Page 7

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty, move!”

Someone grabbed Cameron’s arms, sending pain radiating across his chest. He opened his eyes and discovered he was on his back on a bench in a small, strange compartment. What the hell—?

“I said move it.”

Not liking the man’s tone, Cameron made an effort to swing a fist only to realize his hands were bound behind him. Blood surged into trapped muscles as his alarm grew.

The man pulled him backward out of the coach. When his feet hit the ground, Cameron looked around and recognized the two men as those who had challenged him at the sea wall, who’d fired the painful metal darts at his chest. The shorter of the two took hold of his left arm while the taller took hold of his right.

“Come on, Macbeth. The stun gun didn’t do that much damage.”

Not about to be dragged anywhere by anyone, least of all by those who’d disarmed him so easily, Cameron fell backward, kicking, and connected with the shorter man’s face.

“God damn it!”

Cameron’s satisfaction in landing the blow was short lived, thanks to something hard and thick catching him in the ribs. Before he could regain his breath—or his feet—another blow landed in his middle. He was rolled and a knee landed in the middle of his back. Strong hands gripped his neck and hair, forcing the right side of his face onto the rough pavement. He then felt a pistol press his temple.

“Move and I’ll blow your fucking brains all over the sidewalk. Got it?”

Not doubting the man would, given Cameron had spread his friend’s nose all over his face, he ceased struggling.

“Get the damn cuffs on his ankles,” the man sitting on his back shouted.

Once they had him shackled hand and foot, they hauled him to his feet, and grabbing him from either side, marched him up the icy steps and into the red brick building.

Cameron squinted against the glare of the overhead lamps in the hot building where he was led past an open window and into a large room where they shoved him toward a chair.

The men arresting him separated and the tall man ordered, “Sit.”

Having no choice, Cameron sat.

The taller shrugged out of his coat, threw it onto the back of his chair, and took a seat. He then said, “Name.”

Looking about, wondering why bells were ringing, he said, “MacLeod. Sir Cameron MacLeod.”

The man banged on a glossy black pallet covered in buttons, a thing much like the one Claire MacGregor had. “Address.”

Someone shouted and Cameron looked over his shoulder. Another official was hauling in a skinny man, his skin the color of burnt wood. Having heard there were such dark-skinned people but never having seen one, Cameron followed the man’s jerky progress across the room to another desk. Behind him came two women with the gaudiest hair—one purple, the other silver—he’d ever seen. The purple-headed woman, noticing his stare, elbowed her friend. “Hey, Shelley, check out Braveheart.”

“MacLeod! Pay attention. We haven’t got all night.”

Cameron turned his attention back to the man interrogating him. “What?”

“Address?”

“Castle Rubha.”

The man leaned forward and glared at him. “Look, shithead, we can do this the hard way or we can do it the easy way. What will it be?”

Given the shackles and the condition of his ribs—the man had managed to land three more blows on the way up the stairs—Cameron growled, “The easy.”

“Good.” The sheriff placed his hands back on the buttons and said, “Address.”

“Castle Rubha, Rubha, Scotland.”

The man glared at him again. “Here, in Boston.”

Since he wasn’t staying anywhere, Cameron gave him Claire’s shop name and street.

“Got a house number?”

Cameron shook his head.

“Date of birth.”

“Hogmanay, the year of our Lord, 1716.”

“What?”

Cam blew through his teeth. His English wasna apparently as good as he’d thought. That or this man—Joe O’Brian, according to his badge—was as deaf as a stone. Enunciating clearly and slowly, he repeated, “On Hogmanay, the last day of each year. In 1716.”

Banging on the buttons, Joe O’Brian muttered, “Why am I always the one stuck doing the paperwork on the space cadets?” He then asked, “Occupation?”

“Sitting … in shackles.” Ye friggin’ cattle shit.

O’Brian gave him a baleful look. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a soldier.” Leastwise he was before he awoke in this God-forsaken place.

“Oooh-kay.” O’Brian banged on the buttons for a moment, then asked, “Next of kin in case of emergency?”

Wondering what constituted an emergency if being shackled and beaten did not, Cameron said, “I have none.”

“Look, I need a name, someone we can notify should you keel over dead.”

A lovely thought. But should he die, he’d be taking one of these bastards with him. But then, should something worse await him in this building, who’d bury him? He kenned only one person here. “Claire MacGregor.”

He gave O’Brian the rest of the information he requested. He was told to stand and was hauled into another room where they placed him against a wall and gave him a plaque to hold. Bright lights flashed in his eyes.

“Face left,” the woman said. The lights flashed again. Not a minute later his hands were coated in ink and pressed onto paper.

They then marched him into a white tiled room where O’Brian said to another man, “He’s gotta be on something. Do a cavity search.”

O’Brian left grinning.

The new man—squat, about fifty, and also in livery—tossed a white crate onto the table before Cameron. “Put all your personal possessions in the box. Jewelry, belt, all of it.”

Cameron held out his shackled wrists. “I canna get the cuff or brooch off with my hands like this.”

“Fine.” The man undid the brooch and lifted the brass cuff from his wrist and put them in the box. He then pulled the belt from Cameron’s waist and his breachen feile fell away.

The man grinned. “Well, that certainly answers an age-old question about what you guys wear under a kilt.”

Bastard. Not that Cameron had anything to be ashamed of.

The man tossed his plaid into the basket and told Cameron to take off his boots. As Cameron dropped them into the box, the man pulled on thin, white gloves.

After running his hands through the back of Cameron’s hair, he said, “Open your mouth and lift your tongue.”

Not liking it one bit for his teeth were sound as any man’s, Cameron did, and the man looked inside.

“Okay, turn around.”

Huffing, Cameron turned.

“Now bend over and spread your legs.”

“Bugger that!” Cameron rolled and this time kicked with both feet.

Claire ran her hand over the new glass in the Velvet Pumpkin’s front door. “At least it was only one pane this time.”

“Ya.” The glazier closed his toolbox and pulled out a receipt book. “Here you go.”

Claire took the bill from his outstretched hand. “Four hundred? But you only charged me three-fifty last time.”

“Sorry, but it’s Sunday. Overtime.”

Cursing under her breath, Claire wrote out the check.

The man gone and the alarms on, she continued grumbling as she climbed the back staircase to her apartment, where Mrs. Grouse patiently waited, the floor swept, and fresh coffee was brewing.

As she tossed the bill into her mounting stack of to-be-filed-in-this-lifetime, Mrs. Grouse said, “Here you go, dear.”

Claire caught the unmistakable scent of anisette as her hands wrapped around a warm coffee mug Mrs. Grouse held out to her. “Bless you.”

“You’re welcome. Is the door fixed?”

“Ya.” She flopped down onto the kitchen chair Cameron MacLeod had sat on only hours earlier, and Mrs. Grouse settled across from her. “Will you look at my wall? I just finished painting the damn thing. When his fists flew past my ears, I thought … God, I don’t know what I thought, but I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”

Mrs. Grouse clucked as she, too, examined the craters MacLeod had left in the plaster. “Well, at least it’s fixable.”

“Ya, but this situation isn’t. He’s out there, confused, furious, and no doubt running amok.”

“I doubt it, dear. If he is who you fear he is—and I must tell you your tale stretches the bounds of belief even for me—then he’s developing a plan of escape, a means of returning to his own time and place. He’s a warrior, and from what you’ve told me, lives depend on his doing so.”

Claire nodded. “Precisely, which will make him desperate.”

Mrs. Grouse tapped her fingers on the table for a moment. “You have no idea where he might have gone?”

“None.” Claire looked at the clock again. Seven hours. She never should have told him about The Clearances. Should have lied or at least waited until—

Brrrrring!

Claire lunged for the phone hanging by the refrigerator. “Hello?”

A gruff baritone said, “Ms. Claire MacGregor, please.”

“This is she.”

“This is Sergeant Tillis at the 23rd Precinct. Do you know a Cameron MacLeod?”

Oh no. “Yes. Is he all right?”

“He’s been arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon and resisting arrest. Would you like to come down and bail him out? He’s combative and … confused.”

She could well imagine. “I’ll be right there.”

Given what he was likely telling the police, if she didn’t get him out of there, they’d ship him off to Bridgewater and throw away the keys.

After scribbling down the directions to the station house, Claire hung up. “He’s in jail.”

Her tenant tsked. “So I gathered. Now what?”

“I have to bail him out.” For how much, she hadn’t a clue. She’d forgotten to ask.

Tavish, if you were here …

Claire picked up the phone again, called for a taxi, then ran into the living room, where she pulled her coat from the closet and picked up her purse. “Do you think they take credit cards?”

Mrs. Grouse grinned. “I’m sure they do, but if you need cash, I have some stashed in my sugar bowl.”

Doubting they had enough cash between them to pay for the taxi, much less bail, Claire gave Mrs. Grouse a hug. “Thanks, but I have some. I’ll be back … sometime.”

“Just go. I’ll have supper waiting for you when you get back.”

Claire nodded, the knot in her stomach tightening at the very thought of food.

When the taxi arrived, she scrambled inside and was immediately assaulted by the stench of curry and garlic, made worse by the taxi’s heater set on high.

“Where to?” Her turban-headed driver studied her through black, soulful eyes in the rearview mirror.

Wondering if the man had ever seen snow—much less had experience driving in it before today—she gave him directions and searched between the seat cushions for the seatbelt as they fishtailed away from the curb.

Why couldn’t you have sent me a Russian?

Thirty minutes later, they pulled up before the precinct station house and Claire handed over her fare. “Next time you spin out, take your foot off the brake and steer into the slide, okay?”

But for a well-placed snowbank and mailbox, they’d have landed in a Macy’s display window.

The taxi driver grinned as he took the cash from her hand. “Yes, I shall, but you must admit it was rather exciting for a moment, was it not?”

Not.

Her legs still shaking from her near brush with death, Claire climbed the salt-coated precinct house stairs. Inside, she stopped before a glass-fronted cubicle that bore the sign Check In. “Excuse me.”

A thick-necked officer of about fifty looked up from his paperwork and leaned toward his microphone. “May I help you?”

“I’m Claire MacGregor, here to bail out Cameron MacLeod.” Good God, never in her life had she ever imagined herself bailing out anybody. Well, maybe Tracy …

“One moment.” He rifled through a vertical file, then picked up the phone. A moment later, he hung up and pointed to a long wooden bench that was bolted to the floor and above which hung a No Smoking sign. But the place reeked of smoke. “Wait over there. Someone will be with you in a minute.”

A minute turned out to be thirty as she watched one unhappy perp after another being led in by red-faced officers and then hauled away.

“Claire MacGregor?”

Claire jerked and found a middle-aged woman in a gray pantsuit standing in an open doorway to her left. “Yes?”

“This way, please.”

Claire followed the woman down an industrial green hallway, where she stopped before an open window and slid the manila folder she’d been carrying onto the counter. “This officer will help you.”

Sgt. Babcock, a young officer, opened the file, then studied her for a moment. “Are you here to bail out Cameron MacLeod?”

“Yes.” She hoped. It all depended on how much they’d charge for the dubious privilege.

“Are you a relative?”

“No, just a friend.” Sort of.

He turned the paperwork around so she could read it. “It says here that he’s been charged with loitering, carrying a concealed weapon, refusal to show proper identification, resisting arrest, and three counts of assaulting an officer.”

Three?

“After his arraignment,” the officer continued, “bail was—”

“Wait. He’s been arraigned? But what about a lawyer?”

“He had a court-appointed attorney present.” He flipped a page and used his pen as a pointer. “Says here his court date has been set for March 4, 2008. Have him at the county court house by 8:00 a.m. Here’s the address and a map. His bail has been set at $5,000.”

Oh. My. God. Totally out of her element, she asked, “Do you take credit cards?”

“Yes, ma’am, we do, but if it’s a hardship, I can provide you with a list of bail bondsmen.”

Picturing a shabby office stinking of cigar smoke, filled with sweaty, drugged-out felons and wanted posters, Claire shook her head, pulled out her wallet and held out her business credit card. “Here.”

As he ran her card through the machine, the door to her left opened and Cameron MacLeod came through, looking none the better for his brush with the law.

Dressed in a too-small yellow jumpsuit and paper slippers, his hair disheveled, his thick wrists bound in handcuffs, her warrior looked like hell as he shuffled toward her.

Seeing a large abrasion on his left cheek and bruises on his neck as he drew near, Claire’s heart constricted despite all he’d put her through. She reached up and touched his cheek. “Are you all right?”

He cast a scathing glance toward the tall, barrel-chested officer at his side. “Aye.” He then shifted his attention back to her. “I’m surprised you’ve come.”

She sighed. “So am I.” Taking in his ill-fitting jumpsuit, she asked, “Where are your clothes?”

“They took them.”

The officer at his side pulled a set of keys from his belt and reached for Cameron’s shackled wrists. “They’re at the desk.”

Cameron scowled. “My breachen feile wouldna stay put without the belt and well they kenned it, but they took it anyway.”

“Ms. MacGregor?” She looked over her shoulder. The sergeant was waving her back to the window. Cameron and the officer followed.

The sergeant pushed her credit card receipt, and another form toward her. “Sign there and there, affirming that you’re taking custody of the defendant and offering assurances that he’ll show up for his court date. If he doesn’t, you forfeit your $5,000.”

Cameron, rubbing the red marks on his freed wrists, leaned over her shoulder to scan the form. “How much is this in pounds?”

Claire signed on the dotted lines. “I’m not sure. Maybe three thousand.”

To his credit, Cameron looked horrified. “Ye’re jesting, surely?”

“I wish I were.” She slid the completed form toward the officer.

He then passed a pen and a stack of papers toward Cameron. After explaining each form, he said, “Sir, look these over and sign at the bottom.”

Cameron picked up the pen, examined it from every angle, clicked it innumerable times, then scrawled his name in handsome cursive across the bottom of the page—without reading a word.

The man was a menace to himself.

Apparently thinking the same, the sergeant rolled his eyes and placed a large plastic crate on the counter. “These are your possessions, Mr. MacLeod. Check to be sure nothing is missing and sign this form.”

“Where’s my sword?” MacLeod rifled through the contents of the crate, then tore open a small paper bag he found in the crate, dumping his brooch and brass cuff onto the counter. “And my sgian duhb?”

“Your what?”

“The short blade, man.”

“Ah. The evidence. They’ll remain in the Property Room until after the trial.”

To her alarm, Cameron’s jaw muscles began twitching and his already impressive chest suddenly puffed, straining the seams of the bright yellow garment he was crammed into. “Evidence of what?” he demanded. He then turned to her, his indignation and ire obviously on the rise. “I swear I didna do anything to warrant—”

Claire gripped his arm. “Cameron, honey, listen to me. This nice man is letting us go. Let’s not cause any more trouble. You’ll get your sword and blade back later.” She shoved the form toward him. “Just sign this and let’s get out of here.”

Claire held her breath when Cameron closed his eyes, his thick black lashes lying like fans across high cheekbones. When the thick muscles of his forearm began to relax beneath her hand, she dared to exhale. He finally opened his eyes and nodded. “Aye, later.”

Thank God! Now to get him dressed and out of here. To the officer at his side, she said, “Where can he change?” She could worry about hiring a lawyer later.

“Over there.”

When Cameron, crate in hand, disappeared into the men’s room, the officer asked, “Is he mentally ill?”

“Uhmm … no. I mean not really.” Think, Claire! “He worked construction, fell from scaffolding. He hasn’t been right in the head since. Last week, he was the President. This week he’s Robert the Bruce. But he’s harmless, really.”

The officer grunted. “Tell that to my partner. He’s at Mass General, nursing a broken nose.”

Oh shit, not good. “I’m so sorry.”

The officer snorted derisively. “Not as sorry as your friend is, trust me.”

“What do you mean by—”

“I’m ready.”

At the sound of Cameron’s voice, Claire spun and found him scowling, dressed as well as could be expected in a few yards of plaid, unbuckled galoshes, and a too-small trench coat hanging from his massive shoulders.

One more thing for her to-do list: Get him into some real clothes.

Without a word, she took him by the arm and headed out the door.

* * *