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Purdy’s was crowded the following evening when she went in for her usual Friday drink after work. Zara liked that the buzz of conversation filling the establishment muffled some of her thoughts. One glass of wine didn’t manage to numb her, so she had a second. Her life was a mess. She’d betrayed her boss and fallen for his brother, who it turned out would rather jump head first into a hazardous, possibly life-threatening situation, than admit to her his true feelings on any subject.
After being handed her third drink, she began to gulp, and only stopped drinking when someone sat on the stool beside hers. Having managed to snag a table in the corner, she hadn’t expected company. Being social was the last thing on her mind, and probably beyond her capability with the volume of alcohol pulsating through her bloodstream.
“It’s busy,” the man said.
His dashing smile and lingering gaze made her sigh and plonk her glass down on the table. “If you’re looking to get laid, I’m really not in the mood,” she said, glad of the gumption that the wine gave her.
His head jerked an inch as though he hadn’t been expecting such a direct statement. “How about a little conversation,” he said, laying his arms around his bourbon glass.
She was past the point of objecting to his presumption and she planned to go home as soon as she finished her wine. So if the guy wanted to sit and babble for the next ten minutes, she wasn’t going to fight with him. Most men did what the hell they wanted to; one berating conversation wouldn’t affect the arrogance of his gender.
“You are a looker,” he said and she picked up her wine to avoid focusing on his leer. “I’m glad I came to see for myself.”
That sounded sinister enough that she lowered her glass from her mouth to examine his cold expression. His eyes were iceberg blue. His nose was crooked, indicating it had probably been broken in the past. A scar on his neck attracted her scrutiny. It looked to be deep enough that it was a wonder he survived the initial wound.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Routine is a godsend,” he said. “And you are a creature of habit, Zara. Guys like me appreciate that.” Scanning the room, he nodded and smiled at her again. “This is a nice place.”
Not interested in the details of the setting, she kept her eyes locked onto him. If he knew who she was, then he wanted something. Intoxication began to decrease and she moved her leg to confirm her purse—containing Brodie’s Sig—was on her lap. “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked.
“You want to watch the company you keep,” he said. Edging even closer, his smile began to fade. “You wouldn’t want to be standing too close to Raven when I put a bullet between his eyes, would you? Brain matter doesn’t come out of silk, honestly, that shit stains.”
“Who are you?” she asked and the haze of intoxication lifted. “Are you a buyer?”
With a brief laugh, the corner of his mouth twisted. “A buyer? No,” he said. “I don’t give a damn about the device he’s chasing or who it kills. I care about Raven and watching him die. I’m here to ask you to pass on a message.” Getting closer, his arm brushed hers. “You tell him that payback’s a bitch and I have my eyes on his prize... Canada is lovely this time of year.”
“What does that—” He shifted back to his original position, downed his drink and then got up and left as quickly as he’d appeared. Fixing her eyes on her wine glass, Zara second-guessed whether any of that had really just happened or if she’d imagined the whole thing.
Deciding that the potential threat was too serious to dismiss, she abandoned the rest of her wine and sped out of the bar in search of a cab.
––––––––
Brodie had warned her about security at is house, but Zara assumed that the place wasn’t impenetrable. She got the cab to drop her off half a mile from her destination, for three reasons. One, folklore around here said that no one lived on this piece of land. As a woman on her own, she would look odd strutting up to a derelict property. The cab driver would likely remember her as a nut and might tell someone about the peculiar fare.
The second reason was she didn’t know exactly where the front entrance was. Having never been here before and with Grant never mentioning it, the layout had been something she had failed to commit to memory.
The third reason, which some might say was juvenile, was she didn’t want those inside to see her coming. They were supposed to be on her side, but she feared making a target of herself.
The cab driver dropped her off at an address near a club she used to frequent. It was the only nearby address she could deliver to him with confidence because she didn’t know the area well and the point was to make this trip as forgettable as possible. Brodie couldn’t object to her showing up if she proved she’d taken precautions to safeguard his obscurity.
On arrival, she paid her money, got out of the car, and loitered on the sidewalk like she might be meeting someone. It was only when the cab was out of sight that she began her journey.
Her shoes pinched, and if she’d known that this trek was on her agenda, Zara would have put on different footwear that morning. But these shoes went well with the black suit dress and jacket she wore to the office. The discomfort in her feet did make her consider aborting this job a couple of times. But the mental picture of the man in the bar kept her moving forward.
Brodie wouldn’t be watching her any more, not now that he had the information he wanted. If it hadn’t been for the development in Purdy’s, Zara would have had no reason to see him again. Despite her anger at being used, she couldn’t dismiss the new player who was threatening Brodie’s life.
Just because she was pissed, didn’t mean that she wanted him dead, so she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the warning. No doubt Brodie would argue that he could take care of himself and she knew that to be true—if he knew the threat was coming at him.
The walk took much longer than she’d anticipated. The gates to the property were further away than she’d assumed they would be. There were no lights to illuminate her route anymore; she’d passed the last streetlight on the block the cab had left her on. The closer she got to her destination, the more daunting the environment became.
A brick wall stood ten feet high and had iron railings above that with razor wire coiled around it, revealing that Brodie’s parents had been the paranoid sort. That they had been so uneasy about strangers made Zara uneasy too. The boundary of the McCormack property stretched the full width of this peninsula and although she couldn’t see the house, she knew it was there somewhere.
Nothing about this picture was inviting. Trees and bushes crowded around the wall, indicating the land had been left to ruin. Yet, the wall was in top shape, betraying that someone had maintained the perimeter. She ran her fingers along the rough grey stone as she looked for an opening.
Her hope for a nice wrought iron gate she could slip through unnoticed began to dwindle. When she did find the way in she was shocked to see a huge metal beast of a gate painted as black as the night around it.
There was no handle to open it. Figuring there must be some way to operate it, she searched for a good ten minutes before standing back and admitting defeat. Brodie had told her not to just show up and now she knew why, because it was nothing more than a big fat waste of time.
Taking another step back, Zara considered how she could get the message to him. But she couldn’t hack into anyone’s computer, and if he wasn’t watching her then the light in her apartment window would be useless.
As she was about to turn and go home, there was a thud and then an electrical whirring sound. Less than five seconds later, the gate began to slide to the left. It was opening. Brodie had been telling the truth about security because she hadn’t made an intrusive approach that could have drawn someone’s attention. Yet, they’d known she was here.
Another thud signaled the end of the gate’s movement. It had only opened a couple of feet, but that was enough space for her to get through. Edging closer, Zara swallowed away her apprehension and proceeded forward. This could be a trap. A security system might be programmed to let people in only to decapitate them with a huge swinging axe or something. But having come this far, she ventured forth.
The ambient light faded further when she inched through the gate. Taking a step forward, she was overwhelmed by how overgrown the grounds were. They were reminiscent of a fairy tale forest where the unsuspecting heroine was gobbled up by the hungry wolf.
Another thud sounded and the gate began to roll back. She watched it close and with that, her chance of escape was lost. Light suddenly blared on and she whipped around to see the headlights of a jeep illuminating her and the flora all around her. Holding up a hand to shield her eyes, she saw someone move across the beam of light and come closer.
“He said you were tenacious.” The voice belonged to Art and her hand lowered a little. “You’ve got a set on you girl, showing up here after threatening us.”
“How did you know I was here?” she called. “Or are you going to tell me it’s a coincidence that you were just driving by?”
“Recognizing a coincidence is the first step to solving a mystery,” he said as though he’d said the words a thousand times before. “What are you doing here?”
He sounded more impressed than peeved, so she stepped in his direction. “I have a message for Brodie.”
“He’s not home. You’re lucky about that. He never would’ve let you in. Only five people have been in his house in the last twenty years.”
Zara assumed she was about to be flung off the property. It was probable he’d let her in just to tell her not to draw attention to the place by snooping around. “Well, I—“
“How would you like to be the sixth?” he asked and was close enough now to hold out a hand.
Dropping her shielding hand into his, she knew this wasn’t going to be as simple as delivering a message.
––––––––
Art said nothing in the jeep on the way to the house, which was much further from the gates than she’d thought it would be. After driving for around two miles, the house emerged from the darkness when she had given up looking for it.
Three floors high, it was constructed with a dark grey stone that made the gothic towers appear even more ominous. Art drove to the side of the building and down a ramp through an open garage door into an underground parking area. When he turned off the engine and got out of the vehicle, she did the same, though she wasn’t quite sure what was going to come next or why he’d allowed her inside when Brodie wasn’t even here.
“I just—”
“Upstairs,” Art said, already moving away from her.
Zara hurried to catch him up to him. He pressed his thumb to a dull blue pad next to a door, and she recognized the CI fingerprint recognition tech. He took her up a spiral staircase and through a set of doors. One wall of this space was open in a series of pointed arches. Stepping out from beneath the standard-height ceiling, Zara had to re-inhale the oxygen taken from her lungs at the sight of the cavernous entryway, floored with the most incredible wood that she had to stop and admire it.
“It’s Macassar ebony,” he said. “The house is gothic revival.” Moving through a pointed arch behind her, he took her hand to bring her into the main space. The double wide stone staircase drew her eye up to the vaulted ceiling three stories above.
“It’s incredible,” she said, almost unable to believe it. The pointed arch windows high above them were made up of smaller rectangles. Some were clear glass, some were textured, and others were colored.
“It has a twin,” he said.
“A what?” she asked, absorbing the features of this incredible space with wide eyes filled with wonder. There were a series of black doors forty feet from the foot of the stairs, which she assumed were the front doors.
“Two identical homes were built simultaneously by Grant Senior in the seventies. This one on the east coast and the other on an island off the coast of Washington state.”
Still open-mouthed, she drank in the atmosphere of this echoing marvel. “Why?”
“Because my sister had her husband wrapped around her little finger,” he said and this got her attention. Art’s sister was Brodie’s mother and Grant Senior’s wife. “My family was originally from the West Coast and my sister didn’t like to be away from our mother back then. Grant Senior built the other house for our mother.”
Taking on one project like this would’ve been a challenge. Two could be considered insanity. “That must have cost a fortune.”
“Yes, it did,” he said with a half-smile and a nod. “He was showing off and my mother, Brodie’s grandmother, was a very difficult woman to please. Come through to the kitchen.”
Art guided her through a series of doors and passages. Eventually they came out in a large kitchen set at the side of the house. It had a twenty-five foot ceiling and the same style of windows as the entry way did. These were high above as well, stretching across the wall above the stove at the height of the second story.
The room was huge and in addition to the wraparound units and the double-width stove, there was a dual height island, and a den area with a couch, and a couple of armchairs around a coffee table, which sat beneath a wall-mounted TV.
“I just made coffee, would you like some?” he asked. “Or there’s wine in the cellar if you’d—”
She held up a hand and waved it in time with her shaking head. “I’ve already had two and a half glasses.”
“If this is a drunken booty call, you really should’ve called first,” Art said, skirting the kitchen island to reach the coffee pot. “Brodie isn’t home.”
“You said that already. Forgive me for asking,” she said, putting her purse on the lower portion of the center island and curling her fingers around it.
He glanced over his shoulder as he poured black coffee into two mugs. “What?”
“Why did you let me in? I got the impression last night that you didn’t think much of me.”
“I was the black sheep of my family,” he said, carrying the mugs down the opposite side of the island and indicating with an eye roll that she should follow him. When they got to the couches, he sat and put the mugs down on the low coffee table. “Brodie and me spend most of our time in here, in our bedrooms, or using the facilities downstairs. The houses were built structurally the same but the boys have remodeled in their own ways over the years.”
She wasn’t sure who “the boys” were, but she wanted to know where Art’s story was going before she asked about anything else. “You were saying,” she said, attempting to get the conversation back to where it had been. “About being the black sheep?”
Opening his mouth, he took a large lungful of air before continuing. “I was the second of four children. There was eight years between me and my eldest sister, Melinda, that’s Brodie and Grant’s mom.”
“Why did you take Brodie after she died? Do you have a wife and kids of your own?”
“Neither,” he said, reaching for his mug. “I lived here with Melinda when I was in the country. Brodie idolized me. I spent my life traveling, learning from indigenous people, backpacking, trekking, and mountaineering. He loved to hear my stories. After our mother died, Brodie’s grandmother, Melinda didn’t see much of our younger sisters. One of whom was a single mom and the other had serious issues with her problem child. After Melinda died, we found out it had been written into her will that I should become guardian of the boys.”
Intrigued, she speculated. “But you didn’t want to be tied down?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but... Grant Junior took to business; he idolized his father and trotted into work with him as often as he could. He was fifteen when his parents died, it had been his birthright, and his lifelong ambition to take over at CI... no one thought it would be so soon. Brodie wanted nothing to do with the company. That was when Frank and I sat down with the boys and they made their decisions. It was never our intention to keep them apart, but... Brodie started traveling with me, Grant went to college, and our paths rarely crossed... especially since Grant refused to come here to the manor.”
“This is fascinating, but...”
He smiled. “What has it got to do with my reaction to you last night?” he asked.
Nodding while freeing her feet from her shoes, Zara retrieved her mug from the coffee table and cradled it with both hands as she brought it close to her body. Then twisting herself to face Art, she drew her legs up onto the couch and tucked them beneath herself. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
“When I was young, I was a bit of a crusader. I thought myself a bit of a... hero, I guess. We built homes for those who had lost them in natural disasters and fought injustice as we found it. I had more than a few contacts myself and I made money by tracking people down or getting information. Over the years, one thing led to another and we found ourselves going after bigger and bigger fish. Brodie took to fighting and shooting like a tiger takes to his stripes. Eventually I was obsolete. Support staff for this tower of a man who really was a hero. Brodie has killed dozens of men, hundreds of them, and I guess he’s lost a bit of his humanity because of that. But everyone he’s killed, he’s killed for a reason.”
The ferocity of Art’s pride made him lose the easy, approachable demeanor he’d had on receiving her. She couldn’t think of any parent who would defend their child with more vehemence than Art took on when talking about Brodie.
“I think he still has a lot of humanity in him,” she said, sipping her drink through the delightful steam rising from it.
He relaxed and drank from his own mug. “I think so too. I’m incredibly proud of him. He didn’t go to school or college. He didn’t get married, have kids, and live a traditional life... He turned into me... only a better version of me, the version of me I wanted to be but couldn’t.”
“You’re protective of him,” she said, understanding his frosty reception yesterday. “Were you worried I was some sort of Mata Hari?”
Considering her words, he took his eyes away from her, choosing instead to enjoy his coffee for a while before putting it on the table and answering her. “The other day, when he wasn’t in his bed in the morning and I called him... When I heard he was at your place... that he’d spent the night...”
“You were a worried parent,” she said, wearing a smile. Brodie was all man, all grown up, and capable of caring for himself. It was funny to imagine someone waiting up for him.
“No,” Art said, shaking his head. “No, I... he spends all night out a lot of the time because he works at night, he scouts at night. He spends two thirds of the year overseas, and it’s not like I don’t know that he can take care of himself. He stays out all night for the job. He’s never stayed out all night for a woman.”
“Never?” she asked, struggling to believe such a thing.
Leaning forward with open hands, he let his palms join and fall together as he angled himself toward her. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s had plenty of women. That’s an area he never needed any coaching in,” Art said and she saw the paternal satisfaction swell in his chest. “Sometimes when we’re abroad somewhere he’ll spend the night with a girl, especially if we have nowhere else to sleep that night or we need cover. But here, at home”—his lip turned out as he shook his head—“never happened.”
Fishing for information and maybe a compliment, she tried to be casual when she probed further. “There’s never been anyone special in his life?” she asked, especially interested as to what “plenty of women” might mean.
Before he spoke, Art seemed to debate with himself whether he should be honest. “There was a girl once, Mischa. He met her in Italy and did some work with her father. But... Mischa was cosmopolitan, social... She didn’t mind having him locked in a cage for her private use, but she wouldn’t be seen with him in public.”
“Brodie wouldn’t have minded that,” Zara said, learning that jealousy tasted more bitter than coffee. “He doesn’t like to be seen in public.”
Art was shaking his head and wearing a sneer of revulsion. “She was cold and ruthless. Brodie was blinded by her beauty, but I could tell, she was rotten all the way to her core. She did some work with us and she took a... psychopathic enjoyment from it. We called her Cuckoo, she hated it, but Tuck and I agreed it made sense. She was half a step away from asking Raven to kill just to get her off. That was when I knew enough was enough.”
So Art had been instrumental in ending the relationship. Brodie would listen to his uncle’s advice, but she was surprised to hear he hadn’t fought for his woman if there was a chance of love between them. Maybe the association had been more sexual than emotional.
Taking another drink of the delicious coffee, Zara shrugged off her distaste at the turn of the conversation. Pushing her mug onto the table, she sidled a little closer. “I wish I could say he got carried away with me, but it wasn’t any emotional connection that made him stay,” she said. “I told him to. I told him if he spent the night and had breakfast with me that I would tell him anything he wanted to know.”
Art’s lips slanted up. “You might think that’s the reason. But I know my nephew. Painting him into a corner like that... you gave him an excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged.
“Cuckoo made me wary of what a woman could do to him. But you... you’re not like her. You’re exactly what he needs.”
Art’s optimism made her draw back a little. “Like I said, I wouldn’t read too much into it. He wanted information from me and he got it. It just so happened that he got some sex into the bargain.”
“When we first started researching you,” Art said and she squirmed at the notion these men had been investigating her. “It was because Albert Sutcliffe’s men were watching you. We wanted to know what had them intrigued. So Brodie went to check you out and when he came back... it had been years since I’d seen him smile like he did that night. He never smiled like that with Mischa... You had him at that very minute. I don’t know how or why, but you did.”
“He told me he thought I looked naughty the first time he saw me,” she stated.
Art held up his hands. “Hey, what happens between a man and his woman—”
“I know that he’s told all of you the dirty details,” she said, pointing at her coffee mug. “How else would you know I drink my coffee black? And your friend on the computer knew intimate things about—”
“My friend on the computer was kicked out of the room when you started questioning who he was... which was very smart by the way,” Art said, turning his whole body in her direction. “You should never admit details when you don’t know for sure who you’re talking to. Brodie kicked us out after your question about lovers. We didn’t get back in until he was done.”
Art could just be telling her what she wanted to hear. “If that’s true, why didn’t he just announce himself?”
“It pays to hide your identity from others and you have to be humble enough to realize there’s always a chance that someone is watching you.”
They were concerned about insulating themselves, but weren’t so concerned about her safety. “So you were happy for them to know that I was giving out company secrets, just not who I was giving them to?”
“Look here,” he said, elevating an arm onto the back of the couch. “Brodie has gone above and beyond to keep you safe. He’s risked exposure for you and he has never done that for another soul... I taught him better than that.”
Lifting her own arm to the back of the couch, Zara laid her hand over his. “I’m sure he’s very grateful for everything you’ve done for him.”
Fixing her in his sights, Art’s eyes grew heavy. “You cut him deep,” he said, sliding his hand back a bit, though his fingers stayed under hers. “Last night with that murderer bullshit.”
Never had Zara thought she would be involved in anything like Game Time. Terrorists and ambiguous “demonstrations” weren’t meant to be a part of her life. Last night, she’d acted on impulse, speaking before she had a chance to process. “I didn’t know what he did,” she said, shrinking in light of the truth.
Her actions, her words, they did hurt Brodie. All along, he’d been honest, and had never made himself out to be a saint. The shock of being drawn into his world made her lash out because being taken advantage of was her greatest fear.
Coming from a small town, Zara had wanted people in the big city to believe she was street smart. More than once she’d had it proven to her that she wasn’t as savvy as she wanted to believe. Since arriving here, she had come a long way, so far that those in her hometown probably wouldn’t recognize her.
Art’s scowl was a return to his disapproving parent manner. “He saved your life, that’s what he did, and you should be grateful for that.”
“I am,” she said, thrusting her shoulders back to beseech his gaze. “Please don’t think I’m not, I... I guess I was reacting rather than thinking because I was hurt... It’s not like he and I made any promises to each other. But it just... I tell him I trust him, then his buddy communicates through my computer and I come home to you erasing every shred of evidence that he ever existed in my life.”
Art relaxed some. “You were hurt. You thought you were being dumped.”
She wasn’t going to deny the truth. “I thought he used sex to get what he wanted and I was disappointed in myself for letting it happen. He told me he was watching the people who were watching me. Who was that?”
“Tim Sutcliffe was supposed to sweep you off your feet so that you’d talk him up to Grant. His uncle, Albert Sutcliffe, was meeting with Grant in New York that Monday and it was at that meeting that Grant led him to believe you knew everything about the deal.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would he say that?”
“Grant probably wanted to cover his ass and saying he has an accomplice helps to insulate him and makes others believe he is not ashamed of what he’s doing. Divulging that his actions were a secret would open him up to blackmail and the threat of assassination.”
“Oh my God,” she exhaled, curling her fingers around her throat. So she was his safety net and the one who was supposed to ask questions if he suddenly vanished. The sad truth was, if Grant had disappeared, she probably would have gone on a crusade to find him without any idea of the danger she’d be walking into. “Are they still watching?”
He shrugged. “Brodie’s been keeping an eye on their positions and so far it looks like you’re in the clear. I guess they didn’t expect to lose young Tim. It’s probably not worth the risk of someone else’s life to have you watched. Who knows what would happen if anyone else tried to move in on you, especially now that you’ve got Brodie’s attention.”
“Do they know that?”
“That you’re with him? No.” Art shook his head. “No one can see into your bedroom and Brodie’s discreet. He knows how to cover his tracks.”
Of that, she was sure and she made a note to be more careful herself. Tim had found her in Purdy’s, as had the man with the scar. Threats didn’t always look scary. In fact, every time she’d been approached by one they’d been outwardly pleasant, except for Brodie. Though he wasn’t exactly a threat to her... maybe.
“I don’t suppose it matters now that our... whatever it was... is all in the past.”
Art’s eyes moved up to fix on something, which caused her to glance over her shoulder. But she saw nothing unusual. “We’re about to find out if my nephew’s through with you,” Art said, pushing up off the couch.
“How?” she asked. Searching the wall to try to find out what had caught his eye, yet she still saw nothing.
“You’re going to learn that this house has more secrets than you can possibly imagine.”
Art poured a third cup of coffee, then ducked to produce a bottle of scotch from a drawer. Retrieving two heavy based crystal tumblers, he put them on the center island and unscrewed the liquor bottle to pour out two measures.
