Page 64 of Sins of Arrogance

“She’s al­ways quiet.”

Which means he no­ticed she was qui­eter than usual at din­ner and is try­ing to tell him­self it didn’t mean any­thing. I don’t give a fuck.

I shrug. “If you want to re­gain lost ground, take her with you to Lon­don. Kara will watch Enoch and Es­ther.”

That’s one thing I’m sure my wife won’t balk at, re­gard­less of her out of char­ac­ter be­hav­ior lately.

Up un­til din­ner tonight, her usual re­serve was in place with Hope, but Kara wel­comed the two chil­dren with warm gen­eros­ity when they came to live at the man­sion.

“Tonight’s din­ner not­with­stand­ing…” Bro­gan pauses to glare at me. “You have a bet­ter chance of dis­cov­er­ing Dier­dre’s real rea­son for be­ing here than I do.”

“Agreed.” I also have a bet­ter chance of gath­er­ing in­tel on what is hap­pen­ing with the Nor­thies.

And I’ll take out the lot of them if they’re a po­ten­tial threat to Kara and Fitz’s safety.

It’s time to find out what Dier­dre knows and how she knows it.

Which means no mat­ter how much I would rather go back to our apart­ment, I need to find Dier­dre for a soft in­ter­ro­ga­tion.

Chap­ter 18: Ear­wig­ging and In­ter­ro­ga­tion Plans

MICK

Dier­dre’s not in her room and her se­cu­rity is nowhere to be seen when I come out of my of­fice.

Frus­trated that it’s clos­ing in on Fitz’s bed­time, I search the ground floor of the man­sion.

Moon­light fil­ter­ing through the win­dows gives the only il­lu­mi­na­tion to the sun­room. So, it’s the last room I check. As­sum­ing Dier­dre would not be sit­ting in the dark I al­most miss her be­cause I only give it a cur­sory once over.

I’m wrong. Slight move­ment catches my eye. Dier­dre’s curled in the chair that Kara fa­vors, knees tucked be­neath her, glass of wine in hand.

The French doors to the bal­cony are open as are the in­te­rior doors to the en­trance hall. Is she hop­ing to over­hear con­ver­sa­tions?

That would make sense of the lack of light in the room.

With no de­sire to have this con­ver­sa­tion, or any other, with this woman in the dark, I flip on the lights. The stand­ing lamp be­side Kara’s chair has a full spec­trum bulb so my wife can read with­out strain­ing her eyes.

I had it in­stalled af­ter I found her read­ing in here with noth­ing but a small ta­ble lamp to il­lu­mi­nate the book’s pages.

Bright light re­veals Dier­dre’s star­tled face and the way her en­tire body tenses.

But when she sees it’s me, her ex­pres­sion shifts into cal­cu­lated wel­come.

I’ve only got twenty min­utes be­fore Fitz’s bed­time. So much for a pro­longed soft in­ter­ro­ga­tion, but there’s enough time to lay some ground­work.

Leav­ing the door open, I cross the room to­ward Dier­dre. “What are you do­ing in here?”

“Am I not al­lowed? Only Kara didn’t say any­thing like that ear­lier.”

“You mean when she was sup­pos­edly mak­ing you feel so un­wel­come, you thought you had to leave the man­sion?” I shut the door to the pa­tio and the still warm, muggy air from out­side, but don’t take my eyes off Dier­dre.

So, I see the way her mouth tight­ens in con­ster­na­tion at be­ing caught in her lie.

But al­most im­me­di­ately, her lips turn down at the cor­ners and she tries to re­flect sad vul­ner­a­bil­ity with her eyes. “I may have taken her words more to heart than I should have.”

Too bad for Dier­dre, even if her de­jected de­meanor is real, I don’t care. But that doesn’t mean I’ll let her know that.

I al­low a mask of un­der­stand­ing to set­tle over my fea­tures be­fore tak­ing a seat close to her, my pos­ture re­laxed and open. I’ve prac­ticed this pos­ture-ex­pres­sion combo just like so many oth­ers and have never had any­one doubt my sin­cer­ity.