“Yeah, looks like it.” He held up one of the papers. “I think this one contains the keyword we need to decode that message.”

“Okay.” I took the paper from him. It definitely contained keywords for something. Meg would verify what it was, though. “Is that all? Or is there something else in here that I don’t know about?”

“No idea.” James’ face gave me nothing. Huh. So there probably was, although he couldn’t know what we had taken, so maybe he wasn’t sure.

“Why was your father keeping this under the stairway?” I snatched the rest of the papers from him and folded them. There weren’t that many of them and it was easy for me to put them in the big inner pocket of my jacket. Besides, I didn’t really trust James with them. Not that he had any reasons to hide those papers, or even a place to guard them if he kept them for himself, but still, they were safer with me.

“His safes would be too obvious because if anyone ever wanted to rob him, they’d go for those first. His office too, because that’s where everyone would expect to find such things. And someplace else a maid or someone could’ve stumbled upon it. This is way safer.”

Well, I could agree about that. “And how did you know it was here and how to open it?”

“I saw my father doing that one night when everyone was either asleep or gone. The guards weren’t allowed into this part of the house, so he thought no one was in here. He didn’t see me. When he was out, I opened it and memorized some of it, but I didn’t do it again because I didn’t want him to notice.”

“What would he have done if he had caught you?” My gaze met his.

“He would’ve killed me,” he said, and there was no trace of humor in his voice. Would Desmond really have killed his son over something like that? Definitely. He’d had more sons, and he’d sometimes boasted that he could always make more. Besides, he hadn’t even flinched when he’d seen his sons executed.

“We should get out of here,” I said.

James was looking around, his eyes distant, and I wondered if he was reliving a memory. A thud coming from one of the rooms nearby made us look at each other. Someone was here. We just didn’t know who.

Chapter 11

I PULLED OUT MY GUN, wondering if someone had actually decided to follow me after all. Reaching for my phone with my other hand, I glanced at the screen, but all I had was a text from Meg telling me that they might be on to something about our missing shipment.