“A bairn?” Hunter rasped, mostly to himself, as he stared down at a simple woven basket overflowing with blankets.
Nestled in the center, pink-faced and squalling, was a baby. Tiny hands curled into angry fists, more of a fighter than any of the useless lads in the training yard. If Hunter had to guess, he’d have said the child couldn’t have been more than a month old.
“There’s somethin’ in there with the bairn,” one of the guards said, pointing out the corner of a piece of paper.
Hunter pulled it out and found a note with his name written on the front in a jagged hand. Stepping to the side so the guards wouldn’t see, he opened the note and, with increasing unease, began to read:
Your spawn killed my daughter. Took my child’s life to ensure hers, so there is no doubt she is yours. I want nothing to do with the monster. She has no name; she does not deserve one.
“Is it a trick?” Jack asked, edging forward.
With a sniff, Hunter crumpled the note and shoved it into the pocket of his belted plaid. “Nay trick.” He eyed the wailing child. “She’s me daughter.”
As Jack stared wide-eyed and the guards looked anywhere but at their Laird, Hunter jammed the sharp tip of his sword into the earth so it would stand alone, and reached down for the abandoned child.
The child he had sired. The child who had evidently killed her mother on her way into the world. The child he might never have known about, if she had not been left at his gates.
Awkwardly, he rested her in the crook of his arm and stared down into her scrunched-up face. After such a dramatic entrance into life and such a brutal rejection, it was no wonder she was so angry.
Daenae worry, lassie.
He hesitantly put his finger in her tiny hand, surprised by her strength as she gripped it tightly.
“Ye’re safe now,” he whispered.
As her wails faded into soft hiccups and her face relaxed into sleepy calm, he got the feeling that she understood.
From now on, she had her father’s protection.
CHAPTER 1
NEW JERSEY, 2026
Nancy Kane staredup at the apartment building, her phone pressed to her ear. “I don’t know if you’re getting any of my messages or if I’m just talking to the void here, but I’m outside the place and… Look, just call me back, okay?”
She grimaced, feeling like an ass, and kind of wishing she had more than one friend to call up when she was about to do something potentially stupid.
“I know I’m not supposed to be calling,” she continued, repentant. “I’m all for the peace and quiet and the digital detoxing or whatever, but I’m dying here. Not literally. Don’t go calling EMS or anything. I just mean, I’m… well, I’m about to break into her apartment, and I could really use my best friend in my ear while I do it. Whereareyou that doesn’t have a teeny tiny smidgen of signal, huh? Enough to answer a call from your best pal.”
She paused again, huffing out a breath that briefly fogged her glasses. “Well, I just thought you should know that I’m going in, and you’dbetteranswer if I need to be bailed out of jail for breaking and entering.”
She shuddered; it wouldn’t have been her first time spending a night or two behind bars.
“I’m about to find a proper lead. I can feel it in my bones. So, you know, just hurry up with the solo writing retreat and come back to me! Call me, at least. I miss you.”
It had been two weeks since her best friend and foster sister, Emily, had called from the airport to say she was off on a month-long research trip for her latest book. Emily had warned her that she might not be reachable, but Nancy had taken that with a grain of salt. In this day and age,everywherehas Wi-Fi.
Yet, Nancy’s messages and voicemails continued to go unanswered, and Emily’s dedication to her writing was beginning to grate on Nancy’s anxieties. Selfishly, perhaps, Nancy just wanted to hear from her best—and only—friend, to update her on her own project.
“I’ll call again,” she said, “either with good news or from jail. Love you. Bye… bye, bye… bye.”
She hung up and slid the phone into her pocket, steeling her nerves for what was to come.
It’s not like I didn’t ask for a guided tour first. What else can I do?
Shehadtried to get in touch with the building supervisor, the neighbors, the shady investment company that owned the apartment, and even a friend of the missing woman. All had either ignored her calls or outright rejected her request to see inside Adeline Clark’s apartment.
So, when all of the legal avenues were closed to her, she didn’t have much choice but to get a little legally gray. If it solved the mystery, if it brought some justice to the missing woman, then she’d just ask forgiveness later.
