Chapter 4
Irish
By the time the plane touched down at Heathrow, I had slept for less than an hour and spent the rest of the flight pretending I wasn't carrying a farmhouse key in the inside pocket of my jacket.
The weight of it shouldn't have mattered.
It was a small piece of brass worn smooth along one edge after years of being handled, moved from one drawer to another, packed into every bag I had carried across half a dozen states, and ignored with the kind of discipline that eventually made avoidance feel almost like peace.
Yet the closer we came to the other side of the Atlantic, the more aware I became of it resting against my chest. Ireland was still another flight and another stretch of sea away, but England was close enough to make old instincts surface beneath my skin.
The accents around us changed before we ever left the terminal.
The road signs looked familiar in ways American ones never had.
Even the gray morning outside the windows carried a quality I remembered, low clouds pressed across the sky with the threat of rain hanging in them.
I had crossed this ocean once believing distance could turn a life into something that belonged to someone else.
Fifteen years later, I was beginning to understand how little geography had to do with memory.
Raze stretched beside me as we stepped into the arrivals hall, rolling one shoulder after the flight while Storm walked several paces ahead with her phone already in hand.
Trigger followed with Hawkeye, the prospect carrying his own gear and the long black equipment case without complaint despite having been awake nearly as long as the rest of us.
Hawkeye had spoken perhaps twenty words since we left the clubhouse, which made him one of the easier prospects I'd traveled with.
He watched instead, quietly cataloging the people moving through security, the cameras above the doors, employees changing shifts, and families waiting behind barriers with handmade signs.
Every few minutes his gaze drifted somewhere mine had already been, and I caught myself wondering how much Trigger had taught him and how much came naturally.
Observation could be trained, but patience was harder.
Most young men wanted to prove they had noticed something.
Hawkeye seemed content simply knowing he had.
"You planning to stare at the ceiling all day?" Raze asked as we approached baggage claim.
"Camera placement."
He followed my gaze toward the black domes covering the concourse. "I wasn't talking to you."
Hawkeye didn't appear embarrassed. "Still camera placement."
Storm snorted without looking up from her phone. "He's going to fit in just fine."
We collected our luggage and cleared the remaining security procedures without trouble, though traveling with a motorcycle club, multiple men built like they had been assembled for war, and enough equipment to make a customs officer reconsider his career was never completely uneventful.
Everything that needed paperwork had paperwork.
Everything that couldn't legally travel with us had already been arranged on this side by people Maverick trusted.
Toxic didn't send brothers across an ocean and hope logistics sorted themselves out after landing.
By the time we stepped into the main terminal, all we needed was transportation and the man supposedly providing it.
I found Maverick before he found us.
He sat alone near the edge of an airport café with one ankle resting over the opposite knee, a cup of coffee within reach and a deck of cards moving lazily through his hands.
James Whitmore had aged since the last time I saw him in Phoenix, though not as much as fifteen years of living should have allowed.
A little more gray threaded through the dark hair at his temples, his beard was fuller, and the lines around his eyes suggested Ellie had given him enough reasons to laugh despite whatever life had thrown at them.
Everything else was the same. Relaxed posture.
Expression impossible to read. Hands always doing something while his mind remained several steps ahead of the room.
He didn't look toward us as we approached.
"Took you long enough."
Raze looked at the cards. "You gambling already?"
Maverick shuffled the deck with one hand, finally raising his eyes. "Only with people worth losing to."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"It will after I take your money."
Storm walked straight past both of them and hugged Maverick, earning the first real smile from him. "Ellie?"
"At home and threatening murder because I wouldn't let her drive into Heathrow traffic before breakfast."
"Smart woman."
"That's why I married her." His attention shifted to me, lingering for a second longer than it had on the others. No surprise. No questions about Ireland. Just the quiet acknowledgment shared between brothers who understood there were some histories you waited to be offered. "Irish."
"Maverick."
He stood and pulled me into a quick embrace, thumping one hand against my shoulder before stepping back. "Still can't read you."
"That's because you're getting old."
"That's why I win."
Raze groaned. "You've been waiting years to use that line, haven't you?"
"Longer than you'd think."
The humor lasted until we reached the vehicles.
Maverick had arranged two dark SUVs and a third smaller car already loaded with equipment provided through legitimate private-security contacts, most of it ordinary enough not to attract attention and useful enough to keep us alive if ordinary stopped being an option.
We divided the team between vehicles and headed north, using the drive to Edinburgh for the first complete briefing we'd managed since leaving the States.
Cipher joined through the secure system built into Maverick's SUV, his face appearing on a tablet mounted against the center console while Eli's voice periodically cut in from somewhere offscreen whenever he found another piece of information worth interrupting for.
"Alderwick Residential Holdings," Cipher said, bringing up a corporate diagram. "Registered in Edinburgh. Owns seven properties in Scotland. Six are normal enough to be boring. One isn't."
"Alderwick House," Storm said.
"Georgian townhouse in New Town. Bought through a restoration trust nine years ago. Minimal planning applications afterward, but significant payments to Calder Heritage Developments."
The same contractor Skye Fraser had apparently been researching that morning.
Maverick glanced at me from the passenger seat while Trigger drove. "Calder isn't unknown. They've worked historic properties all over Britain. Hotels. Estates. Churches. Private residences. Good reputation if you only look at the finished work."
"And if you don't?" I asked.
"Subcontractors disappear from jobs without explanation. Payments move strangely. They bring their own security onto projects that shouldn't need any. I've heard two different developers complain they were told certain portions of buildings were outside the scope of inspection."
"Anyone report it?"
"People with enough money to restore estates usually care more about schedules than mysteries behind locked doors."
Raze's voice came through from the second vehicle. "Convenient."
"Usually is."
Cipher changed screens. "The interesting part is Blackridge Hall. Calder handled portions of the west wing and basement modifications there. Alderwick House paid for several invoices associated with that work despite having no legal relationship to the estate."
"So Skye found the same connection we did," Storm said.
"Looks like it. She accessed city planning records forty-three minutes ago."
I looked at the screen. "You tracking her?"
"Public databases log activity. I'm tracking the records, not her device." Cipher paused. "Though if you want the answer to whether I know where she is right now, yes."
"Where?"
"Alderwick House."
Every instinct inside me went still.
"Alone?"
"As far as I can tell."
I swore under my breath.
Raze laughed without humor through the radio. "You haven't even met her and she's already making your life difficult."
"She's walking into a property connected to the same organization that made her partner disappear."
"Like I said."
Maverick turned in his seat. "We're still nearly an hour out."
"Any local eyes?"
"One."
"Get them there."
He was already typing.
For the remainder of the drive, I studied everything Cipher had assembled on Skye Fraser.
I had resisted doing much more than the operational background before leaving the States because I preferred meeting people before deciding who they were, but that luxury ended when she walked into an Order-connected building alone.
Thirty-four years old. Edinburgh born and raised.
Co-founded Thistle & Stone Interiors with Isla Lennox eight years earlier after the two women worked together at a larger design practice.
Specialization in historic restoration and adaptive reuse.
No criminal record beyond one parking citation she apparently disputed so aggressively the council eventually canceled it.
No husband. No children. Parents living outside Edinburgh.
One brother in Aberdeen. Professional memberships, preservation work, several design awards, dozens of client reviews praising everything from her attention to detail to her refusal to let contractors cut corners.
Then there were her contacts with the police.
Since Isla disappeared, Skye had called repeatedly, emailed files, requested updates, challenged conclusions she did not believe, contacted English authorities, reached out to Blackridge Hall, questioned contractors, and generally made herself impossible to ignore.
Now she had taken that determination one step farther by entering Alderwick House herself.
"She doesn't stop," I murmured.