Read Chapter 25: Running in the Rain

The rain found Iona before she found the cave.

It came down in sheets off the Ben, cold and relentless, turning the track to muck beneath her boots. She clutched the ledger to her chest beneath her cloak, the leather binding slick against her fingers. Every step jarred her knees. Every breath burned. Gregor's face kept surfacing behind her eyes—the way he'd looked at her before the henchmen had dragged him away. Not afraid. *Determined.*

*Go*, he'd said. *Make it mean something.*

She stumbled twice on the loose scree, catching herself with one hand, the ledger pressed hard against her ribs like a second heart. The trees closed in around her as she left the open moor, and the rain lost some of its fury beneath the canopy but gained a new weight—heavy drops that sluiced off the pines and found every gap in her collar. By the time she reached the ridge above the MacTavish grazing land, she was shaking so badly she could barely grip the rock ledge that marked the cave's hidden entrance.

She'd grown up on this hill. Knew every stone, every drop. The cave had been her hiding place as a girl, when her father's temper ran hot and the house grew too small to hold her. It was where she and Lachlan had found the deed that had started all of this—the old MacTavish grant that proved the land was hers. Or had been hers. Before everything twisted into lies.

The opening was narrow, barely shoulder-width, and she had to turn sideways to slip through. The dark swallowed her whole. She stood still for a long moment, letting her eyes adjust, listening to the wind scream past the entrance. Then she moved deeper, to the back wall where a loose stone sat flush against the limestone. She pried it free, pressed the ledger into the hollow behind it, and slid the stone back into place.

There. Donal's crimes, locked in the dark.

She leaned her forehead against the cold rock and let herself breathe. Just breathe. The rain dripped from her hair down her spine. Gregor was in Edinburgh, in Donal's hands. Lachlan believed she'd used him. Her father had turned her away. And somewhere, a stranger knew her mother's name.

She had nothing left but a ledger she couldn't show anyone and a truth no one would believe.

Iona wiped her face with the back of her hand and went to find her father.

The MacTavish house looked smaller than she remembered. Meaner. The roof sagged in a way it hadn't before, and the paddock fence had lost another rail. Her father had let it all go—the ranch, the land, himself—and the rot had crept in long before Donal ever showed up with his offers and his threats.

She didn't knock. The door swung open at her touch, and she stepped into the warm, sour smell of whisky and peat smoke. Alistair sat at the table, a cup in front of him, staring at nothing.

"Iona." His voice cracked on her name. He half-rose, then sank back down. "I thought—they said you'd gone back to him."

"They threw me out." She closed the door behind her. The rain had stopped pounding, or maybe it hadn't—she could hear it, but it seemed distant now, muted by the weight of the room. "Lachlan thinks I've been using him. Your letter to Gregor, the accusations—they painted a picture I couldn't unpaint."

Alistair's jaw worked. He looked older than she remembered. Frailer. The firelight carved deep shadows under his eyes. "I never wrote to Gregor."

"I know. Donal forged it." She moved to the hearth, holding her shaking hands to the flame. "Or had it forged. It doesn't matter now. What matters is that I have proof. Donal's ledgers. Every illegal purchase, every name he's paid off. There's a lord in London backing him. I stole them from his office—Gregor helped me."

Alistair's eyes widened. "Gregor? He's in this?"

"He's in a cell because of it." Iona turned to face him. "Donal has him. And I can't save him alone."

The silence stretched between them, thick as the smoke in the air. Alistair looked at his cup, then at the floor, then at his daughter. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

"I killed her."

Iona's heart stopped. "What?"

"Your mother." He set the cup down with a shaking hand. "Not with my own hands. I didn't strike the blow. But I knew what Donal planned, and I didn't stop it. I let him—I let him silence her because I was afraid of what she'd tell you. Of what she knew." His eyes met hers, red-rimmed and wet. "I've carried that weight every day since. I thought if I could bury it deep enough, it might stop hurting. It never did."

Iona's legs gave out. She caught herself on the table's edge, staring at her father as if seeing him for the first time. The man who had taught her to ride, to brand cattle, to read the weather in the shape of the clouds. The man who had loved her mother. And he had let her die.

"Why?" The word came out raw, scraped from somewhere she didn't know she had.

"Because Donal had the deed to the land. The true deed, the one that proved the MacTavish claim. He told me if your mother spoke the truth—if she told the Campbells what she'd uncovered about his dealings with Fraser—he'd destroy the deed and the land would be his anyway, through purchase or through ruin. I couldn't lose the land. It was all I had. It was all I was." Alistair's shoulders shook. "I was a coward, Iona. And I've paid for it every day since."

Iona wanted to scream. Wanted to hit him. Wanted to walk out of this house and never look back. But she had nowhere else to go. And beneath the rage, beneath the grief, she saw what it had cost him—the hollow shell of a man who had buried his wife and buried his conscience alongside her, and had never dug either up again.

"You can still do something," she said. Her voice was steady, though she didn't feel it. "Confess. Tell the magistrate what happened. What Donal did, what you let happen. If the truth comes out, it might be enough to stop him. To free Gregor. To—" She swallowed. "To give my mother justice."

Alistair was quiet for a long time. Then he nodded.

"Tomorrow," he said. "I'll go to the magistrate at Glencoe tomorrow."

Iona should have felt relief. Instead, she felt only the cold seep deeper into her bones.

The magistrate's office smelled of dust and ink and something faintly sweet, like apples left to rot. Magistrate Ferguson was a small man with a clerk's posture and a lawyer's smile. He listened to Alistair's confession with his head tilted, nodding at intervals, and Iona watched him with growing unease. There was something too practiced in his attention. Too comfortable in his silence.

When Alistair finished, Ferguson set down his pen. "This is a serious charge, Mr. MacTavish."

"I know it is." Alistair's hands were folded on his knees. He looked smaller than Iona had ever seen him. "But I'm prepared to face the consequences."

"And the other party—this Mr. Donal MacAllister—you say he threatened you. Coerced you into silence." Ferguson's eyes flicked to Iona. "And your daughter here has come into possession of certain documents? Ledgers?"

Iona went cold. She hadn't mentioned the ledgers. Neither had her father. She'd only said they had evidence of Donal's dealings.

"I have them," she said carefully. "Hidden."

Ferguson nodded, his smile widening just a fraction. "Of course you do." He rose, walked to the door, and opened it. Two constables stood in the corridor. "Take Mr. MacTavish into custody," Ferguson said. "And search the girl."

"Wait—" Alistair stood, but Ferguson waved a hand and the constables closed in.

"You confessed to involvement in a murder, Mr. MacTavish." Ferguson's voice was almost kind. "I'm merely following procedure. As for the young lady and her missing documents—I have reason to believe she's in possession of stolen property." He turned to Iona, and his smile grew sharp. "We'll find them, Miss MacTavish. They always surface eventually."

They dragged Alistair past her. He didn't resist, but his eyes met hers as they passed—something in them she couldn't name. Sorrow, maybe. Or relief.

Iona stood in the magistrate's office, dripping rainwater onto the floor, watching the door swing shut behind her father. The second constable searched her cloak, found nothing, and stepped back.

"You're free to go, Miss MacTavish." Ferguson had returned to his desk, his pen already moving. "But I wouldn't leave the district if I were you. We'll have questions."

She walked out into the rain. It had started again, a thin, drizzling mist that clung to her skin like a second garment. She made it to the edge of the village before her legs gave out, and she sank onto a wet stone wall, burying her face in her hands.

Her father was arrested. Donal knew she had the ledgers. Gregor was a hostage. Lachlan had chosen his father over her, and the marriage, the compact, the fragile alliance she'd built—all of it was ash.

She had nothing.

Except the ledger in the cave, and the names it held, and the truth about her mother that she now carried alone.

Iona lifted her head. The rain fell in silver needles against the grey sky. Somewhere out there, Donal thought he had won. He had her father, he had Gregor, he had the magistrate in his pocket. He probably thought he had her too.

He didn't.

She pushed herself upright and began to walk.