Chapter 1 - The Gates of Falcone House
The staffing agency office smelled of cold rain and expensive furniture polish. Across the mahogany desk, the placement director slid an employment contract toward Maeve Carter with a grimace that suggested she was handing over a death warrant.
“Before you sign, you should know the record is forty-eight hours,” the director said, her finger tapping the crisp white paper.
Maeve looked down at the number typed near the bottom of the page.
Forty-two dollars an hour.
Then she instinctively reached into her coat pocket, her fingers brushing against the rough, folded edge of the eviction notice that had arrived that very morning.
“I only need to last until payday,” Maeve said, her voice steady despite the absolute exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes.
The woman did not smile. She simply stared at Maeve as if calculating how long it would take for the reality of the situation to break her.
“No,” the woman said quietly. “You need to understand me. Forty-eight hours is the longest anyone has lasted inside Falcone House. One nanny left at three in the morning without her shoes, crying on the highway. A housekeeper abandoned a suitcase worth two thousand dollars rather than go back inside to get it. The private chef climbed over the ten-foot garden wall in the middle of a blizzard rather than walk through the front hall.”
Maeve reached across the desk, picked up a sleek silver pen, and flicked the cap off.
“What did the last maid do before she left?”
“She cried in the pantry.”
“That seems highly inefficient,” Maeve muttered. “Crying doesn't pay the electricity bill.”
The staffing woman stared at her for a long, heavy beat before letting out a sharp breath. “Sign it, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Maeve signed her name in bold, sharp letters.
At twenty-four years old, her life had been reduced to a fragile arithmetic equation. She had exactly twelve dollars in her checking account, a landlord who had stopped accepting verbal apologies, and a younger sister named Chloe whose monthly medical bills for juvenile diabetes arrived with the terrifying reliability of the sunrise. Fear was a luxury good. Maeve had sold hers off months ago.
The local bus dropped her off two miles from the Falcone estate on a bitter, freezing November morning. A relentless New England rain had been falling since dawn, turning the coastal roads into rivers of gray slush. By the time Maeve reached the towering iron gates overlooking the churning, slate-colored Rhode Island coastline, icy water had completely soaked through the cardboard she had painstakingly stuffed inside the soles of her worn-out boots.
Falcone House rose above the jagged cliffs like a fortress built to survive an apocalyptic siege.
Gray stone masonry.
Narrow, black-tinted windows.
Massive steel security gates.
There were no flower beds, no manicured welcome gardens, and no porch chairs. Nothing about the exterior suggested that anyone living inside ever expected to be loved or to love in return.
Mrs. Evelyn Hess, the estate’s formidable house manager, met Maeve at a heavy side entrance. Hess wore a charcoal wool skirt suit and carried the distinct, frantic energy of a woman who felt she was escaping a burning building.
“You’re late,” Hess snapped, checking a diamond-encrusted watch.
“The bus doesn’t come this far down the coast,” Maeve replied smoothly, stepping inside and shaking the rain from her damp shoulders.
“Not my concern.” Mrs. Hess dropped a heavy ring of brass and electronic keys onto a stainless-steel counter with a loud, metallic clatter. “The entire third-floor staff quit yesterday afternoon. The valet left this morning before sunrise. The chef hasn’t answered his phone in three days. Until replacements can be vetted and dragged out here, you will handle the common rooms, the massive laundry load, and the private bedrooms.”
Maeve slowly removed her soaked wool coat, folding it neatly over her arm. “And the triplets?”
Mrs. Hess finally stopped pacing and looked directly at Maeve.
There it was. Deep in the woman's eyes.
Fear.
“If a door is closed upstairs, do not open it under any circumstances,” Hess instructed, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “If you hear shouting or glass breaking, walk the exact opposite direction. If something valuable breaks, give it ten minutes before you go in with a broom so the dust can settle.”
“You make them sound like wild zoo animals,” Maeve observed, tilting her head.
“Wild animals can usually be trained with a piece of meat,” Hess replied grimly, snapping her leather briefcase shut with a sharp click. “These three are entirely different.”
Hess headed quickly toward the exit, but paused with her hand on the brass doorknob.
“One more crucial thing, girl. Don’t try to fix them. They aren't broken toys; they are predators.”
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“I’m just here to clean houses, Mrs. Hess.”
“Good,” the older woman muttered, stepping out into the rain. “Then clean.”
