Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Danica tried to finish the spreadsheet she’d been reviewing. But her eyes stung with exhaustion. The numbers were starting to blur. And the more tired she got, the more a feeling of panic was creeping up on her, like some creature out of the shadows.
She’d been trying very hard for the last day to remain stoic. Especially in front of her father and Blake and all those bodyguards. In front of Noah. Danica hated to look weak or scared.
But she was scared. Terrified. So fucking afraid that her body seemed to vibrate from the constant stress of it.
Danica’s father had nixed Bennett Security from his list, and she’d decided not to fight the issue. Her history with Noah made things too complicated. But she would’ve welcomed the distraction of his presence right now.
Her new bodyguard was right down the hall, yet this wing of her father’s house felt eerily empty. Like Danica was exposed, and anyone could sneak in and find her.
Last night, she’d woken in sheer terror from a nightmare, covered in sweat. She’d been dreaming of the man at the museum. The way he’d been watching her. The bulky coat. The phone conversation he’d had just before he left.
Had he been looking for her? Did he have something to do with the kidnapping?
How could they possibly have known she’d be at the museum at that particular time?
In her nightmare, the man’s eyes had glowed like two red dots. And his neck tattoo had been writhing. Alive.
In reality, she’d only gotten a brief glimpse of the ink. But it pulled at some corner of her subconscious.
What was it about that tattoo that bothered her so much?
Danica grabbed a sheet of notepaper and a pencil. She tried sketching what she remembered. The tattoo had depicted a bird, mostly in black, but there might’ve been a splash or two of color.
And there’d been something strange about the bird’s neck. It had been curved, almost like a snake. She tried drawing it, but it was missing something.
The man’s tattoo had been symmetrical.
She added another curved neck facing the opposite side. Yes. That was it. A bird with two heads.
An eagle.
Danica had seen this kind of bird before.
She grabbed her laptop and opened the internet browser. Two-headed eagle, she typed. Websites and images came up. She clicked on one.
A symbol used throughout history, often by empires, she read, representing power.
Danica kept working on her drawing, filling it out as best she could. She even dug around in her desk until she found a set of colored pencils and added red to the beaks and yellow to the talons. Finally she sat back, staring at it.
A shudder ran through her.
She’d seen that eagle tattoo before this trip. Not in some history book or online, but in person.
It was late, and the lights in the hallways were dimmed. With her drawing in hand, Danica left her room.
Rosalee Consuelo, her new head bodyguard, looked up from her post as Danica neared. “Evening, Ms. Foster-Grant.”
“Hi, Rosalee. Just going downstairs to my father’s office.” She was hoping her dad might recognize the eagle design and tell her where she’d seen it before. William’s brain was like a trap for small details like that.
“No need to inform me. I’ll follow at a distance.”
Danica gave her a polite smile. “I’m not used to having a bodyguard with me 24-7.” She started toward the stairs, then turned back. “It’s all right if I call you Rosalee?”
“Certainly. Though Rosie is better. That’s what my friends call me.”
“Perfect. Then you should call me Dani.”
“I can try.”
She and her father had decided to hire a company recommended by their chief of security, a massive firm called Valoris. Her brother had used Valoris before in New York, and Soren had spoken highly of them.
While her dad’s regular, full-time guards would continue to secure the house itself, Valoris bodyguards would be protecting Danica and her father wherever they went.
But Danica had insisted on choosing her own head bodyguard from among Valoris’s ranks. After reading through dozens of ex-military profiles, Danica had chosen Rosie.
She was a former Marine. Not special forces, but she had expertise in multiple forms of combat. Plus, Rosie worked among men, so she had to be that much tougher to earn respect.
Downstairs, Danica turned down the hallway that led to her father’s office. Rosie stationed herself there at the mouth of the hall.
William’s door was cracked open. The light was on inside. As she approached, she heard voices murmuring. She wondered if her father and Blake were discussing the new security arrangements.
But when she got close enough to see into the room, she didn’t find their security chief.
Instead, a woman named Tori was bent over the desk, whispering with William.
Tori was their chief of security’s new assistant. A pixie cut flattered her delicate bone structure.
William put his hand on Tori’s arm. Then he touched her cheek, and the intimacy in the gesture was unmistakable.
Danica startled back, feeling like she shouldn’t be watching this.
It wasn’t that she minded her dad having a girlfriend. But Tori was younger than Danica herself. Given the age difference, she couldn’t blame her father for keeping this affair private.
But it was just one more sign that she was a stranger here.
Danica waited in the hall until Tori emerged. The assistant turned the opposite way down the hall without seeing her.
After Tori’s footsteps had receded, Danica knocked on her father’s door and went inside. “Dad?”
He looked up, hitting something on his keyboard. Like he was closing a window on his computer screen. “How are you faring?”
“Not bad. Trying to look forward.” One of her father’s frequent sayings. Keep looking forward, Danica. Let go of everything else. “You and I haven’t had much chance to talk since I arrived, with everything that’s been going on,” she said. “Anything new with you?”
A wrinkle sank between his brows. “New?”
“Just…in your life.”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
So he wasn’t going to tell her about Tori. Maybe it wasn’t serious. More likely, he didn’t want Danica to know.
Her father didn’t owe her a play-by-play on his love life, nor did she want one. But still, the distance between Danica and her father had only seemed greater since she’d returned to West Oaks, rather than less.
He glanced at his computer screen. “It’s late. Could we finish this chat tomorrow?”
“Hold on, there’s something else I wanted to ask you.” She unfolded the drawing and held it out. “Have you seen this before?”
William leaned forward and accepted the paper. He stared hard at it.
Was that a flash of recognition in his eyes?
“What am I looking at?”
“Remember how I told you about the man inside the history museum, the one who seemed suspicious? He had this tattoo on his neck. I think I’ve seen it somewhere before, and I thought maybe you’d know.”
Again, her father studied the drawing, and again, she had the sense that he saw something there. Something meaningful.
But he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Danica. It’s not ringing any bells.”
“You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
She accepted the paper back.
“You should be resting or focusing on your own work,” her father said. “Leave the investigation to Blake and the police.” His tone was dismissive.
“But wouldn’t you want to be involved? If you were in my position?”
“I’d let the experts do what they do best.”
“Not sure I believe that.”
William shrugged, settling back in his chair. “This has been a terrible ordeal for you. But I’m thankful you were here in West Oaks when it happened. Blake and I will make sure that you’re safe. You don’t need to worry beyond that.”
As she left his office, her uneasiness had only grown.
Had he recognized the tattoo? Or not?
The museum project had been her father’s idea. Supposedly, to allow them to spend more time together. To heal the distance that had expanded between them over the years since her mom had died.
If her dad hadn’t invited her back to West Oaks to open up about his life, then why did he even care that she was here?