“Okay. Well, it’s not my job to tell him, but could you please think twice before you do something boneheaded like walk home from West Valley again?” He grinned at her, eyes crinkling. “It’d mean a shit ton of paperwork for me if you’d passed out on my sidewalk.”
Persey laughed. “Noted.”
“I’m calling James to take you the rest of the way in the cart,” Tyson said, reaching for the walkie. He didn’t even give her time to protest. “And no, I don’t want to hear it. If your brother sees you walking into the house like that, it’ll be my ass.”
Persey froze. “My brother?”
“Yeah, didn’t you know? He got here an hour ago.”
Persey’s mind raced as the golf cart slowly dragged her and James up the hill toward her house, the last one on the block. It was a Wednesday, late October. There were no school holidays, not even the excuse of a long three-day weekend to come home from college. So why had her brother flown all the way across the country from New York?
Whatever the reason, it’s not good.
She thanked James as he deposited her at the apex of the long circular drive that curved up to the front of her house, then waited until his cart disappeared behind the tall shrubbery before punching her security code into the keypad and unlocking the door.
“Hello?” She stepped tentatively into the foyer. The lights were off; the sterile white tile and matching walls reflected the coldness that always existed in her house despite the desert heat outside, and her voice seemed to echo up the staircase to the floor above, tinkling through the ornate chandelier and pinging around in the emptiness. “Anyone home?”
She listened, hardly daring to breathe. If her brother or her parents were home, they should have been able to hear her if they were in the main house. It was large, but it wasn’t that large. She waited for the telltale sound of footsteps, a muffled garble of voices, bumping or clanking or anything that might indicate life. But the house was silent.
Weird.
Maybe her brother had come and gone? Arrived just to change his clothes and then headed out to meet one of his buddies? She was pretty sure at least one of them had stayed in town for college. She’d just placed one foot on the bottom step, ready to head up to her room, when she heard a loud thud coming from the back of the house.
From her parents’ room.
The master suite occupied the entire east wing of the ground floor, consisting of a bedroom, sitting area, dressing room, master bath, and two walk-in closets, all of which opened onto a private lanai beside the swimming pool. It was more “resort living” than “cozy family home,” and Persey hadn’t actually been through those double doors since she was a kid. But the modern decor with Spanish-style accents was exactly as she remembered it—just as ostentatious now as it had been when she crept inside as a five-year-old after having a nightmare in the middle of the night—without a floral arrangement or a pleat of drapery out of place.
With one exception.
There was a light on in her father’s closet.
Now that she was inside the suite, she could hear rustling noises: someone was going through drawers, rummaging quickly, then moving on. They were the sounds you’d expect from a cat burglar, but as she crept across the plush carpeting toward the open door, she knew she wasn’t going to find a stranger dressed head-to-toe in black with a ski mask pulled over his face.
Her brother stood in front of a wall of built-in drawers, quickly but methodically searching through each before moving to the next one. Beside him on the floor lay an open suitcase into which he’d just dropped a pair of gold cuff links. She could see the glitter of a gemstone, the gleam of other jewelry, as well as a healthy stack of cash—Dad’s emergency supply—piled haphazardly inside.
“Hey,” she said, trying to sound casual and normal, like she hadn’t just walked in on her brother stealing from their parents.
“Hey.” He didn’t jump or start. He knew I was here. “How was school?”
The question was so ludicrous, given the circumstances, that Persey actually laughed out loud. Second time that day.
“That good, huh?”
“I didn’t know you were coming home this week,” Persey said, refusing to be sidetracked.
“I wasn’t.”
“So…”
He finally turned to face her. Despite the happy-go-lucky smile, there were deep creases around his mouth