Keaton （Skee）
Declan steps closer to her when she steps out of the vehicle.
My entire body locks instantly.
Onscreen, Maeve stands near the main house entrance in the garage with one hand wrapped around the coffee cup I left for her while Declan watches her too carefully from ten feet away.
Waiting. Assessing.
The security feed crackles softly through the office speakers while my grip tightens harder around the mouse.
Move toward her. I dare you.
The thought comes fast. Violent.
My pulse pounds steadily harder beneath my skin while I track every shift in Declan’s posture automatically.
Weight balanced evenly. Right side dominant. Phone in left hand.
No immediate threat.
Still—my jaw tightens hard enough to ache when he pulls the phone up to make a call.
Because I know exactly who he’s calling.
Maeve straightens slowly instead of shrinking back.
Lifts her chin. Squares her shoulders.
And suddenly she doesn’t look like the woman crying quietly on the bathroom floor anymore.
She looks like Cormac O’Donnell’s daughter.
“There she is,” I murmur before I can stop myself.
Declan says something I can’t hear through the garage feed. Maeve answers calmly.
Cold enough to make the younger guard standing near the door immediately glance away from her.
A tiny flicker of satisfaction moves through me.
Good. Then she walks away. Not rushing. Not apologizing.
Like she belongs there. Because she does.
The door closes behind her seconds later.
Only then do I realize my hand hurts.
I glance down.
My fingers are locked so tightly around the mouse my knuckles have gone white.
Jesus Christ.
I release it immediately and shove back hard from the desk.
Enough. This has gone far enough.
I pace once across the office, dragging both hands through my hair while adrenaline still crackles violently beneath my skin.
The garage feed loops silently behind me.
No threat. No danger. Everything fine.
And somehow my nervous system still feels seconds away from detonating.
Which is irrational. Completely irrational.
Declan never moved toward her aggressively. Never raised his voice. Never touched her.
So why was I ready to put my fist through a monitor?
The answer rises immediately. Because I thought she looked scared.
The realization lands ugly and sharp in the center of my chest.
I stop pacing.
No. Absolutely not.
This is exactly what I warned myself about.
Attachment compromises judgment. Emotion compromises logic.
And somewhere between surveillance cameras and French vanilla coffee, I crossed a line I can’t seem to uncross now.
I stare hard at the monitors. Maeve’s upstairs feed shows her disappearing down the hallway toward the main bedroom.
Safe.
That should be enough.
Instead I reach forward abruptly and shut the entire system down.
The office plunges into silence.
No cameras. No feeds. No Maeve.
My chest tightens.
“That’s healthy,” I mutter.
I need distance. Perspective.
I need this to become the mission again instead of…whatever the hell this has turned into. I stare at the dark monitors for another long second before blowing out a slow breath.
Enough.
If I can't stop thinking about her, I can at least do my damn job. I drop back into the chair and wake the system with a tap of the keyboard. The cameras stay dark.
Instead, Ronan Gallagher's financial records fill the center monitor. Property acquisitions. Investment portfolios. Shell corporations.
Anything except Maeve.
My fingers move automatically across the keyboard, pulling transactions apart one layer at a time until a reimbursement catches my attention.
Urgent Care. Three hours west of Chicago. I frown. The date sits six weeks after the wedding.
Why the fuck would Ronan drive his wife three hours for urgent care?
I open the charge. Cash payment. No insurance. No follow-up appointment. Weird. I run another search. Nothing. My fingers move automatically across the keyboard.
Maeve Gallagher. Nothing. Maeve O'Donnell. Nothing. Maeve G. Nothing.
I swear beneath my breath before widening the search. First names. Middle names. Misspellings. Hyphenated names. Anything remotely close. Nothing.
"No..." I lean back, rubbing a hand over my jaw while my eyes drift across the transaction history again.
Cash. No electronic trail. Almost like… Almost like someone wanted her impossible to find.
I freeze.
Mary Collins.
The name hits me out of nowhere. Not because it means anything. Because it doesn't. It was the last name she'd signed into the clinic with. A name so ordinary I'd dismissed it without a second thought.
Until now. "...No way."
I type it in.
Mary Collins.
The screen refreshes. One result. Then another. Another. Another. My stomach drops. The first clinic. The second. The third. The fourth. Every single visit. Same birthday. Same emergency contact. Same woman. I stare at the screen while the pieces slam together so violently it almost makes me sick.
She hadn't been hiding. Someone had been hiding her.
I stop typing. "...What the fuck?"
The first visit was three hours away. The second nearly two. The third almost four. None of them close enough for anyone to notice a pattern.
Unless...Unless someone was looking for one.
I pull up every address. Pin them on a map.
Red markers begin spreading across Illinois like blood droplets.
No hospital systems connected. No shared records.
No electronic trail. Just isolated visits.
Someone wanted them buried. Someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure nobody ever connected them.
Unfortunately for Ronan...Connecting dots is what I do.
I grab my keys before I can talk myself out of it.
The first clinic is forty-seven minutes from the estate.
The woman behind the reception desk studies Maeve's picture for nearly a full minute before sliding it back toward me.
"I'm sorry. I can't confirm whether someone's been treated here."
"I didn't ask if she had."
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "No." She folds her hands together. "You didn't."
Progress.
"I just need to know if you've seen her."
Her eyes drift back to the photograph. Long enough that I catch the hesitation before she looks away.
"I'm sorry." It's polite. Practiced. Final.
I thank her anyway.
The second clinic goes exactly the same. Different receptionist. Different waiting room. Different apology.
By the time I pull back onto the highway, frustration has settled beneath my skin.
Maybe I'm chasing nothing. Maybe my brain is trying to build a pattern that isn't there because it can't stop thinking about her.
I hate that possibility enough to keep driving.
The third clinic sits inside a faded brick shopping center nearly three hours west of Chicago.
I almost turn around before I reach the front door. Almost.
The woman behind the desk can't be much older than fifty. Gray hair pulled into a loose bun. Reading glasses hanging from a silver chain around her neck.
She smiles politely as I approach. "What can I do for you?"
I slide Maeve's photograph across the counter. "I'm trying to locate someone."
Her answer comes automatically. "I can't confirm whether anyone has been treated here."
"I figured."
She blinks.
"I know you have rules." I offer her a small smile. "I'd probably be worried if you didn't."
Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. "I still can't help you."
"I'm not asking you to."
She looks down at the picture anyway. Just for a second. Then another. Recognition flickers across her face before disappearing just as quickly.
There it is.
"You know her."
"I didn't say that."
"No." I nod once. "You didn't."
Silence stretches between us.
She slides the picture back toward me. "I'm sorry."
I tuck it into my jacket instead of putting it away. "I'm just trying to make sure she's okay."
Something changes in her expression. Not enough to break policy. Just enough to make her human. "I really can't tell you who she is."
"I'm not asking for her name."
"Good." A sad smile crosses her face. "Because I wouldn't tell you."
Fair.
I start to turn away.
"If..." Her voice stops me. I glance back. "If someone looked familiar..." She chooses every word carefully. "...I'd think I'd seen her before."
My pulse slows. "And..."
She looks toward the empty hallway before lowering her voice. "...I might think I'd seen her a second time."
Every instinct I have comes alive. I don't move. Don't speak. Just wait.
"It would've been..." She frowns to herself. "...maybe eight weeks ago." She shakes her head immediately. "I don't know why I said that."
"You didn't." I give her my best Wheels smile. The one he says makes all the ladies forgive anything he has done.
She exhales quietly. "And..." Another pause. "...if she came back..." She closes her eyes for a second. "...I'd guess it was about two weeks ago."
Silence settles between us. She already knows she's said too much.
I already know she's said exactly enough. "Thank you."
She doesn't answer. Just watches me walk out the door.
The truck is still cool from the air conditioning when I climb inside, but it doesn't do a damn thing to slow the heat crawling beneath my skin.
I set the laptop on the passenger seat and stare through the windshield for a long moment.
Eight weeks ago. Then again two weeks ago. Same clinic. No name. Just two dates. A receptionist trying to protect a patient had just handed me the only breadcrumbs I needed.
"Let's see what you've been hiding."
The hospital's patient portal isn't the problem. It's the health information exchange sitting quietly behind it. Every visit. Every imaging study. Every discharge summary. Every provider note. Built to let physicians see the whole picture when a patient couldn't tell it themselves.
Unfortunately for the people protecting Maeve...The system assumes everyone accessing it belongs there.
My fingers move across the keyboard. One login becomes another. A forgotten administrator account. An outdated authentication token. The exchange opens without so much as asking permission.
Good.
I don't search for Maeve. I search the only thing I know.
Mary Collins.