Page 4

Chapter Four

Angie sat at the end of the table where Damien had been a few minutes before. She’d been crying. Ewan had asked Damien to leave the room for a few minutes, promising he could come back soon.

Ewan and I glanced across the table at each other.

“We’re going to have to call it off, aren’t we?” Angie asked. “I mean, I know we have to, but it’s—”

“Too much, right now. I can’t even imagine how you must feel,” I said.

“Lass, your wedding will continue—no worries there.” Ewan was so sweet with her, and it touched my heart. I’d never understand why he got along so well with everyone but me. “And no, you don’t have to call anything off. It’s unfortunate what has happened, but we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s a good idea to keep everyone busy.”

The windows rattled around us. I shivered. Of all the times for a blizzard.

“We have a few more days of this.” He waved a hand toward the window. “I meant what I said. “

“The other guests won’t make it, will they? My own father won’t be at my wedding.”

He wrapped his hands around her fists which were on the table. “Angie, we will make your wedding happen, no matter what.”

“Really? It feels wrong. Even if it is a stranger who passed. You have to know I didn’t mean what I said earlier. Why am I crying so much? I don’t cry.”

“Do you feel all right?” Her porcelain skin appeared even whiter than normal. Maybe she and Mara had caught a bug.

She lifted her hands. “I feel blotted. Like down is up, and I’m in some wicked Alice in Wonderland story. I swear to you I didn’t drink that much. In fact, most of the night I had water. I want to be able to fit in my dress, and alcohol makes me swell.”

“Come by my room later, and I’ll see if I can find something to help clear your head.”

“Thanks, luv. What would I do without you?”

Ewan cleared his throat. “We need you to look at a few pictures and tell us if you recognize the person in them.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t understand. Why would I know them?”

Ewan let go of her hands and then grabbed his phone off the table. “Just look,” he prompted.

She stared at the phone and then frowned.

“It can’t be,” she whispered. “Why does he look like that? He’s dead?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Robbie. He looks like my ex or someone who could be a twin. I don’t understand.” She picked up the phone and brought it closer to her face. “Robbie is dead?”

Her face crumpled and her hands shook.

Ewan took the phone from her.

“Has he been in contact at all?” Ewan asked. I was happy I didn’t have to pose that question to her.

“Not in years. I saw him once in a pub, maybe four years ago.”

“What happened then?” I took her hand in mine as a sign of support.

“He stopped me on my way out of the pub. He apologized to me. Said he hadn’t treated me right. That hitting a woman was never appropriate. That it had taken him a year of getting sober, but he understood why I’d fallen for Damien. He told me he was clean for the first time in years, and he hoped I was happy.

“He’d been planning to send me a letter to apologize. Said it was part of his sobriety.”

“You never told me about the mistreatment,” I said. “Did he hurt you?”

“Gave me a black eye,” she said. “I threw away his gear, and he lost it on me. Back then, he’d told me that he’d stopped using, but he lied.

“After he hit me, he left. I called Damien. We were all best friends then, and he was so close to Robbie. When Robbie walked in on Damien trying to comfort me, he took it wrong. They got into a huge, brutal fight. Damien punched him. Then he got me out of there.”

“Angie, that isn’t the story you told me,” I said. “You said he walked in on you guys doing the—well, you know.”

“I wasn’t going to tell my new friend that I let some guy punch me up. Damien had his arms around me, and I was crying on his shoulder. That’s all Robbie needed to see. He went crazy.”

“So, there is a history of violence between the three of you,” Ewan said.

She closed her eyes. “It makes Damien and me sound bad. He was only protecting me that night. Robbie was high as a kite and out of his mind. If Damien hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened.”

“Is it possible your fiancé might have been trying to protect you again?” As soon as I posed the question, I regretted it. But men had done worse things in the name of love.

“You’ve met Damien. He is a good guy. The best, Em.” She was angry at me for even thinking such a thing. I understood.

But my former husband had been kind and loving. At the same time, he’d been the king of duplicity. I’d never suspected anything. That is, until I found him dead in a hotel room with another man.

“We’re trying to get the facts straight,” Ewan added. “We aren’t saying anyone killed him. We need to know as much about him as we can, to determine what happened.”

“What if he was here to hurt one of us?” she asked. “Maybe he lied that night I saw him in the pub. What if, he didnae understand at all and has been planning this for years? What better way to ruin a wedding than to kill yourself?”

Ewan and I glanced at each other again. That idea made more sense than someone bringing him, only to knock him off before he could cause any damage.

“Was the location of the wedding posted in the paper? Or on the invitations?” I asked, because I didn’t remember seeing Morrigan’s Castle on there.

“No. The Carthages didn’t want the location leaked to the media,” she said. “The wedding party and our families knew we’d be here, but all the other guests showing up for the ceremony and reception know only that they’ll receive a text the day before the wedding ceremony, telling them where the venue is.

“But now they can’t get here because of the weather.” She let go of my hand and crossed her arms. “Maybe Mr. Carthage is right. The weather and Robbie dying are signs. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Nonsense,” I said adamantly.

She and Ewan jerked back.

“Sorry, gang. I’m thinking that someone here planned all of this. Not the weather, mind you. That’s just Scotland as far as I can tell.”

“You aren’t wrong.” Ewan smirked. “About the weather that is.”

“Angie, we need you and Damien to keep the victim’s identity a secret a while longer, okay? If someone in the wedding party planned all of this, we don’t want them to know anything—at least, not yet. My hope is that it was Robbie’s idea, and perhaps his death was through misadventure.”

She rubbed her temples. “I can’t tell if it’s all the stress or from the drinks last night, but I’ve got the worst headache,” she said. “Is there any chance you have something that could help me out now? And maybe a little something for my nerves?”

Headaches. Mara had a terrible one as well. What if someone had poisoned more than one person?

Not wanting to panic her, I smiled. “Of course. Why don’t you and Damien take a break from everything. You can hide out in my room, if you want.”

She frowned, as did Ewan. “We have a suite of rooms. Why would we need to hide?”

What if my friends have been poisoned, as well?

“I need to do some tests,” I said. “On you and Damien. And”—I glanced at Ewan—“Mara.”

Angie gasped. “You think someone tried to hurt us? What’s wrong with me? How can you tell? I only had one or two drinks. I don’t understand. Am I going to die?”

I swallowed hard. “I want to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.” There was no reason to upset her, and there was a fifty percent chance I was wrong about the niggling in my brain.

Angie might be telling the truth about drinking water. Even if she wasn’t, I’d seen her down more whiskey in one night than most people had in a month. She always woke up bright-eyed.

It was annoying.

But it was obvious she wasn’t feeling well.

“Do you remember anything weird about last night.”

She shook her head. “It’s such a blur. Wait. The water had a weird, sweet taste. I gave it to Mara to try, and I think she downed it.”

Boom. Everything came together in my brain.

“Ewan, I need you to find Mara now. Angie, come with me.”

“Also, Ewan?”

“Aye?”

“Your staff has probably cleaned out or dumped everything from the party last night, right?”

He nodded.

“Can you see if there is any of the punch left somewhere? And the bottles of water. They were in glass containers. We need to check those. I think I have a diabetes test in my kit.”

“You think we have diabetes?” Angie asked. It was obvious she and Ewan were confused.

I ushered Angie out quickly, and Ewan followed. “And grab Abigail. I’ll need her.”

“What is it you’re so worried about?” he asked.

“I need to do a test first. Just find them, okay? And after you bring them to my room, find out if anyone else is sick.”

“You’re scaring me,” Angie whispered.

“It’s okay. I’m going to fix everything,” I said. However, it depended on how much of the toxins were still in their blood.

If I was right, though, time was not on our side. The poison could be destroying the organs of my friends as I spoke.

“Hurry,” I called out.

“Will do.”

Damien stood right outside the room.

“Are you okay, Babe?” He took Angie in his arms and hugged her tight.

“Do you think it’s really him?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Em wants us to head to her room. She’s afraid someone is trying to kill us.”

I snorted. “That’s not what I said. I just want to run a few tests.”

“Is she okay?” Damien asked worriedly.

So many questions, and I had no answers.

“She will be,” I said, more to convince myself than anyone.

They followed me down the hall, but we were stopped by a slightly younger version of Damien.

“Caleb? How did you get here?” Damien asked.

“Hey, bro. I thought you’d be happy to see me.” The two men stared at each other with surprise, which was weird.

“I am. But no one can get through this storm.”

“I’ve been here. Sorry—I slept through everything last night. I’d been awake for the previous seventy-two hours.”

Damien frowned. “So, it’s all sorted.”

“Aye. Misunderstanding is all. Didn’t even have to call him .”

I assumed him was their father. He was an unpleasant man. I couldn’t imagine he made his sons’ lives very easy.

As far as I was concerned, anyone who didn’t like Angie had something wrong with them. She was the most likeable, fun-loving person I knew.

“Who is this lovely chippie,” his brother asked.

“Dr. McRoy,” I said, and held out my hand.

“Dooooctor. Whoa. The PhD type or one who actually contributes to society?”

“Caleb,” Angie said. “Be nice. She’s a very talented doctor and my friend.”

“I’m an MD, but many of my friends, who also contribute to society, have PhDs. For the record, that is.”

He threw his hands up in surrender. “No offense, Doc.”

Handsome, yes, but he oozed that sort of unaffected charm men sometimes had. I’d worked with many men like him. They were not my favorites.

“If you’ll excuse us, your brother and Angie were about to help me with something.”

We had no time to deal with relatives. I prayed Ewan found Mara quickly.

He shrugged. “Don’t let me keep you. I’m on the hunt for food.”

“Kitchen is down the hall and to the left,” Damien instructed.

The other man sauntered off.

“I apologize for my brother,” Damien said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Odd that no one told us he arrived,” Angie said.

Damien shrugged. “Knowing my brother, he didn’t bother to say anything. Probably plopped in a room and passed out.”

Something about Caleb bothered me. The brothers seemed happy to see each other, but what if that was a ruse? The conversation between Byron and Damien flashed through my brain. Had they been talking about his brother?

And if no one had seen Caleb the night before, could he be our poisoner? Something wasn’t right about him.

My mind had become like an Agatha Christie novel where every character was a suspect.

But first, I had to save my friends.

Forty-five minutes later, Abigail and I had set up a mobile lab in the large bathroom of my suite.

Damien and Angie had fallen asleep on the sofa near the fireplace in the other room. I’d given them tablets to help their headaches and then started an IV to help flush out Angie’s system.

I’d done the same with Mara—again. If I was right about the poison, every second counted. If I was wrong, they’d be fully hydrated and would be none the worse.

A timer dinged, and Abigail turned it off quickly.

“Which one is that?”

“Dead guy,” she said. We’d been testing for a variety of poisons. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it last night, other than because I’d been exhausted.

“It’s positive,” she said. I checked the results, and she was correct.

We sat down on the edge of the tub.

“There were crystals in the kidneys,” she said.

“And they were badly damaged. He had to have drunk a lot of it.”

“How would you get someone to ingest that much, though? Wouldn’t he taste it? We didn’t find any injection sites except for his old scars.”

“It has a sweet taste and would be easy to mix into any drink.

“Was it in the punch last night? Is that why Ang and Mara feel so bad? I drank a wee bit before I left, and I’m fine.”

“Then it probably wasn’t in the punch,” I said.

The timer went off on my phone, and I shut it off. We glanced at each other and then stood.

“What if …?”

“Do not complete that sentence.”

It was faint, but there were trace elements in Angie’s test. “She said the water tasted sweet, and she didn’t drink much of it. We need to find out who gave her the water and where she picked it up.”

I rolled the conversation I’d had with my friend around in my brain.

“What do we do?”

“We have to find the source and make sure it’s not in the ground water.”

“I’ve been drinking tons of water out of the taps,” she said. “It just tasted a bit like sulfur—water from the old wells often does.”

“Get in my kit and see if I have any fomepizole. I’m not taking any chances.”

“Do you think …?”

“ Now , Abigail. Put it in their IVs.” I gave her the dosage.

She hurried off.

I called Ewan on the walkie-talkie he’d given us. The phones and internet weren’t working, with no cell service.

“What is it?” There were people talking loudly around him.

“Someone tried to kill Angie and Mara.”

“What do you mean someone tried to kill them?”

The voices around him hushed.

“They had trace amounts of the same poison that killed the victim. I’m worried that maybe Robbie, Angie, and Mara weren’t the only ones.”

“Do you know what kind of poison?”

“Antifreeze.”

“Bloody hell.”

Exactly.