The chief shrugged. “Don’t know. Work with Sam Meeko—he’s the one assigned.”

  On their way out, she caught up with Kevin. “You think Protect the Children brought the kid to Los Angeles?”

  “It’d be the only possible connection I can see so far. Tomorrow morning, let’s talk to the organization, see what we can find out.”

  He held out his fist, and she bumped it with her own. “Don’t forget my croissants tomorrow morning.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  CHAPTER 46

  THE LEADING MAN

  Years ago, Hugh had renovated his home’s south and north basements, which had been left unfinished by the original developer. Crews had worked for a solid two months to reinsulate and fortify the area, install fiber-optic cables for internet, and upgrade the wiring, plumbing, and HVAC. They’d built rooms in the large open spaces and added a vault-like door to a newly created office, which they’d secured with an electronic keypad that the staff was restricted from.

  Now, as his future wife soaked in a tub upstairs, he entered the south basement and headed to the office. He pressed his finger to the pad, and the lock clicked open. Stepping into the private sanctuary that held Hugh’s deepest secrets, he closed the door behind him.

  The room looked like any other home office. A line of cabinets. A desk calendar, mounted vertically to the wall. A computer and chair. A printer, shredder, and trash can.

  He was going to need a bigger trash can and a match.

  Taking a seat at the desk, he pulled open the top file drawer and quickly flipped through the folders, each one labeled by name. It was the drawer of possibilities, and he pulled out the first folder and flipped it open.

  The folder was labeled Theresa Biggle, and inside there was the printout of a woman’s photo, clipped to pages of handwritten notes. She was older than most of them. In her fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a pear-shaped body.

  He spun to the shredder and held the folder over the mouth of it, then hesitated, his gaze drifting to the drawer. There were years invested in these files, thousands of hours in this room, watching these individuals and recording their progress.

  Destroying the files meant throwing all that away.

  Maybe there wasn’t any harm in leaving them here. He could shut the door, go upstairs to his bedroom, and ignore the files. He could continue on with his life and pretend there wasn’t a bomb of horrors below the mansion, loudly ticking its way toward destruction.

  He stared at the folder for a long moment, then forced its girth through the mouth of the shredder and let the razor-sharp teeth chop it into confetti-size pieces.

  And just like that, Theresa Biggle’s life was spared.

  It took less than fifteen minutes, and then it was done. He bagged all of it up, including the calendar, and carried it upstairs, where he tossed the bag into his bedroom’s fireplace, added a few logs, and lit the edge of the plastic bag. The computer still needed to be handled, but he could do that after he saw every bit of this evidence turn to ash.

  Sitting on the chair by the fireplace, he uncorked a bottle of wine, skipped a glass, and tilted it back to his mouth.

  As the alcohol filled his belly, he watched it all burn.

  CHAPTER 47

  THE LEADING LADY

  Nora silently moved past Hugh’s bedroom. The door was shut, the room quiet. He was probably asleep. She had reheated plates of leftovers—lobster risotto and caramelized brussels sprouts—and he had barely spoken during the meal, which was fine with her. She had her own things to think about, and the grief was warring with the horrible things that seemed to be coming from every direction.

  She needed to check the basement, needed to see what could possibly be down there that he was worried about the police finding. She was surprised that Jeff hadn’t pushed harder with his questions, but that was Jeff for you. Nosy when she needed him to mind his own business and quiet when she didn’t.

  Once she’d finished eating dinner, she had excused herself to take a bath and killed an hour soaking in the giant tub as she’d kept an ear out for his movements in the house. Finally, almost an hour after she’d gone upstairs, she heard his steps on the stairs and the click of his bedroom door. She’d waited another fifteen minutes and now was at the staircase, her socked feet quiet on the steps, her body stiff for any sounds from behind her.

  This was ridiculous, her sneaking around. She could just ask him, but there was the risk of him lying or, worse, covering his tracks.

  No, her figuring out the truth was better. She moved through the first floor, skipping the elevator and taking the rear stairs, off the guest-bedroom wing. Normally, at the basement landing, she would have turned right, but this time she pressed on the door to the left—the one that opened to the south basement stairs. The door was locked and she paused, surprised. She used her fingerprint to open so many other locations in the house that she didn’t think twice about it, but now she held her breath as she placed her index finger on the pad.

  It glowed green, and the door clicked open. She passed through with a relieved sigh, then checked the first room to the right.

  Every door seemed to be locked, and this level of security was ridiculous. There was no need for this stuff to be secured. She flipped on the light switch, revealing neat stacks of bankers boxes. Walking down the rows, she examined the labels. Tax returns, corporate documents, and personal files. Okay, she admitted grudgingly. Maybe these should be locked up.

  Returning to the hall, she turned off the light and shut the door, moving to the next. There were two more rooms of miscellaneous items; then she reached Hugh’s gym. He used this room frequently, and she walked slowly through the cavernous space, studying the weight benches, boxing bag, ice baths, and sauna without finding anything he’d care about hiding.

  Moving to the opposite side of the hall, she unlocked and swung open the first door, then flipped on the light.

  Stepping in, she let out an unexpected scream at the sight of a bald kid sitting cross-legged on the floor, who stared up at her in surprise.

  CHAPTER 48

  THE LEADING LADY

  “Who the fuck are you?” Nora hissed out, and the kid’s eyes widened at the curse word.

  “I’m Miles.” His face glistened with dried tears, and he held a green stuffed animal to his chest.

  Nora immediately crouched and winced at her behavior. “I’m so sorry, Miles. I—how did you get here? How long have you been in here?”

  She must have done something wrong, because her tone seemed to deliver the signal that freaking out was okay, and he hiccuped once, then began to cry. She looked around for something that would help, someone who knew something, because her only experience with kids was on movie sets, and those had all been forty-year-olds somehow birthed into little-kid bodies.

  Nora patted the boy gently on the shoulder, and he launched himself toward her chest, scaring the crap out of her. He wrapped his hands around her neck, and she awkwardly patted his back, the same way that she once did to a cat, and it seemed to calm him because his sniffling quieted.

  Detangling herself, she tried again. “Miles, sweetie. How did you get here?”

  “I don’t know,” he sniffed. “I woke up here.”

  Well, that was unhelpful. She looked around and spotted an open backpack by the door, its contents splayed across the floor. A terrible thought occurred to her—that this child might have been put here before the murders and forgotten or lost in the events of last night. “Are you hungry, Miles? Thirsty?”

  He nodded, and he didn’t look good. He was shaking and looked almost gray. She tried to gauge his age, but she had no frame of reference. Three years old? Seven? She had no idea. “Stay here.” She rose to standing. “I’ll be right back.”

  Returning to the hall, she closed the door and jogged back to the gym and grabbed a few bottles of water from the minifridge there, then looked at the small pantry. There was protein powder, energy bars, and nuts. Nothing a kid would like, but she grabbed a few bars and some bags of cashews and almonds, just in case. Returning to the room, she dumped them into a pile on the floor in front of him.

  The kid immediately twisted off the lid of a water and drank it greedily, his eyes on her the whole time. When he came up for air, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thanks.”

  She looked away from his eye contact and pulled her hair loose and in front of her face. She didn’t know where this boy had come from or why he was in their basement, but she had to be careful that he didn’t recognize her. Thankfully, little kids weren’t her target audience. She stepped back. “I’m going to get some things for you, then we’ll figure out where your parents are and how to get you back home, okay? I may be gone for a little bit, but I’ll be back.”

  His face twisted in alarm. “You promise?”

  “I promise.” She reached for the door, which had closed behind her. It was locked, and she felt a moment of panic, then saw the fingerprint sensor mounted on the wall. Pressing her finger to the reader, she pulled the door open, then gave a small wave to the boy, who was already tearing open the energy bar and stuffing the chocolate-covered granola into his mouth.

  Easing into the hall, she carefully pulled it shut behind her and double-checked that it was locked.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

  CHAPTER 49

  THE LEADING LADY

  Nora had planned, after discovering whatever her darling fiancé was hiding in the basement, to sit on the information and assess the potential risks before approaching him—if she ever did. That plan had to go out the window. There was no way to sit on a child, and she was furious that he had allowed that little boy to sit down there, in the dark, without food or water, while they sat at the fucking dinner table and ate lobster risotto.

  For God’s sake, she was pregnant. He was going to be a father. A father who apparently stuck kids off to one side and forgot about them.

  Charging up the basement stairs, she tore through the lower level, then up the grand staircase and onto the second floor. Reaching Hugh’s bedroom door, she tried the handle—locked—then pounded on the door with her fist. His bedroom was one of the few doors in the house that her print wouldn’t unlock.

  “What?” he called out from the other side.

  “Open the door,” she demanded.

  He did, but just a crack. “What?” he repeated.

  She shoved her way in, and her fury was distracted by the sight of the fireplace, which was ablaze. He’d closed the glass front doors, but the heat was still radiating from the area. It was September. Why in the hell was he running a fire? She pulled her attention away from the hearth and turned to face him.

  He looked pissed. She didn’t care.

  “We need to talk about the basement,” she spat out.

  He stilled, and she could see the split second when he considered feigning innocence. She glared at him, and he let out a growl of frustration. “Dammit, I’m handling that.”

  “Well, you’re doing a shitty job of it.”

  He held up his hand. “How did you even get in the office? Your print isn’t authorized for it.”

  “He’s not in the office. Is that where you put him?” She tried to think if there was an air vent or some way for the kid to tunnel through. Maybe he had set up the kid with a bed and food and drinks, and he had squirreled his way out. She hadn’t made it to the office yet, but it must have been one of the remaining doors in the hall.

  “Who?” He looked at her blankly.

  “The kid,” she snapped. “Who the fuck else?”

  “What kid?” He jerked back his head in confusion, and her eyes narrowed as she watched his face and tried to decipher if the emotion was real.

  “The little bald kid who is locked downstairs in the basement,” she said slowly, enunciating each word.

  “Right now? There’s a kid in our basement right now?” He was a great actor—the best in the world—but this act, this harsh tone, his bewildered eyes . . . it was throwing her off, confusing her fury.

  “Right now.”

  “Take me to him,” he demanded.

  CHAPTER 50

  THE LEADING LADY

  Nora decided, halfway down the stairs to the basement, that he really didn’t know about the kid. Just before they reached the room, she stopped him, then backed them both up a few steps, so they were out of hearing range of the room. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “He’s going to recognize you.”

  “So?”

  She stared at him. “So? You don’t realize the issues with a little boy who has been locked in our basement telling everyone that Hugh Iverson—Captain Voil—is the one who kept him there?”

  Hugh sighed at the mention of the character, which he had played in four Galaxy Force movies, all of which were mammoth blockbusters. “Or Captain Voil is the one who saves him.”

  “If you didn’t lock him up to begin with—”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t even know he was here!” His face grew hard, and she reminded herself to tread carefully, that this was a man with a very short fuse.

  “So if you didn’t put him in there, who do you think did it?” She waited for him to connect the dots. “Maybe someone who looks identical to Captain Voil?”

  “He wouldn’t have.” He shook his head tightly.

  “Face the facts,” she spat. “He tied up a woman and stabbed her to death. He was fucking crazy. You think he would draw the line at—”

  “Watch it,” he warned her, and his face turned cold and angry. “You’re suggesting that he kidnapped a kid. Hurt a kid. No,” he snapped. “One thousand percent he didn’t do that.”

  “Well then, who did?” Nora spread her arms out. “Who else would have put him down here? Who else has fingerprint access? Brenda? And look at the timing. This is probably that dead woman’s kid.”

  He clenched his fists and looked to the left and right, studying the walls as if gauging whether he should punch them. Letting out a hard breath, he looked toward the door. “You’re serious? There’s definitely a kid in there?”

  She leaned against the hall wall and knotted her arms tightly over her chest, hoping that the worst was over. “Yes. There’s a little boy in there, eating some energy bars and drinking bottled water. Let’s ignore how he got there for a minute and figure out what to do with him.”

  “Okay.” He rested his hands on his hips and looked at the floor for a long moment, thinking. “Why don’t we call the police?”

  “Well, first off, what are you hiding down here? You told Jeff you had something in the basement. If it wasn’t this kid, what is it?”

  “Oh.” He dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “Some files in the office. I already burned them.”

  Files. What a stupid thing to worry about, but one that explained the fire on a warm September night. She considered his simple solution. Call the police. Turn this kid over and let them deal with it. Easy peasy on one hand. A deeper level of involvement on the other. “Let’s talk this through,” she said slowly. “Looking at this from a cop’s perspective.”

  “Okay.” He matched her pose, leaning against the wall and folding his arms over his chest. “Let’s go.”

  “This kid has to be connected to the dead woman, do we agree?”

  He gave a reluctant nod. “Highly likely.”

  “So Trent picks up this woman—and her kid—from who knows where and brings them to our house. Manages to sneak the kid into the basement and the woman into the guesthouse, without either of us seeing it. They’re going to ask what we were doing.”

  He paused. Weighed the question. “We could say we were fucking.”

  She considered the option. It wasn’t a bad one. It would be a plausible excuse that would have kept the two of them sequestered together and not paying attention to anything that Trent was doing. “Okay. We were having sex. Where?”

  “Your bedroom.”

  She let out a long breath and stared up at the ceiling. “The problem is, this is going to make the whole house a crime scene. Right now, they’re limited to the guesthouse.”

  His mouth twisted. “I don’t want them to go through the whole house. I’m going to be honest, I don’t even know what’s here. There might be incriminating items.”

  “Agreed. He might have put things anywhere in the house,” she pointed out. “We don’t know. The police could find something that somehow implicates one of us. We can’t risk the Hugh Iverson reputation. We have to protect that.”

  “And your reputation,” he said evenly. “Let’s not forget about that.”

  “Well, yeah.” She dug her fingers into her hair, pulling it back, away from her face. “The problem is, this kid is going to make us look suspicious. I mean, before, Trent takes a woman into our guesthouse and kills her. They’ll wonder why here, instead of his house, but whatever. It’s his crime, and he delivered his own punishment. But now, there’s a kid here, inside the bowels of our house. It brings us into it. It makes us look like we were accomplices. Plus—what? He kills himself and leaves a kid behind, one no one knows about? Something’s off there, and the cops are going to pounce on it.”

  He swore. “We don’t need them looking at us. My relationship with him was messy. Your relationship with him—with both of us—was messy. When they find out that you were sleeping with Trent—”

  “They’re not going to find that out,” she snapped.

  “Nora.” He gave her an exasperated look. “They’re going to find out. And my hands aren’t completely clean if they look closer at me.”

  She pinched her eyes closed and tried not to read too much into that statement. She needed to play out the chess game in front of them. Her career and his, their future marriage, the life of security and respect and adoration that she’d worked so hard for . . . all of it was tied to the strategic completion of this navigation. They were all on the board; now she had to figure out how to protect all the pieces and keep them in play.