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Thomas squinted at the clock on the mantelpiece. “About eight hours ago.”

“Eight hours?” he roared. He forced himself to calm down before saying in a more measured tone, “You should have come right away.”

“I did! I came as soon as I could. I couldn’t very well have left the women unprotected at my own home. There was no guarantee they weren’t being watched.”

Ford scrubbed the stubble on his chin, feeling irritable. “I have to go back there. There might be some clues left. The footprints…”

“I checked that,” Thomas said, straightening his shoulders. “While the women were packing their things. I circled the house once but didn’t see any suspicious footsteps. One pair leading to my location and then away, another leading out of the house. That’s it.”

Two pairs? Ford paused his pacing and frowned at Thomas. “A man’s and a woman’s?”

“I assume.” Thomas shrugged.

So, either the intruders were extremely careful or… “Where was Jamison at this point?”

Thomas grimaced. There was something he was hesitating to tell Ford.

“Answer me,” Ford said with a firm but deceptively calm tone of voice.

“He was inside the house as far as I knew.”

That wasn’t abnormal. They had a system—one was resting, eating, or sleeping on the inside, while the other was guarding the perimeter. Then they switched. This allowed the women to be guarded from both vantage points but also guaranteed that the guards were rested.

“And what was he doing?”

Thomas hesitated once more. “It was his turn to stand guard outside. But when I came inside to tell him, he was… Well, he was busy with Harmony.”

Ford’s brows rose so high, he was afraid to lose them in his hairline. Jamison had been cavorting with the harlot! That, on its own, shouldn’t have been surprising either. When working with harlots, the temptation to slake one’s lust was often present. Not for Ford—at least, not until recently—but for many men he’d worked with.

The vision of Triss with his cock between her lips appeared unbidden. He shoved the memory away.

Jamison wasn’t an exception. He was a charming man and loved to get attention from women.

Considering what had happened in this case, however, this turn of events was unfortunate at best, and suspect at worst.

If what Thomas said was true, and if his observations were correct, then it implicated Jamison. Had the harlot found the money and the documents and sweet-talked Jamison into fleeing with her? Had he been blackmailed into procuring a harlot from The House of Pain and Pleasure and seduced her before betraying her? Had he found valuable documents and decided to flee by himself, taking his new lover with him? Was this all about the money and perhaps the documents were just collateral damage?

Harmony was too naive to be the mastermind of the entire thing. Jamison, however, was cunning, experienced, and greedy enough to do this. All these qualities were what made him a great thief-taker.

Ford didn’t want to think of Jamison as a traitor. He’d known the man since they were young. He was prepared to marry off his sister to him before she fell for the most depraved criminal in the land. It would be ironic if Hades turned out to be a better, more scrupulous of the two. But he was willing to give Jamison the benefit of the doubt.

There were far more believable explanations as to why he’d disappeared along with the harlot. Perhaps the culprits were able to sneak up on Thomas but did not notice or anticipate Jamison being there as well. He could have ambushed them as they were dragging out the harlot and been forced to cooperate for her benefit at gunpoint.

Perhaps he chased after them and was injured in pursuit—or worse, killed. He didn’t want to think about that possibility either.

And the footprints? Thomas could have been mistaken or confused. The man had a huge gash in his head, after all. He was lucky to be alive. And if Ford believed that Jamison fled with the harlot of his own volition, it also stood to reason that he’d endangered Thomas’s life. And that Ford was not willing to accept.

He needed more information to draw his own conclusions.

He needed to see the ransacked house for himself. He needed to find out what sort of documents were stolen from Grace. He needed to figure out for what purpose the harlot could have been taken. Was Triss in danger, too?

He needed to find Grace. She was the only one with all the answers.

“Did Grace tell you where she was going?”

Thomas shook his head. “She said she had to find a safe place for the women when she left. When she returned to collect the women, I assumed she’d managed to do just that. That’s when I was free to come to you.”

Chapter 17