Chapter Nineteen

When Sara woke, she had chills all over her body. They weren't from cold but from what she'd seen and felt in the dream. In the first dream, she'd not liked the man on the horse, but this time she despised him. It was as though she'd seen pure evil.

She didn't know why he'd felt he had to leave town, but the urgency was there. He appeared to have no regret at leaving behind parents who loved him. Sara knew they would never recover from their grief. Even when his mother died, he didn't show himself.

She looked at the brooch that was still in her hand. Reid's grandmother, Alish, had sent it to "the storyteller." Had she also sent Sara the dream? Was it a mystical video of what really happened?

Every second of the dream was vivid. He'd said, "You think you tricked me, but you traded a murder for a marriage. Was it worth it?" His tone had been sinister, threatening.

A murder for marriage. What did that mean?

And what about the other thing he said? "What I've done there will live forever. When it's seen..." Was he talking about the movie everyone was searching for? James Lachlan's son had already made the movie? When? Before his cousin's trial? Maybe he knew his father would disapprove of such a profession. He left to avoid his father's anger? To escape the possibility of being disowned?

But Sara had met Mr. Lachlan, and Cal thought highly of him. There were times when life at home was too much for Cal, so he would escape to Lachlan House. When Cal was older and bigger, he'd said he was afraid he might kill his father. Might hit him so hard that he'd never get up. Mr. Lachlan's calmness gave Cal a place of safety and peace. But his son ran away from him in fear? It made no sense.

Sara ran her hands through her hair. It was late and she should go downstairs to bed, but she wanted to get away from Lachlan House with all its memories.

She sent a text to Kate.

What does Alish look like?

Good skin, not badly wrinkled.

Sara figured Kate was being nice.

Buck teeth? Big nose? Moles? Like Greer?

Yes.

I'm going back to our house to spend the night. Come for breakfast at eight. With Randal. We'll make plans.

She closed the cover on her phone. She needed the quiet of familiar surroundings to organize what was in her mind.

Their house wasn't far away. She unlocked the door and was glad for the peace of a space with no people. The second "dream" she'd had played through her mind on an endless loop. Going round and round. The brooch was in her pocket. She felt it was her connection to what she'd seen. Seen was the right word. Not made up, not created from conversations and her own imagination, but it was something real that she'd watched while it happened in the past.

She put her handbag on the hall table, then began to walk through the house. When she'd bought the place, it had been in bad shape. The house was the reason she'd returned to her hometown after a lifetime away. To her historian's mind, Lachlan was like a medieval village, and the owner, probably a duke, lived in a castle and presided over all. When the house had come up for sale, it had been a trophy to Sara. She'd come from nothing, had been looked down on by all, but in the end, she owned the "castle," the biggest house in Lachlan.

Jack, so very young then, had remodeled it for her. The best thing about the house was bonding with him.

Sara went outside to the pool, the water glistening in the house lights, then to the patio with its big grill. How many hundreds of meals had they shared there? First it was Jack and her, then Kate came, then Randal.

Inside, Sara went through the formal living room, the family room with the big TV, then to Kate's apartment. She liked to check that there were no leaks and no malfunctioning plumbing. The apartment opened to a small private patio that had a fountain with a statue of a girl dancing in the rain. Sara knew that Jack and Kate used to spend time there together. They'd always been friends.

She stood outside, looking up at the night sky and the stars. Everything was going to change. She was happy that Kate and Jack had at last admitted they were in love, but what next? Would they buy some cute little house somewhere? Of course Jack would tear out the kitchen and put in a new one. Would he build a playhouse in the backyard? She had an idea that they wouldn't wait long for children.

Randal lived in the little guesthouse beside the big house. For the last few years, he'd spent most of his time inside the big house with them. They'd become such a good foursome that they could spend hours together in silence. Jack and Kate often exchanged computers as they helped each other with their businesses. Randal studied physiology online so he could help his clients with their physical problems. Would he and Lea live together? In their own house?

"It's all going to change," Sara said aloud.

She went through the far door to Jack's big room. It opened to the garage so he could come and go without being seen. Not that he spent much time in there. From the beginning, he and Kate had been almost inseparable. Wherever she was, he was nearby.

But then, Jack had gone away for months, and when he returned, he was almost a different person. Or maybe it was that he'd at last figured out what he wanted in life.

She straightened Jack's coverlet, checked that the windows were locked, since he liked to open them, then went down the hall. She walked back through the house to her bedroom suite on the far side. With its private garden and big bathroom, it had always been her sanctuary. Now she imagined the huge house being empty, with just her there. She'd have to send Kate a text asking if she could stop by to see the baby. There'd be no toddler wandering about the place, sitting on Aunt Sara's lap while she read a story—one that Sara had written.

Between the evil of the dream and her thoughts about her life, she felt herself going downward into what could be a full-blown depression. She took a hot shower and put on one of her huge T-shirts. This one said, Don't Blame the Butter for What the Bread Did.

She felt better but still, between the dream-vision and thinking of the coming change, she didn't feel good. She opened a cabinet, pulled out a bottle and a little crystal glass, then poured herself some Mandarin Napoleon. It was her favorite liqueur. It wasn't easy to find, but Randal had a source and made sure his sister always had some. It didn't go with her low-carb, no-sugar diet, but tonight she needed it.

She sat up in her bed—Dora had put on crisp, clean sheets—and began to write about what she'd seen. She added every detail she could, from the car to the clothes, to the facial expressions of people.

She wrote the reasons she'd been told of why Aran left. He was upset over his cousin being hanged, but maybe thinking that it was his father's fault was too much for him.

But Sara was seeing something else. In the dream, Alish had been deeply afraid of the man. Something had gone on between them, but Sara had no idea what. It almost sounded as though they had conspired in some crime.

He was threatening her, but at the end, Alish had stood up to him. "I will prosper through you," she'd said. What did that mean?

At the end, when his back was to her, Alish had smiled. "No women. None at all."

"Ah!" Sara said. Was he gay? Is that why he'd left his home? He wanted to escape the stigma associated with that? In the 1940s, he would have been an outcast.

Sara looked at the clock. It was nearly ten thirty. For a morning person like her, that was very late. She turned off the light and snuggled under the down coverlet. As she was dozing off, she thought, When it is seen...A movie? Gay man? Harry Adair? A murder of passion? The script? Were they all tied together?

Everything whirled about in her mind. Tomorrow I must see Alish. Must ask her questions, she thought before she fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.