Chapter 4 - The House With No Photographs
June refused to hide.
Cormac ignored her refusal.
That was how she found herself inside his Lake Forest estate at midnight, wearing borrowed pajamas and threatening one of Chicago's most feared men with a wooden spoon.
“You cannot imprison me here.”
“You're not imprisoned.”
“Your guard wouldn't let me walk to the gate.”
“He likes being employed.”
“Cormac.”
He stopped.
It was the first time she'd used his first name without anger.
The mansion was beautiful and strangely empty.
No family photographs.
No clutter.
No evidence anyone actually lived there.
June suddenly hated it.
“You can't protect people by putting them in boxes.”
His expression hardened.
“I can if someone is trying to kill them.”
“Did it work with your daughter?”
The instant the words left her mouth, June regretted them.
Cormac went completely still.
“That was cruel.”
“Yes.”
She set down the spoon.
“I'm sorry.”
Cormac walked away.
June let him.
Twenty minutes later, she found him in the kitchen.
He was making toast.
Badly.
Smoke curled from the toaster.
June unplugged it.
“You can run a criminal empire but can't make toast?”
“I have diversified expertise.”
She laughed.
Actually laughed.
Cormac looked surprised.
So was she.
June opened his refrigerator.
Almost empty.
“Do you eat?”
“When necessary.”
“Sit.”
He obeyed.
That surprised her more.
She made scrambled eggs with herbs, toast in a skillet, and sliced tomatoes.
Cormac ate silently.
Then he said, “Maeve loved pancakes.”
June leaned against the counter.
“She was your only child?”
“Yes.”
“Her mother?”
“Died when Maeve was twelve.”
“I'm sorry.”
Cormac nodded.
After a moment he said, “I spent years believing money and fear could keep Maeve safe.”
June sat opposite him.
“They couldn't.”
“No.”
“And now you're doing it again.”
His eyes met hers.
“With you.”
“Yes.”
Cormac's jaw flexed.
“What would you prefer?”
“To help.”
“No.”
“Then we're back to the wooden spoon.”
Something extraordinary happened.
Cormac Riley laughed.
Not politely.
Not briefly.
He laughed until he lowered his head.
June stared.
“You should do that more.”
“Threaten people with cookware?”
“Laugh.”
His smile faded slowly.
Their eyes remained locked.
June became suddenly aware of herself.
No makeup.
Hair loosely tied.
Forty-eight-year-old hands scarred by ovens.
Body softened by time.
She looked away first.
Cormac noticed.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you hide whenever I look at you?”
June folded the dish towel.
“You're imagining things.”
“No.”
“Maybe I don't enjoy being inspected.”
“I'm not inspecting you.”
“Then what are you doing?”
Cormac stood.
He came around the island.
Slowly.
Giving her every opportunity to move.
She didn't.
“Looking.”
Her pulse accelerated.
“At what?”
“You.”
June laughed nervously.
“I'm not exactly twenty-five.”
“I know.”
“My hair is turning gray.”
“I noticed.”
“My waist disappeared sometime during the Obama administration.”
His mouth twitched.
June glared.
“You're terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Whatever you're doing.”
Cormac stepped closer.
“I haven't done anything.”
“That’s the problem.”
Silence.
Then his hand rose.
He stopped inches from her face.
“May I?”
June nodded.
Cormac tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Nothing more.
Yet June felt the touch everywhere.
Then an alarm screamed.
Cormac moved instantly.
Lights flashed red.
A guard rushed inside.
“Perimeter breach.”
Cormac pulled June behind him.
“How many?”
“Unknown.”
Gunfire erupted outside.
The windows shook.
Cormac shoved the kitchen table over and pulled June behind the stone island.
“Stay down.”
“No.”
“June—”
She grabbed his face.
“Kiss me.”
He stared.
“If I'm going to get murdered in a billionaire gangster's kitchen, I'm not dying wondering.”
For one heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then Cormac kissed her.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't young.
It wasn't careful.
It was the kiss of two people who had spent too many years assuming life would politely wait.
When they separated, June was breathless.
Cormac rested his forehead against hers.
“You have catastrophically bad timing.”
“I've been told.”
Another burst of gunfire sounded.
Then stopped.
Cormac's radio crackled.
“Boss, they're retreating.”
June exhaled.
A guard entered carrying something.
A package.
It had been thrown over the wall.
Inside was Ray's wedding ring.
June's knees nearly buckled.
Beneath it was a note.
THE DRIVE WAS ONLY HALF OF IT.
Cormac frowned.
June stared at the ring.
Then she remembered.
The night before Ray died, he'd come home without it.
When she'd asked where it was, he'd claimed it had fallen behind the grill.
He had lied.
June turned the ring over.
Tiny numbers had been engraved inside.
A locker number.
And an address.
Cormac recognized it.
His face drained of color.
“What?”
May you like
He looked at June.
“That address belonged to Maeve.”
