Bang. Bang. Bang.

Tierney Haven opened her eyes slowly, rolling to her side to look at the digital clock on her bedside table, but it was as dark as the rest of her room. Reaching over, she tapped the clock with her fingers, but nothing happened.

Lightning split the sky in jagged white streaks, brightening her room as thunder cracked and rumbled outside.

Power must have gone out.

“Anyone home? Wake up!”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It took her a moment to realize the banging that woke her wasn’t thunder; it was coming from downstairs. Someone was knocking on her front door, yelling for her to wake up.

“Ian?” she mumbled, rubbing her bleary eyes and sitting up in bed as a fist slammed into the downstairs door again.

“Open up!” yelled the voice, growly with impatience and unmistakably male.

“Damnú,” she sighed in her mother’s native Irish, swinging her legs over the side of the bed as more lightning lit her room with a brief phosphorescent strike. She plucked her glasses from the bedside table and put them on. The last time someone had pounded on Tierney Haven’s door at two o’clock in the morning, it was her brother Ian on a bender. He’d shown up out of the blue, after several months of living on the streets of Boston, and scared her to death.

“Why, Ian?” she muttered as a dark heaviness filled her heart. “You were doing so well!”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She slipped her feet into waiting slippers and padded from the side of her bed to her bedroom door, making her way down the dark upstairs hallway to the stairs.

“I’m coming, Ian, you diabhal!” she said, reaching for the railing.

Four and a half months of sobriety down the drain, she thought, blinking back tears with every step she took. Four and a half months of Tierney and their brother, Rory, shepherding Ian to AA meetings and supporting his recovery. Four and a half months of hoping—every day—that Ian was closer to lifelong recovery. Four and a half months that made a person believe that four and a half months could turn into forever.

She swiped at her useless tears and lifted her chin as she reached the tiny landing, turned, then continued downward. Crying wouldn’t help Ian. She needed to be strong now.

He’d likely rage around her cottage for a while, drinking whatever he had with him, before breaking down in tears and finally passing out. At that point, Tierney would need to pour any remaining alcohol down the sink and hide his keys and phone. The vomiting would begin when he woke up and last for a day or two. She’d eventually need to call Rory to come and help. But not yet. She could handle things until morning, and then maybe Rory could come over for a few hours before his camp day began.

Maybe she could get one of the docent interns to lead tours of the museum today. She hoped so, because Rory would have to get back to Summerhaven by breakfast, which meant Tierney would be back on “Ian duty” until tonight when Rory could come back and relieve her for a few hours.

“What a fucking mess,” she muttered, stepping into her tiny living room, the hulking body of her drunk brother silhouetted by another slash of lightning in the stained-glass window on her front door. “Cic maith sa tóin atá de dlíth air.”

You need a good kick up the arse.

“Damnú air! Oscail an doras!” he yelled back. Damn it! Open the door!

Oh, great. His bloody Irish was top-notch tonight…which meant he was beyond shit-faced, because his Irish was always best when he was on a bender. She took a deep breath, then unlocked and unbolted the door, turning the knob and pulling open the heavy Spanish-style antique door so that Ian could fall inside.

With no outdoor light overhead, she could barely see the man in front of her, but when another bolt of lightning rent the sky, the first thing she noticed was that he had no hair. He had a buzz cut. And the second thing she noticed was that his unbuttoned shirt flapped open in the wind to reveal a chest covered in tattoos, including one that ran from shoulder to shoulder and read, “Destroyer.”

Ian has long hair, her horrified psyche whispered, and no tattoos.

“Need a phone. Lemme in.”

A hand landed on her upper chest, pushing her back with such force that she was knocked off her feet and flew backward about five feet before landing on her ass. The stranger stepped into her living room and kicked the door shut behind him, turning briefly to bolt the door before facing her.

Multiple strikes of lightning through her windows lit up the man standing against the door. Tall and thickly muscled, he had no hair, a torso covered in ink, the butt of a gun peeking out from the waistband of his soaked jeans, and bare, dirty feet.

“Where are you?” he demanded, whipping his head right, then left.

Pitch darkness settled upon the room again, the wind howling outside and the rain beating on the terra-cotta roof of the old caretaker’s cottage.

Tierney, still sitting on the floor where she’d fallen, frozen with fear, remained silent.

“Where…the fuck…are you?” he yelled breathlessly into the black room.

Did he realize that she’d fallen when he pushed her? She drew her legs to her chest, making herself as small as possible.

“I know…you’re here!” he bellowed, his voice breathless and his speech stilted. “You opened…the fucking door!”

Scooting back as quietly as she could, Tierney’s back touched her bookcase, and she slid slightly to the left, into the corner created by the bookcase and stairs. Meanwhile, she heard the stranger, who must have pulled his gun from his waistband, cock the hammer back.

“Aiteann.”

He growled the word, his voice low and furious. Tierney sucked in a breath, shivering. Aiteann was the most vulgar of all Irish curse words, and although she’d heard it once or twice before during summer trips to Ireland with her family, it had never been directed at her.

Thunder blasted outside again, and Tierney wrapped her arms around her legs and bent her head, curling into a ball and staying as still as possible. Maybe he wouldn’t see her when the next bolt of lightning followed, lighting up the room.

As she huddled in the corner, waiting for the inevitable flash of light, a million terrible scenarios flooded her mind. Murder. Rape. Assault. Kidnapping. But what made her heart clench with desperation was the thought of never seeing her brothers again, of never hearing her father’s voice or smelling her mother’s perfume, Inis, ever again. Had she been a good enough sister? A faithful and loving daughter? Did they all know how much she loved them?

The lightning cracked, tearing open the sky and illuminating her cottage.

“There you are!”

A hand landed on her head, the fingers tangling in her hair and yanking hard. She cried out in pain, her knees scraping on the brick floor as he dragged her into the middle of the room, shoving her against the side of the couch before releasing her.

“Don’t you dare…scream.”

Scream? What was the point? She lived alone on thousands of acres of state land with no neighbors for miles. Even if she did scream, no one would hear. Her heart thundered in her ears, and her eyes burned with tears, but she bit the insides of her cheeks, refusing to cry, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a single sob.

Though it was dark as coal all around her, she could tell that he was squatting down in front of her. She could hear him breathing, shallow and loud, the whistle of a wheeze as he exhaled.

“Where’s…the phone?” he demanded.

Her breath caught in her throat, making it impossible to answer.

“Where…is it?” he yelled at close range.

Speak, Tierney, speak!

“It’s…I mean, um…”

“Where is the…the fucking phone?” he growled, his warm spittle landing on her cheeks.

She only had one phone, and it was charging upstairs on her bureau. She’d never had the little cottage wired for a landline.

“I don’t have a…I mean—” She stopped speaking when she felt cold, hard metal slide against her temple.

“Stop…stalling! Give me…the goddamned phone!” he said, the words faster and angrier as they flew from his lips.

“Éist liom!” she begged in Irish, the muzzle of the gun still flush with her face. Listen to me!

Whether she saw a shadow of movement or just felt it, she wasn’t certain, but there was a thread of surprise in his voice when he answered her in Irish:

“Labhair.” Speak.

“My—my phone is u-upstairs. On m-my bureau.”

He lowered the gun. “Stand up. We’ll go…get it.”

Gulping softly, Tierney braced her hand on the couch and stood up. He reached out in the darkness, grazing her breast through her nightgown before sliding his hand to her arm. Gripping it tightly, he said, “Lead the…way.”

After living in the same place for five years, Tierney could walk about her cottage blindfolded, so it was easy for her to find the stairs and start climbing. But was it a mistake to lead him to her bedroom? Should she be fighting him off down here? What could she do? What can I do? Could she push him down the stairs? Sure, but maybe his gun would go off. No, don’t push him. Fight later, when you don’t have a gun at your back.

As they rounded the landing, she suddenly remembered an article she’d read about kidnapping victims. It advised if you were ever in a hostage situation, you should try to humanize yourself to your captor. It made them more likely to spare your life.

“You’re…” She paused, trying to calm her erratic breathing and figure out a way to connect with him. “You’re Irish.”

“Shut up,” he grunted, and for the first time, Tierney heard something else in his voice. It wasn’t a feeling or an emotion. It was…pain. Raw pain. Real pain. Physical pain. He was in pain. That’s probably why his speech was so breathless and stilted.

“An bhfuil tú ceart go leor?” she asked, trying to keep her voice gentle. Are you okay?

“I told you…to shut…the fuck up. K-Keep walking,” he panted, shoving her forward as they reached the top of the stairs.

In the close space, she lurched forward and hit her forehead on the closed bathroom door in front of her. She gasped with pain. “Ow!”

“F-Fuck,” he growled. “I didn’t—sorry.” Then, “Which w-way?”

Did he just apologize to me?

The question flashed through her brain, then disappeared just as quickly.

“Left or…r-right?”

“Left.”

He yanked her arm to the left, walking down the short hallway to the open door of her bedroom.

“Where’s…” His breathing was growing shallower by the minute, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the grip on her arm was weakening. “…the bureau?”

“Just there,” she said.

His fingers on her arm were starting to shake. “W-Where?”

“Umm…” If she continued to stall, would she eventually be able to overpower him? To run away from him? “Over there. To your right.”

He tried to pull her right, but his fingers slipped from her arm just as another bolt of lightning lit up the room. Tierney turned to face him, staring into his glassy, ice-blue eyes. Her gaze slid up to his forehead, which was covered with beads of sweat.

Fever, she thought. A bad one.

Without thinking, she reached up with her free hand and laid it on his forehead, wincing at the scorching heat there. “You’re burning up.”

“Stop…arsing around,” he said, jerking away, his breathing shivery and uneven. “Get the…f-fucking ph-phone.”

He staggered forward, pushing her against the bedside table to the right of the bed, which crashed to the ground.

“Please, Mr.…”

“Brrr.” He shivered, his body swaying before he fell backward onto her bed with a groan.

She slid away from him, keeping her back to the wall as she inched to the corner of the room, reaching for the phone on the edge of the bureau. She pulled it from the wall, cord and all, running her finger over the home button on the bottom and glancing at it as it came to life. 4:32 a.m. A light-blue glow filled the room.

“I’m calling the police.”

“No!” he screamed. “Na dean sin!” Don’t do that!

Something in his tone—desperation, terror, maybe both—made her pause and look up. He wasn’t exactly sitting up, but he was trying to.

“Why not?” she asked.

“P-Please. Don’t.”

“But…but you need an ambulance.”

“Uihm g-gardai,” he groaned, his eyes at half-mast, his neck barely able to hold up his head. No police.

That’s when Tierney saw the gun.

Still held in his shaking hand, he raised it, pointing it at her. “Curr sin sios.” Put it down.

“Okay. It’s okay. No phone. No police,” she said, holding up her hands and leaning back against the bureau. “Could you put the gun down?”

“No,” he panted, shaking his head.

Tierney lowered her arms, glancing at the home screen on her phone and trying to remember the trick for calling 911 without dialing. But that’s when she noticed something dire: she had no signal.

Her phone, which usually had at least two bars, had none.

She glanced out the window and realized that the house on the hill was just as dark as her cottage. Lightning must have hit the cell phone tower hidden in the barn by the main house. It had happened more than once before.

Shit. Fuck.

No. Don’t panic.

Think, Tierney. Think.

She glanced at the bed, where the stranger still held a shaking gun trained on her, though she could see he was fighting to keep his eyes open. He was in bad shape and worsening by the moment.

“I won’t call the police. I promise. Listen,” she said gently, taking a step toward him, “you’re obviously in trouble, but I don’t want to hurt you…and I don’t think you want to hurt me. Put the gun down and you can have my phone, okay?”

“Give it,” he said, holding out his other hand, which shook as badly as the first.

“There’s no signal,” she said, scrunching her shoulders up around her ears as she handed it to him and he grabbed it.

“Fuck!” Clutching the phone in one hand and the gun in the other, he lay back on the bed, muttering, “I c-can’t…d-die here.”

With the phone resting on his bare chest, the blue glow illuminating his skin, Tierney noticed something else, something unusual and unexpected: a medal of St. Michael lying on top of his tattoo.

“Saint Michael,” she murmured. The warrior angel. The patron saint of policemen.

“Sceilig Mhichíl,” he breathed, drawing out the Irish pronunciation with a hiss. “If he c-could…k-kill the d-devil, why…c-can’t…I?”

“Mr.…”

“Burrrrrr,” he murmured, and this time Tierney realized that he wasn’t cold; he was telling her his name.

“Mr. Burr—”

“J-Just…Burrrrrr,” he said, his eyes closed, his hands on his chest, still tightly clenched around his gun and her phone.

The adrenaline that had been pumping through her body had exhausted her, and as she realized that he was almost completely incapacitated, she relaxed a little, slumping against her bureau.

With two brothers her age, Tierney Haven had more than a little bit of experience reading men, but this one was throwing her for a loop. A St. Michael medal sitting on top of a tattoo that read, “Destroyer.” Contradictions abounded.

Although he’d forced his way into her home, and his language and manner were rough, she didn’t believe he’d come here to hurt her. In fact, since the moment he’d arrived, he’d been dogged in one pursuit: to use her phone.

Yes, he’d grabbed her hair to get her out of the corner of her living room, but he hadn’t added a gratuitous slap or kick. Even when he’d touched her breast in an attempt to find her arm in the darkness, he hadn’t lingered on it, hadn’t copped an extra feel. And when he’d pushed her at the top of the stairs and she’d bumped her head, he’d apologized to her.

He’s not here to hurt me, she quietly decided, relaxing a little more. But who was he? Where was he from? How did he get here? And why?

His feet were still on the floor, though the rest of his body was lying across her bed. She stepped to the edge of the bed, leaning over him just a little.

“Burr?”

He groaned softly, his eyes fluttering open. “D-Don’t…g-go.”

She gulped. His voice sounded so much like Ian’s, she could almost close her eyes and believe he was her brother.

“Me?”

“You. D-Don’t…want…to…d-die…alonnnnnne,” he murmured, the last word drawn out like the word amen after the Our Father.

It did something to her heart, that terrible and simple request, and she cocked her head to the side, watching as he remained motionless on her bed.

After several minutes, she whispered his name again.

“Burr?”

He murmured in his sleep, groaning softly, but didn’t open his eyes.

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as the screen on her phone went dark. The rain was finally letting up a little, and a faint lavender glow—a mix of moonlight and dawn—filtered into the room.

What do I do? What do I do now?

She backed away from the bed, looking out the window, and that’s when she noticed his car. A little way down the road, outside the gate, the headlights and interior lights were on because the driver’s-side door had been left open.

I should move his car, she thought, taking a concerned look at him before slipping quietly from the room.

She headed downstairs, grabbing an umbrella from the antique bucket beside the front door, and headed out into the rain, grateful that the storm had subsided. It only took a few minutes to reach the gate and punch in the entry code. Luckily the gates opened inward, because his car would have been in the way had they opened out.

It wasn’t a fancy car—a blue Honda Accord, your run-of-the-mill city vehicle. Where was he from? Concord? No. Even in Concord, you’d need four-wheel drive to get around from October to March. Hmm. Maybe Boston? Boston was the biggest big city within a couple hours’ drive.

Peeking into the car, the first thing she noticed was a blackish stain on the driver’s seat where his shoulder would have rested. Oil? She leaned closer, pressing her finger against the moisture and drawing it away. It was dark red on the pads of her fingers. Blood? She didn’t remember seeing blood on his chest or arm, but there’d barely been enough light to get a good look at him, and frankly, an injury would explain his slurred speech and obvious fever.

She slid into the car, leaning forward so she wouldn’t touch the upholstery with her white nightgown. Too far back for her to reach the pedals, she adjusted the seat forward, then pulled the door closed, driving through the gate and up the road a little ways to her cottage. Pulling the car into her driveway, she shifted it into park and turned on the interior lights. A pink bubblegum air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, and an empty orange juice bottle sat in the center console. There was an open pack of wet wipes on the passenger seat, with several stained wipes littering the floor.

She opened the glove compartment, searching for clues about who he was, and found a sippy cup, two sparkly hairbands, ketchup packets, tissues, and the car’s registration. The car was owned by someone named Suzanne Riley, whose address was in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a neighborhood located just south of Boston proper. Turning to look in the back seat, she found a balled-up leather jacket, a booster seat that had half a cup of Cheerios in the built-in cupholder, and a stuffed bunny slumped over beside it.

Who was this Suzanne? Someone’s mother, obviously. But who was she to Burr? Wife? Girlfriend? Or was the car stolen? Maybe he had no connection to Suzanne at all. Had he hurt the mother and child taking their car? Whose blood was on the driver’s seat upholstery? She let the question sit for a moment, waiting for a feeling of dread to overwhelm her, but it didn’t. She didn’t know Burr at all, but something—intuition, surely—told her that he wasn’t a murderer. If he was, she’d already be dead.

With far more questions than answers, she closed the glove compartment and withdrew the keys from the ignition. About to go back inside, her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, landing on the trunk. Hmmm. Scooting from the driver’s seat and rounding the car, she unlocked the trunk and looked inside. She found a half-opened black nylon duffel bag, which she hoisted onto her shoulder, and a brown Stop & Shop bag. Opening the paper sack, she looked inside to find neat stacks of money filling the lower fourth of the bag.

It had to be thousands of dollars.

Why would he be driving around with that? What was he into? Drugs? Weapons? Her mind flitted back to the tattoo on his chest. Was he a gang member? From Boston? If so, how in the world did he end up outside her door tonight?

Shoving the paper bag back into the corner of the trunk, she slammed it shut and headed back into her cottage, closing the front door behind her. Motionless in the dark living room, she listened for a sound from upstairs but heard nothing. With his duffel bag still on her shoulder, Tierney made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a flashlight, matches, and two candles from under the kitchen sink.

She placed the candles on the kitchen table and lit them, then sat down with his bag before her. Curious to know what it contained, she gulped before unzipping it the rest of the way, then flicked on her flashlight, leaning forward to look inside.

On top she found a white T-shirt that was clean except for some bloody fingerprints, a pair of jeans, socks, boxer shorts, and some beat-up sneakers. Underneath the clothes, she found a pistol, a box of ammunition, a knife, a small pair of binoculars, a first-aid kit, two Kind bars, a small bottle of orange juice, and a pair of handcuffs.

Hmm.

The money in the trunk looked shady, yes, but the contents of the bag, coupled with the St. Michael’s medal he was wearing, felt more like a cop’s, not a gang member’s.

But why would a Boston cop bang on her door in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, at four thirty in the morning? And why did he have thousands of dollars in his trunk and look like a gangbanger, with his shaved head and tattoos?

“Suze! Suzy!”

The anguished cry came from her bedroom.

Tierney zipped his bag shut, stood up, and turned to the stairs, knowing she had an important decision to make…

Either she could walk back out her front door, get in her car, and drive to the Moultonborough Police Station, or she could go upstairs and check on her unexpected guest.

What surprised Tierney the most was that her choice was already made, even before she’d laid it out for herself.

Maybe it was the fact that tonight had been scary, yes, but also exciting, while life for Tierney, in general, had become fairly routine.

Or maybe it was that she sensed he was in trouble and she wanted to help. Tierney had two brothers she loved more than anything—one of whom had been in trouble many times—and maybe once or twice, someone else’s sister had looked after Ian. Maybe this man, Burr, had a sister who loved him as much as Tierney loved Ian. Looked at in a cosmic context, this was her opportunity to pay back that kindness.

Or maybe it was as simple as her own damned curiosity. Was he a destroyer or protector? A villain or hero? Tierney loved reading mysteries more than anything, poring over the ones on her Kindle night after night from the safety of her bed. But here was a real, live mystery on her doorstep. If she turned him in to the police, she might never find out where he came from and how he ended up finding his way to her.

He still has a gun, she reminded herself.

But if he was going to use it, she reasoned, he already would have.

Clutching the flashlight to her chest, she turned away from the door and started back up the stairs.