Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Griffen looked at Hawk, who shrugged one shoulder.
“Occasionally, we’d stray into the gray areas. But you cross those lines too often, law enforcement tells you to fuck off. Cooper, Axel, Knox, and Evers don’t play that game. But Silas? He doesn’t follow the same rules. His team generally works for decent human beings, but they handle things like corporate espionage. That shit can get dirty fast. And Silas’s team never minds slogging through the muck.”
I knew well just how dirty corporate espionage and under-the-table dealings could get.
“He found them all one by one over the years,” Hawk added. “Rumor has it a teenage Ryder tried to pick Silas’s pocket. Silas taught him a lesson and then brought him home. We used to joke that Silas collected the most vicious stray dogs you’d ever find, loyal only to him, and trained them until they were so fucking skilled, they’re terrifying. A few of them are ex-Special Forces. Silas has always had a knack for spotting talent, even in the completely untrained. He ran his team like they were half family, half military unit. The idea that he up and sold them to Cooper is…” Hawk shook his head.
“Yeah,” Griffen agreed. “It’s beyond weird. Makes me wonder if he’s got a terminal disease or something. He runs a business, a very profitable one, but his team is like his family. I can see him wanting them settled if he’s walking away, but I can’t see him walking away in the first place.”
“Maybe we’ll learn more when the three of them get here,” Hawk said, standing. “I’m going to catch Savannah, see if I can figure out where to put three more people. I think she was working on clearing more space in the guest wing. Or there might be another room in the old servants’ quarters up in the attic.”
“Hang on a sec,” I said, a little surprised the conversation was over. I’d been waiting for Griffen to confront me about sleeping with Paige. And even if he was going to let that go, I had something else on my mind. Hawk sat back down. “Speaking of the guest wing, last night something weird happened.” I filled them in on the frozen room, the stuck door.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Hawk said. “Everything was fine in the rest of the house last night. And no one heard you screaming?”
“No. We were banging on the door and yelling. And it wasn’t just chilly in that room. I could see my breath. There was frost on the door.”
Hawk and Griffen shared a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Griffen said. “It’s just— I’m not entirely surprised.”
“What do you mean, you’re not entirely surprised?” I asked.
“Since we came back home,” Griffen said slowly, “the guest wing’s been a problem.”
“I know,” I said, “the power, the plumbing, the heat, but—”
“It’s been inconsistent,” Griffen finished for me. “None of the tradespeople can figure out what’s wrong, especially since whatever it is seems contained to the guest wing and the garage right below.”
“What’s happened in the garage?” I asked. I’d lived in Heartstone Manor for most of my life, and we’d never had problems with the garage. But then, we hadn’t had major issues with the guest wing either.
Griffen shook his head. “Mostly little stuff. Keys being moved. The lights not always working when they should.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, wanting to hear my logical, level-headed brother—or Hawk, the least fanciful man I knew—say it out loud.
Hawk shrugged. “It’s an old house.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” I challenged.
“That it might not be a problem with the electrical, or the plumbing, or the heat?” Hawk said blandly. “You might just have some spirits floating around.”
I felt a wash of relief that someone had put into words what my brain had been telling me since the night before.
Instead of denying the possibility, Griffen shrugged. “We don’t know all the people who died here—servants, family members, our grandfather, and our father.”
I sat back, considering. “You think Prentice is haunting Heartstone? Or Gramps?”
Griffen leaned forward, sorting through the letters our mother had written Paige’s father. “I don’t know. My gut reaction is to say, of course not, that the ‘it’s an old house’ explanation works just as well for faulty wiring and crappy plumbing. But some of the stuff that’s happened in the garage—the keys moving, for example—those aren’t wiring or plumbing.”
“Did you guys get hurt?” Hawk asked.
I shook my head. I thought about how we’d ended up skin to skin, huddled under the covers. I had no complaints about getting locked in Paige’s room.
“Then I say we table whatever that was for now,” Griffen said. “Is Paige spooked?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she’s in the ‘faulty wiring and plumbing’ camp.”
“And you’re sure that’s not what it was?” Hawk pressed.
“I could see my breath in the room, and if none of the rest of you had problems with heating…”