Isaac was hoping that it would get his past and his present redirected away from Grier. But, yeah, whatever: When she’d come back home, she’d been sporting a frown so deep it was as if she were squinting, and she’d had something in her hand that she was carrying with a tissue.

Like she didn’t want to get her handprints on it or smudge the ones that were there.

Then she’d removed the second mark he’d left on her lantern.

And . . . now the black sedan returned, oozing past her house, going up the street. Coming back. Parking.

“Fuck. Fuck . . .”

He wanted to break cover, march across the street, and knock on the window of that unmarked with the muzzle of his gun. Then he wanted to stare into the eyes of whoever it was while he pulled the trigger and turned the bastard’s frontal lobe into a milk shake.

He had a feeling who it was, too.

He hoped that bastard’s arm was feeling better.

Man, to hell with leaving Boston now; he wasn’t going anywhere until he was sure Grier was out of the line of fire . . . and yet, shit, he was the one who’d put the target on her chest.

He was chewing on that little slice of happiness when a Mercedes the size of a small house drove up to her front door. No nosing around and looking for a parking spot for that bad boy; the thing stopped at the curb and stayed there, the only concession to the illegality being its flashers.

The man who got out was over six feet tall and soldier trim. His gray hair was full and combed back from a side part, and even in the fleece and workout gear, he oozed money. And what do you know, he strode up and used the lion’s-head door knocker like he owned the place.

Grier’s father. Had to be.

The instant she opened up, he stepped inside, and then just like that, they were shut in together and he couldn’t see anything more.

Generally speaking, in a stakeout situation, you wanted to find a single perch and keep still. Moving around increased the likelihood of being spotted—especially in broad daylight in an area you weren’t familiar with, when people were already looking for you.

And in his case, it wasn’t just bad form to get eyeballed—it was suicide.

So as much as his body was screaming for him to get a move on, close in, change locales, he had to stay put.

Nightfall. He had to wait until nightfall, and even then, he needed to be careful. That security system of hers was a no-break sitch: His specialty was killing people, not disarming state-of-the-art wiring, so the chances of his getting in without triggering it were nil.