Chapter 1
Micah made his way through the Carmine Mansion, now owned by his sister Berkley and her fiancé, Nick Storm. The two were celebrating their engagement, but had made it clear that no gifts were expected.
He was pretty sure it was just an excuse to have a party. Something he was fully on board with.
If he could just find Clover Storm… There she was. In the formal sitting room. Something mansions apparently needed.
His heart rate kicked up, as always whenever he was near her or she was in his line of sight. He was tall at six foot three, and she was five-eleven. He liked how well they fit together.
Or how well they would fit together if she’d been remotely aware of him as anything other than a friend. And confidant. Something he, fine, loved. But it still didn’t stop him from wanting more. Especially after that kiss he couldn’t stop obsessing about.
Right now, however, he was more concerned about something he’d just discovered and needed to talk to her in private. Unfortunately, there were about ten people in between them in the formal sitting room.
She was standing by the bay windows talking to a man he didn’t know or recognize.
Not unexpected when it seemed that a quarter of Sanctuary Falls was here.
She towered over the man by a few inches, her long, lithe body the thing men would write songs about.
He loved how strong and athletic she was, the confident way she carried herself.
“Hey you.”
He turned at the sound of Berkley’s voice, found himself smiling as his sister pulled him into a hug. “Hey, I was just looking for you.”
“Liar,” she said through a snicker. “I know who you’re looking for. And it seems you found her.”
He glanced around, making sure no one was listening.
“Relax, no one else knows about your…” She lowered her voice. “Crush.”
Crush wasn’t the right word for his feelings, but he let it go. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. I mean, I know, but thank you.”
Unable to stop himself, he snort-laughed. “And always so humble.”
She grinned up at him. Unlike Clover, his sister was short, but she packed a mean punch. Literally and figuratively. She could hold a grudge, but luckily he was her favorite brother. Or he was pretty sure he was.
“I know how much Nick spent on this dress,” she whispered. “A sloth would look good in it.”
He shrugged because he wasn’t sure about that.
It was all lace and showed a bunch of skin.
Too much as far as he was concerned but that was only because she was his sister.
“It’s the same color as your rug.” He plucked a champagne glass off a passing server and handed it to her, exchanging it with her empty tulip flute.
She glared at him for a moment, then lifted a shoulder. “It’s eggplant, and fine, I do really love that color.” She looked around the sitting room with a critical eye. There were pops of the same color everywhere.
She’d told him that she’d painted the walls a soft gray so it would open up the space and she could decorate with all the color she wanted without overwhelming the eye. This was back when she thought she was decorating it for Nick to sell.
Before her fiancé had sprung it on her that he was keeping it for the two of them.
Micah really did like Nick. Something he hadn’t thought possible. Not when Berkley’s ex-husband had been a certified Asshole. That’s right, with a capital A. The man had worked hard to earn and keep the title.
At least he was dead.
Micah didn’t give a shit if that made him cold. The man had deserved what happened to him.
“It looks great on you and in this room.” There were jewel tones everywhere, from the rug to the eclectic art. Again, the only reason he even noticed was because she’d told him in excruciating detail why this place was more modern Victorian than historically accurate.
“Thanks… Did you just get here?” She took a sip from her new glass, smile-waved at someone who looked vaguely familiar.
“I’ve been here about twenty minutes. Had a couple of the salmon canapés.” And once he talked to Clover, he planned on eating a lot more of them. Then probably leaving. There were far too many people here for his liking.
“Oh my god, those things are legit. We saved a bunch of food in the pool house fridge because I know there won’t be any leftovers.”
He snickered because yeah, that was the sister he knew and loved. “Where’s Nick, anyway?”
“Right here.” Her soon to be husband stepped out of seemingly nowhere, which said a lot for how packed this place was getting.
At least they’d roped off the stairs so no one was allowed in the upper floors. Micah knew they had cameras discreetly set up around the house, but he couldn’t ever imagine letting people into his space like this.
Nope. His space was sacred. It was for him and the people in his small circle. Including Clover, who he saw approaching them out of the corner of his eye.
Her dark hair was down around her shoulders in big waves and her wispy-looking green dress wrapped around her like a second skin.
He could see other people turning to watch her, because she truly looked like a goddess when she moved.
But he didn’t look directly at her because he’d end up losing any sort of train of thought.
“I know I’ve said it,” he said, shaking hands with Nick, “but congrats again. You’re a lucky man.”
“Aww.” Berkley nudged him with her foot. “That’s sweet.”
He shrugged, but Nick nodded in agreement.
“I know. And thank you.”
One of the many reasons he liked the guy. Nick would do anything for Berkley and loved making her smile. He was the literal opposite of her douchey ex, who’d seemed to take pleasure in making her smaller, a muted version of her normal self.
“Hey you.” Clover finally made it to their little group next to an antique-looking curio cabinet he was sure had an interesting history. She gave him a friendly hip bump before she pulled Berkley into a hug. “You look so gorgeous it should be criminal.”
Berkley grinned and did a spin. Then took a bow, because of course she did. “Thank you, thank you. This dress deserves its own parade.”
Nick frowned slightly. “It’s you, not the dress.”
“Oh my god, get a room,” Clover said with an eye roll. But she was smiling at her brother.
Before Micah could say anything, Krystal—his oldest and only other sister, more of a mother figure to all of them than anything else—approached, her husband close behind carrying two plates of appetizers.
Mike had pissed him off recently—had pissed off all the Knight siblings—but he was back to being the brother-in-law they’d all loved for years. He chin-nodded at Micah as he handed one of the plates to Berkley.
“Ooh, you’re the best, thank you.”
Mike simply nodded and fell into conversation with Nick about something Micah had no interest in. So while the others talked among themselves, he gently steered Clover a few feet away near another window that overlooked the massive front lawn and historic street in their town.
“You got a job at The Laughing Llama?” he demanded instead of easing into it like he’d told himself to. But she hadn’t mentioned it to him at all. That was what really pissed him off. Not at her, just the situation in general.
Eyes widening slightly, she glanced over at the other four, but they weren’t paying them any attention.
Still, she hooked her arm through his and started pulling him from the room. “Let’s go get some appetizers.”
He loved the feel of her touching him, couldn’t stop himself from inhaling that subtle vanilla scent. But he kept his expression neutral enough.
Instead of heading for one of the servers carrying around trays or into the kitchen where there was a plethora of food, she tugged him into one of the bathrooms. Or “powder room” as his sister called it.
It was a simple room that smelled overwhelmingly of lavender, with a toilet, vanity, and blue and purple wallpaper on one wall.
All his focus was on the woman in front of him, however, as she locked the door and spun to face him. Then she blinked as if realizing how small the space was with the two of them in it. But she didn’t back away, just frowned up at him. “Did you tell my brother?”
He simply arched an eyebrow, because, come on.
She shoved out a breath, clearly in relief.
“Okay, he doesn’t know. Good. And yes, I got a job there.
Only on weekends. I can’t work more with my regular job anyway.
And we’re not getting anywhere with Louis Cain the way we’ve been going,” she whispered, even though it was just the two of them and it was doubtful anyone was eavesdropping.
“If he’s not storing anything in a place you can find it”—meaning online or in the Cloud—“then maybe he’s got physical copies.
And I’m not waiting any longer to find my friend.
He could have real estate somewhere we don’t know about. Or…something.”
Micah pressed his fingertips to his temple.
He understood her concern, her need to help, but getting a job for Louis Cain was complicated.
Micah had been working his own angle, had become a regular at The Laughing Llama with the intention of infiltrating the place himself.
The only problem was that the man’s restaurant was never, ever empty.
He’d recently been invited out by a couple of the servers. That was going to be his in with them. Because for all Cain’s faults—and there were many—ever since he’d been arrested and subsequently become a confidential informant for the Feds, he’d basically erased what little online life he’d had.
If he kept records of anything, it was physical or maybe in his personal phone. Or a computer without internet access.
Because Micah had hacked into the man’s home Wi-Fi and come up with nothing. Same deal with his work computer. He’d hacked in easily enough, found only records for The Laughing Llama. All very neat and tidy.
But Cain wasn’t a neat and tidy guy.
“I doubt he’s just got random copies of something that will point you in the direction of your friend,” Micah finally said. Her friend, Ilena Grady, was basically a ghost online. She’d dropped off the radar two months ago.
The relative lack of an online presence was rare, which had made it just as hard for Clover to track her down. Normally people left huge trails on social media or in other easy-to-track ways, but not her missing friend. And not Louis Cain.
He didn’t find that often in the people he was hunting unless they were using aliases. But as far as he could tell, Ilena Grady wasn’t living under an assumed name.
And unless she was living off the grid, he couldn’t think of a good reason she’d basically disappeared—unless she was running from someone. In that case, she was doing a very good job of hiding. Part of him wondered if she was dead.
He’d brought it up to Clover, but she didn’t want to hear it.
So he was still trying to find her friend in between the other jobs he was working, and coming up with nothing. It was like the woman had just disappeared.
“Well it’s better than sitting around and doing nothing—and I know you’re not doing nothing!” She sighed again. “It’s just…we’re getting nowhere. So I thought if maybe I became friends with the staff, I might learn something.”
He sighed too, shoved his hands in his pockets to resist the urge to touch her. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I got an invite out with some of the servers.”
She blinked. “Oh. When did this happen?”
“Ah…Nyla texted me last night, asked if I wanted to hang out Saturday night with everyone.”
“Nyla is the one who trained me as a server. She asked me to hang out Saturday too.”
He wanted to ask Clover if she’d been planning on telling him, but realized he didn’t have a leg to stand on. “So how do we play this? Do we know each other? You just started, so I haven’t met you there yet.”
She paused for only a moment. “I don’t think we should know each other.”
He nodded in agreement. “Okay, then. We can talk details later. But we should get out of here before anyone sees us together.”
“Good call.” Leaning past him, she eased open the door and it took all of his self-control not to lean down and smell her neck like a freak.
Because even in the enclosed space that smelled mostly of lavender, her scent still called to him.
She called to him, even if she didn’t realize it. To her, he was just a hacker who was helping her find her friend who’d gone missing. Or intentionally disappeared.
They still didn’t know.
She eased open the door and peered out.
A conversation between two people trailed in from somewhere close by.
“It’s a shame about that young woman being kidnapped. Can’t go anywhere these days.” The woman’s voice trembled, and without seeing her, she sounded elderly.
“It’s okay, Nana.” This from a younger man.
He knew who they were talking about—some heiress or something had recently been kidnapped. It was all over the news.
“Okay, they’re not looking. Let’s go,” Clover whispered.
Moving fast, he ducked out with her, and sure enough the two people talking were standing in front of an oil painting of two women in red hats mid-laugh, their backs to him and Clover.
On silent feet, they slid past the duo without a sound and slipped back into the sitting room where his siblings were nowhere to be found. But the place was still full and it was easy enough to blend.
He broke away from Clover when she started talking to someone he didn’t know. He’d done multiple extensive searches for her friend Ilena. If he hadn’t found her, it was because she was truly off-grid—which was rare. Or she was being held somewhere.
Since her cell phone had been turned off for lack of bill payment, he was worried. Even so, he was still going to help Clover do everything he could to find out what had happened to her friend. He just hoped she wasn’t dead.