Page 37 of Home Free

“Hang on a sec,” Julia said, setting aside her coffee. They’d ordered two pots from room service that morning and had been talking about ordering a third when the newspaper was slipped under the door by the hotel staff.

She disappeared into the bedroom she shared with Ronan. When she returned she was holding her laptop. “Give me that name again.”

Elise sat next to her on the suite’s sofa.

“Aldrich Cromwell,” Ronan said. He spelled it for her and they waited while Julia tapped at her laptop.

“He’s exactly what you’d expect him to be,” she said. “Some rich guy with an interest in history, a member of the Boxgrove Historical Society. Unmarried, no kids.”

Elise could see Ronan’s mind working as he rubbed his chin.

“What are you thinking?” Finn asked him.

“Just running through the details, thinking about the possibilities,” Ronan said.

“We could use some possibilities,” Finn said.

“The invasion at the museum makes sense even if you take it in a vacuum. The terrorists were protesting the exploitation of developing countries, which tracks given the Boxgrove Historical Society’s connection to archeological digs. I’d be willing to bet a lot of the Boxgrove donors give to similar causes in other countries.”

“But?”

“It’s too much all together,” Elise said. “Eudorus using the word Boxgrove right before the gala, the attack, the one man with a private security team…”

Ronan nodded. “Exactly. Even two of those things might be coincidence, but all of it together?” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

The pieces of the puzzle fit together. They just hadn’t figured out how yet.

“They didn’t go after anyone else,” she said.

“She’s right,” Finn said. “The terrorists knew who Cromwell was. They went after him.”

“We can’t be sure they didn’t go after anyone else,” Ronan said. “We couldn’t look everywhere at once.”

Elise knew Ronan was being cautious, keeping them from getting ahead of themselves and the facts, but she hadn’t seen anyone else with a security team, and none of them had seen the terrorists chase anyone else as they made their escape, even though plenty of people had been running for the doors.

That meant Cromwell was important. Either that, or he had reason to believe he might be a target and had come prepared.

“True,” Finn said. “But we know they went after Cromwell.”

Finn’s eyes were lit with possibility and Elise said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t be disappointed again. She didn’t know how much more he could take.

Ronan exhaled. “We need more information.”

Finn picked up his phone. “I’ll call Clay.”

21

Finn lay on the bed with Elise in his arms, her even breathing telling him she was asleep. The sun had been high overhead when they’d all started to crash, the adrenaline and coffee wearing off until they’d retreated to their rooms to try and sleep.

Finn had closed the curtains against the afternoon light and pulled Elise into his arms in bed. She’d fallen asleep almost instantly, but he hadn’t been so lucky.

Now weak rays of evening light leaked in through the curtains, the suite beyond the bedroom utterly silent. He hoped it meant Ronan and Julia had gotten to sleep too.

The scene at the gala played through his mind for the thousandth time. He tried to rewind it, scanning the event from the beginning, looking for Aldrich Cromwell, for something he might have missed when he hadn’t known what to look for.

Sometimes he thought he remembered seeing Cromwell’s security detail, but when he tried to focus his memory on them, they blurred together with the rest of the tuxedoed men at the event.

He suppressed a sigh of frustration, not wanting to wake Elise. He’d thought she might have a panic attack after what happened at the museum, but she hadn’t been as shaken as he expected.

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