Free Somewhere My Lass by Beth Trissel

he’d comfort her.
    He stole to the where she lay wrestling with some inner demon, her eyes shut, face creased in a grimace. “The MacDonald comes.”
    “No.” Neil lowered himself to sit beside her. Laying his hand on her shoulder, he bent near. “He’s not here.”
    She jerked beneath his hand. “The door—he comes through the door.”
    That dread in Neil’s gut knotted. Was she seeing into the future or revisiting the past? “Which door, Mora?”
    She answered like one in a dream. “Wie colored glass.”
    There was only one like it in the house. The coil in his middle twisted more tightly. Neil spoke in her ear. “Where did he go?”
    “I dinna see.”
    He smoothed the hair from her heated forehead. “You’re safe. He’s gone now.”
    She quivered and went silent. Though still asleep, some part of her seemed aware of his presence. He must have soothed her. At least one of them could rest now.
    Neil heard his cell phone beep in the front room with a text message. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Sleep sweetheart.”
    Rising noiselessly from her side, he tiptoed across the room and out the door. He slid the phone from his pants pocket from where he’d hung them over a chair and flipped it open. The electronic glow illuminated the words. Lieutenant Hale left him a text; the investigating officer must be keeping him informed as Neil had asked.
    In the light of the mini screen he read, “Crime scene clear.”
    Good, he and Mora could go home tomorrow. He texted back, “Great. Find anything?”
    “Lifted prints from door.”
    The beginning of a chill tingled down Neil’s spine and he keyed in, “Where?”
    “Second floor.”
    “Bedroom?” Neal tapped back.
    “No. Unused exit.”
    Damn. The door to nowhere again.
    “Perp,” Hale continued, “entered from outside.”
    “Impossible,” Neil texted. “How?” He couldn’t ascend a second story entry, never mind that it was locked, without rock climbing equipment or a ladder, and Neil hadn’t left any lying around.
    “Unknown. A real Spiderman,” the officer joked. Then added, “No suspect yet.”
    Neil very much doubted they’d find a match for those prints.

 
    Chapter Ten
    Yellow leaves swirled around Mora, and the cool wind fanned her tender eyebrows. Her skin still stung from the foreign ritual she’d endured in the place Wrenie called a beauty shop. That bizarre experience paled, though, in comparison to the sleeveless gown she found herself clothed in. If this weren’t outrageous enough, the hem reached only to her knees in a shameless display of flesh.
    Wrapped in the plaid arisaid Wrenie hadn’t been able to pry away from her, Mora followed the well-endowed female up the walk to Fergus’s front door. At least, as well as she could in these ill-suited shoes. Her eyes lingered on Wrenie, clothed in a black skirt and glove-tight shirt—she was fixated on that grim hue—emblazoned with a silver winged skull and the words “Cheat Death.”
    Had the woman narrowly escaped the clutches of the Black Death, or the flames reserved for heretics and witches? The latter seemed more likely.
    Black boots, fastened up the sides with silver buckles, showed whenever the wind lifted Wrenie’s uneven hem, but neither her costume nor anything else about her was any stranger than this land Mora had unwittingly entered. Perhaps the servants here had led some sort of revolt. Wrenie seemed more of a leader than a minion.
    Whatever Wrenie was, her peculiar notions of fashion had inflicted a morning of torment on Mora. Staggering in the green, high heels, she recovered her balance, and mounted the steps to the door.
    The pointed ends of the shoes hardly seemed meant to contain toes, while the odious garment called panty hose gripped her savagely.
    Wrenie stepped inside, Mora at her heels. Music played from somewhere in the room, and she heard a man’s voice raised in song, but didn’t spot the troubadour or the musicians. It had