Highland Shifter (MacCoinnich Time Travel) Read Free Page A

that were going to auction. When she scraped her hands along a wall, she ’d felt a current of electricity similar to one she’d experienced when touching the book of Scottish folklore.
    Apparently, a Vermeer had been heisted from the spot long ago. Helen called Philip and asked him to research the museum and tell her everything he could find out about the missing art. In addition to looking into the past theft, Philip flew to Boston and stood beside her as she followed her gift tracking the painting around the city. One week and hundreds of miles later, on an island off the Florida Keys, Helen led her boss to a collector who had the art in his possession.
    The museum in Boston credited Philip’s Auction house for the retrieval of the art. As a result, his standing in the art community elevated to amazing heights. Philip attributed her gift, her ability to follow objects and find missing things, to intuition. There was a lot more to it than intuition. That she knew. But why was this path now leading her toward a missing boy?
    “The answer is out here somewhere,” she said to herself as she dodged a crater-sized pothole in the road.
    The roadside signs pointed off in all directions to castles dating back hundreds of years. The desire to drive up to the nearest one and pull out her camera was strong, but the feeling that doing so would slow down her search stopped her.
    As she approached a four way stop, her right hand started to tingle. If she hadn ’t been waiting for the sensation, she would have missed it. At the stop she veered northeast onto a tiny two lane road. According to her map, the road would eventually run out and become nothing but dirt. Yet while her hand hummed, turning away wasn’t an option.
    Ten miles later the road turned to dust, and weeds of neglect crowded the lane. A large rut forced her from the car. She still had several hours of daylight and a backpack full of snacks and water.
    Outside the car, humidity hung in the air like a blanket. Helen rolled up her short sleeved shirt to catch some of the wind blowing off the eastern coast. Following the rolling tingle along her skin, she moved away from the deserted road toward the sound of the ocean. She didn’t think she was that close to the shore, so the noise caused her to pause.
    A strange, panicky sensation rolled down her spine, forcing Helen to spin in a circle, searching for the cause. She was alone, but the feeling of being watched made her question the sanity of venturing off the marked road in a foreign country. Anyone could come along and do, God knew what, and never be caught. The only person who even knew she was in Scotland was Philip, and he wasn ’t expecting an update for a couple of days.
    Hoisting her backpack higher, she pushed aside her unease and tried to walk closer to the noise of crashing waves.
    A low stone wall peaked above the grassy field a good two miles from her car. She took a moment to rest and removed a bottle of water from her pack. After taking a long drink, Helen closed her eyes and leaned against the stones. She realized then the ocean sound hadn’t changed since she’d stepped from the car. It hadn’t gotten louder, or softer. It was as if she were walking along a coast, yet the coast wasn’t there.
    Her entire body began to hum. A small vibration told her she was close to whatever clue came next. “What the hell am I looking for?” she called out to the empty field. She removed the objects from her pack that led her this far, hoping to find her answer.
    First was a picture of the candlesticks. Twelfth century pieces of art sold on consignment at Graystones, a rival auction house. They’d stayed in the possession of the owner for nearly a year before the said owner sent them to Philip to be resold. Apparently, the current economic crisis wasn’t limited to the poor.
    When Helen had touched the candlesticks every nerve ending in her body lit up. When an insatiable need to find out more about them