle of the night to relieve Zandy, who was watching over Jamie MacDonald. When Allie heard the car pull into the driveway, she slid the egg from the bowl where it had been waiting to the sizzling pan. By the time Cam had kicked the dirt off his boots and hung his coat up in the mudroom, Allie was already slipping Che egg onto a slice of toast.

  She placed her hand on the back of his neck as he settled heavily at the kitchen table, rubbing his face with his hands. "Tired?" she asked.

  Cam made an indistinguishable noise in the back of his throat. He picked up his fork just as Allie laid the steaming plate in front of him. His mouth watered at the sight of the hot food, but he carefully set the fork on the edge of the plate and turned back to Allie.

  She was at the sink, scraping the frying pan. She had a thing about letting food sit in a frying pan, and was obsessive about scrubbing it clean the second it came off the stove. Her shoulders were tense with effort, but she was humming.

  "Allie," he said, but she didn't hear him over the running water. "Allie!"

  She turned around quickly, pressing up against the basin of the sink as if he'd scared the hell out of her instead of just raising his voice. "What's the matter with your egg?"

  "Nothing." Cam took a deep breath. "Allie," he said, "do you think he was right?"

  Allie slid into the chair across from her husband. There was no question in her mind what he was asking. "Do you?"

  Cam stared at her so forcefully Allie could feel his gaze. She covered her chest with her palms, picturing in a quick flash Cam's mouth drawing deep at her breast the night before. "I don't know," he admitted. "But my hands are tied. He killed a woman; we've got the body. He's got scratches on his face and Hugo found skin cells that match up under Maggie MacDonald's fingernails." He paused a moment, cocking his head. "If I was dying of cancer and in god-awful pain and I asked you to kill me, would you do it?"

  Allie didn't hesitate. "Yes. But then I'd kill myself, too."

  Cam's mouth fell open. "Because you'd murdered me?"

  "No," Allie said. "Because you'd be dead."

  Mia put her toothbrush down at the edge of the sink and stared at the medicine cabinet one more time. She'd done it before at other people's houses--peeked inside--but this was a little different. This wasn't simple curiosity, but a burning desire to put together the pieces. And it seemed patently wrong to invade the privacy of a woman who had gone out of her way to give her employment and shelter all in one day.

  Mia opened the mirrored door, watching her own image lengthen and swerve and then fall away to a neat array of glass shelves.

  Tylenol, and iodine, and syrup of ipecac. Gauze pads and Band-Aids and Laura Ashley perfume. Ban deodorant, Brut aftershave. Kaopectate.

  The only prescription medicine she recognized was a form of penicillin. Well, that, and the birth control pills. She had used the same kind at one point.

  Mia took out the shell-shaped box and ran her finger over the lid. She flipped open the pills and counted the number missing.

  It occurred to her that if she pushed a couple of pills out with her thumb and washed them down the drain, she could quite possibly change the life of Cameron and Allie MacDonald. She quickly snapped the lid shut and put it back in the medicine cabinet, shaking with this sense of power.

  As Cam put down his empty glass, Allie refilled it. "It's Murder One," he said, as if he could not believe it himself. "He knew he was going to do it; he drove to a specific goddamned town to do it; and he voluntarily admitted to killing her." He shook his head. "I don't know what Jamie thought I could do for him," he said. "I've got to assume it was a premeditated killing." "A lot of people aren't going to see it that way." Cam stood up and wrapped his arms around her. She fit just under his chin. "Too bad you're only the wife of a clan chief. You'd make the perfect political mate."

  "Cam," Allie said slowly, as if a thought had just occurred to her, "I made funeral decorations. Cemetery baskets and things like that. Well, actually, Mia did."

  Cam nodded. "You're the town florist. No one's going to think you're making a statement."

  Allie pulled away from him and opened the refrigerator, pretending to search for something. "But what if I did?" "What if you did what?" "What if I wanted to make a statement?"

  Cam sank back into a chair. "Allie, even if you killed someone, I'd have to turn you in." He ran a hand through his thick hair, spilling it over his face. "I'd still be the police chief."

  Allie nodded, briefly imagining Cam's own hand locking her into the small, dark cement cell in the center of town. "Yes," she said, "but you'd also still be my husband."

  That was Cam's breaking point. He bolted upright, knocking the chair behind him onto the floor. "This is not what I came home for. This is not what I need from you."

  A switch snapped in Allie. She dropped the dish towel and closed the refrigerator door and moved right in front of Cam, pushing past his frustration and anger to wrap her arms around him. "No, of course not."

  Cam let Allie guide him to the chair and gently press him into it again. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere else but in Wheelock, Massachusetts. Instinctively, his mind began to picture his favorite places. He envisioned a white elephant in Thailand, splashed with a bucket of water to turn a dusky gray; the shutters of nine hundred shops flapping open in Cairo's souk; the pink stone cathedrals of Mexico City.

  Something brushed across his leg and he jumped a foot.

  "Excuse me," said a voice, and Cam opened his eyes to see the woman who had been sleeping on the couch the night before.

  "Oh, Mia," Allie said, turning around with a smile. "Was there enough hot water?"

  Mia nodded. She was staring at Cam, seeing him as he had looked when he'd stepped into the living room and stretched toward the rafters like a sleek and stunning mountain cat. She stuck out her hand. "Hi," she said. "I don't think we've really met."

  Allie stepped behind Cam and placed her arm around his waist. "You're right. We got sidetracked yesterday. Cam, this is Mia Townsend, my new assistant. Mia, this is--"

  "The police chief of Wheelock," Mia interrupted, a smile lighting her eyes. She gripped Cam's hand firmly.

  "Assistant?" Cam was speaking to Allie, but he kept his gaze trained on Mia, even as she pulled her hand away and bent over the bowl of cereal that Allie, like a mother, had placed in front of her.

  "Well," Allie said, "there's just something about her.
Wait till you see what she can do."

  There's just something about her. Cam swallowed, reaching up to find Allies hand on his shoulder. It was warm and small and smooth and he knew all its knobs and textures. It felt completely different than Mia's hand had, moments before. "I can't imagine it being any better than your stuff," Cam said.

  "Oh, just wait."

  Cam shifted his weight. This stranger had come to Wheelock and in a single day had charmed Allie, had infiltrated her way into his own house. He instinctively tensed, realizing that every time he'd been in the vicinity of the woman, he'd felt a nervous energy, a hunch that she wasn't quite comfortable in her own skin. And a niggling sense that he had spoken to her, or seen her, or been somewhere near her before.

  Suddenly Mia jumped to her feet. "My cat," she explained. "I think I left him in the bathroom." She darted her eyes overhead. "He's probably clawed your shower curtain to shreds."

  Allie laughed. "Eat your breakfast. I'll get the cat."

  Mia remained standing several seconds after Allie had left the room. Then she smiled hesitantly at Cam and sat down.

  Cam watched her pour milk into the cereal. She scooped the corn flakes up toward the back of the bowl, the way he'd seen the English eat soup. "What's the cat's name?" he said, willing to call a truce.

  "Kafka."

  Mia did not look up.

  "Kafka?" Cam pressed, amused.

  She nodded. "He'd rather be anything but a cat."

  "And how do you know that?" In spite of himself, Cam found that he was leaning forward.

  Mia's dark blue eyes locked tight on his. "When we lived in India, he thought he was a cow. He crossed streets in front of cars and learned how to moo. In Paris he tracked a finch onto a windowsill and leaped off, thinking he could fly." She lifted a shoulder. "With him, you never really know what's going to happen."

  "No," Cam said. He could smell her now, clean like rain, not at all like the Zest in the shower upstairs. His thoughts of Jamie MacDonald were gone; all he could see was Mia running through the streets of places he'd imagined his entire life. "You lived in India? In Paris?" When she did not answer, he leaned a little closer. If he moved his thumb, he would brush her wrist. He wanted to ask the question that had been dancing at the back of his mind since yesterday. "Do I know you?" he whispered.