Chapter 1 — The Wrong Motorcycle

The first thing Mara Bennett noticed was that someone had moved Nico Moretti’s motorcycle.

It usually stood beside the garage, under a camera and two lights. Today it was parked in the courtyard, where the afternoon sun turned its black fuel tank into a mirror.

The second thing she noticed was the sound it made.

A groundskeeper had rolled it out minutes earlier. The engine was off now, but Mara had heard him start it from the laundry room window. Beneath the low, even rumble was a faint metallic rattle.

She shifted the stack of clean towels against her hip.

The rattle might be nothing. She had been away from motorcycles for four years. She had spent those years telling herself that listening to an engine through an open window did not count as missing one.

She walked toward the house.

After six steps, she turned back.

“Terrible idea,” she told the motorcycle.

It gave her no reason to reconsider.

Mara set the towels on a stone bench. She crossed the courtyard and stopped beside the bike, careful to keep her hands to herself. Nico Moretti owned an estate outside Chicago, a collection of businesses nobody at the house discussed, and enough armed men to make the front gate feel like a border crossing. He would have excellent reasons to object to an employee touching his motorcycle.

She crouched anyway.

There was no puddle beneath it. No loose part she could see. From here, the bike looked immaculate.

Mara stood and brushed her palms against the sides of her uniform. The pale gray fabric pulled across her hips when she bent; the estate’s supplier apparently believed every woman came in one shape. She had asked for a larger size twice before deciding she had better things to do than argue with a clothing catalog.

Her eyes returned to the motorcycle seat.

She knew better than to climb on. She also knew the bike was balanced on level ground, its engine was off, and Nico was supposed to be downtown until dinner.

“Just a minute,” she said.

Mara swung one leg over and settled onto the seat.

Her hands found the grips without a second thought.

For a moment she saw another courtyard: cracked concrete behind a narrow workshop, her father standing by an open garage door with a mug of coffee. She could almost hear him telling her to look where she wanted to go.

She looked down at her hands instead.

They were the same hands. A little rougher now from laundry chemicals and winter air, but still capable of holding a wrench.

A car door closed behind her.

Mara shut her eyes.

When she opened them, two men in dark suits were standing near the side entrance. Both were looking past her.

That was how she knew Nico had arrived.

She turned carefully. He was crossing the courtyard in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. His jacket hung over one arm. He stopped beside the bike and looked from Mara’s face to the hands resting on his handlebars.

Neither of his guards spoke.

“I can explain,” Mara said.

Nico waited.

She could not explain.

“I was checking something.”

“What?”

Mara glanced at the motorcycle, hoping it would provide a respectable answer. “Its condition.”

Nico looked over the polished tank. “From the seat?”

“The view is different up here.”

One of the guards looked at the ground.

Nico’s expression did not change, but Mara saw a trace of amusement in his eyes. That annoyed her almost as much as being caught.

“I should get back to work.” She started to dismount.

“Wait.”

It was a quiet word. Mara stopped with one foot on the ground.

Nico stepped closer, leaving her room to get off if she chose. “What were you checking?”

She could tell him about the noise. Then she would have to explain how she recognized it, and why she had been listening to his bike in the first place. She barely knew whether the sound mattered.

“I was curious,” she said.

“That’s closer to the truth.”

Mara lifted her chin. “Are you going to fire me?”

“For sitting on a motorcycle?”

“I don’t know what you consider an offense. People get nervous when you enter a room.”

“Do you?”

“Right now? A little.”

Nico looked at her hands again. “You held the grips like you expected it to move.”

“I was imagining.”

“Have you ever ridden?”

Mara paused. “Not recently.”

It was the truth, though it left out most of her life.

Nico heard the gap. She saw that much in his face. Before he could question her further, she climbed off and reached for the towels.

“Then you could use a lesson,” he said.

Mara almost dropped the stack. “From you?”

“Tomorrow. Two o’clock.”

“I have a shift.”

“I can arrange an hour with Mrs. Russo.”

That sounded dangerously like a real invitation. Mara searched his face for the joke. He seemed entirely serious now.

“You teach all your employees to ride?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why me?”

Nico glanced at the bike, then back at her. “You’re the first one I’ve found sitting on it.”

She should refuse. Instead, she heard herself say, “I’ll think about it.”

He gave a small nod and moved aside.

Mara carried the towels into the house. She did not look back until she reached the glass door.

Nico was still beside the motorcycle. One of the guards had approached him, but his attention remained on the place where she had been sitting.

Mara went upstairs and finished the guest rooms. She changed the linen, counted the fresh towels, and found every excuse to stay busy until her shift ended.

All the while, she kept hearing that faint rattle.

At six, she returned to the laundry room and found Mrs. Russo checking the next day’s schedule.

“Mr. Moretti asked me to free up an hour for you tomorrow,” the older woman said without looking up.

“So it seems.”

Mrs. Russo marked the page. “Should I ask why?”

“He thinks I need help with a motorcycle.”

Mrs. Russo raised her eyes. Mara braced herself for a lecture.

Instead, the housekeeper said, “Do you?”

“Apparently.”

Mrs. Russo studied her for another second, then closed the schedule. “Be back before the evening linens.”

Outside, a motorcycle engine started.

Mara went to the window before she could stop herself.

Nico rode across the courtyard toward the gates. At the turn, he leaned into the curve and accelerated. The sound rose, and there it was again: one brief metallic note beneath the engine’s deeper voice.

It disappeared as he reached the road.

Mara stayed at the window long after the gates closed.

She had no proof that anything was wrong. But if Nico meant to put her near that bike tomorrow, she intended to listen more closely.