The Outlaw Prince's Captive - Holly Rayner Page 0,17

the hall, she could see the same living room she had looked in on from outside. The front of the house, she knew, was empty.

Perhaps one of these doors would lead her to Lindström.

She opened the first one. The room appeared to be some sort of office, with a massive wooden desk facing out the window and toward the woods. The room also contained a swivel chair and two bookshelves, and Francesca noticed that the books on the shelves were nearly all in Swedish.

She closed the door and moved on.

The second room was a bathroom, one of the most spectacular Francesca had ever seen. It was larger than her bedroom at home, with a huge claw-foot tub at the far end and a separate walk-in shower adjacent to that. The entire room was designed in a combination of wood and marble that shouldn’t have worked together—warm combined with cold—and yet somehow did.

Stop staring at the bathroom, Francesca chided herself. You’re here to do a job.

She eased the bathroom door closed and continued down the hall.

On the left, beyond the staircase, was an open doorframe that led to a kitchen. The entire thing was done in slate and chrome, and Francesca wondered if Lindström was the sort to do his own cooking. She wouldn’t have thought it of him. And he did have a cleaning service.

She went to the refrigerator and eased it open.

It was full. Cans of sparkling water with names she didn’t recognize—local brands, she suspected—and a bunch of fresh produce. Which indicated that the house was currently being lived in. None of the produce had yet begun to go bad. It must have been purchased just earlier this week.

Francesca closed the fridge and moved on. It was clear that there was no one on this floor of the house. Perhaps she would find Lindström upstairs—after all, that was where she had seen the room with the light on.

She crept up the stairs carefully, afraid that one of them might creak beneath her and give away her presence. But that did not happen. She reached the top of the flight in silence. The stairs led to a massive landing, square in shape, with a door on each side.

She thought back to what she had seen from the outside. The door on her right should lead to the room with the light on. She crept over to it and pressed her ear to the door.

Voices. Low, but definitely there. Her heart began to beat faster. Was he speaking to someone on the phone? Or did he have company?

If someone else is in there, I’m really screwed. I can’t take on Lindström and another person at the same time.

Cautiously, inch by inch, she pushed open the door and showed herself in.

She was standing in the master bedroom. Lindström’s bedroom. That much was clear by the enormous bed that sat in a sunken area in the middle of the floor. Carpeted steps led down to it on all three sides, and Francesca saw that the covers had been flung back, as if it had been slept in recently.

The voices she had heard were coming from a TV in the corner, which ran on low volume. She frowned. It was as if he had just been here, and then disappeared.

The windows were closed, she saw. He couldn’t possibly have gone out that way. But she walked to the windows anyway and glanced down at the unmarked snow below. If he had somehow left through a window, there would be footprints. And there were none.

Frowning, she checked the en suite bathroom. It was even more palatial than the one she had seen downstairs.

I can’t believe this house just sits here empty while he lives in New York, Francesca thought. She felt vaguely offended by the waste—though, of course, it did make sense. He had to have somewhere to live when he was here, didn’t he?

Walking out of the bathroom, she spotted a to-go carton on the bedside table. She walked over to it and lifted the lid gingerly. Takeout. It looked like some kind of Thai-style seafood salad. Definitely not the kind of thing you would leave sitting out if you weren’t planning on being around.

He must have gone into one of the other rooms. She could think of no other explanation.

She left the master bedroom, this time leaving the door open behind her. She crossed the hall and checked the opposite room.

This was a guest room, decorated in soft peach tones, with a