My husband and I had just arrived at Strone Holiday Chalet near Urquhart Castle, overlooking the bay. We parked at the rear of the chalet and my husband paused from unloading the car to admire the view. That's when he saw it! It was a long, dark object, its skin very slick. The two of us watched the object for about 30-45 seconds, until it slipped gently beneath the surface and disappeared.

Both my husband and I have seen seals and dolphins in the wild, and this object didn't look like either. This was not a boat wake nor wind slick or any other dark shape often mistaken for Nessie. It was simply a very large, black animal.

—MRS. ROBERT CARTER, RESIDENT, MARSDEN, WEST YORKSHIRE, 19 SEPTEMBER 1998

Chapter 13

Inverness Castle, Scottish Highlands
Scotland

Keeping his word, Judge Hannam ordered me medicated, then held in contempt, his "official" excuse for sequestering me away from the descending hordes of media, to which I was eternally grateful. I quickly found myself in a holding cell across from my father's, the castle's dense walls isolating me from the screams and shouts of reporters demanding answers to their questions.

Within minutes, the physician's medication knocked me out.

It was dark when I finally awoke.

For several wonderful moments, I simply remained on my back, staring at the details of the ancient jail cell's stone ceiling, luxuriating in the blessed relief of having been pardoned from the pain.

The migraine's passed, eh?"

I sat up slowly and looked across the darkened corridor into Angus's cell.

"I'd see a doctor aboot those if I wis you." Angus said, pressing his face between the iron bars. "I wis boffin a Welsh woman for a time, an' she suffered the same ailment. Said it wis brought on by her menstrual cycle. Naturally, I avoided her time o' the month after that. Ye're no' on the rag, are ye, Lassie?"

"I knew better than to come back, I knew you'd never change. You really set me up good this time, didn't you, Angus?"

"Och! Ye set yersel' up. How long were ye plannin' on livin' wi' yer wee secret anyway? Another seventeen years?"

"What secret? Wake up, old man, there never was a monster, not then, not now. Putting me on the witness stand won't change the fact that you killed a man, whether by accident or choice."

"Ye're still too feart tae remember, is that it?" He glared at me from his cell, his blue eyes aglitter in the florescent light. "These migraines are yer brain's way o' avoidin' the past. Same thing happened after the first accident. Headaches anytime ye tried tae talk aboot whit happened. 'Course, they were nothin' compared tae yer nightmares."

"Nightmares?" I sat up in bed, my heart racing. "I had night terrors back then, too?"