“Fine, we’ll do that one.”

She had a feeling it would be harder to sell him on the prison. “Agreed.”

“Why do I think I didn’t really win that round?”

That sexy smile of his got her every time. “Of course you did.”

He’d been played, but he knew that when he agreed to come to this house. Maddie kept secrets and handed out bits of information at a time. Connor went along because he wanted to see where this ended. He just hadn’t expected it to lead to a big house on the edge of the island. Finding it made him realize how little he’d explored Whitaker since he got there.

He could see the long drive and the two-story stone house at the end of it. The compound—and that’s what it looked like—sat behind a wall and a gate. Trees lined the front yard. And the landscaping said someone lived here.

“You forgot to mention the fence.” Kind of a big detail in his view.

She stood at the security box next to the gate where a car would normally enter. “It’s not electric.”

“Is that the test for disclosure?”

She glanced at him but kept fumbling with the lock on the box. “This house belongs to the person who owns the island. It was the first one built here.”

“It doesn’t look abandoned.”

She shrugged as she opened the metal box at the bottom of the panel, exposing wires and circuitry. “Gardeners come. Cleaning people come. Everyone else stays away.”

“Is it haunted?”

She froze before turning around to face him. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding.”

He guessed that would get her attention and wasn’t wrong. “It’s a valid question. As valid as this being the hiding place for a woman who only has been on Whitaker a few times. How would she even find this place?”

“No one touches the property because, of course, that’s not how people on this island act.”

“Of course. Them being so rational and neighborly and all.”

“And there’s a general fear that if you tick the owner off you’ll lose the lease on your house. No house, then you have to leave.”

The way ownership and housing worked on Whitaker didn’t make a lot of sense to him. The only thing he knew for sure was that one person owned all of this and everyone else lived here at his or her pleasure. Which made him wonder why they were running the risk of ticking off that person.

“That’s all very mysterious and weird. Totally fits with the rest of Whitaker.” He glanced up at the towering trees before looking at her again. “But seeing this place does make me wish we tried the prison first.”

Her eyes lit with excitement. “It’s amazing. The cells and the ruins.”