I’d run almost all the way down the crag before lack of oxygen and muscular exhaustion slowed me to a walk. I was panting and trying not to cry, and collapsed onto a bench near the entrance to the gift shop to try and collect myself.
I dropped my head into my hands, and went straight for the heart of the matter. My claustrophobia was one thing, but this had been so much worse. The kindly Genesie-clone, the cab driver—even the cranky bus driver. Every step that had taken me away from Nairn, away from all I had grown to love, was making me sadder and more desperate. Knowing this was the last stop before the airport in Edinburgh had obviously flipped some kind of switch inside my head.
I took a deep, shuddering breath. Going back to Chicago—I could no longer think of it as home—wouldn’t be that bad. I would find a way to get back here.
I would.
And right then, the police arrived.
I’m not sure how it happened. One minute I was sitting on the bench, trying to get a grip on myself, and the next a police car had pulled up beside me.
Since the six-month tourist visa time limit had passed, I had been a little nervous when I caught sight of a policeman, but really? I wasn’t that worried. If someone did find out I’d overstayed my welcome, I could always play the ignorance card. Sitting there on the bench below the Wallace Monument, I was, if anything, less worried than I had been since I’d left Nairn. I was, after all, on my way to the Edinburgh airport.
I did feel a little guilty, remembering Matthew, the sweet airport employee who’d refunded me the ticket money in Inverness all those months ago. But I was on my way, and his airline was still the one who was going to take my money and fly me home.
Of course it was.
So when the police car slowed down beside me and the window scrolled down, I couldn’t have been less concerned.
“Are ye all right, Miss?” the policewoman asked me.
And I bolted like a rabbit.
I have no idea why. I’ve always wondered, when watching various cops and robbers shows, why the robbers would run for it, especially when there was never any question they’d be caught. On camera.
Didn’t stop me. I took a straight right turn and headed into the field, the ‘Bad Boys’ theme ringing in my head. “Dammit, Hamish,” I muttered, as I picked up speed. I hated to think the only thing I’d taken from our relationship was a pop-song fixation.
The field, I knew, backed into a wood. I’d seen it on my way up with the cab driver, and I’d run through part of it once already, on my way down from the monument. If I could make the wood, I could hide there until the police lost interest in me, and then hop a bus before they knew I was gone.
It was an excellent plan.
Behind me, I could hear a strangled cry, and someone yelling “Wait! Stop!”
I didn’t stop.
As I ran, I saw a goat standing behind the low rock wall separating my field from the next. He had four horns on his head, and looked like someone had splashed his white coat with black paint. He seemed entirely unperturbed at the sight of a stranger blundering past.
For the past six months, I had been riding a bike twice a day, not to mention the miles walked between tables at the cafe and up and down the fields with Morag. I not only had panic on my side, I had a bit of muscle.
And I would have made it—I really would have—but for the kissing gate in the field.
Obviously, I knew kissing gates. I’d learned how they worked the very first day I’d met Morag, and I’d even been quite memorably kissed up against one. The gate below the Wallace monument attached to a stile on either side; perfect for leaping over if one was a human, less so for cattle. Or goats.
Not at all worried, I took a flying leap over the stile, but somehow managed to clip the toe of my Converse between the two sides of the gate. Seconds later, I was being sat-upon by a large policewoman, who was possessed of a substantial body mass, but was very damned fast, for all that. She pulled my arms behind my back and cuffed me. Considering I had just been through a major bout of panic-driven claustrophobia, I didn’t take to the cuffs very well.
“I cannae uncuff ye, Miss, until ye give me yer name,” she said, when I paused for breath.
This left me so confused that I forgot to feel panicky. “Don’t you know my name?” I gasped. “Why would you arrest me if you don’t know my name?”
“You’re not under arrest, madam. That is—I would prefer if you’ just assist me by telling me your name.”
“It’s Emma Sheridan,” I said, hanging my head. “Can you please just take the cuffs off?”
“Look, luv,” she said, kindly. “I dinnae know who you are, but even in America, ye must know that if ye run from the police we will chase you. No why would ye think I’d want to arrest ye on this fine day?”