Chapters (65)
- Title Page
- Copyright Notice
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty–one
- Twenty–two
- Twenty–three
- Twenty–four
- Twenty–five
- Twenty–six
- Twenty–seven
- Twenty–eight
- Twenty–nine
- Thirty
- Thirty–one
- Thirty–two
- Thirty–three
- Thirty–four
- Thirty–five
- Thirty–six
- Thirty–seven
- Thirty–eight
- Thirty–nine
- Forty
- Forty–one
- Forty–two
- Forty–three
- Forty–four
- Forty–five
- Forty–six
- Forty–seven
- Forty–eight
- Forty–nine
- Fifty
- Fifty–one
- Fifty–two
- Fifty–three
- Fifty–four
- Fifty–five
- Fifty–six
- Fifty–seven
- Author’s Note
- Acknowledgments
- Also by Becky Masterman
- About the Author
- Newsletter Sign-up
She didn’t bother with a lock, luckily, and he went through all the hanging folders in each of the four gray drawers. Difficult to move quickly. Many of the folders had crime scene photos in them and they distracted him from the task at hand. He looked at his watch. Just to keep up the look of the invasion he pulled out half a dozen folders from the last drawer and threw them across the floor. Random mess, like a punk would make.
The doorbell rang.
Somehow all the plans had failed. Brigid, at least, had returned. This is what he thought.
The blinds were open, and the window of the office looked out to the front walk. What happened next happened within seconds. Beaufort looked at the driveway, but there was no car parked there. He swung his eyes right to the front door. He saw a man at the door, angled with his back to him. He didn’t have enough time to recognize whether the man was Carlo or not, because on their own his legs buckled. He let himself drop to the floor and crawled on his stomach closer to the wall, rolling over and pressing his back against it, in case the man looked in the window.
The dogs started barking, then ran into the office to see if Beaufort was going to do anything about this. He stared at them staring at him. “Scram,” he muttered under his breath. Finding him useless, they ran back into the living room and recommenced their protest.
Without a response to the bell, the man tried knocking on the security screen door, which reverberated throughout the house and made the dogs bark even more loudly. “Carlo?” he called. Waited. “Brigid?”
Idiot, he told himself. If it had been one of them they wouldn’t have rung the doorbell. Beaufort found himself holding his breath as if the man would be able to hear him. The blinds next to the door were open, too, weren’t they? Was the man nosy enough to look inside? If he did, would he see the red mark he had painted on the wall? What would he do then?
Idiot, he thought again. He’d made the mark in a side hall where the man would never be able to see it no matter what window he looked in.
The man finally left, but there was no telling what he had seen or what he would do next. Beaufort had better make the most of the next few minutes and then hightail it out of this dump.