“No,” Royce said quickly. “I said you could have the sabbatical. I’m not going to renege.”
“I really do appreciate your understanding.”
“I hear the cops still don’t know who set the bomb or why. Do you think it had something to do with that piece you were doing on al Adar?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Not long before the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, Lacey had spent several months in Kaziristan, a Central Asian republic fighting for its very existence. A terrorist group known as al Adar had risen from the ashes earlier in the year, after several years of near dormancy, taking advantage of an economic downturn in the nascent democracy to stir up trouble and violence. Her exposé on the troubling rise of the terrorist group had just been nominated for a Murrow Award for investigative reporting.
But al Adar hadn’t yet made a name for themselves outside of Kaziristan. They hadn’t really started exporting terrorism on a regular basis, despite a few aborted attempts a few years back.
Or had they?
“I want to hire security for you and your niece.”
“Royce, we’ve talked about this. If I make a big deal out of what happened, the press will do the same. They’ll start publicizing where I am now, something that only a few people know about at the moment. Since I’d like to keep it that way, no—I’m not going to hire a bunch of bodyguards that’ll start tongues wagging all over the East Coast.”
“You’re a target, Lacey.”
“I’ve taken a sabbatical. I’m not reporting on al Adar or anyone else. Maybe that’ll be enough to appease whoever it was who came after me.” She wasn’t sure she believed it, but the last thing she wanted right now was to live under the watchful eyes of a bunch of muscle-bound security contractors who’d try to watch her every move and keep her from doing what needed to be done.
Regardless of who had set the bomb under her car, she was the one who felt responsible for her sister’s death.
She had to be the one who figured out who hated her enough to kill her. And stop him before he could take another shot at killing her.
“Do you really think it’ll be enough to appease someone who wants you dead?” Royce asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s better than living in a cage until the cops finally figure out who set the bomb.”
Royce was silent for a long moment before he spoke in a hushed tone. “Tell me you’re not thinking about tracking down this killer yourself.”
She didn’t respond.
“Damn it, Lacey. You’re a reporter. You’re not a cop.”
“I tracked down the head of al Adar when the US government thought the man was dead.”
“Different situation. You weren’t his target, for one thing.”
There was a knock on the front door. “I have to go, Royce. I’ll call you later.”
She hung up the phone and walked to the front door, sneaking a peek through the security lens. Jim Mercer stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a brown leather bomber jacket, his hair ruffled by the cold wind moaning in the eaves outside.
She unlocked the door and opened it. “You’re early.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is that a problem?”
“No, of course not. I just mean, you’re not late.” She forced a smile, acutely aware that the past two weeks had done a number on her social skills. “Come in. I’ll show you your room and you can get settled before I have to leave.” She closed the door behind him, careful to lock the dead bolt.
He stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “This place is great. How old is it?”
“I think it was built in the eighteen nineties. Something like that. It was updated in the sixties or seventies, I think, but Marianne and Toby were planning to renovate the place with its history in mind. You know, try to match the styles of the Folk Victorian era even while they updated the plumbing and electrical.” She led him into the large family room. “They did take down a couple of walls to make this place more open concept, but the hardwood floors are all original, and so are the window trim and the crown molding.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said.
Katie turned at the sound of his voice, staring at him with a look of sheer delight. “Hey!”
Jim grinned back at her. “Hey there, Katiebug!”
She ran toward him, her chubby legs churning, and tugged on his jeans until he put down his duffel bag and picked her up. She patted his cheeks and again said, “Hey.”
“She’s usually so shy,” Lacey murmured, not sure her niece’s crush on her new nanny was such a good idea. What if Jim didn’t work out? What if another person disappeared from Katie’s life?
But what could she do? She needed help with her niece, someone to take care of the little girl while she continued her investigation into her sister’s death. Better that it be someone Katie liked than someone she didn’t, right?
Jim tucked Katie into the crook of one arm and picked up the duffel bag with the other. “Kids like me,” he said with a shrug, nodding for her to continue the tour of the house.
She took him through the kitchen to the narrow hallway that led to the first-floor master bedroom. She had been staying there because it was close to the nursery, although for the past two weeks, Katie had been sleeping in the bed with Lacey.
She thought it might be better for her to move to one of the other bedrooms downstairs and let Jim have the bedroom suite. Katie could move to the nursery next door, and he’d still be close enough to go to her in the night.
“This is your room,” she told him as she opened the door and led him inside.
He looked around the large room, his brow furrowed. “This is a nice room.”
“It’s technically the master suite, but it’s next door to the nursery, so...”
He nodded, understanding. “You’ll be upstairs?”
“No, the upstairs hasn’t really been renovated yet. There are a couple of other bedrooms on the first floor. I’ll take one of those.”
“Of course. Whatever you want to do.” He turned to look at her. “How are you doing? After the ambush, I mean.”
“I’m fine,” she said with a firmness she didn’t quite feel. Despite her determination to show no fear, the most recent attack had rattled her nerves almost as much as the car bombing had, despite the fact that neither she nor Katie had been hurt. Maybe because it had come out of the blue, in a place she hadn’t expected to face danger. She had almost convinced herself that the bombing had been a onetime act of violent rage. A venting of hate and anger, perhaps, emptying a twisted soul of the unspeakable darkness inside him.
Much easier to deal with the idea of a psychotic outburst than to contemplate the idea that someone had deliberately set out to kill her in cold blood, driven not by emotion but rational if diabolical intent.
Jim set the duffel bag on the floor by the bed, bouncing Katie lightly in the crook of his arm. “I’ll unpack after you get back home,” he said, turning to look at Lacey. “Any idea how long you’ll be out? So I know whether to start calling around to find you if you don’t show up on time.”
She couldn’t decide if she found his words irritating or endearing. As she’d told Royce Myerson, she didn’t want a bodyguard. She didn’t want her movements tracked or to be trapped inside this farmhouse, afraid to stick her head out the door for fear of having it lopped off.
At