Chapter 6 - Calder House
Roman's home did not look like a home.
It looked like a museum built by someone who expected a siege.
The mansion sat behind iron gates in Brookline, surrounded by wet stone walls, old trees, and enough security cameras to make my store look like a lemonade stand.
We entered through an underground garage just after eleven.
Titan refused to get out of the SUV until I opened his door.
Roman pretended not to notice.
Mason definitely noticed.
"This is temporary," I said as Titan pressed against my leg.
Roman glanced at him.
"Of course."
"Don't sound offended."
"I'm not offended."
"You look offended."
"This is my face."
I almost smiled despite myself.
Then the elevator doors opened.
A woman in her sixties waited in the marble hallway beyond them.
Her gray hair was pulled into a neat knot.
She wore a dark green cardigan and held a dish towel in one hand.
The instant she saw Titan, her face changed.
"Oh, sweetheart."
Titan's ears lifted.
He walked to her without hesitation.
She knelt and put both hands around his head.
"What happened to you?"
Roman removed his coat.
"Mara, this is Claire Bennett."
The woman looked up at me.
Then she froze.
Not politely.
Not because she did not recognize the name.
Because she did.
I saw it.
Roman saw it too.
"Mara."
She stood slowly.
"I know who she is."
My pulse jumped.
"We've met?"
"No."
Mara looked at Roman.
"Isabella talked about her."
Roman became completely still.
"When?"
"Before the accident."
"You never told me."
Mara's eyes filled with something that looked like regret.
"You never asked the right question."
Mason moved closer.
Roman's voice hardened.
"Then I'll ask it now."
"What did Isabella say about Claire Bennett?"
Mara glanced at me.
"She said if anything happened to Titan, there was one woman in Boston he would trust."
The hallway went silent.
I looked down at Titan.
"She remembered me after one adoption visit?"
"She remembered everyone who was kind to something she loved."
Mara folded the dish towel between her hands.
"She came back to that rescue twice after the adoption."
I frowned.
"I don't remember seeing her."
"She didn't go inside."
"Why?"
Mara looked at Roman.
"Because by then she believed she was being watched."
Roman's face lost its remaining warmth.
"By whom?"
"She never said."
"You knew she thought someone was watching her and you said nothing?"
"I told your father."
That answer struck Roman like a physical blow.
"My father?"
"Yes."
"What did he do?"
Mara's lips pressed together.
"He told me Isabella was grieving Gabriel and imagining enemies."
Roman looked away.
For the first time, I saw something under the control.
Guilt.
Not guilt for causing anything.
Guilt for not seeing it.
Mara touched his sleeve.
"Roman, you were holding the company together after Gabriel died."
He pulled away gently.
"That's not an excuse."
"No."
"It isn't."
Titan nudged Mara's hand.
She looked down at the damaged harness.
"That isn't his."
I turned sharply.
"What?"
Mara pointed.
"His harness."
"That's not the one he left the house in."
Mason swore.
Roman looked at him.
"You checked the equipment?"
"Lucian handled the transfer manifest."
"That was not my question."
"No, sir."
"I didn't personally check the harness."
Roman's jaw flexed.
"Where is the original?"
Mason was already on his phone.
Mara led Titan toward the kitchen.
I followed.
The mansion's kitchen was enormous but unexpectedly warm.
Copper pans hung above a stone island.
A loaf of bread cooled beneath a towel.
Titan walked directly to a stainless-steel water bowl near the pantry.
He drank for almost a full minute.
"He knows this room," I said.
"He spends more time here than Roman does," Mara replied.
Roman entered behind us.
"That's not difficult."
Mara gave him a look that could have belonged to anyone's mother.
"You need to eat."
"Later."
"You always say later."
For a strange second, the feared Roman Calder looked twelve years old.
Then Mason entered.
"The original harness isn't at the transfer facility."
Roman's expression snapped back into place.
"Who signed it out?"
"Lucian."
"Time?"
"Six twenty-eight."
"Before I was supposed to leave for the airport."
"Yes."
I looked at Mara.
"When did Titan leave here?"
"Just after six."
"Was he nervous?"
"No."
"Did Lucian collect him?"
Mara shook her head.
"A younger handler did."
"Name?"
Mason answered.
"Owen Price."
Roman said,
"Where is he?"
"Not answering."
Another missing man.
Another line leading away from Lucian.
Mara set a clean towel on the floor for Titan.
I removed the damaged harness completely.
Underneath it, the raw skin was worse than I had seen in the store.
Two circular marks sat near the ribs.
A third was higher on the shoulder.
Mara covered her mouth.
Roman went pale with anger.
"How long?"
I examined the marks.
"Some are older than tonight."
"How much older?"
"Days."
His eyes closed for half a second.
"He came home tired three nights ago."
Mara looked at him.
"You thought it was the long patrol."
"Lucian told me it was the long patrol."
Roman turned to Mason.
"Pull every assignment Titan had for the last month."
"Every person who handled him."
"Every vehicle."
"Every location."
"I want it before sunrise."
Mason nodded and left.
I cleaned Titan's skin while Roman watched.
He did not interrupt.
He did not ask if Titan would be fine every thirty seconds.
That helped.
When I finished, Mara brought an old soft collar from a drawer.
Titan allowed me to put it on.
Then he wandered toward a doorway at the far end of the kitchen.
He stopped.
His body stiffened.
I noticed immediately.
"What is down there?"
Mara followed my gaze.
"East hall."
Roman frowned.
"Titan goes through there every day."
"Not tonight," I said.
Titan backed away from the doorway.
I moved toward it.
Roman caught my wrist.
"Don't."
I looked at his hand.
He released me at once.
"Sorry."
That surprised me almost as much as the contact.
"Why not?"
"Because if Titan is afraid of something in that hall, I want security there first."
"Your security is currently the problem."
Roman's eyes met mine.
"Exactly."
He did not call Mason.
Instead, he pulled a compact flashlight from a kitchen drawer.
Mara stared at him.
"Roman."
"Stay here."
"Absolutely not," I said.
He looked at me.
"You just said my security is compromised."
"And you just said Titan is reacting to something."
"Which is why you stay with Titan."
I looked down.
Titan was already walking after Roman.
I raised an eyebrow.
"Looks like he voted."
Roman sighed.
Before we left the kitchen, I asked Mara to show me where Titan usually slept.
She pointed to a wide cushion near the breakfast doors.
The fabric was worn in the center from years of weight.
Beside it sat a wooden box filled with toys.
Titan ignored expensive leather balls and picked up a faded blue rope with one frayed end.
Mara smiled sadly.
"Isabella bought that the first week she had him."
Roman looked down.
"You kept it?"
"He kept it."
Titan carried the rope across the kitchen and dropped it beside me.
I picked it up.
His posture softened immediately.
"This is useful."
Roman frowned.
"A rope?"
"A familiar object."
"When everything else feels wrong, familiar scent can help him regulate."
Mara nodded.
"He takes it upstairs during storms."
I handed it back to Titan.
He held it gently.
Roman watched with the expression of a man realizing how many details of his own household he had never learned.
"Who usually feeds him?" I asked.
"Mara in the morning," Roman said.
Mara corrected him.
"I prepare breakfast."
"You feed dinner when you're home."
Roman looked at me.
"Apparently I have partial credit."
"We'll put it on your report card."
Mara smiled.
Then her face grew serious.
"Three nights ago he wouldn't enter the east hall."
Roman turned.
"You didn't tell me that."
"He went around through the library."
"I assumed the floor polisher bothered him."
"Was anyone working there?" I asked.
"Lucian."
Mara's answer came immediately.
"He said one of the wall sensors was failing."
Roman's expression hardened.
"There are no wall sensors in that hall."
Mara went still.
We all looked toward the doorway.
Titan dropped the blue rope.
His ears flattened.
That was when we knew the east hall was not simply another place in the house.
It was part of whatever had been happening to him.
We entered the east hall together.
The house grew colder away from the kitchen.
Portraits lined the walls.
Roman's father.
A younger Roman.
A dark-haired woman I assumed was Isabella.
A smiling man with Roman's eyes who had to be Gabriel.
Titan moved slowly.
At the end of the corridor, he stopped in front of a closed door.
Roman frowned.
"That's Isabella's study."
"Has anyone been in there?"
"Mara cleans it."
"Anyone else?"
"Not with permission."
Titan sniffed beneath the door.
Then he growled.
Roman unlocked it.
The room smelled faintly of dust, leather, and old perfume.
Everything looked untouched.
Books lined the shelves.
A cream coat hung behind the door.
Titan entered and walked directly to the desk.
He scratched once at the floor.
Then again.
I crouched.
A narrow scratch line marked the hardwood beside the desk leg.
Fresh.
Roman aimed the flashlight downward.
One floorboard sat slightly higher than the others.
He knelt and worked his fingers beneath it.
The board lifted.
A black envelope lay inside the shallow space below.
Roman stared at it.
His name was written across the front in Isabella's handwriting.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Gabriel.
This one was clear.
This one was close.
And this one showed him standing beside Damian Calder.
On the back, Isabella had written a date.
Four months after Gabriel's funeral.
Beneath the date was one sentence.
May you like
ROMAN IS NOT SAFE IF HE LEARNS THE TRUTH.
