Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Helia wasn’t happy with him. Or Dulcie or Lovell.
But what would he say to her? Having three people from her past suddenly show up and want to reconnect wasn’t that weird, even if one was recently murdered.
And yet the odds felt off to him. How, or if, they were tied together, he’d find out.
But until he was satisfied they weren’t intertwined, he’d stick around.
“Where are you moving from?” Lovell asked.
Trish flashed him a smile as she popped the top on one of the drinks. “Miami. Great city, but I’ll admit, I’m not going to miss it. Not much.”
“You were there a long time, weren’t you?” Helia asked.
“Over ten years. I left some good friends behind, but it didn’t feel right to stay once Mark and I separated. Besides, my dad needs the help as he gets older.”
“Sorry about Mark, but glad you have a place to land,” Helia said.
Trish nodded. “You and me both. Hopefully I’ll find a job soon, though.”
“What kind of job?” Helia asked. “I can keep my ears open.”
Trish smiled as both her and Lovell’s orders were called. “I’ll get it,” Lovell murmured, waving Trish to stay seated.
“Mark, my soon-to-be ex, ran a lighting company. I managed all the import and export logistics. I figure I can find a similar gig here, but likely smaller scale. With all the wine shipping out of the region and equipment being shipped in…”
“With each state having their own liquor import laws, I assume that means more work possibilities?” Helia replied.
Trish nodded. “Hopefully. I can work the food angle, too. A lot of restaurants here are locally focused, but several import specialties from abroad.”
Helia nodded, then adjusted her deep green beanie down over her ears. The color made her eyes look like smoky emeralds. Monk wondered if smoky emeralds really existed. He’d heard of smoky diamonds, but not emeralds. If they did, though, they’d look like her eyes.
Dulcie nudged him. “Helia asked if Bacco needs any help? Since Trish is looking for a job.”
The look in Dulcie’s eyes reflected Monk’s opinion—no way in hell would he hire Trish without a thorough background check. Even if he needed help, which he wasn’t sure he did.
“I don’t think so, but I’ll keep you in mind if that changes,” Monk replied. He assumed Bacco had some sort of business manager since Roger certainly hadn’t taken on that role, but he didn’t know who. One more thing to find out.
Both Trish and Helia beamed at him, Helia’s smile wider and more authentic than Trish’s. Like the difference between a ray of sun and a table lamp.
“Sorry for the delay, they forgot to add the extra three al pastor tacos I ordered,” Lovell said, sliding a container in front of Trish and taking a seat across the table from her on the other side of Dulcie.
“Enough about my boring life, what about you three?” Trish asked.
“What brings you to our lovely area?” So the rest of the evening went.
Trish metaphorically batting her eyes at the three of them and peppering them with questions, while they deftly avoided anything of substance.
They’d each learned the art of misdirection from the cradle, then honed the skill while in the military.
Nobody would learn a thing about them unless they chose to share it.
Using the cold weather as an excuse not to stay and finish the six-pack Trish brought, Monk herded Helia and his brothers to his truck.
When they arrived at Sundaram, Helia extracted promises from Dulcie and Lovell that she’d see them again as they escorted her safely inside.
Her sincerity caused funny feelings in his chest he wouldn’t explore too deeply.
And while both brothers glanced at him before answering, they readily agreed.
“I already texted Leo about Trish,” Dulcie said when they left Sundaram. “I didn’t catch a last name, but it’s probably not hard to find a Trish who was married to a guy named Mark who owns a lighting company in Miami.”
“Leo will have that info in less than ten minutes,” Monk agreed. “You want to stay or drive home tonight?” he asked Lovell as they turned into the drive to Bacco.
“Tonight,” Lovell said as Monk punched in the code and the gates started their slow inward swing. “I don’t want a box of drugs sitting in my car any longer than necessary.”
Monk chuckled. Yeah, he wouldn’t either. “What about you, Dulcie? Want to move out of whatever hotel you’ve been staying at and crash here?” he asked as the castle came into view.
“Not tonight. Maybe if I stick around,” he responded. “I have my stuff there and already paid for the night. Doesn’t make sense to leave now. The beds are comfortable.” He paused. “The walls are thin, but the beds are comfortable.”
“Amorous neighbors?” Lovell asked, grinning.
“A couple with three kids under four,” Dulcie countered. “Cute as hell and not bad kids, just the typical chaos.”
Having helped raise his sisters, Dulcie was the most outspoken about loving kids. Despite her husband’s flying fist, his mom had managed to keep both her relationship with her kids and their relationship to one another tight ones.
“Well, you won’t have that problem here. The walls are ten inches of stone in most places,” Monk said. Although the wide-plank floors on the upper floors creaked more than he remembered.
No one mentioned the fact that he still had a bed set up on the tasting room couch. He’d left his things in his old room but hadn’t fully committed to crashing there yet.
A few minutes later, he let himself into the castle, toeing off his boots at the entrance. Halfway down the hall, he detoured into the small kitchen to grab some water, drawing up short when he spied a glass, half full, sitting on the counter.
Silently, he shifted, putting his back to a wall rather than the open doorway, and listened.
No one could have entered the castle while they were out, not without the new code, which nobody knew but him.
He was equally certain, though, that none of them had left the glass there when they’d gone for dinner.
Which meant someone had been in the house when they left.
The military had taught him the benefit of patience, and he settled in. The long hand of the clock hanging on the opposite wall ticked by. Ten minutes passed, then another six. Then he heard it. A creak coming from the second floor.
Staying light on his feet, he exited the kitchen and headed for the side stairwell, bypassing the three squeaky steps as he made his way up.
When he reached the landing of the second floor, he stilled once again.
There, the sound of footsteps above him, hurried, but muted and sure. Without overthinking it, he continued up the last flight.
Moving swiftly, he cursed Roger, again, for being the person he was.
Had he put cameras in the tasting room, like every other major winery in the area, Monk would have some idea what he was hunting.
As it was, all he knew was someone was in the castle with him.
Someone who might have been there a while, maybe all along.
And if that wasn’t creepy as fuck, he didn’t know what was.
With his own weapon locked away and Roger’s pistol on its way to HICC with Lovell, he quickly went through his options as he hit the landing of the third floor.
Unless his father had changed things up, there should be several sets of armor along the western hallway.
The swords they held would be dull as shit, but they’d be heavy.
Turning left, he darted toward the back of the castle. Rounding the corner, eight suits of armor came into view. As did a flash of white. A flash of white that disappeared around the far corner, heading away from him along the north hallway.
Stalking down the hall, he grabbed a sword along the way and considered what he’d seen. Not a man; it was too small, and the glimpse of the garment he’d spotted seemed too fluttery to be men’s clothing.
Was it a woman?
Roger Wilde liked nothing more than to surround himself with willing women, so it wouldn’t surprise him to find one loitering around. But he had the security app on his phone and except for his arrivals and departures, no one had come and gone.
Christ, how long had she been in the house?
That question brought him up short. Slowing his steps, he pulled out his phone and brought up the app, clicking through to find the history.
On the day Roger died, someone, presumably the cleaning crew who found him, entered at seven in the morning, resetting the alarm behind them.
Twenty-one minutes later, it disengaged again, likely for the first responders.
At four twenty-two that afternoon, the system reengaged.
None of the doors had been opened again until his arrival a few days ago.
The situation wasn’t adding up. He hadn’t been to the castle in nearly two decades, but nothing looked missing, messed up, or tossed. If someone wanted to get away with hundreds of thousands of dollars of art and antiquities, they could have easily done it.
So who the hell was in the castle?
The quiet snick of a door being carefully shut echoed through the silent building.
He knew the sound of that tumbler. Whoever it was had entered the hall closet two doors down from his old room.
He smiled; if his intruder had explored the house at all in her time there, Monk knew exactly where he’d catch her.
Doubling back the way he came, he approached his room from the opposite direction, ensuring he wouldn’t pass the closet. Slipping inside, he waited in the shadows.
Two minutes passed before he heard another familiar click.
Slowly, the door to the enormous armoire opened.
Very few people knew the castle hosted a labyrinth of secret passageways.
Centuries ago, they’d been designed to hide people—servants, those being persecuted for whatever happened to be a popular topic at the time.
Roger used them to sneak in on people. Usually women he’d drugged with enough coke and ecstasy that when he showed up, they had no idea what they were consenting to, only that they wanted sex.
A toe peeked out from the armoire, pulling him back to the moment. Barefoot with a small chain clasped around the ankle, the thin leg that followed wasn’t a woman’s.
Monk’s stomach felt as if someone had launched it from a trebuchet.
A girl. A girl was living in this house.
As vile as Roger was, to the best of Monk’s knowledge, he’d never been interested in children.
The thought that his tastes might have changed nearly had Monk running to the bathroom to throw up.
Her torso emerged as she stepped backward from the armoire. A long white cotton skirt swirled around her legs, at odds with the tight black crop top she wore. Her dark hair fell straight, ending an inch below her earlobes, and he caught sight of two earrings dangling from her left ear.
With both feet firmly on the ground, she closed the door so gently it made no sound, then turned.
“Fuck!” she cried, jumping back against the armoire. The word, and the strength of it, catching Monk by surprise. She sounded much older than she appeared and less scared than angry at being caught.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
The imp mimicked him, a belligerent glint in her eye.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” she shot back.
He searched her face, the defiance there almost hiding the fear. And worry.
“Collin Wilde,” he replied. He meant the girl no harm, so the least he could do was be the first to offer information.
Her eyes narrowed. “You related to Roger?”
“To my ever-loving chagrin, yes. I’m his son.”
“You don’t like your dad?”
“My father was a predator and parasite,” he said, wanting her to know exactly where he stood on Roger Wilde’s existence. She didn’t look the sort who’d believe him right away, but he’d at least lay the groundwork.
Some of the tension eased around her eyes. “Kendall,” she replied.
“You know my father?”
She shook her head, both her hair and her earrings swaying with the motion. “But my mom does.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know her mom’s story, but if she partied with the likes of his father, then Kendall’s life couldn’t have been easy.
“She’s a good mom,” Kendall said, lifting her chin.
Monk refrained from pointing out that she obviously wasn’t that good since she’d left her daughter at the castle. “I’m sure she is.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know you. Or your mom,” he added. He might be predisposed to have certain ideas, but life had taught him that people had many facets to their personality. Some were little more than subtle shifts, while others could be as different as night and day.
“She’s a good mom.”
He opted not to respond, doubting anything he said would go over well. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she said, drawing back her shoulders.
He raised a brow and stared at her, hard. “Try again.”
She glared back. A minute of silence passed, then her shoulders drooped. “Twelve.”
“And where’s your mom now? A question only, not a judgment,” he added when the spark of defiance returned.
He almost regretted asking when her bravado slipped and she looked every one of her scant twelve years of age, lost and unsure.
“I don’t know,” she said. Then lifting her chin, all but daring him to judge, she added, “She left me here two weeks ago.”