Brody pulled me into a hug, his large frame engulfing my smaller one. It felt as if he could block out all the bad, any threat that might come my way. I wanted to stay in that embrace forever.

“I’m such an asshole,” he muttered.

“Why would you say that?”

He rested his chin on the top of my head. “You were terrified that I was going to fire you. I thought you were just worried about losing a sweet gig. I wasn’t exactly reassuring when I got here.”

The corners of my mouth turned up as I kept my cheek resting against his pec. “You came around pretty quickly.”

He grunted. “Not quick enough. I’m sorry. And you know you’ll always have a place on Harbor. No matter what happens.”

The ferocity of his vow eased a bit of the fear still thrumming through my system. I was safe and I had a home. That was more than enough for now.

13

Brody

I leaned back in the chair at my desk. The paint hadn’t come easily today. The evidence of that was a canvas in the corner that I’d broken in two. My brain had been caught in an endless loop. The blood draining from Shay’s face. The panic in her eyes.

I shoved back from my desk and started pacing. She hadn’t given me any more information, and I hadn’t wanted to push. It had seemed hard enough for her to tell me what she had already. But I needed to know what she was dealing with if I was going to help her.

I turned to face my desk again, a war raging inside me. When I bought the island, and the Dowds had told me about their caretaker, they had offered to pass along the background check they’d run before hiring her. But they’d spoken so highly of the woman, I hadn’t ever looked at the thing. I’d come to the island not knowing a damn thing about Shay McCabe. And now, I needed to.

I strode back and sank into the chair, tapping my laptop so it came to life. I pulled up a search engine and typed her name. There was a flurry of hits. But near the top of the page was a headline that stopped me cold. Eleven-year-old boy arrested for the murder of parents and attempted murder of sister.

I clicked on the link without thinking twice, my eyes scanning the text as quickly as possible. Phrases jumped off the page. Parents stabbed to death. Thirteen-year-old Shay McCabe rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. I jumped to a follow-up article and read that, too. Michael McCabe had been sentenced to twenty years in prison for the murder of his parents after they informed him that he was being sent to a residential treatment facility.