He was clearly the man from that hideous thing she'd found in the storeroom. Blood pounded in her fingertips, throbbing with the memory of that wooden panel, now gone from her hands.
Stark terror stole the breath from her lungs and the gush of adrenalin through her system dizzied her. Haley forced air into her paralyzed body. Not a victim again. Not this time.
She summoned her brothers' voices in her head. Their goading and their challenging. She heard them speak to her, girding her. Man up, Hale.
“Get the fuck off me.” She tried to flinch her head from his grasp. His hand was mercifully gentle at the nape of her neck, though no less firm. The bastard just chuckled.
Who the hell was he? And what was with the Gaelic? Was he in her department at school? He'd surely been stalking her, but she'd never seen him before. How had he gotten into the museum?
Oh God. Sarah. Her panic turned to dread, a cold wash sweeping up from her belly. Was Sarah okay? If anything had happened to her, it was all Haley's fault.
“Where's Sarah? What did you do with Sarah?” She planted her feet hard, making him stumble slightly. He stared at her a moment and hatred surged through her. “Don't you speak English?”
“Aye, I've the English.” He grasped her chin, pulling her face toward his. “Who's Sarah? Is it you've a sister hiding about as well?” The man looked around, glanced at his companion, and Haley registered the other woman for the first time.
Haley couldn't move her head much in his grip, but rolled her eyes as far as she could to study the woman. She seemed to be in league with the man. What kind of scene is this? She was slender and pretty, but Haley was gratified to see the girl also appeared to be a total wreck, her breath hiccupping, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Who are you people?” she snarled, struggling in vain.
He ignored her. focusing only on his companion. “Easy, Jean,” he told the woman in Gaelic. Then Haley thought he said. “We'll put down the stairs and be gone from here.”
Stairs? Haley glared at them, trying to make sense of it.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Alasdair.” the other woman finally spoke, her voice a tremulous whisper. “The lass isn't right. She gives me the evil eye, even now.”
The girl had meant not right in the head. Haley squinted hard at her. If there was any such thing as an evil eye, she'd summon it now for this simpering thing.
The man barked out a laugh, which seemed to distress his companion all the more. The girl seemed to yield before him, ceding all control. It annoyed Haley, made her want to stand up to him.
“Please.” The girl spoke again, addressing only Alasdair.
“Please just take me from this place.”
His eyes softened when he looked at his companion, his fearsome mask melting into something kinder. A single-minded concern warmed his features, eased his full mouth.
Haley realized, startled, that he was… handsome.
And so completely focused on the girl's well-being. She felt a rush of inexplicable jealousy and glowered at her with renewed zeal, even as she thought how silly her impulse was.
She didn't need a man to look out for her. Haley was perfectly capable of looking out for her own damn self.
The girl's eyes widened. “Leave the lass be,” she whispered. “She… She's…” Apprehension and sympathy both animated her features. “She's not right, Alasdair.”
Haley could deal with apprehension. It was the girl's sympathy that pushed her over the edge. She tried to wriggle free from the man's grasp, hissing at his companion as she did so.
“Och, enough.” He pushed Haley forward once more, toward what looked like a hole in the wall leading straight into blackness. “We must go, and now.”
She wracked her brain to make sense of it. He must've knocked her out, but where had he taken her? It was like a castle. Had the freak taken her to some crazy McMansion outside Boston?
She looked around as much as her immobilized head would allow, expecting to see mounted animal heads and gaudy wrought iron fixtures. But the large room was mostly barren. There was just a crude dining table and a few men passed out by the fireplace.
She considered calling to them for help, but her eyes adjusted and she thought better of it. The dying fire highlighted the ragged halos of their matted hair, sticking out from soiled plaid blankets.
How had he gotten her there? She did a quick internal check. Nothing was sore, so he couldn't have knocked her out. He must've used chloroform or something. He'd surely had to drive far out of the city to have found this place.
Where the hell were they? Maybe somewhere near the Cape? A lighthouse maybe? She strained, trying to hear or smell signs of the sea.