“I know,” I whispered back. “I’m just freaking out a little, okay? They bugged our room. That isn’t normal.”

  “Harrington’s not going to do anything to us here in front of all these people,” Cameron replied.

  “Speaking of Harrington, where is he? I haven’t even seen him yet.”

  “Me neither. But relax. If anything happens, DI Costas is just a phone call away.”

  “They took our phones, remember?” I whisper-hissed.

  Cameron drew close and pressed a kiss just below my earlobe. “I have a burner hidden in my suitcase,” he murmured in a quiet voice that sent pleasurable shivers down my spine.

  I trembled now, relieved we at least had access to a phone but also turned on by his kiss. “Don’t do that. I can’t be having racy thoughts about you right now.”

  He arched an eyebrow, his voice husky. “Why not?”

  “Because,” I explained, whispering as quietly as possible so as not to be overheard, “Our room is bugged. We can’t, you know, do anything.” I eyed him meaningfully.

  He appeared amused. “We could be extra quiet.” His hand slid further up my thigh, and I swallowed thickly.

  “I thought you wanted me to relax.”

  “I do,” he purred.

  “Well, if you keep touching me like that, it’s going to be impossible.”

  “Spoilsport,” he said and removed his hand from my thigh.

  I felt the loss of his touch keenly, but I simply couldn’t think straight when he went into seduction mode.

  Endeavouring to act calm, I chatted with the lady sitting next to me, whose husband was some kind of big deal property investor, and another lady who was married to a hedge fund manager. Every single person here was incredibly wealthy. Was this what rich people liked to do in their leisure time?

  When we returned to our room, we carried out a jovial and completely fake conversation about how much fun we’d had at dinner and how we couldn’t wait to get some sleep in the giant four-poster bed. I pulled some PJs from my bag and went into the bathroom to get changed. Cameron had already seen me naked, but I was still a little shy around him, unsure how to act. When I emerged in my sleep shorts and camisole, he lay on top of the covers. He wore only his boxer briefs, and his arms were folded under his head, his eyes closed.

  I stood there for a long moment, studying him, his dark swathe of hair, thick lashes and strong jaw, his nose that was a little crooked but somehow perfect despite this. I thought about all the years we’d known each other, how we’d only properly become close in the last few weeks. All those empty years, so many missed opportunities where our fears held us back. I never really thought of Cameron as a fearful person, but the more I got to know him I saw that his stern façade was a way of keeping people at arm’s length. If you never got close to anyone, then you never had to worry about being hurt. It all seemed to stem back to his mother’s death. He loved her dearly and then she was snatched away just like that. It hurt him in a way that made him become closed off. He never wanted to feel that kind of pain ever again.

  I was the opposite of Cameron in almost every way. I used cheerfulness and kindness as a means of making everyone like me, because if people liked you, then they wouldn’t reject you. Not that it worked all too well.

  I was wide open where he was closed tight, but together we’d learned a new kind of balance. Somehow Cameron had shown me that everybody didn’t have to like me in order for me to be happy. And I, well, I just hoped our relationship was showing him that there were plus sides to letting people get close.

  Cameron opened his eyes and shot me a questioning look.

  “Hi,” I said shyly, not entirely knowing what to do. I was overly aware that we were being listened to. The fact that we were alone, yet not, made the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.

  “Come here,” Cameron spoke low, his voice a caress that drew me closer to the bed.

  I climbed in, and he pulled me into his arms. His hand stroked up and down my back and slowly my anxiety turned to awareness which turned to arousal. There was no way I was doing anything even remotely sexual while some faceless person listened, but I couldn’t resist snuggling into his neck, breathing him in.

  “What’s going to happen tomorrow?” I whispered quietly in his ear.

  He brought his mouth to my temple and pressed his lips to my skin. A shiver went through me.

  “Don’t worry about tomorrow,” he replied just as quietly. “Whatever happens we’ll handle it together.”

  Together.

  I quite liked the sound of that.

  A quietness fell over us as his hand continued to stroke soothingly at my back. I didn’t know how I managed to fall asleep, but somewhere along the way, I drifted off, my dreams full of shadows chasing me. I ran and ran and ran, then woke right at the moment I was about to fall off a cliff. The room was dark and Cameron hovered over me. Had he shaken me awake? The clock behind him read 03:17. I was about to ask him why he decided to wake me in the middle of the night when he brought a finger to his lips and handed me a piece of paper with a written note.

  Get dressed quickly. I want to search the building while everyone’s asleep.

  I nodded, climbing out of bed and pulling on some clothes before we quietly left our room. Cameron took my hand and led me down the long corridor. We searched several floors, most of which were comprised of bedrooms where other guests were sleeping. Eventually we found our way to the ballroom where dinner had been held, finding it completely transformed.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, looking around.

  The round tables on which we’d dined were gone, and now the chairs were arranged in long straight rows. On each seat, there was a numbered paddle, and up on the stage, there was a podium and gavel, a large screen set up behind it.

  “This looks like the setup for—”

  “An auction,” Cameron finished, his expression perturbed.

  Before I could say anything more, we heard people coming and Cameron quickly pulled me up onto the stage to hide behind the podium. I was out of breath, heart pounding in my ears. It took me a second to calm down enough to hear voices nearing us. Footsteps came closer and closer, two pairs it sounded like, then they stopped not too far away.

  “Everything’s ready for tomorrow. As you can see, the room’s been set up and the items are stored securely in the back,” a female voice said and Cameron and I shared a look. I knew he was thinking the exact same thing as I was. The voice sounded eerily familiar.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” another voice spoke, and this one I recognised as Harrington.

  “I’m really nervous. I’ve never done anything like this before,” the female voice went on.

  “You’ll do fine. It’s in your blood. I’ve held many of these auctions over the years and never encountered any problems,” Harrington reassured.

  “Well, that’s good to hear.”

  “You’re going to be great. Now go get some sleep.”

  “Okay, I will. ‘Night, Dad.”

  “Goodnight, darling.”

  My ears prickled with awareness. I knew the female voice, but I had to see for myself. I had to confirm it with my own two eyes. I stretched to peer around the podium as they were leaving, and even though I could only see the back of her head, there was no mistaking.

  It was Jenny.

  Seventeen

  The Auction

  February 9th

  “Jenny is Harrington’s daughter?” I questioned, perplexed. We were both still crouched behind the podium, trying to get our heads around what we just heard.

  “But her surname is Nevin,” Cameron said, brow furrowed. He looked just as confused as I felt. How on earth could we not know about this? Then, just like that, a memory surfaced. Jenny and I had been having a heart to heart at the office when she mentioned connecting with her birth father.

  “Oh my God.” My hand went to my mouth. “She is his daughter,” I exclaimed. “Jenny told me she finally met her birth father recently, but I had no idea she was talking about Harrington.”

  Cameron’s expression clouded. “Well, the reunion must’ve gone well if he trusts her enough to involve her in whatever is going on here.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, shaking my head. “It’s too bizarre. You couldn’t make this crap up.” A quiet fell as we both tried to make sense of things, tried to figure out what our next step was. Getting Detective Costas involved was now all the more complicated, because it potentially meant throwing Jenny under the bus. Sure, we were hardly the best of friends, but that didn’t mean I wanted her arrested.

  I looked at Cameron. “So, there isn’t going to be a treasure hunt? Was it all a front for whatever’s being sold at this auction tomorrow? I’m so confused. Like, what are they even auctioning?”

  “Well, since Harrington has a history with blood diamonds, it could be valuable jewels,” Cameron suggested.

  “That would make sense,” I agreed, standing up and peering around the room. Cameron stood too, and I followed him to an area at the back of the stage where there was a door. Cameron twisted the handle, but it was locked tight. I watched as he pulled a long piece of metal from his pocket and started jiggling it around inside the keyhole.

  “Somebody came prepared,” I commented, impressed when the lock clicked open.

  “I expected we might encounter a few locked doors during our search,” he replied before stepping inside. There was a hallway leading to several more rooms. The first two stored the tables that had been used for dinner, but when we came to the third, it was locked.

  “This must be where they’re keeping the diamonds,” I said, hopeful.

  Cameron nodded, again making short work of the lock. When we entered the room, it was full of shelves containing various items, though they weren’t the diamonds we’d been expecting.

  Far from it.

  “What is all this stuff?” I asked, peering inside one of the boxes. Cameron walked ahead of me, inspecting more of the items. Perhaps it was the fact I’d gotten too little sleep, but at first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. “Is this ivory?”

  “Harrington isn’t auctioning off diamonds,” Cameron replied. “He’s auctioning smuggled animal parts.”

  As soon as he said it, a sick feeling hit me. I didn’t want to look in the rest of the boxes, but morbid curiosity won out. I couldn’t believe all of these people were here to bid for parts taken from endangered species. I knew such an underground market existed, but I’d thought those things were relegated to far off countries in the Third World. If the number of people in attendance was anything to go by, it appeared there was a market for this stuff right here in the United Kingdom.

  My stomach turned at the thought.

  During our search, we found all manner of macabre items; rhino horns, tiger bones, bear gall bladders and bear paws, deer musk, leopard bone, and pangolin scales. This was a mass auctioning of high price, illegal items gathered from all around the globe. Harrington had upped his game since the nineties, no longer selling blood diamonds but now dealing in smuggled animal parts.

  “This is horrific,” I said.

  “I need to get in contact with Costas,” Cameron replied just as the door swung open.

  “What do you think you’re doing in here?!” a scary looking security guard demanded, glancing between the two of us. Another two guards appeared behind him and it was at that point I knew we were in deep trouble. Cameron came to stand in front of me, his stance protective. He didn’t offer the guards any explanation as they escorted us from the room. I held Cameron’s hand, a cold, clammy sweat covering my body as anxiety and fear took hold. Cameron squeezed my hand tightly, his eyes finding mine. There was something calming about looking at him. One of the guards spoke on the phone. It sounded like he was filling Harrington in on what happened.

  “Yes, boss. I’m taking them back to their room now.”

  When we reached our room the guards shoved us inside then slammed the door shut. I heard a locked flick over and then I really started to panic.

  “They’ve locked us in,” I said, hyperventilating. Cameron came to stand in front of me, capturing my shoulders in his hands and levelling me with a reassuring look.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said in a firm voice.

  I watched as he went to dig out the burner phone he’d hidden in a secret compartment in his suitcase. Daylight was slowly creeping in and a wave of tiredness hit me. I seriously wasn’t cut out for all this.

  I sat down on the bed, still full of worry. I also felt ill thinking about how people paid to attend this event, they socialised and laughed, enjoyed themselves all the while knowing that animals were killed, sometimes in horrendous ways, just to provide them with things they desired but definitely didn’t need.

  I thought of Jenny, who must’ve been an animal lover since she was so upset after her cat died. How could she involve herself in something so despicable? It just didn’t make sense. I understood being reunited with a parent could be an emotional experience, but that didn’t mean you had to throw away all your principles. I’d worked with Jenny for years, and like all of us, she wasn’t a perfect person, but I didn’t think she was capable of involving herself in something so morally corrupt.

  I felt bad that I’d thought it was Damien who’d spied on us, while all along the real culprit was right under our noses. Guilt tugged at me, and even though I never voiced my incorrect suspicion to Damien’s face, I still somehow felt like I owed him an apology.

  Cameron texted Costas instead of calling him, since our room was bugged and anybody could be listening. Plus there was likely one or two guards still outside. When he was done he came to sit next to me, throwing his arm around me and hugging me tight. I rested my head on his shoulder, wondering how long they planned to keep us locked in here and when Costas might arrive.

  Then, a question niggled at me, yet another piece of the puzzle that didn’t make sense. If Harrington was onto us, then why even allow us to attend the event in the first place?

  We sat together for a long time, until the most glorious sound filled our ears: police sirens. Thank God! Cameron and I shared a look, and I knew he was just as relieved as I was. It was early, barely six in the morning, so I suspected most everyone in the building was still asleep. They were in for a rude awakening — literally.

  There was some swearing from outside our room, followed by the sound of feet pounding down the hallway. It appeared whoever had been guarding our room had more important things to do, like getting the hell out of the building before they were arrested. With the guards gone Cameron quickly picked the lock and we were out. We hurried downstairs to find Costas.

  A half an hour later I stood in the lobby while the police carted people out into squad cars, Jenny and Harrington among them. I made eye contact with Jenny, but she looked away shamefully. Maybe she didn’t deserve it, but sympathy tugged at me nonetheless.

  “Harrington’s going to have to get his wife some serious drachenfutter after this,” I said and Cameron cast me a curious glance, one eyebrow raised.

  “Drachenfutter?”

  “It’s a German phrase,” I explained. “I think the direct translation is “dragon fodder”. It refers to the gift you give your spouse to make up for poor behaviour. Fodder to appease the dragon you created.”

  We both must’ve been delirious after the morning we’d had, because when Cameron laughed, it was such a pleasant sound that I started laughing, too. It wasn’t even that funny, but we just couldn’t seem to stop. Every time I looked at him, I laughed harder.

  “I don’t think I could love you more,” he said, the utmost affection in his voice as he came and wrapped his arms around me.

  “Right. You love my weirdness, I know.”

  He gazed down at me, his voice low and sincere. A warm hand came up to caress my cheek. “Not just your weirdness, Maisie. I love you.”

  My mouth fell open, heart racing as I gaped at him, a very different kind of shock taking hold. I was about to say something when Detective Costas interrupted.

  “You two did great work. We’ve called in Scotland Yard’s Small Wildlife Unit. They usually deal with smuggled items on a scale as large as this.”

  “What about Jenny?” I questioned. “What’s going to happen to her?”

  “Harrington’s daughter? I guess we’ll have to see the extent of her involvement,” Costas replied before being called away by one of the police constables.

  “It’s so strange that she’s his daughter,” I said to Cameron. “I still can’t get my head around it.”

  “Torquay isn’t that big a place.”

  “I feel bad for thinking it was Damien who’d been spying on us,” I went on.

  He shot me a crooked grin. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.”

  Over an hour later, we were finally in Cameron’s car, ready to head to the police station. Costas wanted us there for the interrogations. After a restless night’s sleep and a morning of chaos, all I wanted was to go home and fall into my bed, but I knew our job wasn’t done yet. We sat in the quiet for a minute, staring out the window. Police still filtered in and out of the house carrying evidence.

  “I’m making an official decision on both our behalves that we won’t indulge in any more side investigations,” I said. “Nothing but official James & Peterson business from here on out.”

  “I agree,” Cameron said, reaching out to take my hand in his. His expression was thoughtful as he brushed his thumb over the inside of my wrist. “However…”

  “Oh no. I don’t like the sound of that “however.” I don’t like it one bit,” I warned.

  His eyes sparked with intrigue. “I was just going to say that we never discovered Roy Voss’s role in all this.”

  “That’s a job for the police, not us,” I said, standing firm.

  Cameron caught my hand in his, his gaze fierce as he brought it to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles.

  My breath caught. I thought of what he’d said back in the house and my entire body heated, my chest swelling with emotion. “I love you,” I breathed.