botching the mantra she wrote for me to recite each time life ground me down between its teeth. But Riley really was young, beautiful, worthy, and single. She got to spend her paychecks on pretty clothes, nights out, and other fun things. I spent mine on clothes Ash outgrew in a blink, homeschool curriculum kits, and private music lessons.
Ben worked, but it was only part-time at a local museum. He had been the house husband who used his love of art as an outlet to socialize with other adults for twenty hours a week while Tess had been nose to the grindstone at an advertising firm. I had stepped into their dynamic, let him take the reins at my house and assume the role of teacher for Ash, while I changed careers under the guise of making up for the loss of Tess’s income when what I actually needed was an in the Marshal Building gave me.
“I am bitter, I am ungrateful, I am…the worst sister ever.” And the only Theron without cloven hooves.
The drive into the city took half an hour, and another five before the spire of the Marshal Building came into view. All the way at the very tippy top, lights burned in the penthouse. Thinking back on it, I couldn’t remember anyone ever being home when I cleaned those rooms. I had assumed the owner was too busy flying between New York and London, based on his taste in artwork, to spend much time in Louisville. Guess I was about to meet the Marshal’s resident apex predator.
Clean a suite often enough, you get a feel for the owners’ personalities. Or so I liked to think. It was a game I played to stave off boredom—guessing facts about a client and then checking them off when or if I ever met them. Dull, yes. But when you scrubbed toilets for a living, you perfected the ability to do your job on autopilot, allowing your body to go through the movements while your mind wandered down its own path. Without the game to occupy me, my thoughts always circled back to Ben. To all those pesky might-have-beens.
The parking deck was silent as a tomb, and I hurried to grab one of the cheapo plungers I kept in the trunk for just such emergencies. I took the elevator to the lobby, but I had to switch out there for the fancy glass-enclosed booth that rose all the way to the top. Halfway across the main floor, the doorman caught my eye through the front windows.
Walt was a golem, basically a bag of sand enchanted to look and move and act like a person. He never left his post. Never. He didn’t talk much on account of not having proper vocal cords, but he was nice enough. I had been known to “forget” my Bluetooth speaker on the ledge near his head where it played gospel at a volume most residents would miss, even with supernatural hearing. I asked him once why that was his music of choice, and he gritted out, “It’s got soul. That makes one of us.”
Inclining my head, I received a dipped chin in answer. That was about the length of a normal conversation for Walt.
Aside from us, the Marshal was empty this time of night. That’s what residents paid for—peace, quiet, and anonymity. They didn’t meet for drinks in the downstairs bar or get mani-pedis in the spa on the weekends. They kept to themselves. It was safer that way. For all of us. Including the clueless humans swarming the city, blind to what prowled the streets alongside them.
The ride up to the penthouse might as well have come with a punched ticket for a rocket ship. In a blink, the doors opened on a long hall carpeted in rich reds and golds. I waited a minute while my stomach caught up with the rest of me, then I squared my shoulders and marched to the heavy oak door with a golden number one proclaiming this as the primest of prime real estate. I palmed the master keycard in my coat pocket on reflex, but the owner had called in the repair order. He was home for a change. All I had to do was knock.
Yep.
Any minute now.
Gods, I was too tired for this.
A text message chimed, and I rolled my eyes at the threat from Sven to get a move on. Proof he had the building, even these hallowed halls, wired for sound and