“That’ll be our police now,” he said. “Hope you’re not bank robbers making a getaway.”
We laughed dutifully as the siren stopped.
“I’d better show them over here,” the farmer said, and took off, jogging back to the barn.
“Are we going to be arrested?” Robin asked, then buried her head in her arms.
“Of course not,” I said firmly.
Dad rubbed Robin’s shoulder as we watched the farmer lead two policemen on the long trek across the field.
“You’ve had some trouble,” the taller cop said.
“Our brakes gave out,” Dad said.
“Our driver saved our lives,” Helen said staunchly, “and probably the lives of any number of bystanders, by driving off the highway.”
The shorter cop, a skinny youngster who still had pimples, took notes, while the tall cop knelt down next to the rear driver’s-side tire and poked at the ground. I moved closer to see what he was looking at and caught a glimpse of some drops of liquid seeping into the ground.
“Looks like brake fluid,” he said to his partner. Then he gripped the rim of the fender and handily slid himself under the car, somehow avoiding the slimy puddle of brake fluid altogether. How did he do that? Must’ve been a guy-and-car thing.
A few seconds later, he glided out, hopped up and brushed a few flecks of grit off his perfectly pressed black trousers. “Brake line’s been cut clean through.”
“What the hell?” Dad said.
“Does that happen through normal wear and tear on the car?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
The tall cop looked at me warily. “No, ma’am. That happens through mischief.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Derek said, glaring at me through narrowed eyes, as though it were my fault my family and friends were almost killed. Hell, maybe it was.
“Yeah, I get that,” I muttered as I paced the floor of the hotel conference room the police once again had taken over as their temporary headquarters.
It was two hours later, after the Edinburgh CID had shown up to take over the investigation and the farmer had generously ferried us back to the hotel in his vintage Land Rover.
“And you’re sure nobody saw anyone at the parking garage?” I asked for the third time. The hotel valets had parked Robin’s rental van in the parking garage a block away from the hotel when she’d arrived two days ago.
The brakes could’ve been tampered with anytime in the last forty-eight hours, but the police were fairly certain someone had done it that morning. Otherwise, the brake fluid would’ve run out completely and the car wouldn’t have made it all the way to Rosslyn Chapel.
Now I remembered Robin pumping the brakes when we first arrived there.
MacLeod sighed. “The garage is a four-story cavernous place with only one security man who doubles as the parking attendant. All the hotels in this part of the Royal Mile share the space. It’s not well guarded, sad to say.”
“No security cameras?”
“None.” Frustrated, Angus raked his fingers through his unruly mop of hair.
Derek stood with his arms folded across his chest, watching the goings-on. He was dressed in an elegant black pin-striped business suit and deep blue silk tie that brought out the blue in his eyes. He looked almost criminally hot. The whole ensemble probably cost five thousand dollars, and I was reminded again how well the security business paid. Along that same line, I had to wonder just why he’d been here in Edinburgh this week. What was he doing? Besides looking criminally hot, of course?
“Is it our Miss Sherlock Holmes that’s causing you to pull your hair out, Angus?” Derek asked, coming over and putting his arm around me. I leaned against him. He even smelled expensive.
The detective glanced at me, then Derek. “No, ’tis this case that’s driving me to drink,” he admitted.
“Not much of a drive there,” Derek said with a wry grin.
“You’ve got the right of that, mate,” he said with a rueful chuckle.
Derek tightened his grip on me as the two men talked and more was revealed about our close call with the haystack.
My life had been threatened, my family had almost been killed, and yet I couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of it.
All I could process was the weight of Derek’s arm around my shoulder and the warmth of his solid body against mine. For one insane second or two, I breathed him in, absorbing that all-male, autumn-and-leather scent and reveling in the warm security of his powerful muscles.
Oh, dear God.
Appalled by my pathetically needy reaction, I was nevertheless incapable of moving away from the heat of his touch. In a day or so, they would find my body completely melted in a pool of lust on the floor of this conference room. I hoped they would give me as nice a service as Kyle had received. With better music, please.
“You’d be right about that,” Derek said, his head cocked as he gazed at me with curiosity.
I blinked. “What?”
“Where did you go, love?” he whispered.