The Bodyguard

by LENA DIAZ,

  “I’m not buying any of this,” Luke said.

  “I am.” Carol’s soft voice called out beside him. “Grant has always been impulsive, and he’s not much better than me at making the most well-thought-out, reasoned choices.” She smiled sadly. “I also know you loved Richard deeply, even though you were both at odds with each other so much. You must have been overcome with grief thinking I had something to do with his death.”

  “You’re being far kinder than I deserve,” Grant said.

  “I agree.” Luke kept his gun trained on the other man.

  “To be honest,” Carol said, “I was half convinced you might have been the one who’d killed him.”

  “Me?” Grant’s face reddened again. “Why would you think that? I loved Richard.”

  “I know, but you two argued so much.”

  He twisted his hands together. “We argued about money, a cardinal sin in his opinion. Money meant everything to him.” His mouth tightened. “Even more than family.”

  Luke had had enough of Grant’s whining and Carolʼs feeling sorry for him. The man had held a knife to Carol, twice. Even now there was a small smear of blood on her throat where his knife had pricked her. And his stunt on the balcony could have killed her if she’d let go before Luke could pull her back up. Grant didn’t deserve her sympathy. He deserved a fist in the face, just for starters. “You said something about a will earlier. What were you talking about?”

  The look Grant gave Carol wasn’t anywhere near as sympathetic as it had been earlier. If anything, he looked bitter, angry, as if he’d hold that knife to her neck again if he got another chance.

  Luke motioned with his gun, catching Grant’s attention. “Don’t look at her. Look at me, and answer my question.”

  “Why don’t you ask her? She may have killed Richard, she may not have. I don’t know. And I don’t care anymore after watching that, that...” He waved at the broken TV. “But it’s not fair that she switched Richard’s will. It doesn’t matter how mad he was at me, he wouldn’t have left me only five million dollars. And he didn’t have any reason to be mad at Daniel and only leave him five million, too. I want to know where the real will is. The one that was filed with the court is fake.”

  Carol shook her head. “I don’t know anything about a new will. All I know is that Richard drew one up shortly after we got married and I assume that’s the one that was filed with the court.”

  “Why do you care about the will?” Luke asked. “You and your brother are both millionaires.”

  “Daniel’s a millionaire, but not me. My money’s all tied up in my company. In case you hadn’t noticed, the economy has been rough for the past few years. I’m close to bankruptcy. And my daughter is ready to start college. Five million dollars is a Band-Aid. We’re going to lose everything.”

  Sirens sounded outside the window, getting closer.

  Grant’s fingers tightened on the arm of his chair.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Luke warned.

  Grant cursed and sat back.

  Carol had grown quiet. Once again she’d been put through more than anyone should have to bear. All Luke wanted to do was hold her and assure her that everything would be okay. But it would be a lie. Because he wasn’t at all sure that it would be. Someone had murdered Richard Ashton. And someone had killed Mitch. Was that person Grant? Yes, probably. But if there was even a remote possibility that Grant was innocent, then the culprit was still out there, and Carol’s life was still in danger.

  The sirens stopped in front of the house, their lights flashing through the windows behind the ruined TV.

  “I’ll let them in.” Carol crossed the room. She stopped at the doorway and glanced down at the video card in her hand. She looked around, as if searching for something, and then held her hands up. It looked as if she was trying to bend the card in two, but she wasn’t strong enough.

  A rapid knock sounded on the front door. “Police. We had a 911 call from this address. Open up.”

  “Give me the card,” Luke urged. “I’ll destroy it for you.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. He didn’t want to look at the video, and certainly didn’t want anyone else to, but what if it contained evidence that would prove the identity of the killer?

  Carol hurried to him but hesitated as she started to hand him the card. “Promise me you won’t look at it and that you’ll destroy it the first chance you get.”

  Guilt squeezed his throat, making it tight. He didn’t want to give her his word when he wasn’t sure yet what he was going to do. He didn’t make promises lightly. And she didn’t deserve to be lied to.

  She frowned. “Luke?”

  He cleared his throat, self-loathing nearly choking him. “Promise.”

  The look of relief that crossed her face had him silently cursing himself.

  She handed him the card.

  He shoved it into his pants pocket as she rushed out of the room to let the police inside.

  Chapter Ten

  It took over an hour to sort out things at the house and for an EMT to stitch the wound on the side of Luke’s head. He refused to go to the hospital, saying he was fine and that he wanted to keep guarding Carol until the police determined whether or not Grant was the killer.

  When Luke and the police escort ushered Carol into the police station back in Savannah, the dull hum of noise quickly faded to an almost eerie silence. And when Carol saw one of the local gossip papers sitting on a table in the lobby area and saw her picture on the front page, she knew why. The caption underneath read Did Wealthy, Abused Socialite Finally Get Her Revenge?

  Luke’s hand at her back tensed. He’d noticed the paper, too. Their eyes met and he shook his head, as if trying to tell her not to worry about it. She smiled, both to reassure him and to give the impression to anyone watching that she didn’t care what others thought of her.

  “In here.” The police officer pushed a glass door open and waved them into an office. “Can I get you anything to eat or drink while you wait for Detective Cornell?”

  Since the officer was looking at Carol, she shook her head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “How long do you think Cornell will be?” Luke asked. He sat beside Carol in front of Cornell’s desk.

  “Depends on how the interview goes. As long as Ashton is talking, Cornell won’t leave the room. You sure you want to wait?”

  “Yes,” they both said at the same time.

  The officer left, closing the door behind him.

  “Actually,” Carol said, rising from her chair, “I wouldn’t mind a moment in the ladiesʼ room to freshen up.”

  Luke stood, too, and stepped to the door.

  She put a hand on his arm. “I can handle this without you. We passed the ladiesʼ room two doors down. And the place is crawling with police officers. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  He didn’t want to let her leave without him, but she insisted.

  “All right. But if you’re gone more than a few minutes, I’m sending a policewoman in there after you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She smiled again and headed out.

  Luke stood in the hallway outside Cornell’s office watching her. She gave him a small wave and went into the ladiesʼ room.

  Once inside, she quickly saw to her needs. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her purse to take care of the real reason she’d wanted a moment of privacy. Since meeting Luke she’d been as honest as possible with him, except for keeping the details of her relationship with her husband as private as she could. But this one time she knew she couldn’t make this call in front of him because he would have argued and tried to stop her.

  The phone r
ang twice, then a man’s deep voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Hello, it’s me, Carol Ashton.”

  “Is everything okay? Luke called me earlier and told me what happened at the house in the country.”

  “Yes, yes, we’re both fine. Actually, we’re at the police station. Cornell took Grant Ashton to an interview room and he’s talking to him right now.”

  “Good. I hope Ashton tells Cornell everything.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s why I called. I don’t want Grant telling Cornell anything. I need your help.”

  * * *

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, Cornell stepped into his office and greeted Carol and Luke before sitting behind his desk. “Looks like we’ve got our man.”

  “He confessed?” Luke asked.

  “Sort of. He admits he’s the one who broke into the Ashton mansion here in town the other night and left Mrs. Ashton dangling off the balcony.”

  Carol shuddered at the memory and gripped her hands together in her lap.

  “He also said he moved the GPS tracking device from Mrs. Ashton’s car to your Thunderbird because he figured if Mrs. Ashton went anywhere she’d be with you.”

  “How did he know where the tracker was in the first place?” Luke asked.

  “I get the impression he and his brother Richard used to be quite close. He knew a lot of his secrets.” Cornell glanced at Carol and his face turned a light shade of red. “Apparently not all of them, though. He insisted quite emphatically that he didn’t know what your husband...did to you, or he would have tried to help you.”

  “I believe him,” she said. “I didn’t realize back then that he would have helped, or I might have told him. But after seeing how upset he was earlier, I do believe he would have tried to stop my husband.”

  Cornell folded his arms on his desk. “He mentioned a video, and that Luke shot the TV at the country house to stop the video. But no one found a DVD or video card. Do either of you know what happened to it?”

  “What else did he tell you?” Luke asked, avoiding the question.

  Carol shot him a grateful look.

  Cornell studied both of them, obviously debating whether to press the issue of the missing video. Finally, he said, “Grant gave us details about how he tracked you to the house in the country. He insists he only did so because he was convinced Mrs. Ashton had arranged for Richard to be killed and he wanted a chance to confront her about it. He swore he never meant to hurt either of you.”

  Luke pointed to the side of his head where he had a brand-new row of stitches. “I’d like to offer evidence to the contrary.”

  “Noted, I assure you. The gist of what he said was that he wanted to confront Carol both about the murder and about his brother’s will. He’s convinced there’s another will somewhere and that Mrs. Ashton knows where it is.”

  “Did Grant say anything about killing Mitch?” Luke asked.

  “He insists he had nothing to do with that, or his brother’s death. His financial difficulties are a strong motive for him killing his brother. He assumed Richard would bequeath him a substantial part of his fortune, and he was bitterly surprised when that didn’t happen. As for Mitch, we haven’t come up with a motive yet but the evidence supports the possibility that Grant killed him.”

  Carol straightened in her chair. “What evidence?”

  “One of the people at the cemetery remembered seeing Grant and Mitch arguing before the service started. Grant was apparently upset about Mitch taking pictures. I don’t know whether there was more to it than that, or whether that would be enough to make Grant turn violent. But from what we’re gleaning from other interviews with Grant’s friends and known associates, he has a temper and tends to act without thinking first. Plus, he’s known to carry a pocketknife. The coroner said a small knife, like a pocketknife, was used to kill Mr. Brody.”

  Luke winced.

  Carol offered him a sympathetic smile before turning back to Cornell. “I thought you said Grant might be Richard’s killer. It doesn’t sound to me like you have any evidence of that.”

  Cornell smiled and put his hands behind his head. “That’s because I saved the best part for last. You told me at the country house that Grant and Richard argued quite a bit. I was able to subpoena Grant’s credit-card records and already got a hit that puts a whole new light on things.”

  He sat forward, resting his arms on his desk. “The morning of Richard Ashton’s murder, Grant Ashton filled up at a gas station...two miles from the cottage where Ashton was murdered. Lucky for us, that station is brand-new, with state-of-the-art electronic video surveillance. They keep their recordings on a hard drive, which means they can store them for months without running out of space and writing over them again like some of the cheaper equipment does. I’ve got someone on the way there right now to review the recordings from the morning of the murder. I think we all know who we’re going to see on that video.”

  He pushed himself up from his chair and straightened his jacket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I think I’ve let my subject stew long enough. I’m about to go get that confession.”

  A knock sounded on the door.

  “Come in,” Cornell called out.

  A police officer opened the door and stood back. Alex Buchanan walked in wearing a suit and holding a briefcase.

  Luke and Carol stood.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to the station,” Luke said. “Did your investigator find something out about the case?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  He glanced at Carol before crossing to Cornell. “I’ve been notified that you have a client of mine in custody and that you’re interviewing him without his lawyer present. I’m here to stop the interview and confer with my client.”

  A look of confusion crossed Cornell’s face. “But the only person I’m interviewing right now is Grant Ashton.”

  “He’s my client.”

  “He hasn’t asked for a lawyer,” Cornell insisted.

  “A family member hired me to represent him.”

  Cornell crossed his arms across his chest. “Oh? Who? His brother, Daniel?”

  “That information is confidential.”

  Cornell argued with Alex about having the right to know who was trying to make things so difficult for him.

  Luke wasn’t paying attention to either of them. Instead, he was intently watching her.

  She cleared her throat. “Gentlemen.” When Cornell continued to shout, she cleared her throat louder. “Detective, Alex, please. I think I can clear up this...misunderstanding.”

  Cornell gave her an aggravated look. “Oh? And how can you do that?”

  “I’m the family member who hired Alex.”

  * * *

  CORNELL’S PREVIOUSLY COOPERATIVE attitude ended the moment Carol told him she’d asked Alex to represent her brother-in-law. He ushered her and Luke out of his office and ordered them to wait down the hall in a conference room while he and Alex went to see Grant.

  Once inside, Luke shut the door and pulled a chair out for Carol. He crossed to the other side of the table, but rather than sit, he flattened his palms on the table and leaned down toward her.

  “What was that all about?” he growled.

  She calmly picked up her purse and stood. She was all the way to the door before he realized she was actually leaving. He rushed around the table and
caught up to her in the hallway.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Leaving.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, got that. Why are you leaving?”

  Her knuckles whitened from where she gripped her purse so tightly. “I spent nearly five years cowering from a man who used his size and strength to intimidate and hurt me. Those days are over.”

  She tried to move past him.

  He reached out toward her.

  She flinched and backed up.

  Luke froze, his hand in midair. The anger drained out of him as understanding dawned. “Carol, I was just going to fix your purse strap. It’s about to fall off your shoulder.”

  Her face flushed and she grabbed the strap just as the purse started to fall.

  Luke took a step back to give her some more space. “I thought you knew I would never hurt you.”

  Her blue eyes rose to his and he was shocked at the anger that flashed in them. “Yes, I do know that. Because I won’t let you, or any man, hurt me. Ever. Again.”

  He scrubbed his jaw with his hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say. Was I using my size back there to intimidate you? Yeah, I guess I was. My size is an asset in my line of work. I use it to my advantage automatically, without even thinking about it. But I never should have done that with you. It won’t happen again.”

  She glanced uncertainly past him.

  He held his hand out toward the door. “We need to talk. Please.”

  The seconds ticked by like minutes and Luke was worried he’d screwed up beyond her ability to forgive. How could he have been so stupid, knowing her past? If he could kick his own ass he would.

  She took a step toward the conference room but stopped at the sound of footsteps.

  Alex Buchanan turned the corner and headed toward them. “Are you two leaving?”

  Luke raised a brow and waited for Carol to make that decision.

  “No, we were just going back into the conference room,” she said.