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“Precisely,” Fearghas said. “It’s my own little oasis. Only I and a few select people know of its existence.”
“Are you hiding from someone?” Jasmine asked.
Fearghas shrugged. “When you’re in the freelance security business, you never know who you’re going make an enemy of.”
Jasmine’s lips tightened. “Or who will do anything to get you to do their dirty work for them.”
Fearghas nodded. “I like doing my jobs and then disappearing. If I want to be found, I make myself findable. Just not here. This is my safe house.”
“What about the workers who helped build this,” Ace asked. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll reveal your location?”
“For the first year or so after I left the SAS, this is what I did.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the room and all its décor.
“You did this?” Jasmine asked, nodding at the tile on the floor.
“You’d be amazed at what you can find on the internet. If I didn’t know how to do something, I learned by watching videos. Once I had this place the way I wanted it, I ran out of things to do. That’s when I picked up freelance work.”
He led them across the living room with its cool, marble tile floor and thick shag area rugs. A large sectional sofa in bomber-jacket brown leather faced a gas fireplace with a television mounted on the wall.
The living area opened into a dining room and then a kitchen with shining appliances and granite countertops.
Two doors led off the main living area. Fearghas crossed to the first and flung the door open. “This is the guest bedroom with its own bathroom and shower.”
Jasmine leaned in to find a queen-sized bed with a white duvet and fluffy white pillows and tasteful modern paintings adorning the walls.
“You’ll be the first guests to use this room,” Fearghas said with a smile.
He moved to the next door and pushed open the door. “And this is my room. You’re welcome to use the bathroom in this room as well.
Jasmine peeked in to see a sitting area equipped with a desk against one wall. Over the desk was an array of monitors attached to the wall. “You work in here?”
“I do.” He walked to the desk and tapped the keyboard. The monitors sprang to life, displaying different angles of the building, from outside the garage where they’d entered to inside the garage and what appeared to be the back of the building. “I work here, but I can also monitor everything inside and outside the building. If I want to check the status, I just tap the keyboard.”
Jasmine wondered what kind of freelance work he’d done to warrant the security setup he’d installed.
Fearghas tipped his head toward an open door on the far side of the sitting room. “The bathroom is on the right, the bedroom on the left.” He glanced at Ace, his gaze sweeping him from head to toe. “You and I are about the same size. You’ll find clothes in the bedroom closet. Feel free to choose whatever you want.”
Ace nodded. “Thanks.”
Fearghas glanced at Jasmine. “You might find something in my closet as well.”
Jasmine cocked an eyebrow. “I doubt it.”
Fearghas’s lips twisted. “A former lady friend left some of her belongings here. You might find something to fit among them.”
“Won’t she be unhappy that some of her things are missing?”
Fearghas looked away. “She won’t be back. I just haven’t had time to box up her things and donate them.”
Jasmine suspected there was more to the story than Fearghas was willing to share, and she wasn’t going to push him to explain. He’d already done so much to help them, placing himself at risk. “Thanks.”
“There’s plenty of food in the refrigerator, fresh towels in both bathrooms and clean sheets on the guest bed. You can fight over who gets the bed and who gets the couch, although the couch is quite comfortable. I’ve slept on it a number of times.” He backed out of his bedroom. “I’m going to step out for a while.” He started to turn away, stopped and frowned. “One other thing. Please, follow me.”
He led the way into the guest bedroom and opened the closet. He pointed to where a string hung down close to a light bulb on the ceiling. “If this building is compromised,” he grabbed the string and pulled. Instead of turning on the light bulb, a folding staircase descended.
“This is an escape hatch that leads into the attic,” he said. “There’s a door that opens onto the roof. You can climb down the trellis on the back of the building. If the building is surrounded, there are only three feet between this building and the next to the left. You can jump across to that building and keep going for another four buildings. When you come to the fourth, there’s a ladder on the side of that building that’ll get you almost all the way to the ground. You’ll have to drop eight feet from the end of the ladder.”
“And you know this because…?” Ace prompted.
