by Cassia Leo
“Mr. Meyers?” The sound of the woman’s voice echoed off the walls of the morgue. “This officer would like to speak to you.”
I looked up to find yet another boy in blue who wanted to hear the story firsthand. This would be my sixth retelling. I was almost numb to the details now.
Almost.
I told Officer Nowicki the whole story, how I’d been riding in the passenger seat with Michael Becker when some asshole in a silver SUV ran a red light and T-boned our Range Rover. The impact didn’t kill Becker instantly. As I frantically dialed 9-1-1, he forced out a few last words from his crushed lungs: The key…it’s in the guesthouse.
When I relayed these words to the cops, they looked back at me with either confusion or skepticism. But when I called Sabrina Sokolov, Becker’s chief advisor, and told her about his last words, I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. She knew what Becker meant, and so did I.
As I stepped inside the cavernous foyer of Becker’s enormous beach house in the Hamptons, four hours after identifying my boss’s body in a New York City morgue, I knew exactly where I would find my new boss. Now that Becker was gone, Sabrina would be calling the shots. My fate was now in her birdlike hands.
Sabrina would decide whether I stayed on as a bodyguard with Becker’s company or if I received a severance check. Maybe all I’d get for failing to keep Becker safe would be a swift kick in the ass on my way out the twelve-foot-tall front doors.
Becker had never married, and he had no family. As far as anyone knew, he had no heirs to the throne of Becker Holdings, his $400 million empire. But something told me his last words were going to throw a wrench in the smooth transfer of executive power to Sabrina.
Lorena came around the corner from the great room into the foyer, gasping the moment she saw me with a large swath of gauze wrapped around the top of my head. “Daniel! Are you okay?” she cried in her thick Spanish accent as she rushed to greet me.
“Shh! I’m fine,” I said, holding a finger to my lips to hush her. “I need you to be quiet. I…I have a little bit of a headache.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, probably suspecting this wasn’t true, then she nodded. “Yes, of course. Please let me know if I can get you anything,” she said, slipping her hands into the pockets of her apron as she crossed the foyer and disappeared through the double doors into the library.
Swiftly and quietly, I made my way up the wooden staircase, past the Picasso in the upstairs hallway, and to the third door on the left. A chill passed over my skin. The house was colder than usual, but it wasn’t just the temperature that chilled me to my core. I couldn’t get Becker’s last words out of my mind. The sight of the door, and the prospect of finding out what lay behind it, had my every nerve on edge.
The door was closed, of course, but I knew if I tried the knob today it would be unlocked for the first time since I’d started working for Becker. Actually, if Becker’s other employees were to be believed, it would be unlocked for the first time in at least twenty years. Curling my fingers around the bronze lever, I slowly turned it and pushed the door open.
As I suspected, Sabrina’s cherry-red hair immediately caught my eye from where she sat with her back to me. As I had not suspected, the room, which had possibly been locked since the day it was built, was not a sex chamber or secret vault full of precious jewels and artwork.
It was a little girl’s bedroom.
Sabrina sat at a small white desk, unable to hear me over the sound of her sniffling. Still, I approached quietly. My eyes scanned the bedroom, taking in the details of the space: a fluffy white comforter with ruffled trim, soft lilac paint on the walls, an ornate carousel music box on the white nightstand. It was nothing like my sisters’ messy bedrooms. The room felt cold and surreal, like a bedroom you’d find on a movie set. Everything was completely new and untouched. I half-expected a crew of actors and set designers to barge in and begin rehearsing.
As I neared the desk where Sabrina sat hunched over in her grief, I realized she was reading something. On the desk in front of her, a notebook lay open, each page covered in the forward-slanted handwriting I’d come to recognize over the past few weeks.
Was Sabrina reading Michael’s journal?
Though the man was gone, it still felt like a gross invasion of his privacy. Of course, if the man was keeping a creepy girl’s bedroom locked away in the middle of his sprawling beach estate, maybe he had been keeping the kind of secrets that needed to be brought to light.
Thinking back to the night of the accident, I realized I knew more than I cared to about Michael Becker.
Creeping a bit closer, I held my breath as I peered over Sabrina’s shoulder, trying to make sense of the words scrawled on the pages.
* * *
Dec. 28, 1999
* * *
I saw her playing at the park on 188th today. Sally takes her there a lot. It’s a decent park. You wouldn’t guess that three blocks west is one of the worst neighborhoods in the Bronx. More than once they’ve had to leave in a hurry to get away from the hordes of teenagers smoking cigarettes and fighting among themselves. But when they’re alone at the park, that’s when Kristin shines. My daughter has the brightest laugh I’ve ever heard.
* * *
“Daughter?” As Sabrina whipped her head around, I realized I’d said this word aloud.
“What are you doing in here?” she shrieked, wiping hastily at the streaks of mascara running down her smooth cheeks.
“The door was open. I—I was just coming for my last check. I gotta pay rent tomorrow.” I nearly stumbled over my words as her gaze bored into me.
Her icy blue eyes flitted back to the open notebook, then she slammed it shut and turned back to me. “What did you see?”
I cocked an eyebrow. Maybe she didn’t hear me say the word “daughter.” Maybe if I denied seeing anything, I could escape Sabrina’s wrath.
“Nothing,” I replied. “I saw you, and I saw the room, but that’s it. I just want my paycheck and I’ll get out of your hair.”
She clutched the book tightly against her breast. “He had a daughter.” Her eyes were closed as she spoke very matter-of-factly. “Judging by the dates on these entries, I’d guess she’s about twenty-two or twenty-three now.” She sighed heavily as she opened her eyes and looked up at me. “They’ve never known each other, and from what I see here, it looks like the mother didn’t want her daughter to know Michael.” She sniffled and wet her lips as she sat up straight. “He could be a difficult man. I know that. But anyone who could hurt him this way, who didn’t want to be a part of his life, doesn’t deserve to be a part of his death. Do you agree?”
I closed my mouth as I realized it was hanging open in shock. Did Sabrina really think it was a good idea to keep the news of Michael’s death from the only family he had?
Michael had no siblings, and his parents were both dead. If he had any other family—aunts, uncles, cousins—he certainly didn’t have any contact with them. Sabrina had told me as much when she informed me that she had been appointed the executor of Michael’s estate and the new CEO of Becker Holdings in an emergency meeting with the rest of the management team this morning.
I didn’t know much about New York State probate law, but I was pretty certain that a last will and testament could be contested by the deceased’s living offspring. Sabrina and Becker Holdings could be held up in probate court for years trying to sort that out.
Sabrina’s face softened. “If this gets out, I won’t be able to give you your severance.”
“Severance?” I repeated the word.
Sabrina had told me to come to the beach house to pick up my last check. She’d mentioned nothing about a severance package.
“I’ll have to let all the household staff go,” she continued. “Lorena, John Lee, all the security will be laid off until this is settled in court.” She paused a moment before laying the notebook on the desk and standing up. “Or…we can do this the right way. We can f
ind out if this girl knows about Michael. If…If she wants to know anything about him.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “If you do this for me, I’ll make sure you receive at least thirty-six months’ severance.”
My jaw tightened. “Do what for you?”
“Four hundred million dollars and more than a hundred employees is a lot of responsibility. And right now, it’s all on my shoulders, Daniel,” she began, taking a step forward until she was close enough for me to smell the sharp scent of her perfume. “You’re a good-looking kid. I want you to get to know the girl. Find out if she’s capable of taking on that kind of responsibility.”
I attempted to do the math in my head; thirty-six multiplied by my monthly salary was more money than I could calculate in my uneducated brain. I didn’t become a bodyguard because I wanted to change the world. I did it because, as the eldest of four children, I’d always been the protector. I might as well get paid for doing something I was good at.
But this assignment Sabrina was offering me didn’t involve protecting anyone. Actually, it sounded a heck of a lot easier. All I had to do was find this girl and, what, befriend her? It was almost too easy. For all that money?
I thought back to my first day on the job, the day I met Sabrina.
* * *
Michael and I stepped off the elevator onto the fourteenth floor of Becker Holdings in midtown. I walked a few steps behind him as he made his way past the receptionist’s desk and a vast network of cubicles, where red-faced brokers with their sleeves already rolled up to their elbows at nine a.m. shouted obscenities into their headsets. No one looked at Michael. The ones who did see him quickly turned away. What the fuck did I get myself into?
As we passed an open door in the middle of a corridor, Michael stopped and peered inside. The room was empty except for a few desks. He rolled his eyes and continued down the hallway.
We reached a glass, walled-off conference room, where Michael stopped at the door. “Come inside with me, but stand in the corner. Your strength should be seen, not heard.”
I nodded, as it dawned on me how strange it was that this guy needed twenty-four-hour security. He must be in the business of pissing people off.
As we entered the conference room, the frustrated looks on various faces immediately made it clear that Michael was late.
A skinny woman with dark-red hair, wearing a slim-fitting black pantsuit, stood from her chair. “You’re late,” she barked at him. “We’ve been waiting over an hour.”
Michael pulled off his blazer and tossed it onto the conference table, almost knocking over someone’s Starbucks cup. “Yeah, how about you tell me something I don’t fucking know. Like where the fuck are the interns I ordered? We need someone to go through the Houseman merger before the audit.”
An Asian guy in the middle of the table spoke up. “I called the temp agency, sir, but they said they were informed not to send any more interns.”
Michael glared at him. “Why?”
The guy glanced at the redhead, then turned back to Michael. “I don’t know, sir. You’ll have to ask Sabrina.”
Michael shot the redhead a fiery glare. “What is he talking about, Sabrina? Where the fuck are my interns?”
Sabrina rolled her eyes, looking completely unamused by Michael’s anger. “You’ll get your interns when you learn to keep your hands out of their skirts.”
Michael’s face turned beet-red. “You, outside.” He pushed the words out through gritted teeth, then he waited for Sabrina to begin walking toward the door before he followed after her.
I didn’t know if I was supposed to follow them, but I figured if I did, and I wasn’t supposed to, Michael would tell me. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
I followed behind Michael, but he didn’t protest. When we were outside the conference room, I took a few steps farther down the corridor to give Michael and Sabrina some privacy, but I could still hear every word they said.
“You’re walking on very fucking thin ice, do you understand me?” he whispered.
Sabrina stared at him for a moment, then cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not the one fucking interns and putting this whole company in jeopardy. If you want to make certain the Houseman merger goes smoothly, then you need to learn to keep it in your pants before we’re hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit the likes of which you may never recover from. Then it’s bye-bye, Houseman merger, and bye-bye, IPO. Do you understand me?”
Michael stared at her for a long time, seething as his face went from red to pink and back to white. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.
Sabrina—aka the Ice Queen—smiled back at him, her cheeks blushing pink through the thick layer of makeup she was wearing. “You’d be broke without me.”
Michael got serious again. “Doesn’t change the fact that I still need interns to go through the files before the auditors arrive. We need all hands on deck.”
“Aye-aye, captain,” she replied with a seductive smile.
I had to suppress a laugh. Either these two were fucking, or this woman was begging for Michael’s dick. Either way, it was less than an hour into my first day and I’d already learned a very important lesson. If I planned on keeping this job, I sure as fuck did not want to cross Sabrina.
* * *
The memory of my first day on the job faded away, replaced by the images of my sisters’ and brother’s faces. If I agreed to do this special project for Sabrina, I’d have enough money to set up Ricky with an apartment near the port, so he wouldn’t have to sleep on the sofa anymore. I could set some money aside for Alisha and Geneva’s college educations. They wouldn’t be stuck living paycheck to paycheck like Ricky and me.
My mother’s words echoed in my mind. “Promise me you’ll take care of them, Danny.”
Like Michael’s daughter, my father was also a stranger to me. In prison since I was six for robbery and attempted murder, he’d never even met Geneva, his youngest. He was up for parole in a couple of years. I’d always planned on moving Alisha and Geneva out of the Bronx by then, but I couldn’t do that on unemployment checks or the average bodyguard’s salary. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be snagging any high-paying gigs for a while; it would take some time for potential clients to forget Michael had died on my watch.
All I had to do was get to know the girl. I’d be stupid to say no to this.
I nodded before I could change my mind. “I’ll do it.”
Reckless
As I drove away from Kristin’s apartment, after our Hamptons getaway, I had to keep reminding myself not to turn around and go back. There was a physical ache in my chest, like the one I got when I dropped Geneva off for her first day of high school. It seemed every time I dropped Kristin off, it was becoming more and more difficult to leave.
I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her at home or work, or on her way to and from work.
Unlike the wealthy persona I had assumed for this job—a job I was beginning to hate—I had lived in the Bronx all my life. I knew ours was one of the roughest neighborhoods in the country. And after all the lies I’d told, I couldn’t help but feel Kristin’s safety had officially become my responsibility.
There was no doubt in my mind, I would kill to protect her.
But who would protect her from me?
I didn’t know the answer to that question. I didn’t know how I could even ponder that question when I didn’t want to imagine anyone coming between us. The only thing I knew for certain was where I needed to be right now.
I punched the gas as the streetlight changed from red to green. Today, I had one mission, and one mission only: Find the black Mercedes.
A blanket of darkness had fallen over Manhattan before I was finally able to track down Sabrina at a brasserie on Bleecker Street. I knew the moment the black Mercedes sped away down Buell Lane that the call I received at that moment, from an unknown number, had come from Sabrina or someone working with her.
&
nbsp; The first place I looked for Sabrina was back in the Hamptons. I was not at all surprised to find that the code to enter the six-car garage at the beach house had been changed since I’d left to drop Kristin off at her apartment. The household staff still was not scheduled to return until the next day, so it could only have been Sabrina who changed the code.
It was one thing to conspire to cut Kristin out of her inheritance, but to attempt to run her over was something else entirely.
In fact, the whole idea of Sabrina or someone working for her trying to kill Kristin with a Mercedes was impulsive. It was so impulsive that I was almost certain it had been Sabrina behind the wheel.
Unfortunately, I had no proof to take to the police. I hadn’t recorded any of my conversations with Sabrina. And Kristin was so upset last night, after being nearly turned into a pancake and having memories of her best friend dredged up, she didn’t want to stick around and file a police report.
Tonight was different. Tonight, I was prepared.
Almost as if she knew I was waiting for her, Sabrina lingered over dinner and drinks for more than three hours. I didn’t know what she could possibly have to talk about for that long with Barry and Gene. As far as I knew, she had laid them off weeks ago.
Barry and Gene made up two of the three-man security detail Michael Becker employed as round-the-clock bodyguards. Barry and I were the newest members, so we had been alternating between day and night shifts. I was the unlucky one who had the night shift on the night Becker died. Gene had worked for Becker almost as long as Sabrina, which made me wonder why she hadn’t asked Gene to investigate Kristin.