Page 10 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
Devon almost giggled as loudly as the Elmos.
“How many rooms are in this house?” He should know this, but she was walking toward him, and his brain had turned into mush. “Twenty?”
“Something like that.” She snagged the stereo remote and hit play, their favorite song filling the air. “Are we going to go exploring?”
Snatching her to him, Devon sprinkled kisses along her neck as they swayed to the music. “Yeah, we’ll hit most of them. Not the attic, though. It’s haunted.”
Simone snorted, and he used his best move to catch her by surprise. A quick spin and then dip, holding her close. “But we can try if you’ll protect me,” he told her. “All the ghosts around here fear The Lady of Haven House.”
“The Lady of Haven House?” Simone cracked the biggest smile. “Oh, I like that.”
He kissed her soundly, straightening them to stand again. “Yeah, I thought you would.”
Chapter 2
2024
“Idon’t think I ever told you how he was screaming your name when he died.”
The words echoed through Haven’s cavernous dining hall, bouncing around the space. Shifting in his chair, Rowan focused on the laptop before him, remaining hidden from the monster taunting Benjamin Fairweather through a screen.
“He screamed for you to save him,” Tobias Miller continued, amused by the lack of a reaction from his audience. “Begged for you to save him.”
Rowan had to give Ben credit. The man was holding it together in a way he wasn’t so sure he himself could do. The residual rage left over from the attack on Haven two weeks earlier continued to linger, and the McIntyre in him wanted swift retribution.
An eye for an eye and all that.
The women in white had made it into the house. Not many, but enough. Most died on the lawn, writhing in pain once overcome by the manchineel toxins. Sinclair had sent them on a suicide mission, and the women had complied without a second thought.
But the ones who made it inside Haven—two women with hunting knives—had every intention of killing them. Rowan firmly believed that. No matter what theories were floating around. No matter what Liam and his father thought. He refused to accept that this was merely a scare tactic.
“He called out for my mom, too.” Toby shifted on his prison chair, folding his bound hands together as he lowered his gaze to the transport jail’s table. Going quiet for a moment, he sighed wistfully, a sadistic killer reliving his father’s murder in real time. “And Livy. Charlie wanted his little girl with him when he died. Hell, I think he even screamed for his ex-wife.”
“Answer the question, Toby.” Ben’s jaw ticked as his patience reached its end. “What’s your connection to Michael Sinclair?”
Flanked on either side of Ben was a Cohen. Father and son were observing and ready to leap in should something go awry. Klausen and another agent were also there, standing just enough in frame for Toby to see them.
Fighting a grin, Toby’s savage gaze rolled up again. He was still handsome, even with the permanent scar left by Samuel five years ago. Rowan heard the women who followed him were obsessed with it and that some of the men in Zanmi had gone so far as to recreate the look, giving themselves a jagged slice over their left eye.
“Mike is family.”
Rowan sat at the dining room table across from the group, watching the play-by-play on his laptop while they talked to Toby on another. Simone and Jamison were with him, leaning in to see the screen.
“Why did he send those women to Haven House?” The question came from Liam, his tone impassive and with zero inflection. “Was it to kill your real family?”
“How are you, Agent Cohen?” Toby did smile then, aiming his notorious charm at the prison’s laptop camera. “Made an honest woman out of my cousin yet?”
A quick glance to his left showed Rowan that Jamison was reacting as expected. Poised and ready to leap across the table and through the screen to kill Tobias Miller with her own bare hands.
There was a pause. A flicker in Liam’s dark eyes, and then, “Yes, I have.”
None of them acknowledged the lie. Prepped and ready, they were testing one of Dr. Cohen’s theories, and it was holding up.
“Ah, well, too bad I couldn’t attend the wedding.”
Klausen pushed his glasses further up his nose, his impatience showing. “Mr. Miller, I would suggest youans—”
“Dr. Miller,” Toby snapped, his pleasant demeanor morphing into annoyance. “I have nothing to say to you, Agent Klausen. I was told this visit would be with my family. My last one with them before you hide me away for good.”
