Chapter 11 The Devil’s House
THE DEVIL'S HOUSE
CALLAHAN
My fake cleaning company uniform fit like a second skin — black trousers that hugged my thighs and arse, a white shirt tailored tight enough to show muscle definition without being obviously inappropriate.
Contact lenses had turned my mismatched eyes a uniform brown, my hair was slicked back, and a fake ID badge sat clipped to my belt.
The uniform case in my hand held actual cleaning supplies alongside the real tools I'd need once I was inside.
Harrow's Kensington townhouse looked like every other white Georgian facade on the street. Old money, older secrets. The side entrance was designed for staff — for people who serviced the house without being seen by guests who valued privacy over propriety.
I knocked twice before the door opened. A man in his sixties answered, grey-haired and upright, carrying himself with the particular authority of someone who had spent long enough managing other people's households to consider one his own.
“May I help you?”
“Evening. I'm from Elite Home Services. Here for the deep clean Mr Harrow scheduled.” I held up the work order I'd forged three hours earlier, complete with company letterhead and appointment details. “Should take about two hours. Kitchen, study, and master bedroom.”
His eyebrow lifted fractionally. “Mr Harrow didn't mention scheduling a cleaning service.”
“Last-minute booking. Came through this afternoon.” I kept my tone professional, bored even — the attitude of someone who did this six times a week and had no particular interest in the details.
“If there's a problem, I can call the office, though they close in twenty minutes, so rescheduling might take a few days.”
He studied the work order long enough that I could see him weighing whether dealing with me now was easier than explaining to Harrow why the cleaning hadn't happened. “Mr Harrow isn't home presently. I suppose it would be acceptable to proceed.”
“Perfect. I'll be quick and quiet. You won't even know I'm here.”
He stepped aside and I followed him through corridors that smelled of furniture polish and power, past artwork worth more than I'd earn in five years, over carpets thick enough to muffle footsteps entirely.
“The kitchen is down the hall to your left. The study is on the second floor, third door on the right. Master bedroom at the end of the hall.” He gestured vaguely toward the stairs. “Please be careful with Mr Harrow's belongings. He values his privacy.”
“Of course. I'll treat everything with the utmost respect.”
He nodded once and disappeared toward what I assumed were his own quarters. The moment he was gone, I moved.
Up the stairs, quick but unhurried, my footsteps absorbed by the carpet. The study first, because that was where prosecutors kept their real work. The door was unlocked, which surprised me for half a second before I remembered that men like Harrow didn't expect threats inside their own homes.
The room was exactly what I'd expected: a mahogany desk, a leather chair, bookshelves lined with legal texts and case law, and a row of file boxes stacked against one wall. A laptop sat closed on the desk, probably password-protected and useless without more time than I had.
I pulled on my gloves and started with the file boxes, flipping through papers with methodical speed and photographing anything that looked remotely useful with the camera built into my fake ID badge.
Court documents. Case files. Witness statements.
All of it perfectly legal, the sort of work any prosecutor might keep in a home office.
The desk drawers turned up equally clean — personal correspondence, bills, a passport, credit card statements that showed expensive tastes but nothing suspicious.
Ten minutes gone and nothing useful to show for it.
Moving fast, I checked my watch as I crossed the landing.
Harrow wouldn't be home for at least another hour based on the schedule Dmitri had pulled from his court calendar.
The master bedroom was at the end of the hall, and it looked as though it belonged in a luxury hotel — a king bed with expensive linens, windows overlooking a private garden.
It was the desk in the corner that caught my attention, papers spread across the surface alongside file folders and a tablet.
I crossed the room and started photographing: more court documents, more case files, names I recognised from Dmitri's research.
Prosecutors who worked alongside Harrow.
Judges who consistently ruled in his favour.
Patterns. Suggestions. The sort of material that looked suspicious if you were already looking for corruption but still proved nothing concrete.
I was fifteen minutes in and running out of both time and patience when the front door opened downstairs. Harrow's voice carried up clearly, and then the house manager's reply — something about a cleaner being upstairs.
I looked at the window. Second floor, too high to jump without breaking something. The en suite had no exit. The wardrobe was too obvious. I had maybe thirty seconds before Harrow came upstairs to investigate whoever was in his bedroom uninvited.
The papers on the desk were still spread out from my search, and I couldn't leave them that way. I gathered them quickly and tried to arrange them back the way they'd been, but my hands were moving too fast and the order was wrong and the footsteps on the stairs were already getting closer.
I abandoned the papers, moved to the far side of the room where I'd left my cleaning supplies on the shelf, grabbed a duster, and pressed my back to facing the nightstand — working with deliberate casualness, my heart slamming against my ribs — just as the bedroom door opened behind me.
“Who are you?”
I turned. Harrow stood in the doorway wearing a charcoal suit that fitted him like armour, his expression caught somewhere between suspicion and curiosity.
Those cold eyes moved over me carefully, taking in the tight uniform, the cleaning supplies, the way I was standing in his bedroom as though I belonged there.
“Evening, sir. Elite Home Services. Your assistant scheduled a deep clean for this evening.” I kept my voice steady and professional. “I can come back another time if this is inconvenient.”
His gaze travelled down my body slowly, assessing. “Gerald mentioned someone was here. He didn't mention they looked like you.”
“I get that a lot. Most people expect cleaners to be older.” I set the duster down on the shelf. “If you'd prefer someone else, I can arrange for a different technician—”
“No.” He stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him. “You're here. Might as well finish what you started.”
The way he said it sent heat crawling up the back of my neck — not nervousness, but the recognition of an opportunity presenting itself in a way I hadn't planned but could definitely use.
“I appreciate that, sir.” I picked up the duster again and moved toward a bookshelf that didn't need any attention. “I'll be as quick as possible. I won't disturb you.”
“Take your time.” He loosened his tie without removing it and moved to stand by the window. “I'm in no rush.”
I worked methodically, wiping down surfaces, straightening books that were already straight, hyperaware of his presence behind me.
I could feel his eyes tracking every movement — the way I had to reach for the higher shelves, stretching the fabric tight across my back and shoulders, and the way I bent to clean the lower ones, the angle deliberate enough to be noticed without being obvious about it.
“What's your name?” he asked after two minutes of silence.
“Ken, sir.”
“How long have you worked for Elite Home Services, Ken?”
“Six months.” The lie came easily. “It's a good company. Flexible hours.”
“And do all their employees wear uniforms quite that... fitted?”
I glanced back at him and found him watching me with undisguised interest. “Company policy, sir. Professional appearance.”
“An interesting definition of professional.” His mouth curved slightly. “Though I'm not complaining about the view.”
I turned back to my work and allowed myself a small smile he couldn't see. “I aim to please, sir.”
Moving to the dresser, I started organising items that didn't need organising, and that was when I saw it — a photograph in an expensive frame, partially hidden behind a lamp.
A woman in her mid-thirties, dark hair pulled back, a genuine smile that reached her eyes.
She was holding a boy of about seven or eight who was laughing at something off-camera.
Both of them caught in a moment that felt entirely unguarded.
I picked it up without thinking, drawn to the warmth radiating from the image. It felt utterly at odds with everything else in this carefully curated space.
“Don't touch that.”
Harrow's voice cut clean through the room.
I turned and found him closer than he'd been a moment ago, as if the distance had personally offended him.
As I started to set the frame down, careful and slow, I caught what I'd missed at Eden — or rather, what I'd seen only in passing when the lights had stuttered across him and he'd looked briefly, inexplicably human.
A slim white band circled his left wrist. Hospital paper, half-hidden by the cuff of his shirt. Too ordinary an object for a man like Harrow, and too deliberate in the way it sat to have been forgotten.
His gaze was fixed on the photograph. “Do you always handle clients' personal items?”
“No, sir. I apologise.” I kept my tone neutral and professional, though my attention had caught on his wrist again — the band showed more clearly whenever his sleeve shifted.
“It's just...” I glanced down at the woman in the frame.
Her smile was soft, unguarded, kind in a way that felt almost anachronistic against everything this house represented. “She looks kind. Your wife?”