I motioned for her to lead the way, and we fell quiet as she showed me toward the stairs. The more I saw of the house, the more I wondered just how extravagant their spending had been. Everything inside was high end. Luxury. Like something out of a magazine. It made me look at my humble cabin with new eyes and wonder what Emma must have thought about it after living in this palace.
From the first floor, we took the stairs up to the second. I didn’t see much of it because it was dark and we kept climbing, just a large landing with wide hallways branching off either side. The top floor seemed like the smallest from outside, narrow, tucked into the rafters. Beau’s office was at the far end, looking out over the woods.
Emma walked straight to the lone window inside it and pulled the blinds before tugging the curtains closed. “There,” she said. “Hopefully no one will be able to see us moving around up here. The only neighbors with a partial view are the McIntires, and they’re in their eighties and probably already in bed.”
I flicked a light switch on, and a soft glow filled the room from the chandelier. Plaid wallpaper, bookshelves, tweed upholstery. It looked like something out of a modern-day Scottish laird’s castle. The walls were lined with certificates, showing off Beau’s medical degrees and awards. Pictures of him hung between them, on a golf course, standing beside the governor, shaking hands with celebrity clients. I didn’t see a single one of him and Emma. God, he was such a self-obsessed, pretentious fuck. If she were mine, I’d have photos of her plasteredeverywhere.
She went to his desk and sat in the chair, jiggling the computer mouse to wake up his desktop. I took that as my signal to start inspecting the drawers.
“Shit, he changed the password,” she said.
I pulled the top drawer open to find it empty.
She glanced up at me. “You don’t happen to be a secret hacker by chance?”
“Sorry, darlin’.” I pulled open another drawer, but the only thing it contained was a lone paper clip. “Uh, did these used to have things in them?”
She looked down and swore, swiveling in the chair to start yanking open more drawers and finding them all empty. “He must have moved everything.”
“Not suspicious at all,” I said, my tone deeply sarcastic. “Is there a safe in the house?”
“Yes,” Emma said, standing.
We heard a noise from downstairs and froze. What the fuck was that? The wind? The house settling? I cocked my head to the side, straining my ears, but all I heard at first was the sound of my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. Then, far below, the alarm beeped, like the front door was open.
Shit, someone was here.
More beeping as the alarm was disabled. Was Beau back? Did he not really go to work? Forget something and have to turn around? Or was it someone else? I glanced at Emma, and our eyes caught, her expression full of fear.
Her focus shifted past me, and then she was moving.
“Don’t!” I whispered, worried the sound would carry. But she was lost to her panic and raced straight toward the light switch, flicking it down and dropping us into darkness. My entire body tensed up. Please let this monstrous house be big enough that whoever was downstairs didn’t hear her footsteps or see the light cut off.
“Hello?” Beau called. “Is someone up there?”
Fuck!Itwashim. And he’d noticed. We had to get out of here before he caught us. No good could come from him and Emma seeing each other face-to-face. But how did we leave? Not out the window—we were three stories up. And we couldn’t hide in here, either, because he’d probably head straight this way. Maybe we could hunker down somewhere else and sneak out once he was past us.
I grabbed Emma’s hand, pressing a finger to my lips, and led her into the hallway. Beau hadn’t turned any more lights on down below, and it was dark as sin in the house. We moved slowly, Emma following my lead as I crept toward the staircase. I glanced over the edge and didn’t see anyone on it, but the chances of us making it to the second floor without getting caught felt slim. Beau was a hunter, which meant he probably had easy access to weapons, might be grabbing one right now. I felt like the best chance we had at getting out of the house was to hide up here so I could ambush him from behind, find some way to bash him over the head and knock him out before he saw either of us.
This floor had a vaulted ceiling above the top of the stairwell, and an open rectangular hallway with railingsbordering the top of the stairs. Four doors stood off it. Beau’s office was at our backs, so I decided the one straight across from us would provide the best vantage point. I pointed toward it. Emma nodded, staying right on my heels as I made my way over.
We slipped inside, and I had just enough time to recognize what looked like a spare bedroom before I pushed Emma toward the closet and motioned for her to hide.
“Promise you’ll stay here until I say it’s safe,” I whispered.
“I promise,” she whispered back.
I gave her one last kiss and turned to shut the bedroom door to a narrow crack, peering out of it to watch the top of the stairs, my ears strained for the slightest sound. Emma’s low, fast breaths were barely audible from inside the closet, and I wished I could comfort her, knowing she must feel like she was back in the coffin, but all my focus had to remain on the hallway outside.
A minute of silence passed.
Another.
The seconds seemed to drag by, my shoulders rising with tension, every muscle in my body tight as a bowstring, ready to snap.
Where the fuck was Beau? What was he doing?
In my mind, I saw images of him loading a gun, calling 911, silently setting off the alarm, all sorts of nightmare scenarios that would end with us getting caught.
