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Several hours later, after waiting for the tow truck and arranging for a replacement vehicle, Charlotte drove the compact loaner car into the narrow driveaway between her townhouse and the one next door. The sun had already begun to peek above the horizon, casting ominous shadows everywhere she looked.

The tow truck driver’s brother happened to own a used-car dealership with an auto repair shop, and he’d agreed to meet them there. The whole mess ended up costing her almost a thousand dollars to replace all four tires. Problem was, they wouldn’t be in stock until next week.

Fortunately, he’d taken pity on Charlotte and given her one of his loaner cars to use until hers was ready. The thing wasn’t much to look at, but the engine purred like a brand-new car, and he wasn’t charging her to use it.

After the night she’d endured, she was cranky, exhausted, and badly wanted a shower. And she had to come up with a believable story to tell her mom about why she was driving a loaner car and why she would be out of town for a few days. Because the second Charlotte saw that knife on her seat, she decided it was time to make herself scarce, at least until she figured out what to do next.

Charlotte couldn’t just call her mom and say, “Hey, Mom, someone slashed all four of my tires and left the knife on the seat for me to find. So I’m just going to hit the road for a while. See ya!”

One option was to tell her she was going on a work trip. That would be believable because she was frequently out of town for work.

She absolutely abhorred lying to her mom, but she could not tell her the truth. The people involved had enough power and wouldn’t hesitate to go after her mom if they thought she knew something.

Charlotte leaned over to the passenger seat, grabbed her messenger bag, and set it on her lap. She unclipped the flap and made sure the knife was still there, then she closed it and looped the strap over her shoulder. She’d found a plastic grocery bag under the seat in her car and had carefully slipped the knife inside.

After securing her pepper spray in her hand, Charlotte did a quick look around outside. Her eyes narrowed at all of the areas still in shadows, and, seeing nothing, she swung her door open and climbed out of the car. Her heart raced as she navigated her way through the narrow space between the car and her neighbor’s wall. She hurried to the front of her townhouse, through the wrought-iron gate, and up the cobblestone path. She jammed her key into the lock, let herself inside, and quickly locked the door behind her.

Charlotte let out a long breath, then listened for any sounds that didn’t belong.

There was the familiar hum from her fridge down the hall and the steady tick tick tick of the swinging pendulum on the cuckoo clock in the front room.

About four years ago, some attorney’s office delivered a box to Charlotte’s mom’s house and informed her that her mother, Evelyn Cavanaugh Stewart, had died.

This hadn’t exactly been heartbreaking news to Charlotte’s mom. She’d ended all contact with Evelyn years earlier because of her prolonged denial of what her second husband, Franklin Stewart, had been doing to his stepdaughter.

According to the attorney, when the estate sale company was doing an inventory of Evelyn’s belongings in preparation for the sale, they found the cuckoo clock in the attic. Inside the box was the sweetest handwritten note to Charlotte’s mom from Albert Cavanaugh, her mom’s biological father.

Happy Thirteenth Birthday, to my dearest Donna,

I found this clock in a shop during my trip to Germany, and as soon as I saw the little sheep and duckies going around and around, I just knew you would love it as much as I do. I hope you smile and think of me every time the little birdie pops out and says, “Cuckoo.”

I love you very much, my little Cuckoo Bird,

Daddy

Unfortunately, Albert died before he could give it to her. Instead of honoring his wishes, Evelyn, who had always been jealous of the closeness between Donna and Albert, put the box and every single photo of Albert in the attic after he died and never told anyone they were there.

The clock had hung in Donna’s house until she gifted it and a couple of photos of Albert to Charlotte when she moved into her townhouse. Charlotte had hung it up immediately as a symbol of how much her grandfather—a man she’d never gotten the chance to meet—had loved and adored his little girl.

Charlotte quickly diverted her thoughts away from that topic—it was way too much for her to deal with right now.

Her clapboard-sided townhouse had two floors, but it was taller than it was deep, so it wasn’t as big as it looked from the street. When you entered through the front door, you could look down a hallway and see the door to her small backyard.

Upstairs was her large bedroom with high ceilings and an attached bathroom that overlooked the street in front. Across from her bedroom were two smaller ones that shared a Jack and Jill bath and had a nice view of the small backyard with the large oak tree. There was also a massive, walk-in storage closet big enough for towels, extra blankets, sheets, and her growing Jim Shore Santa collection.

Thank goodness for that closet and the ones in the guest bedrooms, because they kept her from having to store stuff in the attic. The first and last time she went up there was when the Realtor first showed her the townhouse.

Charlotte shivered at the memory.

It was dark, creepy, and cobwebby, and she would’ve been totally okay with nailing the pull-down stairs shut and never going up there again. The home inspector strongly recommended against that idea—something about building code violations. Then he’d suggested she have an exterminator check it out, assured her there was nothing structurally to worry about up there, and took his clipboard and left.

She stared up at the handle dangling down from the pull-down stairs.

It would be the perfect place to hide, she thought.

“Ugh, don’t be such a wuss.” Charlotte got the step stool from the closet, positioned it beneath the stairs, and stepped up onto it.

She drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and reached up to grab the plastic handle. It took some effort, but she gave it a powerful tug and it swung down. She unfolded the stairs and stood at the bottom, staring up at the dark opening, listening for any strange sounds. When there were none, she was forced to quit stalling.

“Here goes nothin’.” She turned on her phone’s flashlight and made her way up the narrow stairs until her head cleared the opening.

She shined the light from one side to the other, and was relieved there was no one waiting to pounce on her. After a last look around, she made her way back down the stairs, folded them up, and closed the access door.

Good thing there wasn’t anyone up there, because Charlotte hadn’t given any thought to what she would’ve done if there had been.

On the first floor, off the main hallway, was a decent-size coat closet, a full bathroom, and her kitchen, which she loved. There were two high-ceilinged rooms at the front of the house with large windows that faced the street. Her home office was to the left, behind a set of pocket doors that she kept closed. Her workspace wasn’t terribly neat, but she knew where everything was and didn’t want anyone messing with her system .

The room on the right was where she watched television or crashed out on her couch with a cup of tea and one of her favorite romance novels. Charlotte loved books with strong heroines and was a sucker for tough, alpha heroes who loved them completely.

She liked to fantasize about finding her own alpha hero someday.

Someone like Patrick Nakai, perhaps?

Charlotte scoffed at the notion that a man as fascinating as Hawk would be interested in someone like her. Seriously, the times she’d been close to him, the man’s body positively pulsed with innate alpha maleness. As if that wasn’t enough, he was drop-dead gorgeous, with these dark eyes that looked at you in a sort of intense, wisdom-of-the-ages kind of way. He also possessed skills unlike anyone she’d ever met and worked with the most adorable and smart dog.

Even his nickname—Hawk—was cool. But he’d had to coax her into calling him that. She’d always felt it would be too presumptuous to use his nickname. After all, their relationship was strictly professional. She wished it could be more, but the man was so far out of her league, it seemed like a ridiculous notion.

“A girl can dream, can’t she?” she muttered, lifted her bag strap over her head, and walked over to slide open the doors to her office.

Charlotte circled around behind her desk, set her bag on the chair, and opened the bottom drawer. She carefully removed the manila envelope and the plastic bag with the knife, set them in the drawer with a couple of case files on top of them, and locked it up.

Pepper spray in hand, she set about checking every room to ensure she had no uninvited and unwanted guests. She flipped on the kitchen light, and a shiver ran through her when she confirmed there was a knife missing from the knife block and that the extra key fob for her car was gone, too.

Someone had been in her house.

“How in the hell did I not notice they were gone?” She slapped the light switch off and verified the back door was locked. Just for good measure, she slid a chair from her kitchen table over and wedged it beneath the doorknob.

Charlotte made her way upstairs, checked the other rooms, and by the time she ended her search in her bedroom, she was ready to collapse.

She would try to get a few hours of sleep, pack a bag, then go to Every Last Child’s headquarters and drop off the envelope with the knife. Dulce’s husband would know what to do with them. Her original plan had been to mail the documents to her friend to avoid a conversation she wasn’t ready to have yet.

Four flat tires and finding the knife in her car had changed everything.

Once she handed the envelope over, she would head to her great aunt and great uncle’s place in Harpers Ferry, just over the border in West Virginia. She would hang out there until she figured out what to do next.

Sadly, they were both gone now, or else she wouldn’t go anywhere near their place.

Her Uncle Jerry died about nine months ago at the age of seventy-four, and her Great Aunt Marjorie, who’d been a spry seventy-two, passed away three months later.

Charlotte was convinced she died of a broken heart.

They were never blessed with children of their own, but when Charlotte’s mom found out she was pregnant, they’d happily taken her into their home and treated her like she was their daughter. And after Charlotte was born, they’d loved and doted on her like a grandchild.

She and her mom only recently learned the house was left to them. They hadn’t even had a chance to change the name on the deed yet, which was extremely helpful for her current predicament.

After showering off the crappy night she’d had, she brushed her teeth and put on her favorite sleep shirt. She set the pepper spray on her nightstand, tossed back the covers, and crawled into bed. Before falling asleep, she set an alarm to wake her in two hours.

Charlotte snuggled beneath her favorite comforter, closed her eyes, and as she began to doze off, her last thought was how much it sucked not being able to trust people.