Well, that wasn’t true, was it. Grier had in her own way. And God, the mere thought of her nearly made his eyes sting.

Heron bowed a little and seemed honestly touched. “You’re welcome, my man. Now quit being a sap and guard the third floor.”

Isaac had to smile. “I may need a job after this, you know.”

A grin appeared, but faded quick. “I’m not sure you want to go through the job-application process for where I’m at. It’s rough.”

“Been there. Done that.”

“Which was what I thought, too.”

With that, Isaac hit the stairs.

Yeah, sure, ostensibly he was going to look out from the top floor, but there was another truth to be had, another driver.

When he entered Grier’s bedroom, he went straight to her closet and stood over the mess of clothes that remained on the creamy carpet. She’d left the project of rehanging half-done—because, duh, some asshole had gotten capped in her front hall.

But he could take care of the problem.

As he waited to see whether there was going to be a bizarre kind of reunion with Matthias or a shoot-out that left the pair of them dead, he picked up her blouses and skirts and dresses and, one by one, made order from the chaos.

At least he could clean up something for her; God knew, that body was still downstairs, albeit wrapped in plastic like something about to be shipped through a mail-order house.

There would be time to move it later, however.

And no other opportunity to take care of her things.

Besides, the “sap” in him wanted some kind of final contact with her—and the closest he was going to get was handling with care what had once lain against her precious skin.

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 45

Grier followed her father’s Mercedes out to Lincoln, and when the familiar pylons on either side of the farmhouse’s drive appeared, she took the first deep breath since they’d left Beacon Hill. Turning right down the cracked-seashell lane, she pulled up in front of the gray-and-white clapboard and put her Audi in park. Although the heart of downtown Boston was only twenty miles away, it might as well have been two hundred. Everything was quiet as she turned off the engine and stepped out of her car, the clean, crisp air tingling through her nose.

God, how she loved this place, she thought.

The gentle, fading light of the gloaming softened the tree line that ran around the six acres of fields and gardens and bathed the clapboard in a buttery illumination. Before her mother’s death, the place had been a retreat for the four of them, a way to get out of the city when they didn’t go to the Cape—and Grier had spent a lot of weekends here, running through the meadow and playing around the pond.