THE COPS HADN’T SAID as much, but I could tell as soon as my blindfold came off that the apartment they’d brought me to this time wasn’t any kind of safe house. To them, this was home.
Julius insisted on replacing my wrist brace with a new one, considering the old one had cracked in the fighting. Then they backed off, giving me space to explore the place and take in all of the intriguing details.
I hadn’t been able to track the route we’d taken, which had mostly been by car but also involved a descent down stairs into cooler air with a metallic scent, the squeak of a couple pairs of hinges, and a distant rumble that’d made me wonder if we were near a subway line. The last part of the trip had been by elevator, though, and the bright light that assaulted my eyes confirmed that this place was no basement.
The open concept of the room resembled the basement safe house, but it was larger and much more welcoming. A plump leather sofa and matching chairs stood in a cluster around a widescreen TV. The island by the kitchen was longer, and the countertops marble. There were three normal looking doors at either end, which I’d gathered led to the men’s bedrooms, the bathroom, and a workout room were Talon was currently unfolding a cot for me.
It would have looked normal—just like an everyday if somewhat posh home—if it weren’t for a few details.
The windows all along the wall opposite the front door allowed in plenty of light, but they were overlaid with a film that blurred all view of the outside—and presumably any chance of anyone else seeing in. From the time we’d spent in the elevator, I suspected it was a long drop to the ground.
The front door had a lock that took a keycode, and I could tell the deadbolt it activated was very solid from the sound of it thudding into place after they’d let me in. Another door in the far wall was similarly secured. Where did that lead? Weapons? Case files?
I’d just have to find out as soon as I had the chance.
One corner of the apartment had a desk with a massive computer and four monitors. I recognized that as Blaze’s domain, so I assumed that the dartboard a few feet away was also his. Whenever he’d last been playing, he’d gotten two in the bullseye.
I had no idea who the knitting bag sitting beneath the small coffee table belonged to. The bag was black and as masculine as a bag could get with screen-printed skulls and knives printed on the surface, but there was no mistaking the needles and skeins of wool poking from the top. Interesting.
Beside the TV sat a movie stand, and plenty of familiar titles greeted me. Many were dramas, a few were horror movies, and the vast majority were action. No surprises there.
I glanced over my shoulder when Talon came out of the exercise room. He walked over to join Julius by a small wooden table next to a whiteboard set up like an easel. Julius had taken out a few plastic army figures which must have represented whatever he started talking to Talon about. He moved them on the board with careful precision and pointed something out, but I couldn’t tell what he was getting at.
I wandered closer, hoping to catch a snippet of the conversation, but unfortunately that brought me closer to Garrison. He’d gone right to the stove and put on the kettle, and now he was pouring instant cocoa into a mug.
I resisted the urge to lick my lips—and the more insistent urge to ask him for some. I’d lived with chocolate only once a year for my whole life. Better I went without than trust anything he mixed for me.
Julius and Talon fell silent when I came closer, Julius running his hand over the short brown strands of his close-cropped hair. I put on my best show of not even noticing they were nearby, studying the frame around the nearest window instead.
It was actually worthy of examination. Hand-painted thorns and roses wove around the glass pane in an intricate pattern it was hard to imagine had been done by hand. If it weren’t for the slight smear in the corner, I would have assumed it was some kind of wallpaper.
I leaned closer, taking a closer look. The thorns in the painting appeared to wind around and trap the vibrant roses, encompassing them and cutting them off from the rest of their brothers and sisters. Some of the petals looked cut and scratched by the same thorns.
For such a beautiful painting, it was vicious. Had one of the men around me done this? It was hard to picture any of them with a paintbrush in his hand, but then I’d say the same about the knitting needles.
I turned back toward the kitchen just as Garrison put away the box he’d taken the cocoa packet from. My eyebrows leapt up. There was an entire shelf stuffed with similar boxes, with different brand names and logos.
“That’s quite the collection,” I said.
“Some might even call it an addiction,” Blaze piped up. He’d plunked down on the sofa with his laptop, which apparently he preferred to his more elaborate workstation.
I should have known better than to try to make any conversation with Garrison. He frowned at me and shut the cupboard with a thunk. “It’s a collection I don’t want you messing with.”
I quirked my lips up into a cocky smile and lifted my hands in feigned defeat. I wasn’t going to admit how much the thought of all that chocolate—so many different kinds!—made me drool. After all, the last time I indulged my own addiction, I could hardly walk back to my room before passing out.
I took in the whole room again, and another thought occurred to me. I hadn’t spent much time questioning the men’s living situation in the old apartment, which had felt distinctly temporary. This home was well-lived-in. They’d been here for a while.
I knit my brow and asked the room at large, “Is it normal for cops to live together like this? Can’t any of you afford your own place?”
“We’re married to our work, and that means practically married to each other,” Blaze said, shooting me a grin.
“It’s easier when we’re undercover,” Julius clarified.
I guessed that made sense. I didn’t know much about the inner workings of law enforcement, other than it was best to steer clear of its agents altogether. You never knew when a pesky law might get in the way of seeing a job through.
I turned my attention back to the window frame. “Who painted the roses?”
The question had barely left my lips when the front door clicked open behind me. I spun around, my pulse skipping, every nerve going on the alert. Were we being attacked again? Did I need to dive for cover—or a weapon?
But the men around me looked totally unconcerned. And the woman who stepped through the doorway alone didn’t exactly give off a threatening vibe. The tension trickled out of me.
“She painted them,” Talon said in answer to my question, jerking his thumb toward the woman, which instantly made me focus even more attention on her.
She could have been cut out of a Hallmark card for grandmothers: short, plump, and with hair that was a messy mix of wheat-blond, gray, and white pinned into a bun on the top of her head. Her eyes met mine, soft but thoughtful. Beneath her loose floral dress, she wore white tennis shoes. Another mix: prettiness and practicality.
“What do we have here?” she said, looking me up and down. Her lightly accented voice—Eastern European, I couldn’t place the exact country just yet—was brisker and firmer than I’d have expected from her grandmotherly appearance. There was clearly more to her than met the eye.
While we’d been examining each other, Julius had walked up between us. He rested a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and she beamed at him—with all the air of a grandmother doting on her favorite grandson, although given that Julius looked to be in his late thirties and I’d have put her around sixty, she was hardly old enough for that to be true. Then she returned her gaze to me with a much more assessing expression.
“Dess,” Julius said to me, “this is Steffie, our housekeeper. She comes by regularly to take care of laundry, dishes, and whatever else needs doing around the apartment. She’ll be treated with nothing but respect. Understood?”
It surprised me that he felt he needed to say it and that he spoke with such cool but clear forcefulness about a woman who was essentially their servant. That added to my impression that there was something more to this situation. What kind of housekeeper painted the window frames after she was done cleaning, anyway?
Especially with such brutal yet beautiful imagery.
“Understood,” I said, reining in my curiosity. I didn’t think Julius would consider a barrage of intrusive questions to be very respectful. “It’s nice to meet you, Steffie.”
“Dess is going to be staying with us for a little while,” Julius said to the older woman. “We have some business to sort out with her, and it’s important that she stay safe.”
It was a very vague explanation, but either Steffie could read more into it than I’d have expected or she wasn’t in the habit of questioning her employers, because she nodded without complaint. “You’ll barely notice me around,” she told me with a twinkle in her eyes, and glanced back at Julius. “The trees are vibrant today. A few leaves fell on the sidewalk by the bank, but the breeze tossed them away. Otherwise, not so much as a rustle in the branches.”
Huh? I studied her and then Julius, who nodded as if her comments had sounded totally normal to him. Something clicked in my head.
It was a code. She’d been passing on information she didn’t think he’d want her saying explicitly while I could hear it.
What kind of housekeeper had a secret code set up with her clients?
Steffie bustled off without another word and grabbed a broom from the bathroom. As she swept the floor, the men went back to their previous activities. No one seemed all that interested in what I was going to do here.
Well, Julius might not want me badgering Steffie, but I didn’t see why I couldn’t badger him. He’d dragged me here along with them, after all.
I marched over to the table where he’d just set out another army figure and motioned to the array. “Does this have something to do with the massacre at Anna’s house?”
“We work on a lot more cases than that one,” Talon said gruffly, which didn’t even answer my question.
I set my hands on my hips. “Of course you do. But that one is the most pressing right now, wouldn’t you say? Or are mass murders a regular occurrence around here? For all we know, we just got almost murdered by the same people.”
“They weren’t the same people,” Julius said in exasperation, and then snapped his mouth shut.
He hadn’t meant to reveal that tidbit. They didn’t really want to explain anything to me. I caught hold of the stray fact and tucked it away in the back of my mind. I’d already gathered that the intruders hadn’t been after me, but if it wasn’t related to the massacre at all…
I frowned. “Why would a bunch of guys come at you with guns blazing if—”
“That,” Julius said firmly, “is for us to figure out and you not to worry about. There’s no chance of anything like that happening in this building. That’s why we came here.”
I let out my breath in a huff. “I just want to do what I can to help with the investigation—you know, the one that made you think I’m not safe, at least anywhere other than with you—so I can get on with some kind of life that involves more things than sitting around watching you whisper to yourselves. Are we going to get a move on solving this case, or are you all just going to sit around knitting sweaters?” I gestured to the bag beneath the coffee table.
Blaze snickered. None of the men around me appeared fazed by my accusation. Steffie outright laughed, the unexpectedly full sound rolling through the room. “You’re going to have fun with this one,” she said, and went back to her sweeping.
“Look,” Julius said, “you’re not a cop, and you’re not entitled to being part of the investigation. You don’t know how this works. So why don’t you treat this as a vacation and relax. There are worse spots you could be stuck, aren’t there?”
I supposed he was right. But if I couldn’t leave this apartment, I couldn’t find a chance to slip away and talk to my other contact. How long was this confinement going to go on for?
“It’s a very nice place,” I said, making a show of looking around again. “Sorry if I get a little stir-crazy being stuck in the same small space for days on end.”
Julius sighed. “Then you’ll be happy to know that we’re going out tomorrow. All of us, you included.”
The clunk of Garrison’s mug and his sudden intake of breath suggested he hadn’t been in on that plan.
I smiled at Julius brightly. “Wonderful. Maybe you’ll even tell me where we’re going before we get there this time.”
Steffie muffled another laugh. Garrison muttered something under his breath, but he didn’t overtly protest. I stepped away from the table with a vague sense of triumph.
This would be my last-ditch effort to learn from the cops. If they led me astray one more time, I wouldn’t stay with them. I had to find the savages who’d murdered the people in the household, and I would do it with or without their help.
