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doubt about it. When
they’d briefly spoken while he was in Côte d’Ivoire, his grandfather had been
cryptic, accusing him of being “nowhere near close” to realizing what he’d left
behind in this town.
    Now he knew. Two daughters—twins. And one was gone. He
didn’t know when or how or why Anna had died, but he would soon.
    A security gate had been installed around the perimeter
of the meticulously groomed Turner estate—made of wrought iron and hidden by
rose bushes and climbing ivy, but a gate nevertheless. In a neighborhood with
Wellesley Lake and steep-shouldered hills in the distance, composed of a
handful of jaw-dropping homes and a touristy luxury ranch that appeared to have
expanded in the years he’d been gone, security was always a staple. He didn’t
think his grandfather needed the extra boundary, but maybe something had
happened to make the standoffish high-reaching gate and high-tech panel more of
a necessity than added peace of mind.
    At the edge of the driveway that circled a stone
three-tiered fountain, he lowered the window to identify himself through the
intercom. On the outside his grandfather’s estate looked updated, evolved, but
structurally it was the same Georgian mansion that had felt like a fancy prison
after the death of his grandmother Estella. Back then he’d wanted to break
away, to carve out a life that wasn’t under his grandfather’s tyranny. When
he’d slunk out of town to join that first mission, he’d found it freeing to be
an anonymous hero. It had cost him material possessions—all but his father’s
pocket watch had been sold for cash that would help him survive untraceable—and
it had cost him, for a while, a sense of his own identity. He’d been stripped
of everything but a bone-deep need to be a part of something bigger than the
Turner name and all the trappings that came with it.
    This house was not his home. At his core he was a nomad,
with no permanent place to go and no one to belong to. Nathaniel had been his
guardian out of obligation; his mother hadn’t seen him as anything more than a
meal ticket. He and Valerie weren’t friends anymore, but were connected through
a girl who wanted nothing to do with him.
    Little pitchers had big ears, all right, and if Lucy was
the type to tune in to gossip, then she knew he’d been a hellion lucky enough
to dodge juvie or worse and, yes, having nothing to do with him probably was in
her best interest.
    He was sure he’d handled things with Valerie poorly at
the hospital. Maybe he’d even scared her, which he hadn’t wantedto do. But this morning he was free in
every sense of the word, and now he wasn’t. Having that freedom taken away, and
replaced with something as unfamiliar and daunting as fatherhood, hurt.
    So did the idea of losing the daughter he’d just met—and
the reality that he’d already lost another.
    “Maybe things could be more screwed up than they are,” he
mumbled, leaving his luggage in the back of the SUV and walking to the two-storey
portico. But at the moment he couldn’t conjure any scenario that would actually
surpass this situation in the “screwed up” category.
    The butler, Jasper Thaxton, swung the heavy double doors
open before Peyton reached the bell. “I have one question for you.”
    Peyton’s shoulders stiffened. Jasper had always been one
for formalities and diplomacy, and his closed-off expression and clipped tone
displayed neither. “Yeah?”
    “Did you do what you had to do?”
    Peyton relaxed into a grin. “Yeah.” He offered his hand
for a shake and was surprised when the man hauled him into a back-clapping hug.
    “All right, old man,” Jasper said, taking his jacket and
leading him through the vaulted-ceilinged foyer to the parlor that was still
filled with the rich-colored Victorian sofas and armchairs and period tables
Estella had collected during her lifetime. “Should I address you as Doctor
Turner now?”
    “Hell, no. And who’re you calling ‘old