It wasn’t a formal sit-down affair. Everyone was welcome to graze all evening or fill their plates and enjoy the meal in one sitting. We could start with dessert and finish with soup, or any other way we chose.

  Savannah started things off with an elaborate salad bar, and lucky for me, I loved salads. Especially when she included all the basic greens along with cold pasta salads, three different kinds of spring rolls, and an incredible potato salad.

  After that, she served stuffed porcini mushrooms that melted in my mouth, followed by two kinds of soup: a creamy roasted butternut squash and a rich French onion soup served with lots of cheese melted over thick sourdough toast. The incredibly lush melted cheese reminded me to say a little prayer of thanks to the dairy gods that my vegetarian sister hadn’t yet gone full vegan and still approved of goodies like cheese and ice cream.

  The soups were followed by three of the most incredible pasta dishes I’d ever tasted. First came a thick, rich fettucine Alfredo; next, there was pasta with pesto and peas; and finally, orecchiette with mixed greens and goat cheese.

  While some of us sat inside by the fire, other guests roamed and chatted and walked outside to stare at the stars. It was an incredibly clear night and the moon was full.

  I had a brief chat with Robson Benedict, my parents’ guru and the man who had lured them to the wine country all those years ago. He was a kind man and very quiet. Sometimes I didn’t even realize he was standing right next to me.

  “I understand you will be traveling to Scotland for a wedding soon.”

  I didn’t exactly jump at the sound of his voice, but it was close.

  “Oh, Robson.” I patted my chest to calm myself down. The man really could sneak up on you if you weren’t paying attention. Maybe that was the lesson he was trying to impart. Pay attention.

  “Yes,” I said. “My friend Claire and her fiancé Cameron are getting married. Do you remember meeting Claire?”

  “Of course. She was quite experienced in the art and practice of weaponry.”

  “That’s right.”

  He thought for a moment. “There were several unfortunate events that took place while she was here.”

  “Yes.” Murder is always unfortunate, I thought. “Two men were after her. Both ended up getting killed.”

  He said nothing for a moment, just nodded slowly. “You will take care while visiting your friends. And you will be mindful of your parents.”

  “Absolutely,” I assured him.

  He smiled. “And you will have a wonderful time.”

  I smiled back at him, amused by his declaration. “I certainly hope so.”

  “Please convey my very best wishes to Claire and her fiancé.”

  “I will.”

  “And take care, dear one.”

  “Thank you, Robson. Merry Christmas.”

  He beamed at me and bowed his head slightly. Then he disappeared into the crowd of partygoers.

  I gazed at his retreating back, knowing that many people would consider him odd. But I just simply loved the man.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next three days were filled with visits from family and friends, more Christmas dinners, and even more leftovers. There were several wine tastings, a bocce ball competition, and lots of football games on television, as always.

  On the day before our flight, Derek and I drove back to San Francisco to retrieve our passports and pack for the trip to Scotland. Our friend Alex had also returned to town and had generously offered to take care of Charlie and keep an eye on our apartment. I had complete confidence in her abilities, both as a cat sitter and a house sitter, first because Charlie loved her, but more importantly because her résumé included her years as a CIA operative and she had a fifth-degree black belt in tae kwon do and Kenpo. She also taught Krav Maga and Brazilian jujitsu. Best of all, she was a master cupcake baker. If we were lucky, there would be cupcakes waiting for us when we got home.

  While we were gone, Alex’s gorgeous hunky boyfriend Gabriel, who also happened to be our very good friend, would be staying with her, so we would have two seriously awesome warriors watching over Charlie and our apartment.

  The next afternoon, Gabriel drove us to a private terminal at San Francisco Airport, where we met Mom, Dad, Daphne, Duncan, and Daphne and Duncan’s three ridiculously well-behaved children. We all boarded one of the family’s well-appointed jets that would take us to Inverness.

  Mom and Dad were clearly thrilled to be traveling in a deluxe private jet. “It’s the only way to fly,” Dad said, as he and Mom celebrated with vintage champagne.

  On the long flight to Scotland, I had time to wrap a last-minute present for Cameron and Claire. It was a book, of course, a beautifully illustrated version of The Twelve Days of Christmas by the artist David Delamare that I thought they would enjoy. I just hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a bittersweet reminder of the twelve library books that were lost. I was determined to hunt them down—if there was any chance that they were still somewhere in the castle.

  With all of the holiday festivities, I had only done a few minutes of research on the list of books Claire had e-mailed me. But I happened to know that Castle MacKinnon had a strong Wi-Fi signal, so I’d be able to access all the information I would need from there.

  I pulled the list out of my purse. It was an odd combination of books, some of them very short stories, some classics, some not-so-classics, and despite Claire’s belief that half of them were Christmas related, I knew that, in fact, every one of them had a Christmas connection.

  I read over the list a few more times and reminded myself of the plots and the main ideas. I had always been a voracious reader, but there were a few I’d never read before. It was easy enough to look up the basic plotlines in those cases. The books she listed were:

  • A Christmas Carol

  • The Gift of the Magi

  • The Little Match Girl

  • A Christmas Memory

  • Little Women

  • A Christmas Story

  • The Tailor of Gloucester

  • Afterward: A Ghost Story for Christmas

  • A Child’s Christmas in Wales

  • The Velveteen Rabbit

  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

  • The Greatest Gift

  I didn’t expect to sleep on the plane, but staring at the list for a full hour did it for me. It was a big surprise and a relief to wake up and realize that I’d slept for five hours and that the plane was only a little less than sixty minutes from Inverness.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Mom said, brushing my hair back from my face.

  “Hi, Mom,” I managed. “Were you able to sleep for a while?”

  “I did and it was blissful.” She stood in the aisle. “There’s coffee. You want some?”

  “Desperately,” I whispered.

  She walked to the galley at the back of the cabin, and I took the opportunity to rub my eyes and blink a couple of times to clear my vision. How was it that my mother could look so bright-eyed and ready to hit the ground running when I felt like a wrung-out dishrag?

  And wasn’t that an attractive image?

  Mom returned with a coffee mug. “You’ll love this coffee. It’s dark and rich and strong.”

  “Mmm.” I took hold of the mug and carefully sipped. “Ohhhh. Oh, yes. Thank you.”

  She smiled. “Good, huh?”

  “It’s heaven,” I murmured, blowing softly on the liquid’s surface.

  She patted my shoulder. “The flight attendant said that the plane is about to make its final descent into Inverness.”

  “Thanks for the intel. I’ll be ready.”

  She went back to her seat, and a few minutes later, Derek sat down beside me.

  “You’re awake,” he said, and pressed a kiss to my temple.

  I leaned my head against his shoulder. “What have you been doing?”

  “Just chatting with Duncan and the pilot.”

  I sat up and studied his expression. “Everything okay?”

  “I hope so. We were discussing football.” He lowered his voice. “The pilot is a rabid Manchester City fan. There was a moment there when I worried that he and Duncan would come to blows.”

  When we discussed football with Derek’s family, it was understood that we weren’t talking American football. I was aware that Duncan was a die-hard Liverpool fan, although I had no clue if that was a good thing or not. “Surely the pilot knows better than to argue with his boss’s husband.”

  He grinned. “His restraint was admirable.”

  The flight attendant moved down the aisle collecting our dishes, glasses, and utensils. She returned with a large plastic bag for any candy wrappers and potato chip bags we’d emptied during the flight. When she reached the front of the section, she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing in approximately twenty minutes, so kindly put away your tray tables, bring your seats to the upright position, and be sure your purses and backpacks are stowed safely under the seat in front of you.” She gazed down at Daphne’s youngest daughter. “And what else?”

  “Buckle your seat belts!” the little girl cried.

  “Very good, sweetie,” Daphne said, patting her daughter’s knee while flashing the flight attendant a grateful smile.

  Looking out the window, I could see the beautiful blue water of Moray Firth up ahead on the right. The hills surrounding the Firth and the town of Inverness were brown because of the cold winter weather, but I didn’t see any snow. And there were still some patches of green farmland as we approached the runway.

  The town of Inverness took over the view with its homes and buildings spreading out in a wide arc. The next thing I knew, the plane had smoothly touched ground, and minutes later, we all stood on the tarmac.

  It was a beautifully sunny day, and the air was as cold as I could ever remember. We all exchanged hugs and good wishes since Duncan and Daphne and the kids would soon be reboarding the plane and continuing on to Oxford. Two burly airport workers retrieved our luggage from the belly of the plane and loaded it into the back of an SUV limousine parked nearby.

  “Thanks for ordering the limo,” Dad said to Derek when we were all seated inside the spacious car. “This is nifty.”

  “Of course,” Derek said. “I didn’t think we’d want to deal with a crowded taxicab after a ten-hour plane ride.”

  “That plane ride was super deluxe,” Mom said.

  I had to agree. “Completely deluxe.” On the drive to Oddlochen, I could’ve dozed off again, but the weather and the views were so beautiful that I couldn’t look away. The highway ran along the River Ness, which soon widened to become Loch Ness. A thin layer of fog hovered over the water, and on the opposite side of the loch, dark pine forests covered the hillsides.

  “It’s stunning,” Mom said in awe. “Every direction I look is picture perfect.”

  “How far to the castle?” Dad asked.

  “About thirty miles,” Derek said.

  “We’ll be there in no time, sir,” Timothy the driver said.

  “Jim, look,” Mom said to Dad, and pointed to a rolling hillside dotted with woolly sheep. “Aren’t they sweet?”

  “They’re probably cold.” Dad grinned. “That reminds me, we should all buy sweaters while we’re here.”

  I smiled, leaned against the window, and closed my eyes. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy.”

  Mom frowned. “I hope you’re not coming down with something.”

  I sat up straight. “Absolutely not.”

  She glanced at Derek. “When she was younger, she would fall asleep when she was nervous about something.”

  “She still does,” Derek said.

  I scowled at both of them. “I do not.”

  Mom and Derek shared a wry look.

  “Stop that, you two,” I said.

  Now they were grinning.

  Maybe they were right to tease me. After all, the last time we visited Oddlochen, there was plenty of danger, including at least one murder and several attempts on my life.

  I shrugged. “Okay, maybe I’m a little anxious about the missing books. And about the wedding.”

  Mom patted my shoulder. “Nothing bad is going to happen. We’re going to a wedding! It’s going to be lovely and happy and fun.” She gazed more carefully at me, then reached up and rubbed my forehead—or more accurately, my third eye. “Om, shanti, shanti, shanti.”

  “I’m okay, Mom.”

  She flashed a determined smile. “And I’d like to make sure you stay that way.”

  I could hear her whispering the chant as I closed my eyes. I could hardly be mad at her when she was wishing me peace in mind, body, and spirit.

  I knew that she and Claire had become close after my friend visited us earlier this year. Claire had lost her mother at an early age and Mom had taken her under her wing. I also knew that one of the items the two of them had chatted about were the various murders that had taken place while Claire and I had been together. I was pretty sure my mother would have contributed to the conversation by filling Claire in on all the murders that I’d been involved with in San Francisco and Dharma over the past few years. It was disconcerting, to say the least. But at least Mom and Claire were bonding.

  Glancing out the window, I could see clouds forming overhead. It looked as though it might rain.

  I guess I had to admit, privately, that I was a little anxious about returning to the scene of several murders, but I would just have to get over it. If I freaked out over every murder scene I’d ever come across, I wouldn’t be able to function. Which was to say, I seemed to come across quite a lot of murder scenes. It wasn’t my fault; I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

  When Mom finished chanting, she said, “Hey, let’s talk about the wedding. I still can’t believe it’s going to happen in a castle with a real live Laird.”

  That perked me up. “It’s very exciting, isn’t it? You met Claire, so you know she’s wonderful, and Cameron is, well, he’s very impressive. It’s going to be a fabulous ceremony.”

  Derek nodded his agreement. “Cameron’s a good man.”

  “Sounds like we’ll have a blast,” Dad said, always agreeable.

  I had to smile. Mom liked to say that Dad resembled Jimmy Stewart in both looks and temperament: tall, good-looking, and relentlessly cheerful.

  “We absolutely will,” Mom agreed. “And don’t forget, sweetie. We’d love a chance to visit the Clava Cairns if there’s time.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “I’ll set it up for you. And I’m sure we’ll all have plenty of time to do some other sightseeing while we’re here.”

  “You weren’t planning on going with them to the Cairns, were you?” Derek asked me. His tone was mild, but he looked concerned.

  I appreciated his concern. The last time we’d visited the site, we’d discovered the body of a young woman, a member of Cameron’s housekeeping staff who’d been brutally murdered.

  Just remembering the sight of the young woman’s body spread out on the rocks made my stomach lurch. I never wanted to go through that again.

  “No, I won’t be going with them.” Still, I knew Mom would love it. The grounds were simply fascinating, with different types of burial sites from the Bronze Age spread across many acres. There were standing stones, pyramids, spirals, underground crypts, and so many other examples of entombments, Mom would be blown away. She would pick up all sorts of odd vibes out there and get a real kick out of it.

  Dad always enjoyed watching Mom in her element. And knowing my father, I had no doubt that on the drive back, they would stop at one of the many pubs in the area to give Dad a chance to sample the local lager.

  “I imagine Cameron can recommend a driver to take you there,” Derek said. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “I’ll leave my card with you, sir,” Timothy the driver said. “Feel free to call me if you need transport.”

  “Thank you, Timothy,” Derek said, grateful for the offer.

  From the back seat, Dad patted the driver’s shoulder. “Yeah, man, thanks a lot.” Then he sat back, wrapped his arm around Mom, and gave her a little squeeze.

  I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about them. They always managed to have a good time wherever they went.

  “Look, there’s Loch Ness,” I murmured, and Mom and Dad whipped around to watch as the massive body of water came into view.

  “Oh,” Mom whispered. The surface gleamed darkly against the cold blue of the winter sky. Off in the distance, on the western side of the loch, stood the imposing ruins of Urquhart Castle.

  “What castle is that?” Mom asked.

  “It’s Urquhart Castle and ’tis one of our most famous sites,” Timothy said proudly. “Its history is important to all Scotsmen.”

  “It’s a magnificent site,” Dad said.

  “Beautiful,” Mom agreed. “So stark against the horizon.”

  “We’ll be sure to visit while we’re here,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” Mom said. “I’d like to see it up close.”

  We chatted for another few minutes. Then glancing around, Mom said, “This loch is so big.”

  “Aye,” Timothy said. “ ’Tisn’t the biggest of our lochs, but it’s the deepest, leaving lots of room down there for our Nessie.”

  “The monster,” Dad said.

  Mom grinned. “I hope we see her.”

  “With the winter weather upon us,” Timothy said with a sigh, “she’s taken to hiding. But come the spring, she’ll likely show herself again.”