Page 20 of A Flower for Angus

“It’s celebrated on January 25thevery year. Burns was born in 1759, so Scotland has been celebrating the man for a long time,” Dorothy added with a dry chuckle. “It’s tradition.”

The waiter delivered steaming fish and chips to their table and Macy and her two companions dug in. “Mm...this is really good,” Macy mumbled through biting into a fat chip. “I’ll have to remember this place.”

“We’ll make a Scot out ye if ye’re here very long,” Angus boasted. They all laughed and no one realized that someone was watching them intently.

***

VINCE GALLO HAD ALLbut given up finding Mrs. Condoloro, and now, here she was, eating fish and chips with some locals right out in plain view. Since asking questions of the locals might get back to her if she was here, he’d been hacking into the airline’s records for verification with no results. He couldn’t find any credit card purchases with the local motels or car rentals and they didn’t have a Macy Kennedy in their records. He’d also been acting like a tourist and taking tours, hoping to catch a glimpse of her somewhere along the way. In short, doing everything he could to blend in.

All that crap you see on TV isn’t near as easy in real life. Answers don’t just pop up at your fingertips when you start looking for somebody in an unknown location.

Like he’d told Adrian, she’d used a credit card for the flight to Heathrow under her real name, but then she’d dropped off the face of the earth. He hadn’t been able to find Macy Kennedy anywhere. It looked like he’d caught a break now though.

He’d been working on his own fish and chips when they’d suddenly appeared. Since he was seated discretely at a small table in a back corner, per his request given his line of work, he’d ducked his head into his newspaper and her glance had swept by him without recognition.

As careful as you try to be, when someone is in hiding, they are doubly suspicious of everyone and everything, and she was no exception. Her uneasy glances about the restaurant finally seemed to relax once they were seated and ordering. She must have run from Toronto because she’d made him or his car at some point. Here, when he wasn’t playing tourist, he’d tried to fit in more with the locals and had adopted a plain brown beret with a plaid band on the cap and given up his Chicago Bears T-shirt. He’d also cut off the beard he’d had while in Canada.

After hitting nothing but dead ends in Dublin, he’d headed to Inverness on the off chance she’d been drawn back here. It was almost as if she’d wanted her stepson to know she was leaving the country. He might try to follow, but the UK was a big place to get lost in. Without any leads after she got off in London, he wouldn’t have known where to go if not for the photographs.

He had to give her credit, staying off the grid wasn’t easy to do. She hadn’t even phoned her daughter back in Chicago once that he could tell. Surreptitiously, he snapped a few photos of her and her companions, proof to Condoloro of where she was. His job would be finished once he found out where she was staying. He couldn’t help studying her though, because she didn’t fit the profile that he’d been led to believe.

Before he’d left Chicago, he’d had Ernie do a deep dive on Adrian Condoloro and hadn’t liked what he’d found. His father had cousins tied into a local mob in south Chicago, and Adrian had been involved in some shady deals and borrowing money for gambling debts. Condoloro stocks had been slipping under Adrian’s leadership and there were rumors that his company was bleeding cash. Vince figured that’s why the man was so obsessed with breaking his father’s will.

That had led to a lot of other speculation that was worrisome. Such as why Condoloro had even hired him knowing he was old-school? Did it make him more expendable? Now there was a gruesome thought.

Through a stroke of good fortune for Vince, here she was, living off the grid and acting nothing like the reported money-grubbing socialite who’d managed to off her rich husband and not get charged for it. He grimaced and took another sip of his beer. Damned good beer they had here in Inverness, he had to admit. A fellow could get used to living in a place like this if you could find the work. And the best golden battered fish and plump French fries he’d ever eaten. Or chips as they were called here. Once he’d found this place, McDonalds had hit the bottom on his food list.

Seeing that the subject of his troublesome thoughts and her companions were finishing up their food, he shoved the last chip in his mouth, swallowed the last drop of his beer, and shoved his chair back. He needed to find a vantage point where he could observe when they left the pub. Passing their table to leave was unavoidable, but he brushed on by without making eye contact, his phone pressed to his ear as if he were having a conversation and couldn’t be bothered by his surroundings. His skin prickled though, and he knew she’d looked at him. He had a sixth sense about things like that and it had saved his life on a few occasions.

Had she made him though?

***

“WE NEED TO GET MOVIN’if we’re goin’ to get ye a cell phone and get back to Neamh,” Angus remarked, glancing at his watch. “Are ye lasses about finished? We might even get a look around the Victorian Market.”

Macy took the last drink of her wine, her fingers trembling on the stem of the glass. “I-I just want to get back to Neamh,” she insisted. “I really don’t need a phone right now, Angus.”

Angus had noted her face pale slightly when the last pub patron had left. His sharp gaze latched onto the tall, older man’s back as he went out the door. The man didn’t stop to pay at the counter, so he must have left payment on his table. In fact, Macy hadn’t been very relaxed since they’d arrived in town. Her furtive glances around her everywhere they went had convinced him even more that she was in hiding.

“I’m headed to the loo, Dad, I’ll be right back,” Dorothy announced, pushing her chair back.

“Don’t fall in,” Angus teased.

“Och, Dad.”

As soon as Dorothy left the table, Angus leaned forward and placed his hand over Macy’s. It was cold and trembling. “If ye admit to me that yer hidin’ from somethin’, Macy, I’ll no take ye to get that phone because it would explain a lot of yer behavior since ye’ve come to Neamh.”

She looked straight down her little nose with a glare that would have frozen him on the spot if he’d been a lesser man. “I just don’t want a phone, is that so hard to believe?”

“Don’t lie to me, lass. I’ll get the truth, one way or another,” he growled sternly, all teasing and banter done. “No judgements, Macy, we’ll talk about it later, but I want the truth about that phone right now. Imeanit.” He used his commanding voice that made the men under him jump to do his bidding and she responded, albeit reluctantly. He had to admit she was a plucky wee thing.

With a stubborn grunt, she finally nodded, and then pulled her hand from beneath his. “Yes, but it’s still none of your business.”

Angus leaned back, satisfied for the moment. “Since we have a little time then, would ye like to take a tour of Inverness? I can drive ye around and show ye a few things if ye like.”

Sudden panic flared in her eyes. “N-No, let’s just go home.”

Interesting that she’d used the word home after only two weeks on the job. It made Angus want to curl his arm around her, tuck her into his side, and take her to Thistlewind where he could protect her from whatever was haunting her. And put her over his knee if she refused to talk to him.

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