“I’d not have you speak so openly before my wife,” Hawk said, “but I fear terribly that Sabrina has been harmed.”
“Perhaps—her body has been hidden,” Alaric said, his countenance as weary as his brother’s.
“We’ve been through the mines, through the village, through the castles, through the fields. We’ve looked among the cattle, horses, goats—both the animals and the old-timers in the village—and we’ve not found her,” Lowell said.
“There’s—” Alistair began but broke off.
“Aye?” Hawk demanded firmly.
“The bottom of the loch,” Alistair finished reluctantly.
“Oh god!” Shawna cried. “You mustn’t suggest such a thing!”
“Alas,” Lowell said, shaking his head sadly, “the loch has welcomed many a murdered man—and surely a woman or two—throughout the centuries. ’Tis said the Douglases—and the MacGinnises, mind y’—have rid themselves of an erring wife that way now and then.”
“Father, I think it might be far kinder simply to say good night and depart for the evening, rather than remind us of all of the bodies that are now little but bones in the water. Well, at any rate, I am for home,” Aidan said. “I am quite exhausted.”
“Aye, that we all are,” Lowell said. He finished the scone he was eating and swallowed down the whiskey-laced tea he had taken. “’Tis nearly the Night of the Moon Maiden. Like as not, we will have found Sabrina by then,” he said reassuringly to Hawk.
“Good night,” Aidan said. “Father?”
Lowell sniffed his dissatisfaction and irritation once again, then left the great hall with Aidan’s hand set supportingly upon his shoulder.
“What worries me,” Alaric said, “is the mines. Those tunnels are endless. You know how we missed the wee Anderson lad, Shawna? He was swept into the water beneath. Perhaps Sabrina was afraid of something or someone. With all the talk goingaround that David Douglas has risen from his ashen grave, she might have become afraid of something or someone. If she ran into the mines, hoping to hide, she could venture into a shaft where no one would ever find her. Even if she went by way of the tunnels by the cliffs off the loch?—”
“Unless the tide is just right, y’have to swim into those tunnels, brother,” Alistair said, interrupting him. “I cannot imagine Sabrina running out of the castle to go swimming her way into a tunnel.”
“I suppose not. Still, the mine worries me. I think we should continue to search there tomorrow.”
“Aye, that sounds like a fair idea,” Hawk said.
Alistair, seated at the table, laid his head down upon his arms there. “We have searched so very hard.”
“Yet one could search forever here,” Alaric said.
“One could search forever, indeed, and never find what one is seeking,” Shawna said, looking at Hawk.
“I don’t believe that,” Hawk said firmly, returning her stare. “We have to look very carefully at all the facts and leave no stone unturned in all the mysteries that surround the place. Then, the truth will be known—and what one searches for can indeed be found.”
Shawna suddenly found herself assailed with icy chills, sweeping in a fury along her spine. Hawk wasn’t referring just to the disappearance of his sister-in-law. He referred to her—and the house of MacGinnis.
“What scares me,” Alistair admitted, his mind still firmly upon Sabrina, “is that we can search forever now—and then, a decade hence, perhaps—oh god, I keep doing this, Hawk! But we could search forever now and find her bones a decade from now in some small place we missed in our search.”
“That won’t happen,” Alaric said.
“Pray God you’re right, but why not?” Shawna asked.
Alaric stared at her. “I do believe that she will appear—dead or alive—by the Night of the Moon Maiden.”
CHAPTER 15
By two in the morning, Shawna remained wide awake, pacing her tower room. David had not made an appearance, but then, he hadn’t planned on making an appearance. Hawk had told her so—he had simply failed to tell her what David would be doing.
She felt helpless herself, worrying about Sabrina. She assumed that David, most probably with his brother’s help, would continue the search for Sabrina throughout the night.
She had to trust in them, and in God, she told herself.
She tried sleeping, tried believing that there would be a method and a plan to whatever David was doing. She tried to tell herself that he wasn’t staying away from her because of what had happened in the tunnels, because he had decided she was guilty of deceptions so great that he could not bear to be with her, even to protect her life in his pursuit of the truth regarding Craig Rock.