Noah and I stood frozen for a heartbeat before our eyes met.
“Holly,” he murmured, voice low, “that was… weird.”
“Extremely.” I nodded.
“He didn’t even pretend.”
“No.”
We watched Cooper disappear down the hallway, his pace too quick for casual, too nervous for professional.
I inhaled slowly, adrenaline threading through my veins.
“We’re following him,” I whispered.
Noah gave me a look, half exasperation, half admiration, wholly aligned with my own pulse.
“Obviously.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We trailed Cooper down the corridor, trying our best to stay subtle, but to anyone watching, we would’ve seemed wildly uncoordinated.
Noah stepped on a floorboard that screeched like an outraged bird.
“Stop walking so loudly!” I hissed.
“I’m a full-sized man, Holly,” he whispered back defensively. “I can’t tiptoe like a ballerina.”
Fair enough.
We ducked behind a marble pedestal that was absolutely not wide enough for both of us. Noah had to lean close, very close, and suddenly I was aware of every inch of him.
Cooper kept walking ahead of us with crisp precision, heading towards the west wing, the older, more private part of the estate, used only when certain VIPs were in residence.
Like Lady Victoria Beaumont.
“The Lady is the only one staying here,” Noah whispered.
“Which means … he’s taking the locket to her?”
We exchanged a look.
Cooper reached the end of the corridor with his usual crisp, no-nonsense stride and stopped outside Lady Beaumont’s guest suite. He glanced over his shoulder, a quick, professional sweep of the hallway, then disappeared inside.
The door shut behind him, although we could still hear a few footsteps.
Then an unmistakableclickechoed out into the corridor.
But it wasn’t the door latch, it was something else.
Something sliding.
Noah and I froze.
I leaned close to his shoulder. “That wasn’t the door.”
Noah’s jaw tightened. “A hidden panel?”
