“When he wraps it, you shadow him out. If he doesn’t wrap it—” Bones paused, listening, eyes narrowing. “One hour. If he’s still sitting there bullshitting with his friends, bag him.”
Voodoo let out a low whistle. “Clock’s ticking.”
Bones ended the call with a soft click, slipped the phone into his pocket, then looked at all of us.
“Housekeeper.”
One word. A directive. And my cue.
I pushed away from the table. My leg protested—more a dull ache than a sharp one, but it was enough to make me adjust my gait as I led the way through the kitchen, past the laundry alcove, and toward the butler’s pantry. The small room was tucked between the kitchen and the dining area, and when we’d secured her earlier, we’d moved anything sharp or heavy out of reach.
The housekeeper sat on the padded bench against the wall, blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back. Not painfully—Voodoo had insisted on that—but firmly enough to keep her put. She was older, maybe mid-fifties, with a streak of gray through her dark hair and the ramrod posture of someone who’d spent decades serving people who thought “please” was optional.
The moment the door opened, she flinched. Her breathing hitched, rising in sharp, panicked bursts.
Then she started babbling.
Spanish poured out of her in a frantic stream—too fast, too panicked, too tangled for me to catch more than fragments of nouns and a few verbs.Ayúdeme.Something aboutla esposa.Something aboutél.
Grace startled me when she pushed past me carefully and crouched right in front of the woman. Her voice cut cleanly through the panic. The soft, calm, and steady tone stroked over my senses as if we all needed her to ease us.
“No vamos a hacerte daño.” She didn’t rush her pronunciation, and I could follow her words easier.We’re not going to hurt you.Good girl. Assure her.
The housekeeper froze mid-sob. Her head tilted sharply toward Grace, like the recognition of a woman’s voice. Whether it was the fact that Grace was a young woman or that she’d been the attorney the housekeeper let in was what soothed her, I had no idea. Either way, the housekeeper’s panic eased.
Grace kept going. Her accent was perfect, and so was her rhythm. Her gift with languages was so damn impressive. “Necesitamos hacerte unas preguntas sobre Sinclair. Sobre los hombres que tenía aquí. Sobre las mujeres que pasaron por esta casa.”
It took me a minute, but she was telling her what we needed to know. We had questions about Sinclair, about the men in the house and about the women who came through.
The housekeeper’s breath hitched again. She turned her head blindly toward Grace, shoulders shaking.
“No puedo…” she whispered.I can’t.
“Yes,” Grace said in English, her voice warm and unyielding all at once. “You can.”
Something in her gentle, if unyielding tone made the woman’s chin wobble.
“They won’t hurt you,” Grace said, glancing back at the three of us. “We won’t let them.”
The woman’s breath steadied—not completely, but enough that she wasn’t moments from hyperventilating.
Bones shifted behind me, the smallest adjustment of his stance, but even blindfolded, she sensed him. A tremor ran down her spine like she’d felt a shadow move.
Grace reached out and took one of the housekeeper’s bound hands, curling her fingers over hers in an offer of contact.
“We just need the truth,” she said softly.
Voodoo leaned against the sideboard, arms folded, his expression unreadable but observant. He was watching Grace more than the housekeeper. I got it. We were all tracking the steadiness returning to her inch by inch.
“We’re not here to punish you,” Bones said finally, voice low, controlled, but stripped of any threat. He knew how to read a civilian’s fear from ten paces away. “We’re here to stop the men who would.”
The housekeeper swallowed audibly, the sound loud in the small room.
I stepped forward and loosened the blindfold so it didn’t cut into the side of her head. I didn’t think she’d be able to see from beneath it, even if she tilted her head back. Still, this was a compromise. Less disorienting. Less terrifying.
Her breathing slowed.
Grace stayed right there with her, hand wrapped around the woman’s, grounding her.
