Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
I can start to live again.
We reach the car, but before he can get in, another black SUV pulls up. It comes to a fast stop and Finn gets out, a deep frown on his lips.
Kellen goes to him. “What’s happening?”
“Hugh’s gone.” Finn glances at me but Kellen snaps his fingers to grab his attention back.
“The fuck are you talking about, Hugh’s gone? You can speak freely in front of her.”
“He left the mansion right after your mother got back from her appointment.”
“Is Mother okay?”
“Eunika’s gone and everyone on staff was told to never allow her back near the house again. Rory and Angus are both watching your mother now and we’re in the process of getting a new nurse, someone we can trust.”
“How the fuck did you lose Hugh?”
“I don’t know,” he says, jaw tight. “He ran for it, switched cars at one point, and the guys I had tailing him lost track. I don’t know how the bastard managed to shake them, but he pulled it off.”
“Shit,” Kellen says, turning away. He strides to the car and kicks the wheel hard, hands balled into fists. “Fucking shit!”
An older couple standing nearby looks over at him, frowning. He glares back but takes a breath to calm himself.
“Find him,” Kellen says. “Double the number of guys out looking. Make sure we locate Hugh today. And put more guards on Mom.”
“Consider it done.” Finn walks off and gets back in his SUV. He turns around and pulls off, driving fast.
“What’s happening?” I have a nervous, cold feeling in my stomach. Kellen squints after Finn and shakes his head.
“Bad news at the doctor’s office, and I think Hugh had something to do with it.”
“What kind of news?”
“I’ll tell you back home. Right now, I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“More guards?”
“Sorry,” he says, smiling slightly, and kisses my cheek. “You’ll forgive me. With Hugh missing, I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“We should find Cormac as well. See what the old man’s doing.”
His eyebrows raise. “That’s clever. I hadn’t thought of it.”
“See, I’m worth keeping around.”
“Damn right you are.” He kisses me again. “When we get back, keep to yourself as much as you can. I feel something bad coming, and I’m not sure how much of the staff we can trust. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good girl. Now, come on.”
He leads me into the car and we drive.
Chapter 23
Tara
I clean up some shrub clippings and wipe my forehead. It’s a hot afternoon, only couple hours before sunset, and I’m exhausted from working for a couple of hours in the late afternoon heat. Sweat rolls down my back. Rory’s watching me from the nearby shade, also sweating despite not doing much more than standing around and glaring at everyone.
“Any word from Kellen?” I call over to him.
He shakes his head. “Still nothing.”
It’s been twenty-four hours since we came back from Cait’s grave. At first, Kellen kept me locked in the room, but soon the whole mansion was swarming with men loyal to him. The staff was corralled, accounted for, and summarily fired—everyone except those that Kellen had snuck in. The place is running on a skeleton crew and it feels so strange and empty.
Cormac and Irene are both gone as well. They must’ve escaped around the time that Hugh took off. Their wing is utterly silent, like they’d never been there at all, and it has an eerie and ghostly vibe.
Kellen said he’s going to douse that white room in black paint then light the whole damn thing on fire.
“What are the chances they’re going to find something?” I ask, kicking at the dirt.
“Hard to say. Kellen knows what he’s doing.” Rory squints at the sky. “We don’t have a whole lot of light left.”
“I was thinking about taking a break. Do you mind?”
“Break sounds good to me.”
I gather up my stuff and he offers to help. We walk back to my cottage together, put away the tools, and instead of heading all the way to the mansion, I decide to fire up the window unit and visit my old home.
“I’ll stay here,” Rory says sitting at the kitchen table as the AC hums and cold air blasts into the space. It smells musty and strange, like I left the garbage full or something. I haven’t been in here in a while and I’m not accustomed to the way it smells anymore.
“Make yourself at home.”
He laughs and stretched out his legs, already looking at his phone.
I head into my old room. It looks just like I left it, except it seems so much smaller now. I must’ve gotten used to the size of everything in the mansion, because now my cottage seems utterly miniscule, like way too small for a single adult human to ever actually inhabit. And yet I lived in this place for years.