Page 24 of A Flower for Angus

“Are ye ready to talk?”

He paused for a moment and she could feel the weight of his hand through her jeans where it lay on her bottom. When he squeezed her right cheek, she gasped in pain.

“You can’t help me, you’ll just give me away,” she finally choked out. “I-I can’t risk that, Angus.”

“Can ye tell me if whoever ye are hidin’ from is dangerous? Are ye in fear of yer life?”

Angus turned her red face sideways where she could look up at him. “I-I don’t know for sure,” she admitted desperately. “I just know there have been some unnerving incidents which is why I ran. I didn’t feel safe in Chicago or Toronto anymore.”

Angus’s phone received a text notification and he took it from his shirt pocket and opened his messages. It was from his friend at the pub where they had eaten lunch.

‘A tall stranger came in about 30 minutes ago and showed me a picture of you and claimed you were an old friend he’d lost track of. Wanted to look you up while he was visiting Scotland. Not positive but I think he was here earlier eating lunch around the same time you were. Had tourist cap on with a fake clan plaid.’

‘Did you tell him anything?’Angus texted back. The stranger must have snapped his pic while they were eating.

‘Nothing, but it’s only a matter of time before someone will.’

Angus pulled Macy up and sat her beside him and then showed her the text message. “Now ye’re no the only one in trouble, Macy, everyone at Neamh is at risk if this man is dangerous. Tell me what’s goin’ on, or I’ll turn ye back over and ye won’t sit for week when I’m done with ye.”

“Oh no,” Macy cried, her trembling hand covering her mouth as she read the messages. “Why can’t he just leave me alone? I’m so sorry, Angus, I was just trying to put the past behind me and start new somewhere out of his reach. I wasn’t trying to put anyone else in danger.”

“Are ye talkin’ about the stalker? Do ye know who he is?” Angus insisted.

“Not the stalker, I’m talking about my stepson,” she replied, the tears running down her cheeks. “I got scared when the brakes suddenly failed on my car, so I left Chicago and moved to Toronto. I think the stalker is probably someone Adrian hired to find where I’d gone. Do you have a Kleenex in the glove?”

Angus handed her a napkin from above the passenger’s visor.

Macy wiped her eyes and tried to get control of herself with a deep breath. “I’d seen someone who physically resembled the man we saw in the pub outside my home in Toronto driving by in a blue car. I saw the same man in the grocery store when I went shopping a few times. That same blue car would sometimes appear behind my car at random times before turning down a side street. I tried to tell myself that whoever it was must live in the area, but after my home had been entered, I really became suspicious and afraid.”

“Did ye call the police?”

“Yes, I talked to them. Nothing was stolen and there was no sign of visible entry, so they couldn’t make a report. But I knew someone had been in the house because things were out of place.”

“Why is your stepson havin’ ye followed?” Angus asked with a fierce frown.

She hesitated, staring up at him for a moment before she finally went on. “He’s trying to contest his father’s will,” she admitted with a heavy sigh. “And he thinks I had something to do with Julian’s heart attack, but I didn’t.” Tears welled up in her eyes again.

“There now, lass, steady on,” Angus said softly, squeezing her hand.

She nodded and wiped her eyes again. “If I hadn’t decided to go with my daughter to the mall the day Julian died, I think he would have succeeded in having me charged with trying to kill my husband.”

If Angus’s eyebrows could go any higher, they would have receded into his hairline. “Cripes, Macy!”

Macy focused straight ahead, the horrific memories of that day rushing back in on her. “I-I was actually supposed to be at home that day, but Julian made me go with my daughter Andrea. He said he would be fine by himself and didn’t want me hovering over him, so I went. Oh, Angus, if I had been home...” Her words trailed off and she shuddered.

“Was yer husband murdered then?” Angus asked gently, putting his arm around her and pulling her in close. He expected her to pull away and was glad when she didn’t.

“The coroner ruled it an accidental death,” she droned on. “There was no suicide note, but his blood had triple the dosage of his heart meds in it. The same dosage that was missing from the pill bottle. Adrian found him several hours after I left.

“According to rigor mortis timing, I wouldn’t have been at the house when he took his meds. And they knew he’d taken them because they found the bottle on the nightstand next to his water bottle. The coroner said he just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. It was a suspicious death, which is why they did an autopsy, but Adrian had an alibi the same as me. With no other evidence of foul play, the DA quickly went with an accidental overdose ruling.”

“Was Julian home alone that day?”

She nodded. “Normally his mother, Edna, would be home, but she happened to be playing bridge at a friend’s house that day. She lives in a separate wing of the house and rarely came into the main part of the home. Edna didn’t like me and considered me a gold-digger like her grandson, Adrian.”

“Somethin’ tells me yer nightmare didn’t end after the death rulin’,” Angus mused.

Macy shuddered. “Then the will was read and Adrian went ballistic. He became obsessed with having me charged with murder and insisted on dragging me into court to contest the will over and over. The tabloids were having a field day and making not only my life miserable, but my daughter and her family as well. He just wouldn’t stop, so after several appearances in court, I tried to move out of his reach.”

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