He bent and kissed her, taking her mouth with his lips. Before she realized what she was doing, she arched up against him, enjoying the warmth that came off that lean, hard body.
When he released her, leaving her dazed and clutching the lapels of his coat, he casually said, “You’re not safe in this neighborhood.”
She frowned, not certain exactly what he meant, but he took her hand and led her into the house, pulling the door shut behind both of them and turning the deadbolt assuredly.
“I need to talk to your father anyway.”
“Why? He hates you.”
“All the more reason. He hates Keenan as well.”
They followed her father down the hall with the fading floral wallpaper and into the kitchen, where they found him making himself a cup of coffee. He’d put the gun away, but Maura could tell by the way he was sitting that he was wary and furious. The kitchen was large and rectangular, with a sunny daisy-patterned wallpaper that had been popular in the fifties and a small window above the sink with a ruffled curtain. It was her grandmother’s kitchen. As far as Maura knew, her mother had never changed a thing.
She waited until he was finished before stepping around him and pulling down two more mugs for Roland and herself.
“I’m sorry, sir, about your friend.”
Her father stiffened in his chair, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. “You know something about that?”
Maura sighed. “He only knows what I told him, Dad. He came by the station shortly after it happened.”
“And what did you tell Roland Chandler”—he jerked a thumb in Roland’s direction—“that you couldn’t tell your own father?”
Maura met Roland’s eyes as she handed him a cup of coffee. “We think that Keenan had something to do with it. Someone was at the station today, but before they shot Tommy, they took some photographs of me and sent them to me. To threaten me, make me afraid.”
“Photographs?” her father repeated.
“Yeah. Of me and Roland. Of me by myself at the station.” She didn’t go into any details about the video of her in the shower—some things a father didn’t need to know.
Suddenly her father stretched out an arm and clamped down on her wrist. “Maddie.” His voice was urgent and afraid. “Did Shy send any pictures of Maddie?”
Setting her coffee aside, Maura put a hand over her father’s and bent down so that she was on his level. “No, not that I know of.” But the thought took hold inside her mind and made her shake. Why hadn’t she considered that Keenan might threaten Maddie? “I’ll call her school. Roland—”
“We’ll go get her,” he said immediately. “In fact, I think we should all leave here. My house outside the city is much safer.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” her father protested. “Certainly not anywhere with you.”
Maura ignored both of them and snatched the house phone off the wall, glad now that her father insisted on keeping it since she still didn’t have a cell phone. She called Maddie’s school and asked them to get her niece on the phone, her heart beating much too fast in her ears. The heavy plastic of the phone in her hand clicked under the pressure from her grip. She could hear Roland and her father, but she wasn’t paying much attention.
“I’m fine here. I can handle Shy. Bastard comes near here, and I’ll kill him,” her father growled.
Roland was shaking his head. “You know as well as I do that—” Maura didn’t hear the rest of what he said.
“Maura?” Maddie answered the phone, her young voice surprised. “Is everything okay? Grandpa?”
“Grandpa’s fine,” Maura said immediately, licking her lips. Her mouth was dry. “I was just checking on you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she replied, her tone indicating that she thought Maura had lost her mind. “Why?”
“A police officer from my station was hurt today. I worried you might have heard about it and didn’t want you to think anything bad,” Maura supplied a reason as quickly as she could. It was the truth, just not all of the truth. She didn’t like to lie to Maddie, but sometimes you had to do what you could to protect the people you loved.
“Oh. No, I didn’t hear anything about that.” There was a tone in Maddie’s voice that had Maura’s parental instincts in full throttle, a hesitancy that told her Maddie wanted to tell her something, something she was unsure about, something that was bothering her.
“Okay, everything else going okay? School?”
“Yeah, school’s fine.”
“Maddie, what aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s just that someone’s been taking pictures of me. I thought that it was Billy from school. I thought that he liked me.”
Maura’s heart was beating too loud again, so loud that she had to concentrate to make herself speak, so loud that her head pounded and her eyes blurred around the edges. “What kind of pictures, honey?”
“Just pictures of me at school. Or at the bus stop.”
“Where did you see these pictures?”
“A few places. Facebook. Instagram. I was tagged. My friend Cherise showed me on her phone.”
Tagged. Like she was being hunted. Maura shook the thought away as fast as she should. “Okay. Okay, listen—I want you to stay in Principal Saunders’s office, okay? I’m going to come and get you.”
“Why?”
“I promise I’ll tell you later, okay? Just stay there. I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Put the principal back on the phone.”
Maura explained the situation to the principal and said that she’d be over to collect Maddie right away. He promised to keep her in his office until Maura got there.
Her father and Roland were still talking when she hung up the phone on the wall, the cord twisting itself back up into its usual tangled mess. Crossing through the kitchen and into the dining room, she stood in the space between the two men. “She’s okay for now,” she interrupted. “But I need to go get her. Someone’s been taking photographs of her as well.”
Roland, who’d taken a seat at the table while he spoke with her father, stood up immediately. “Let’s go.” The key to the Rolls was already in his hand. She hadn’t even seen him take it out.
“Dad, we’ll be back. Why don’t you get some stuff put in a bag, for at least a few days.”
“I told you, Maura. I can take care—”
Leaning down, Maura kissed the top of her father’s white head. “Daddy. Please,” she whispered, a tone she barely knew she still could muster.
He grunted, shifting in the wheelchair. “All right. All right.”
“Thank you.” She looked up at Roland, at the calm blue eyes in his lean face. “Can you really keep her safe?”
Roland Chandler, the man with all the answers, met her eyes and said, “I don’t know.”
ROLAND DROVE TO his house in Dover with Maura’s father in the front seat of the Wraith and Maura and her niece in the back. The pug and the ferret sat between them in a small crate. Roland tried not to wince at the thought of animals on the good leather. He’d never had pets, never intended to have pets.
“I like this car, Maura.” Maddie was touching the leather on the back of the passenger seat. “It’s got nice seats. You should get a car like this.”
Maura snorted and met Roland’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, honey.”
“Okay,” the girl replied, looking out the window. “Where are we going? This is like the middle of nowhere.”
Dover was southwest of Boston, an affluent little town with large homes on rolling acres of land. Roland had purchased several homes and a few hundred acres several years ago and built his own private estate. Clichéd or not, the countryside was beautiful, and it wasn’t so far from Boston that he couldn’t get into the office easily. And he’d made sure that it was as secure as possible, even going so far as to have private security g
uarding the front gate and the perimeter of the main house.
“We’re going to Mr. Chandler’s house, Maddie. We’re staying there for a few days.”
“Why?”
Why indeed? Roland thought. It wasn’t the sex, though he couldn’t get that out of his head. He wanted her in his bed tonight, in the massive four-poster that he had in his bedroom at the house. Would she come to him with her father and niece sleeping nearby?
Stupid thoughts to have when Keenan was busy targeting everyone he cared about, but he couldn’t help them any more than he could help the attraction that sparked between him and Maura.
“Because there’s some stuff going on with one of my cases, and Mr. Chandler offered to help us out.”
Next to him, Maura’s father snorted, his skinny arms crossed over his chest. He’d refrained from saying anything about the car, or even touching the seats, but his eyes had traced every line and curve.
Maddie looked puzzled. “So, are you, like, dating?”
“Dating?” Maura repeated.
“Yeah. Are you and Mr. Chandler dating?”
“Call me Roland,” he offered. He didn’t know much about kids other than the ones he’d met during Milton’s magic shows at Boston Children’s, but he thought she seemed fairly typical of the breed: mouthy, self-involved, sweet, and irritating in turns.
In the rearview mirror, he watched Maura put a hand on Maddie’s arm. “Call him Mr. Chandler until further notice.”
Rolling her eyes, Maddie nodded. “Okay. God.”
When they were within a mile of the house, he called ahead to his housekeeper using the car phone. “This is Roland. I’ll be coming to the house in five minutes with three others. Could you see that lunch is laid out? Thank you, Gert.”
Since he hadn’t been expected, Roland imagined that Gert, his butler, would be rushing the other servants into setting a proper table, though he’d told the man often enough that he didn’t need linens and china at every meal.
“Who’s Gert?” the girl asked, touching all the buttons on the door panel and making him mentally wince.
“He’s my butler.”
“You mean like Alfred from Batman?”
“Exactly like that,” Roland said with a nod as he took the turn into the long, winding drive that led to the house.
“So you’re rich.”
“Maddie—” Maura’s voice was stern, but her father just laughed.
“Richer than rich,” the old man said with a sneer. “Got more money than most cities. More money than any man needs.”
They were coming in view of the house, which he’d purchased several years ago and was modeled after a fifteenth-century French château near Avignon. Made of brick and stone gathered from local quarries, it had tennis courts, two pools, an orangery and topiary garden, fifteen bedrooms, and eight bathrooms. His own private castle.
“Holy shit,” Maura muttered when the house came into view.
Wrought-iron gates blocked the main part of the drive, which rose in levels up to the front of the house.
“Holy shit, wow. Is this a real castle?” Maddie exclaimed.
Roland checked in with the security guard while Maura cracked jokes. “What, no moat? Drawbridge?” she drawled.
“I’m considering it,” he replied as the massive gate slid open, “but so far the city has declined my permit requests.”
“It looks like a castle to me,” Maddie piped in again.
Maura studied his face. “I think you’re serious.”
He didn’t answer as he pressed the gas on the Wraith, which handled like a boat as he cruised the drive that curved up the various elevations to the house.
“When we get inside, we’ll have lunch, and then Maddie can show us the pictures of her,” he suggested. “All right?”
“I don’t get why you guys are so upset,” Maddie said. “And why did you take my phone? Maura, I’m not going to miss ice-skating, am I?”
“I don’t know, honey. We’ll talk about it in a little while.”
Roland pulled to a stop at the middle of the house, in front of the large wooden double doors, which rose over fifteen feet with an arch at the top. They opened as Roland stepped out of the car, and Gert emerged with his wife, Analyn, who was pregnant with their first child. Both were bundled in coats and tall boots. Behind them, the hacker Justin Robbins stood wearing red Beats headphones, a black jacket, and purple Converse, his eyes huge as he took in the Wraith.
“Sir, good afternoon,” Gert said.
Gert was a tall man—big boned and balding on top with dark glasses and a short beard. His wife, a short Filipina woman, had dark hair that she wore in a bun at the nape of her neck. Originally from Belgium, he’d met his wife while working for a wealthy European family who’d immigrated to the Philippines. He’d worked for Roland for over five years, ever since Roland had saved his life in an alley in Jakarta.
Roland opened the trunk while Gert went to help Maura and Maddie with their bags. “Gert. We need to get the wheelchair out of the trunk for Mr. O’Halloran.”
“I’ll get it,” Justin volunteered, walking to the back of the Wraith.
“How have you been? Everyone treating you okay?” Roland asked.
“I’m good.” Justin’s head bobbed as he opened the trunk and removed the wheelchair, unfolding it before rolling it over to the passenger’s-side door to collect Maura’s father.
“You brought him here?” Maura asked quietly, watching the boy.
Roland shrugged. “I was going to have Milton’s mom look out for him, but she’s on a cruise this week. It didn’t seem safe to send him anywhere else.”
Once everyone was out of the car, Roland waved a hand in Gert’s direction. “O’Hallorans, this is my butler, Gert; his wife, Analyn, my housekeeper; and Justin Robbins, an intern at Accendo. This is Maddie, Maura, and Ryan O’Halloran—my guests for the week.”
Gert briskly shook everyone’s hand while his wife stood at the door surrounded by suitcases. “Good to meet you. Good to meet you.”
Maddie darted forward, away from the Wraith. “I thought all butlers wore suits,” she said to the tall man, but her gaze kept straying over to Justin. Roland saw Maura’s eyes narrow.
“Mr. Chandler is not as formal as most men,” Gert explained.
“I would make my butler wear a suit,” she announced, and grinned winningly.
Roland met Maura’s eyes. She was trying to keep from laughing, probably at his expression. “I don’t think it’s going to be an issue, baby.”
“God, Maura. Don’t call me baby.”
Seeming to sense trouble brewing, Gert said, “Lunch is ready in the dining room. I’ll get Satya to help me with the bags and put the car in the garage. Analyn, why don’t you show them to the dining room?”
“Okay. You come with me.” She gestured for Maddie and Maura’s father to follow her through a courtyard and into the entrance hall. Justin wandered along with them.
Roland handed the keys to Gert, aware that Maura hadn’t gone with her family into the house. She lingered near the open doors, waiting for him, her hair blowing in the wind.
“You’re freezing.” He stepped close to her, blocking the breeze with his body. She tilted her head to look up at him, her gray eyes fierce even though he could read the fatigue in them. He wanted to strip her naked and slide her into a warm bath, bring her a glass of wine, and soothe her with his lips and hands and tongue.
“We have to catch him.”
Unable to help himself, he slid a hand into her hair, brushing the bright locks away from her face. “We’ll get Maddie and your father settled and then we’ll go over everything we have again. I’ll call the office, see if they’ve found anything, and in the meantime Bert should be sending over the surveillance from the station.”
Her face tightened, but she nodded, letting him tug her forward until he was hugging her, her face pressed against his chest. It felt like victory, to have her in his arms, for her to let him com
fort her.
“I need to call Bert,” she said, pulling away. “I don’t suppose you have an extra cell phone?”
With a flourish, he produced a cell from the pocket of his coat and held it up. “Secured. Encrypted. He won’t be able to hack this one.”
She was trying not to smile. He could tell. “And you just happened to have this in your pocket?”
“You’d be surprised what I have in my pockets.”
Her lashes lowered as she plucked the cell phone from his hands. “Oh, no I wouldn’t,” she murmured. “But I would like to know why my father hates you so much. Maybe you could explain it to me.” She gave him a significant look and strolled off after her family.
Roland took deep breaths of the icy air, letting it stab his lungs repeatedly. He didn’t know why the thought of telling Maura O’Halloran about his past bothered him so much, but he knew for sure that it did.
MAURA MANAGED TO locate the dining room without assistance and without anyone catching her staring open-mouthed, but it was a close call. Roland’s castle was just that—a castle. The walls were thick, made of stone, and covered in tapestries depicting scenes of medieval knights in battle. Overhead, vaulted cathedral ceilings rose to ridiculous heights and arched doorways opened to long hallways. She heard Maddie’s voice before she actually found the dining room, which had an enormous dining table that extended the length of the room. A fire crackled in an oversize stone fireplace at the far end of the room, above which a tall stained-glass window depicted a mermaid with streaming red hair, her gaze turned to look at the sunset.
“Maura—check out that window. So pretty, right? Like amazing. I didn’t know people had windows in their houses like that.” Maddie bounced up next to her, Hannibal draped over her hands.
Neither had she. Holy shit. “Don’t let that ferret loose in here, Maddie. I can’t afford the bill if he decides to nest in the chairs.”
“I won’t.”
“Where’s Porkchop?” Maura felt vaguely panicked at the idea that the dog might decide to piss on one of Roland’s expensive rugs. She was sure they cost more than her whole house, maybe her whole damn block.
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