“I think my nose is burned.” Genevieve used the camera on her phone to inspect the damage. “What do you think?” She lowered the phone, extended her neck, and presented it to the masses.

“We told you to wear the hat.” Marlis threw a piece of ice from her vodka, orange, and cranberry. It shot wide, hit the concrete deck, slid past Genevieve, and stopped on the outdoor bar they’d flipped the shutters open on three days ago.

“But no,” Larkin hollered. “The deckhand was so hot.” She emphasized the words so and hot as Gen had done the day before when they’d arrived at the Montauk dock for a day of deep sea fishing.

“The captain wasn’t bad either.” Genevieve shrugged.

“His belly was bigger than sister’s when she was nine months pregnant.” Marlis chucked another cube. It landed in the fire pit at the center of their sprawled circle.

“We’re going to have to work on your aim,” Libby chided.

“Libby, look.” Genevieve leaned over the edge of her hanging basket chair.

“You’re getting no sympathy from me.” Libby reclined in the chaise next to Gen with her head turned away.

“Does nobody care that my nose is burned?” Gen threw her phone behind her in the woven chair.

“I can’t see much for the dark and fire, but it looks just as lovely as it did on Friday,” Larkin tried.

“You had fun on the boat, right?” Marlis threw the question out, but Larkin knew it was meant for her. She’d been melancholy since they’d arrived, and eight hours of bobbing on the sea hadn’t helped. Neither had their veg day Friday nor their beach day today.

“Sure, I did,” Larkin lied. “I caught a … What was it?”

“He called it a striper,” Libby offered.

“Not to be confused with a stripper.” Genevieve touched her nose and nodded.

Everyone laughed. Everyone except Larkin.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Marlis’s question was quiet, but it ricocheted off the glass doors surrounding them.

“All the time.” She pulled another mouthful up her straw, enjoying the chill of the margarita Libby had made for her.

“Let’s play never have I ever.” Marlis leaned forward and crossed her legs.

“We’ll be puking by sunset,” Libby announced.

Their gazes all traveled to the horizon where, sure enough, hints of orange, pink, and red still colored the sky. Larkin pulled a blanket over her legs. Why couldn’t humans hibernate like bears? Several months of sleep might wipe him from her memory.

“Not the usual scenarios,” Mar added. “You know, crazy stuff. Like … Never have I ever seen a dead body.”

If Mar was trying to get Larkin in better spirits, this wasn’t the way. She and Libby tossed back their drinks.

“Who?” Genevieve asked.

“When?” Marlis’s eyes widened until her lashes disappeared in her brows.

“Obvious,” Libby huffed. “Good guys. Bad guys. At least one a month.”

They all looked at Larkin. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She tossed back another swallow.

“Okay. Never have I ever streaked.” Gen asked the question, and everyone waited for her to drink. Her glass never moved.

Larkin gave a, “Huh.”

“Never have I ever prayed.” Libby looked around the fire to see which of them moved.

Marlis knocked her glass back.

“Really?” Libby’s mouth hung open.

“What? I wanted a pair of Givenchys to be on sale.” Mar shrugged. “It didn’t work.”

“Never have I ever gotten my heart broken.” Larkin waited and watched.

Again, Marlis drank. More than the first time around, they stared in awe.

“I only have one more drink in me. Or else someone’s going to be holding my hair back,” Mar warned. When she realized everyone was looking at her, she stilled.

“You were in love?” Larkin breathed the words as though they were a curse. And weren’t they? It’d taken a whole lot of drinks and a crazy game to get her to admit it.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Mar sucked on her straw so hard she emptied her cup and peppered the air with the cousin of the most annoying sound on earth.

“Clearly, you bitches don’t know how to play the game.” Gen planted her feet on the deck. “Never have I ever been in love with someone in high school.” No one drank. “Now, narrow the gap.”

“What did it feel like?” Larkin ignored Genevieve and locked gazes with Marlis.

“It hurt like a motherfucker.” Mar gnawed at her lower lip, still fighting back emotion after all these years.

Larkin wasn’t in love, but it was too damn close for comfort.

“Whose idea was it to play this damn game, anyway?” Gen stood and headed for the bar.

“Mine.” Mar rolled her eyes, stood, and followed Gen to the bar.

Gen slipped behind the bar, at home in her surroundings. “Who needs a r—”

Marlis’s scream shrilled across the deck, threatening to toss Larkin off her feet. She gripped the edge of her chair in an effort to regain her balance.

“Jesus, what?” Gen hollered.

Larkin craned her neck. Her gaze followed the line of Marlis’s wide eyes. Every organ in her body slammed into her spine in an effort to run away. Instincts yelled at her to run. Get her friends and run.

Through the wall of glass in the center of her entryway, a dark figure stood in the shadows.

“A man.” Marlis’s pointed finger trembled.

Libby, the only wise one among them, moved. She jumped to her feet and whirled around with her gun drawn, ready for anything. Larkin wasn’t helpless. By all that was right in the world, she wouldn’t act that way. She scrambled from her seat and ran toward Marlis. When she reached her friend, Larkin hooked an arm around her and rushed them backward toward the bar.

“Where?” Gen rounded the end of the bar with a knife made for mayhem clutched in her fist.

“The house.” Larkin’s voice was shrill and reedy because—contrary to Libby’s insistence—her gun wasn’t by her side, but on the counter near the man in her house.

“What do we do?” Marlis’s shriek rattled her eardrums.

“Stay put,” Libby ordered.

Like hell. This was her house. She’d help defend it.

“Stay here,” Larkin whispered and sat Marlis on a high stool.

“Don’t leave me.” Her friend’s nails bit into her bare forearms.

“Fine but don’t scream.” Larkin yanked Mar up and tugged her close to the wall of the bar.

“No promises.” Mar’s grip on her shirt strangled her a little, especially when she reached over the bar for a knife close in kin to the one Gen wielded.

“Stay behind me then.”

“Not a problem.”

Larkin eased her face around the corner. The perfect target for a man with a gun. Idiot.

Libby and Gen hunkered on the far side of the house and eased slowly toward the sliding glass door. Libby held up her hand in a stay-put motion. Inside the house, a dividing column blocked her view of the intruder.

Her heart beat inside her throat, banging her eardrums like gongs.

“What’s going on? Who is it? Why is he here?” Marlis yanked her shirt with each question.

“I don’t know.”

She needed answers to those questions too. These were her friends. This was her house. They were supposed to be safe here.

Larkin eased around the corner. The noose around her neck tightened.

“No,” Mar squeaked.

Nothing would stop her from getting answers. She pushed forward. Mar’s grip cinched to the point that, if they survived, she’d have to throw the shirt away. She stepped closer to the wall of glass.

Libby’s arm flapped, waving her back. Mar’s grip broke.

Larkin ran to the corner, praying the sofa would shield her from the intruder’s view. It didn’t. The angles didn’t line up, and she was completely exposed. Her heaving breaths fogged the glass where she crouched.

“Dammit,” Libby growled and raised her gun once more. “Do you see him?”

She angled her head up, over her breaths, and searched the interior. Left and right. High and low. Nothing.

“No.” She searched again. “I don’t see anyone.”

Libby chanced a quick glance. Once, then twice. Her head shook. She slid the glass door open. It was Gen’s turn to clutch Libby’s shirt. Libby smacked her hand and then stepped into the house.

Larkin slid hers open and crept inside. A hint of cologne clung to the air, proving they weren’t all insane.

“You wouldn’t shoot an innocent man, would you?” From deep in the house, Douglas’s voice filtered into the rear sitting room.

“No.” Libby’s taut shoulders settled. “But I’d be hard pressed to find one.” She flipped the safety on her sidearm and straightened.

“Me too.” Larkin fell backward, letting the wall catch her.

Her driver stepped from the kitchen with both hands up. “Me too,” he agreed.

Relief turned her knees to gelatin. She leaned an elbow on the wingback chair and took it all in; Libby holstering her gun, Gen collecting a near frantic Marlis, and Douglas at her Hamptons home about sixteen hours too early to collect them.

“Come on.” Her heroic friend waved, the least ready for battle inside the house. “It’s just Douglas, keeping us on our toes.”

“If you want me on my toes, give me ballet shoes.” Marlis clutched her chest as though her heart might abandon ship at any moment.

“I’m sorry to startle you. I—”

“Startle?” Marlis plowed over Douglas’s apology. “You did a bit more than startle. You stole a good two years off my life.” She shoved off Libby and Gen’s helpful hands and teetered to the wingback chair across from Larkin.

“That wasn’t my intent, but I must say, I’m thankful you responded as you did.” He looked at her, Libby, and Genevieve. His gaze traveled back to Marlis. “Well, most of you.”

“So I’m not cut out for battle,” Mar spat. “I’m great at other things. Plus, I shouldn’t have to be good at combat. This isn’t the Stone Age, and we live in America.”

Larkin shook her head. She and Marlis lived in a veritable bubble but never burrowed in quite like her friend. Douglas stepped forward and placed a hand on Mar’s shoulder.

“Why the early call?” Libby asked, a step ahead of her as usual.

“I need to speak with Larkin.” His worn blue eyes found hers.

“Reagan.” Her name was on a sob Larkin caught behind her hand.

“No. There’s been no change on that front.” He turned to the girls. “Ladies, if you would …”

What was so bad that the girls couldn’t stay? Larkin plopped into the chair before she hit the ground. Everything shook. It couldn’t be Beckett. Douglas wouldn’t have news from him. She wouldn’t have news from him. Not ever again.

Douglas helped Marlis from her chair and handed her over to Gen, who held the knife’s blade up close to her forearm.

“Would you like me to take that?” Douglas held out his hand.

“No. I know how to handle long, firm things.” Gen hooked her free arm around Marlis and winked at Douglas.

Libby groaned.

“Noted.” He stood his ground, expression as rock-solid as ever.

“Huh,” Gen purred.

“Out.” Libby pointed at the door. “I have an unfinished drink calling my name. And maybe a shot.”

“Tequila,” Mar announced.

Douglas closed the door behind them and crossed the room, stopping just in front of her.

“You’re scaring me.”

“You should be scared.” His phone screen shined to life, and he handed it over. “This happened between midnight and six a.m.”

“Wha …?” The question died on her lips. Her building filled his screen. The top ten floors. She knew it intimately. She’d fought tooth and nail for the eighty-story structure. Real estate in downtown NYC was rarer than twenty-carat diamonds. Night and day, he’d overseen the three-year renovation until it’d become her dream realized.

“The pictures were taken from a Channel 7 News chopper.”

Douglas’s words swam in and around the fragments of thoughts and the image that didn’t compute.

The top two floors of The Ashford dripped red. Blood red. It was as if her building bled. As though it cried blood.

“What in the world? Is it …?”

“Paint.”

“How? Why?”

“It gets worse.”

She looked at Douglas. Her mouth opened, but no words escaped. She wasn’t ready for worse. He leaned in and swiped the screen. Each picture showed another side of her building disgraced with red. Save for the last.

TNUC.

On the side where her apartment overlooked the city, paint didn’t stream full and flowing from the top. Four neatly painted letters clung to the glass.

TNUC.

It didn’t make sense for several seconds. Not until she mentally put herself inside her apartment and stared at letters that would graze her floors and reach the top of her ceilings. And for the inside would read CUNT.

Bile sloshed up her throat. The cards. The flowers. Now, the paint.

“The paint has been removed, and I stopped Channel 7 before they ran the story. It’s an open investigation of vandalism.” Douglas crouched in front of her. “I’m taking it as a major threat. This person was on your roof, right above your home, with the explicit intent to threaten.”

Larkin’s blood cooled ten degrees as though she sat in an ice bath.

“I have a friend at the FBI who’s getting me in touch with a profiler.”

“Libby should be in on this conversation.” Larkin was glad she could speak. The amount of thought that went into that statement shocked the hell out of her.

“Before she does, Lucas said that a man attacked you on your roof last week.”

Douglas didn’t stand or perch on the edge of the coffee table. He just stayed in his nimble crouch, demanding answers without a word.

“Nearly two weeks ago,” she corrected. “But it wasn’t like you’re thinking it was. He didn’t explain it right.” Not that she’d explained it to Lucas after she’d figured it out.

“Explain.”

“I went to the roof to blow off steam.”

“You said you weren’t going up there alone anymore.”

“I lied,” she snapped. “I need to go up there alone. It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.”

“Maybe if you went to therapy, you wouldn’t need to go to the roof.” He straightened his cuffs.

“You’re one to talk, or not. You won’t even talk to me, so why would you talk to a stranger? Why would I?” She stood, and he matched her moves, standing toe to toe with her. “We deal with our bullshit in the ways that work for us.”

“Do they work?” He broke the stare off and eased back a step.

“Sometimes.” Larkin sank back into the chair and slapped hair from her face. She stared into near space, which happened to be the knees of Douglas’s pant-legs. “That night was the first night I’d been up in months. Since our talk. I couldn’t take it anymore. I got too close to the edge, over the ledge, and he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back. I thought he would kill me or worse, which was why I called Lucas. By the time I figured out he actually thought I was going to …” She swallowed.

“Were you?”

“No.” Her gaze shot to his. She yanked her mother’s ring from her finger and smacked it into Douglas’s hand. “I was going to throw the damn thing as far as I could.”

His knowing gaze dropped to the ring and then found hers once more.

“I dropped it up there. He returned the ring along with my neatly folded jacket.”

Douglas closed his hand around the ring and shoved it inside his pants pocket. “Since the vandalism was perpetrated from the roof, we need to talk to this man.”

Everything inside her bucked at the thought. Beckett hadn’t done this. He wouldn’t. He’d protected her and made her feel safe. He cared for her.

“I told you about the creepy flower and card I received nearly two weeks ago,” she hedged. “I may have received another bouquet with the same message Tuesday evening.”

“A week after the attack.”

“I wasn’t attacked.” She smacked her hands onto her hips. “I received another colorful note at the spa on Friday before Bronson’s party, and another couple in the stacks of letters I’ve received since the board leak.”

“All right. I want you to hang out here for a few days until we get a handle on this.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You know I’m always serious.”

“I know you’re always joking.”

“Not this time, I’m afraid.” His head shook, offering one stern negative.

“Now that I know what’s going on, I’m not afraid.”

“Maybe you should be. Whoever is doing this is escalating. The cards and flowers were for your eyes alone. Now they’ve defamed you publicly.”

“I’m not one to hide from my problems.” She pushed to stand, but Douglas didn’t back away and give her space. They stood nose to nose.

“You’re not the kind to share them with people who can help you, either.” In all the years Douglas had worked for her family, he’d never raised his voice. His words rang in her ears.

Douglas stepped back so quickly she almost fell over. He hissed a long, slow breath. A loud clearing of the throat settled the electric aura surrounding him. “Until we have leads, I’d like you to stay here.”

“I have work to do.” Her rebuttal was more sedate than she liked, but something about this riled Douglas. That more than any ugly word, freaky flower, or bloody paint gave her pause.

“In this day and age, you can conduct business on a cell phone and Wi-Fi. You have more than that here.”

“What about my meetings?” He opened his mouth to speak, but she waved him off. “Never mind. I have a cell phone and Wi-Fi, and I don’t have to meet with the board for another month.” Not until she decided the fate of her company. And her life, for that matter. “What about the girls?”

“I’ll take them back with me.”

“So I’m just chillin’ by myself?”

“You have a gun and know how to use it. Keep it close by. If I’d intended you harm tonight, that knife wouldn’t have stopped me.”

“Libby’s gun would have.”

“But Libby won’t be here.” His gaze narrowed, driving home the point.

“Okay.”

“The house is on your list of assets, but only a few people know its location. One of whom is missing. I spoke with the detective this afternoon. There’s no way to know if the two are connected yet.”

Larkin stared at the gaping, stretched collar of her shirt. She shoved her fingers in the lower hem and twisted them around the hanging silk. Uncertainty wormed its way through her insides. “I should call her mother again.”

“You shouldn’t talk to anyone right now.”

“No one?”

“No one. Not the police. Not her family. Not the press.”

Uncertainty blew an arctic gust through the maze of holes it left behind. Gooseflesh crept over her neck, cascading down her arms and venturing to her fingertips.

Douglas grabbed her forearm and held tight, shocked her with his grip. The strength exceeded her expectation as did the connection it offered. It dug deeper than the witty banter and elbow-in-the-side relationship they’d always maintained.

Larkin felt as though she was missing something. Maybe she was as cut off from real human connection as the people closest to her said. Or maybe Douglas wasn’t telling her something.