“She is not who we’re after.”

“Well, the one thing you and I both know for sure? You can’t be two of a kind. She’s either guilty or she’s innocent—but either way, if you keep involving yourself with her, she’ll end up dead.”

Daniel looked off into the distance. He’d hidden those weapons from the day before, and damn if he didn’t wish he had that suppressor.

“So you want to do this?” he said to his buddy in a bored tone. “Or keep talking at me. Because the latter’s making such a difference in my life.”

“You need to recognize your weaknesses, friend.”

“And you need to step the fuck off. You don’t like what I’m doing, get me removed. Or try to.”

On that note, Daniel brought out his cell phone and triggered the flashlight. Ducking down, he entered the shallow cave—

The body was gone.

Like an idiot, he moved the beam around, you know, just in case he had missed the one-hundred-and-eighty-pound sack of no-longer-breathing on the dirt floor.

He leaned back out. “Did you already take him?”

“Take who?” came the response.

“Motherfucker,” Daniel muttered.

 

Lydia didn’t have to go as far as she thought she would. She’d been prepared to drive an hour or more. Instead, her destination took only ten minutes of traveling along the network of county roads around the mountain.

And that was a good thing. Time felt tight, like there was a deadline looming. The trouble was, she didn’t know what exactly she was supposed to do, where to go, what to hand in to the proverbial professor.

But it wasn’t the first time in her life she’d had to figure stuff out alone.

As she coughed for the hundredth time—and thought of Daniel—she didn’t know how Candy could stand being in the car. There was so much fragrance packed into the interior that it was like breathing in Funfetti cake, each inhale a dense pack of fake fruit.

Talk about your nose blind—

And that was when the stone wall started. From out of a turn in the road, a fifteen-foot-tall barrier appeared out of nowhere. The rocks that were stacked and mortared were gray, cream, and a blush pink, and the cement that held it all together was a weathered fog color. She imagined that it was very thick, and knew it had been built very recently. No moss or lichen growth.

After what felt like a mile, the locked gates appeared. They were majestic, all twisted black iron that rose to a curlicue cresting, and they were split in half so they could break apart and allow access.

Pulling Candy’s car in, she paused by the keypad/ speaker. As she put her window down, she wondered if—

The camera was mounted on the wall, its lens angled down at her. She almost waved.

At least she was sure she was in the right place, she thought as she extended her arm to hit the telephone icon.

Before she made contact with the call button, there was a clanking and then a whirring sound, the gates opening as if she were expected. Which she wasn’t. She glanced into the rear view. No one was behind her.

But this is why she had come.

Hitting the gas, she proceeded through the bulwark, pulling onto a freshly paved lane bracketed by twin hedges so high and thick, there was no seeing through them: She was in an evergreen chute with no shoulders, and she hoped there was another way in and out of the estate. A delivery truck came at her now? She was going to have to reverse it or—

Everything opened up about fifty yards on, and the expanse of grass was so large and rolling, it was as if she were on a golf course. And then there was the house. Or … more like a castle, an American castle that was made of the same stone as the wall out on the road.

Jesus, the mansion was huge, with three or four stories and a front facade that seemed bigger than all of Walters.

The paved driveway made an ambling turn in front of the house, skirting a covered entrance that looked like it should have a pair of soldiers on either side.

Rolling to a stop, she opened her door—

Off in the distance, there was some noise she didn’t immediately recognize, but she lost track of it as she checked out the house’s facade. Something was off about the windows. Instead of allowing her to see inside, they mirrored the grounds, displaying the lawn, the drive, the fountain. And it wasn’t because drapes were drawn and the afternoon light was playing tricks on things. There was a reflective covering on—

The quartet of Doberman pinschers came bolting around the far corner of the mansion, the four of them silent while on full attack, their ears back, teeth bared, and paws eating up the ground cover.

With not a bark, not a growl, they were like bullets through the air.

Lydia jumped back into the car and slammed the door. The window was down—shit! She fumbled with the keys, dropping them then stabbing the wrong one into the ignition.

Just as the dogs skidded into the driver’s side, she stabbed the key home, cranked it, and punched the window button.

They jumped up on the glass pane as it was rising up, their fangs flashing, jaws snapping, drool streaking all around—

Just as a helicopter came over the top of the house. The black raptor with its double rotator blades was big as a bus, and whoever was driving—piloting?—the thing brought it down on the grass right in front of Candy’s too-sweet-smelling car. The gusts created were so strong, they kicked up waves of dirt that sprinkled the windshield and caused the dogs to close their eyes even as they kept attacking.

Before the blades slowed even a little, a set of stairs unhinged from the smooth body and lowered down.

A woman in black with a cap of icy white hair stepped out and strode forward, the gale-force wind seeming to not bother her in the slightest.

All at once the dogs dropped their aggression and loped to C.P. Phalen, circling behind her and falling into formation, two on each side.

Lydia’s heart rate started to ease a bit, especially as the woman made a hand motion, and the Dobermans took off like a flank of fighter jets, shooting back around to the rear of the house.

Where they no doubt resumed chewing on the bones of a newspaper boy. Or DoorDash driver.

The noise from the helicopter was growing quieter, and given that the guard dogs were out of sight, Lydia opened the car door again and got out.

“Unexpected surprise,” C.P. Phalen said over the din.

As the wind streaked Lydia’s hair into her face, she batted it away. “I needed to see you.”

“You came just in time.”

So did you, before your dogs peeled Candy’s car like a grape, Lydia thought.

C.P. Phalen smiled. “A little later or earlier and I would have missed you.”

At the woman’s motion, Lydia followed her under the covered area to the ornate entrance. It was not hard to imagine a grand party at the house, expensive cars pulling up under the porte cochere to discharge all manner of tuxedo’d, gown’d fancy types.

The whole setup was intimidating. But Lydia wasn’t leaving until she got what she’d come for.

The mansion, like the stone wall, had clearly been built to look old, but there was no attempt to hide the modern keypad by the door. And when C.P. Phalen put her thumb on the screen, there was a muffled shifting and a clank.

“If someone wants to get in here,” the woman said with a sly smile, “they’re going to have to cut my finger off and use it as a key.”