Page 36

REN

Siren Song, Maine

R en turned on a flashlight from his duffle as his boot caused an aging hardwood plank to creak.

Stella followed. If a room could be a ghost, it would resemble this parlor.

Ren took it in as childhood memories washed over him.

He was relieved the interior was in surprisingly good shape.

The sprawling living space ran along the front of the house, French doors flanked the central arched entrance, and a fireplace punctuated the far end.

The once-yellow sofa and two easy chairs had faded to beige.

An area rug, worn to the backing, lay beneath the furniture.

Some of the distress was due to neglect, but Ren recognized the furnishings.

Franklin hadn’t changed a thing in nearly thirty years.

Ren brushed the dust from the large book sitting on top of the coffee table: Shore Birds of Coastal Maine .

“I forgot what a nut Franklin was about birds. He’d be up with the sun, out on the bluff, trying to spot some rare bird that nested in the cliffs.”

Stella spied the book over his shoulder. “I bet he and Ginny were bird-watching buddies.” She turned away and continued her inspection, leaving Ren with the echo of her presence.

“Birders,” he corrected.

“What?”

“That’s the term for a bird watcher. They’re called birders.”

He looked over at Stella as she wandered into the adjacent dining room.

Using the camping matches from his duffle, she lit the wide pillar candle on the sideboard and circled the rectangular table with six chairs tucked in.

“Look at this place. There are dishes on the sideboard and candlesticks. How has nothing been stolen?”

“It’s a safe place. People don’t even lock their doors.”

Stella turned in a circle. “I like this house. It’s—” she searched for the word, “—comforting.”

A memory flashed in Ren’s mind: sitting at that table with Iggy, devouring bologna sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard. They ate fast, eager to get back on their bikes. Iggy’s mom would make them wash their hands and then give them money for ice cream.

Stella sensed his reminiscing. “You have fond memories.”

“Yes,” he said as he passed her and moved into the kitchen. It was an open, practical space with a butcher block island in the center, white wooden cabinets on the walls, and a long farm table with spindle-backed chairs. Above a side counter a suspended shelf held a selection of books on birds.

“There’s a knife missing.”

Ren glanced over to where Stella stood, running her finger over the blank slot at the top of the wooden knife block.

When he quirked a brow, she said, “Sorry. It’s a habit to look for weapons in a room. Just seems weird in such a neat, well-organized kitchen.”

Ren dismissed her observation. “Maybe there was no knife for that slot.”

Ren remembered that the door beside the stove led to a small study, guest bedroom, and bath, but he was more interested in the open archway leading to the back.

Stella followed him.

“Wow,” she said.

It was smaller than he remembered but no less breathtaking.

The room ran the length of the house and was furnished with cushioned wicker.

The back wall was entirely glass—a set of sliding doors in the center and picture windows on three sides.

The Atlantic Ocean filled the frame before them, whitecaps dancing on black water in the moonlight.

Ren pulled the safety bar from the floor track and slid open the door.

An ocean-scented gust nearly pushed him back a step.

The attached deck extended from the cliff into midair. Beneath it, diagonal support beams extended from the rock face up to the wood. A waist-high cedar railing separated the outdoor space from the great beyond.

Ren started to step out when Stella’s hand circled his elbow.

“Is that wise, considering this house has sat empty for years?”

Ren stepped back into the sunroom. “You’re right. I’ll check it out in the morning. See if it’s sound.”

He felt Stella’s hand feather across his back. “You’re bleeding through your shirt again. Come on. Let’s take care of that buckshot.”

He didn’t want her help, but the hot throbbing of his back reminded him the pellets had to come out, and he couldn’t do it alone.

As he turned to follow Stella, he paused.

Through the side glass, he saw a silhouette in the bedroom window next door.

If his new neighbor, Ginny, saw him spot her, she gave no indication and continued her spying.

“Um, Ren?”

Stella called him into the kitchen. He followed and approached where she stood, holding up a yellow plastic remnant tied to a towel bar beside the sink.

Crime scene tape.

Stella

L ike the first floor, the upstairs rooms were frozen in time. The beds were made, clothes hung in the closets, and there was even a yellowed toothbrush, which Stella immediately discarded, on the side of the sink.

The buckshot pellets clinked in the metal mug as Stella dropped them from the tweezers. She was sitting astride Ren as he lay prone across the bare mattress and quietly hissed as she dabbed the blood with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

They were in the expansive primary bedroom. The faded wallpaper, which featured a pattern of birds and blossoming branches, stopped at a chair rail above blue-painted paneling. A box bay with a window seat and well-used cushion looked out over the Atlantic.

Ren’s skin felt foreign but familiar, as if her hands were meant to touch him.

Stella fought the urge to explore his muscled back and trace the ink that wound across his shoulder—a black ribbon of Latin words floated below the image: Veritas Omnia Vincit.

Truth Conquers All. It was a bleak reminder of her betrayal.

Ren had wanted the submissive, demure Sofria, not her—not the real her.

If her heart weren’t numb, it might have broken at the thought.

Focusing on the here and now, Stella asked, “So, now that you’ve abducted me and we’re in the middle of nowhere, what’s the plan?”

Ren hissed as she dug out a stubborn pellet. “Lay low and figure out who is stealing the Project Bloodhound research and, by extension, trying to kill us.”

“And how do you propose we accomplish that?”

“I have secure computers. We go through your findings so far, look deeper into Capelli and Abernathy’s murders, and see if anything pops. I’ll be a pair of fresh eyes.”

She didn’t want to admit it, but Ren’s plan was solid. He had the analytical skills and intelligence to help. “Fine.”

Ren’s voice was muffled by the pillow beneath his head. “Tell me something about Stella Keen.”

She dug the tweezers into his back, but Ren didn’t make a sound.

Stella reached inside herself for the cold indifference that had served her so well. “I don’t really do that.”

“Oh, come on. We’re here for the foreseeable future—until we figure out who is stealing the drone tech. Don’t you think it will be more bearable if we get along?”

“I can get along with you just fine without telling you my life story.”

“You already know everything about me. I’m just leveling the playing field,” he snapped.

“It was my job, Ren. I’m not going to apologize because you caught feelings.”

When he didn’t respond, she said, “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What are your five things?”

Stella paused. Ren had very close friends who had worked undercover.

Two men from the SEALs who now worked for Bishop Security, Finn McIntyre and Cam Canto, had both been NOC officers in the CIA.

So naturally, Ren knew that when operators come out of deep cover, they recall five things essential to their real identity; it was a way of grounding themselves and reentering the world.

“If I tell you, can we stop talking about it?”

“Sure.”

“Growing up, Stella Keen had a cat named Dobby.”

“Use the first person,” Ren said softly.

“Why?”

“Be who you are.”

Stella blew a raspberry. “I had a cat named Dobby. I love frozen Junior Mints. I grew up in Carmel, Indiana. My favorite book is What Maisie Knew by Henry James.” After a thick pause, she added, “Stella Keen’s mother died from a brain aneurysm when she was fourteen.”

Ren flipped onto his back, and she scooted forward to diffuse the sexuality of the position. He didn’t seem to mind as he wrapped both hands around her hips and held her in place.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Stella nodded. “Grieving girl turns troublemaker, turns juvenile offender, turns spy. That’s a normal career path, right?”

“So it was just you and your dad?” he asked.

As much as she tried to conceal her reaction to the mention of the sperm donor who had rejected her, Stella knew Ren sensed the shift in her demeanor. “It was just mom and me. After she died, my handler took me in and—” her shrug finished the sentence.

Stella felt Ren’s hands tighten on her body, and an unfamiliar wave of arousal hit. She looked into Ren’s solemn eyes, only to realize he was lifting her off him. She toppled onto the mattress beside him.

“We should get some sleep,” he said as he sat up.

Stella righted herself. “You take the big bed. You’ll need to sleep on your stomach. I’ll use the twin across the hall.”

Ren shoved a pillow under his arm and pulled the folded quilt from the foot of the bed. “I’ll be downstairs on the couch.”

REN

R en kept the pillow at his waist, careful not to reveal Stella’s effect, grabbed his flashlight, and left the bedroom.

On each step down, he reminded himself that everything he knew about this woman was a lie.

He justified his renewed arousal, telling himself it was the same shell he had been drawn to, and his body was merely exhibiting an ingrained response.

Now, who was the liar?

At the bottom of the stairs, Ren entered the living room and cast the beam around the dark space.

After tossing the pillow and blanket onto the couch, he wandered back through the house to the kitchen.

He already knew the electricity was spotty—no doubt there were several blown fuses.

A turn of the tap confirmed there was only cold running water.

He pointed the flashlight at the cabinets and walls, finally landing the beam on the piece of crime scene tape dangling from the towel rack at his hip; he’d get answers in the morning.

In the glassed-in sun porch, Ren opened the sliding doors and sat on the threshold, his feet on the step leading down to the deck.

A thick fog had settled on the cliffs, blocking Ren’s view of the town below.

From his childhood visits, he knew that the rock face beneath him was a dangerous but gradual descent to sea level dotted with moss and pine trees.

And while this immediate bluff was daunting and dramatic, it was nothing compared to the sheer ridge to his right.

Even obscured by darkness and mist, the precipice’s malevolence radiated—eighty feet of black volcanic rock that time, wind, and water had honed into a treacherous drop.

And then there was the song.

Something about the formation and position of the porous rock produced a sound in the wind.

It wasn’t a whistle or a howl; it was multi-tonal.

The closest thing Ren could compare it to was recorder music.

It was quiet. He had to listen for it. But beneath the sound of lapping waves and the wind in the trees, it was there, gentle, alluring.

Ren stood and closed the door, blocking out the sound.

Iggy’s dad used to scare the life out of them when they were boys, recounting tales of tragedy on the Siren Cliff.

Thirty-three confirmed shipwrecks, nine more suspected, and one ghost ship that still sails the coast searching for its lost captain.

Ren chuckled, remembering that he and Iggy had opted to sleep with their flashlights in a blanket tent in the corner of the bedroom after hearing Franklin’s ghost stories.

Ren blew out the burgundy pillar candle in the dining room and continued to his temporary bunk.

After banging the couch cushions to shake off most of the dust, he stripped off his jeans and, mindful of his injuries, lay facedown on top of the quilt with his arms bunching the pillow beneath his head.

He switched off the flashlight and set it on the floor, blanketing the room in darkness.

Above him, Ren heard soft footsteps. He wondered if Stella had ventured up the spiral staircase to the glass cupola on the roof or had been sitting in the cushioned seat of the back bay window, staring at the hungry ocean.

She’d be slipping beneath the sheets now, the chaos of her mind eclipsed by fatigue.

Headlights on the road swept through the room, then vanished.

Ren stared out the window as his thoughts and eyes lost focus. He drifted off to sleep with the Siren Song of the cliffs in his head—it seemed to be singing Stella .