Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Oh no! I’m going to be late!” Bea glanced at her watch. “I have to go!”
“I’m going to have Mick drive you,” Ronan said smoothly as he turned her toward the door.
“But I have my car here.”
“Give me your keys and I’ll make sure it gets to your work so you can drive it home, but I don’t want you driving while you’re upset.” His voice was soft and caring.
Bea nodded. “You’re so right. You always take such good care of me, Ro.”
“And I always will. Let me walk you out and talk to Mick about driving you safely to work and then I’ll come back and sort this out for Harvey.”
Harvey rolled his eyes as they both turned away. Then he sighed as he stared around at the mess.
“I’ll take a look at the camera footage,” Paddy said. “You think this could be related to Lily?”
“Maybe? I guess it’s possible that someone came here looking for her. But would her mother or Doctor Wallace really do this?”
“Why didn’t the alarm go off?” Ronan asked as he stepped into the room.
Harvey sighed. “I turned it off before I left. Bea can never remember the code and constantly sets it off.” Bea was brilliant in some ways and kind of hopeless in others. Remembering security codes was a challenge for her.
Yet solving complex mathematical equations was easy.
“I don’t like that Bea was caught up in this.” Ronan sent him a look.
And he thought that Harvey did? And she wasn’t exactly caught up in it. Thank God.
“From now on, you won’t use her to take care of your house when you swan off to do other things.”
Harvey clenched his teeth. “I wasn’t swanning off to do other things. You know what’s going on, Ronan.”
“I know that your little sister walked into a crime scene this morning. That guy could have still been here.”
“Well, you might need to have a chat with her about the dangers of walking into a place that has been clearly broken into. She saw that the lock was broken, the door was slightly ajar, and instead of leaving like she should have, she walked straight on in. And the reason she did that is because she has no idea of the dangers of the world, because you coddle them, Ronan. You make them think they’re always protected and nothing bad will happen.”
The look Ronan shot him could have frozen the balls off a polar bear. But Harvey figured one of the reasons that he looked like that was because he was fully aware that Harvey was speaking the truth.
“Nothing bad will happen to them,” Ronan said. “I will protect them both.”
“Right. Well, shall we get on with dealing with this?” Paddy said, obviously trying to defuse the situation. “Hey, look at the bright side, Harvey. At least now you’ll be able to buy some better stuff for your house.”
“Did my house really look that bad before?” Harvey asked.
“Yes,” both of them replied.
Well, hell.
22
Harvey pulled up outside the cabin several hours later.
After checking his entire house to see if anything had been taken, he’d had to finish going through his camera footage as Paddy had gotten pulled off onto another job.
Only for nothing distinctive to show.
The intruder had their face completely covered and had been dressed all in black. There was no way to figure out any discerning features, other than the fact that they looked like a man.
Could it have been the doctor? Maybe. But it was impossible to say for sure. And would the good doctor even do his own dirty work? No, he’d probably hire it out, as would Lily’s mother.
To make it look like a robbery, they could have just stolen a few things. Why go around and smash everything? It risked discovery.
It almost seemed like someone had lost their temper. Desperation, maybe? He could see her mother getting that desperate, but he couldn’t see her mother breaking into his house.
Ronan’s guys were combing the house for evidence and then a cleanup crew would come in.
Harvey had to order some new furniture. He wondered if Lily would want to do that.
But he didn’t want to scare her by asking.
No, he’d figure it out himself. Actually, Fiadh had a friend who was an interior designer. Maybe he’d contact her.
Getting out his phone, he called Fiadh.
“Hello, little brother. Did you finally find my phone number again? I thought you must have lost it.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. Everyone in their family was a critic at the moment. “It hasn’t been that long since I called you.”
“Uh-huh, sure. So, what can I do for you?”
Now he felt a bit guilty, since he was calling to ask her for something, and not just to chat. He winced. “So how is the bakery?”
“Brother, I know you didn’t just call me to chat. What’s going on? I heard from Bea that you’d had a break-in. I didn’t even know that you weren’t at home. So where are you staying and why?”