“No. I haven’t seen her all afternoon.” In an effort to stay calm, I over-enunciated each word. Accusation flashed across his features and I clarified somewhat defensively, “She was upset and I was trying to give her some space.”
Jamie’s dark eyes grew as round as saucers as he, too, began to scour the crowd. “You let her leave?”
I began to doubt the assumptions that seemed so reasonable at the time. “I didn’t let her do anything. She left. I was going to go after her—but then I saw you follow, so—I thought—” Jamie’s lack of recognition made me want to hurl. “Why’d you go back toward the church if you weren’t following Vee?”
“To pray for my father’s soul. ’Tis customary before the final rites.” His voice was thick with condemnation, as if my being an outsider didn’t excuse my ignorance.
Vee’d been missing for hours.
I sagged onto a nearby bench. Duncan’s arms caught me just before my backside hit the wood and he eased me the rest of the way down. My chest tightened. The air squeezed from my lungs and made it difficult to speak around my fear. “You really didn’t see her?”
Equal measures of rage and concern mingled in Jamie’s scowl. He looked capable of flaying someone alive. “Nay.”
Fergus cast a sheepish glance over the group. “She’s not been with Fiona since the service. I woulda noticed.”
Duncan still held me loosely from behind, the soft, reassuring brush of his fingertips as he stroked my back at odds with the steel in his voice. “How long has she been missing?”
I did some hasty mental gymnastics. “Three hours, at least. Maybe more.”
Jamie swore and whirled around to bark at Fergus. “Where’s Gideon?”
The gentle giant shot Duncan a guilty look while clearing his throat before answering his new king. Little beads of sweat appeared on his pink brow. Apparently lying was not one of his strong suits. “Gideon and his men are still in the eastern paddocks following a lead on the disappearances. But we’ve no’ heard from him since yesterday.”
“Bloody hell!” Jamie addressed me without apology. “Mackenna, are ye sure she didna return to the castle on foot?”
“It’s possible.” I negated the words with a shake of my head. “But I don’t think so. We’ve been stuck in the castle for days. She’d be too stir-crazy to go back.”
Fergus’s lips formed a grim line of resolve as he towered over us. I could see the self-recrimination on his face. He’d been focused on Fiona when his job had been to watch us—watch Vee. Now, he felt responsible. “I’ll have one of the lads organize a search o’ the castle. But we should search the village and the woods at the same time, m’ lairds.”
Jamie’s response was practically a snarl. “Get it done, man.”
Fiona put a gentle hand on my shoulder and spoke over my head to Duncan. “I’ll get Mackenna back ta the castle, m’ laird.”
As I watched Fergus hurry away, my attention shifted to a single white speck floating downward from the sky. In slow motion, I reached out my hand and wondered as the tiny object came to a rest in my palm. A nearly perfect snowflake.
“It snows in summer here?”
Duncan, Fiona, and Jamie stopped mid-discussion to stare into my cupped hand. They watched the already melting snowflake dissolve into a speck of water. Duncan gaped in wide-eyed shock as Fiona pronounced, “Veronica’s tryin’ ta cross through the mountains.”
Already on the move, Jamie growled at us from over his shoulder. “I’ll get Fergus to stop the search parties.”
Totally confused by Jamie and Duncan’s reaction to the wintery weather, I twisted first toward Duncan and then Fiona. “Why is he calling off the search parties? And how do you know where she is? And what—”
Duncan gently, but firmly, cut me off. “We’ve no time for this right now.”
“Time for what?” I struggled free of Duncan’s arms and back onto my feet as Jamie and Fergus barreled toward us at a full run. Obviously, I was missing something. Something huge. “What the hell is going on?”