“That’s…”
“Cheesy? Sick? Plain psycho?”
“I was going to say—”
Footsteps, followed by heavy knocking, interrupt. Both our heads jerk toward the door.
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry to wake you again, but I hear noises coming from your room that aren’t consistent with the feed we have for it. I have to come in,” one of her bodyguards says.
Fuck. I really want to know what she was going to say. “Looks like I don’t have much time to continue our conversation.”
“You have to go,” she whispers to me, “now.”
I tangle my fingers in the back of her hair and press her to my chest. “I’ll see you again very soon, darling.” Then I drag myself away and dart to the terrace. Casting one last look at her before I leave, I say, “When the man with the motorcycle returns, prepare for some good news. I’ve left him something precious where he’s at.”
CHAPTER 3
Tristan
I jump out of the car and run to Marcus. “Where is she?”
“Locked herself up in her bedroom after she lashed out at Brandon. She said not to be bothered until your return.”
“Did you find anything?”
He marches with me past the other details swarming in front of Birdie’s house. “I only arrived twenty minutes ago, but I questioned the men and checked both the surveillance and the security system.”
“And?” Impatiently, I pass the hallway toward the control room.
“No one saw him. There is no sign of forced entry anywhere, and surveillance shows nothing. The team swept the house and the perimeter twice and found no trace of any unidentified male or female. Riley is working to find out if the system has been hacked, but so far, no breach is detected.”
“That’s not possible unless there’s a magical portal in her room that lets him in and out unseen.”
“Or he wasn’t there at all.”
My hand halts above the doorknob. “What?”
He looks around him warily and lowers his voice. “None of the shit she’s saying makes any sense. Like why was her door locked? Why didn’t she signal Brandon when she had the chance? And let’s say the bastard found a breach to sneak in pastall the details guarding the house, how the hell did he run out of a two-story-high window without a sound or a trace?”
I squint at him, unappreciative of the skepticism. “I don’t know the answers to any of these, but if she says he was here, then he was.”
“Listen, I know you respect and admire this client so much. I still remember back at camp, whenever you had any free time, you huddled down with one of her books like they were your only solace in hell. But the woman spinsstorieson the spot so fast it’s scary.
“You weren’t there when Detective Douche first came here to interrogate her. The way she spun everything in her favor… And look at him now. She has him wrapped around her finger, doing her bidding. How could you trust someone like that to be telling the truth, someone who lies for a living, and for other purposes?”
A need to defend Birdie rumbles in me. No one talks about her like that. No one. “You’re crossing a line, Marcus. We’re here to protect her and that means we trust her like she trusts us. Besides, why on earth would she lie about something like that?”
“Who knows, but Birdie Abel is the definition of what readers like you call an unreliable narrator. You’ll understand when you see the footage from her room.”
Jaw clenching, I rip the door open. Riley is sitting behind the monitors, lines between his eyebrows, his fingers working fast on the keyboard. I stand next to his chair, following the progress. “Tell me you found the breach.”
Riley shakes his head. “All cameras are in place and working. No downtime or discrepancies. I’ve investigated all the footagewe have. No signs of any intruders. Both surveillance and security systems are intact.”
“Look harder.”
“Yes, sir.”
I massage the pounding in my temples. “Play the feed from the bedroom first.”
