Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
I nod. I text 2357 to him. He came up with it. Prime numbers. Don’t ask me why.
Next, he pulls out a smartwatch and wraps it around my wrist. “This will give you a notification if I’m calling or texting it, but I only will if I have to,” he explains. “Otherwise, I’ll call your regular phone.”
Great. Something else to keep charged. How does he expect me to do that with one cord?
“Where’s your jacket?” he suddenly asks.
I take another bite. “Somewhere,” I mumble over the food, avoiding his eyes.
“You got robbed.”
I take another bite.
I hear him blow out a breath, reaching into his breast pocket, taking my hand, and slapping a wad of cash.
I widen my eyes, holding up the bills. “Wha—” I cough over the food, meeting his eyes. “Oh, I love being cousins with a doomsday prepper!”
“I’m not a doomsday prepper,” he grumbles. “You just never know when you might have to go into hiding. Or suddenly leave the country.”
I chuckle, slipping the money into my pocket.
“It’s for necessities only,” he states. “If you don’t spend it, you give it back. And don’t let them get it. Act like a Trent, for Christ’s sake.”
I toss him a salute and pick up the drink he brought, tasting lemonade through the straw.
“Come on. I want to show you something,” he says.
I set down the taco and dust off my hands, pulling off the hoodie wrapped around his waist and slipping it on. He moves for the door I thought was a pantry and stands aside for me.
“Go first,” he says.
I wouldn’t if it were anyone else telling me, but I follow instructions and ascend the stairs. I climb, winding step after step, but I’ve only taken a few before Hawke orders, “Okay, now stop.”
I turn, seeing him just below me. But instead of following me to the right, he runs his hand along the panel to the left—the wall—and pounds his fist. The board snaps back, and he slides it easily, revealing more staircase, leading farther down.
Light spills in from somewhere I can’t see, but the stairwell is considerably more ragged. Stones are coated with cobwebs and a draft pours up from the basement. Why was it concealed?
“That’s scary,” I say more to myself.
He waves for me to follow, and he descends, spiraling around and around as I follow.
We come to the bottom, into a large room, but instead of boxes, old lamps, or an ancient wooden wardrobe, the room has a table and chairs, a fireplace big enough to sit in, and cabinets lining the walls with shelves holding old jars, dishes, and tins. A lone white plate lays discarded on the table, the late afternoon sun spilling through all the windows on the west side.
I gaze around, noticing two hallways, maybe another room down at the end of one. “It’s like…”
“Another kitchen,” Hawke tells me.
I spot the large basin sink, and a wood-burning stove, but there are no electric appliances. No fridge, no dishwasher. Judging from the grayed marble tiles that were once black and white, this room hasn’t been used in more than a hundred years.
“I had no idea these houses were this old,” I murmur.
“They were something back in the day,” he offers. “This was probably the servants’ quarters, and that was the servants’ staircase.”
He gestures to the stairwell we just came down.
“It gets better,” he tells me.
Bidding me to follow, he moves across the kitchen, around the fireplace, to one of the hallways I saw. We stop, looking ahead to the door flapping in the breeze, the dry leaves of the walled-in back yard blowing just outside.
Ground-level entry. Unsecured door. No knob. Great.
I move toward it.
“Granted, it wouldn’t be hard to get in the front door if they really wanted to get to you,” Hawke says behind me.
“But someone using this entrance will use it when they don’t want witnesses,” I add, his concern heard even without him saying.
“Assume the worst,” he repeats what he already trained me to know years ago.
I squat down and remove a shoelace from my sneaker. Slipping it through the hole for the doorknob, I pull the door closed as tightly as I can and secure the shoelace around a nail jutting from just inside the door.
I back up, satisfied it’s shut, and turn, seeing Hawke look at me like I’m an idiot.
“Hunter is next door,” I point out. “And this was all here long before me.”
I walk past him, into the servants’ kitchen, and toward the stairs.
“What makes you think I won’t tell your parents that you’re living here unsupervised,” he goes on, “next door to one of Ciaran’s safe houses?”
Safe houses?
Now it makes sense. Hunter’s grandfather owning that house is why Hunter stays there. His parents probably believe Ciaran is there all the time.
Hawke goes on, “And sleeping in probably the same bed where the last Pirate slept before she was murdered?” We climb the steps. “This entire situation feels…”