Page 45 of Taken Away

He tilted his phone, using the faint glow of the screen to light the mud beneath the window latch. A single, clear footprint stared back at him—not the deep tread of a work boot or a sneaker, but a flat, smooth-soled shoe. Not something anyone working in a vineyard would wear.

He touched the edge of the print with his thumb. Fresh. The sides were still sharp, not yet sagging back into the muck.

Whoever Aubrey had seen hadn’t been in her head. Someone had stood right here, inches from the glass, trying the latch.

He straightened slowly, eyes tracking the dark slope toward the black barn. Nothing moved. Whatever figure had bolted for the outbuildings was long gone, swallowed by vines and night.

He thumbed his phone, considering whether to call Burke. A prowler at Blackwood on the heels of a will reading was exactly the kind of thing the sheriff would want to log. It was also exactly the kind of thing that would spread through town.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

Bennett backed up the steps, pulled the sunroom door shut, and dropped the deadbolt with a solid, final click.

Aubrey was waiting exactly where he’d left her. She’d set the water flask on the entry table, but her arms were locked tight across her chest, her gaze fixed on him.

“Well?” she asked, her voice aiming for cool control but landing shy. “Did you find anything? Did you see them?”

She stood under the amber chandelier, hair slipping from its tie, looking strung out and exhausted. If he told her there had definitely been someone at the glass, she’d bolt before morning.

“Just a sign of something passing through,” he said finally, keeping his tone flat. “Could’ve been a stray dog nosing the latch.”

Aubrey looked toward the dark glass.

Maybe I did imagine it.

God knew her nerves were shot.

But she'd seen a man.

She looked back at him.

"No," she said quietly. "I know what I saw."

“A dog doesn’t have shoulders and a head, Bennett. I saw a person.” She took a short step toward him. “I am not making this up. I’m not some hysterical heiress spooked by old floorboards.”

He didn’t move back.

“You want to run this place, Langford?” he said quietly. “Then listen to the man who actually walks this perimeter. The doors are locked. Moose is inside. You’re safe for tonight.”

Her breath came out in a rough exhale. She opened her mouth, then shut it again, shoulders sagging as the last seventy-two hours finally dragged at her bones.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said, voice low. “The master bedroom… I can’t sleep in there. It feels haunted.”

A hard knot pulled tight in his chest. Beneath all that sharpness was a woman trying damn hard not to show how shaken she was.

“You’re not sleeping in there,” Bennett said, the edge gone from his tone, replaced by something rougher and final. He reached out, his hand closing gently around her elbow, steering her toward the stairs. “Guest wing. Lock your door.”

Aubrey hesitated halfway up, looking back over her shoulder. “What about you? Are you going back to the ridge?”

He glanced at the linen sofa in the living room, then back at her.

“No,” he muttered. “I told you—I lost a bet with a dead woman. I’m on the couch.” His mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile. “Now get upstairs, Princess.”

This time, she didn’t bother correcting him. She turned and climbed the rest of the way, her steps slow with exhaustion.

Bennett watched until she disappeared into the dark of the upper hall. Then he dropped onto the edge of the sofa, eyes on the black windows facing the vineyard, one hand resting on Moose’s head as the dog curled against the rug.

Out beyond the glass, sprinklers hissed and clicked in their endless rotation. Somewhere between the house and the barn, a fresh footprint was cooling in the red clay.