by Lynn Patrick
“What now, boss?” Tyrone asked.
Amber slugged him in the arm. “The retaining wall, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“I’ll let you get to it,” Rick said. “I have some work to do myself. See you later.”
He whipped around and headed for the coach house. When he got to his quarters, he’d make a fresh pot of coffee and then get down to those security checks. He should be able to make a good start on them today.
If he could put Heather out of mind long enough to do his work.
* * *
THE MORNING WENT by quickly. Rick’s stomach rumbling made him check the time. Lunch. Having gotten through a couple of the part-time employees in just a few hours, he left the computer in hibernate mode.
So far, Sam Johnson, the former handyman, was the only person who rang any bells. The man had been arrested a couple of times, first after getting into a fray with one of his neighbors and then being involved in a bar fight. And Rick knew Ben Phillips had let Johnson go when he’d gotten into a verbal altercation with one of the guests over the holidays. Could Johnson be trying to exact some kind of revenge?
He was probably going to have to do some digging in person to find more personal information on the man, he thought as he crossed to the main house.
Just then, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Stopping to see if he needed to take this right now, he was shocked when the caller ID read Keith Murphy. His pulse thundered as he picked up the call.
“Murphy, how are you?” He was hoping his old teammate hadn’t gotten hurt again.
“I’m great, Slater, how about you?”
Relieved, Rick sucked in some air. “I’m adapting.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
Not wanting to be forced to justify his decision to leave the army, Rick asked, “What’s up? Where are you?”
“Stateside on a short leave. Right now I’m visiting family. But I thought I would take some time and visit my old buddy, too.”
“I’m on a security job.” Rick lowered his voice and added, “Undercover 24/7.”
“So you’re not in Milwaukee.”
“Close. In Kenosha.”
“Hey, even better. That’ll save me an hour behind the wheel. I’m in Michigan, straight across the lake. I thought about spending a couple of days in Chicago for a little R & R. I was going to invite you to join me.”
“Not an option for me, unfortunately.” He could use some time with an old friend. Someone who had shared the same experiences, good and bad.
“Got it. So I’ll head up north to see you before my leave is up. If you can find time for me in your schedule, that is.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make the time.”
“We, uh, have a lot to talk about,” Murphy said.
Rick’s built-in antenna went on alert. He had good reason to believe Murphy wanted to do more than relive the good old days.
“What’s on your mind?” Rick asked.
“It can wait until I see you. I gotta go. My sister is waiting on me.”
He knew it. He wasn’t going to get anything out of his old buddy until Murphy was ready to talk. “When?”
“Not sure yet. I just wanted to give you a head’s up. Maybe next week sometime. I’ll give you a call when I know for sure.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Rick couldn’t believe how good it had been hearing an old friend’s voice. Part of him longed to be part of a unit where everyone counted on everyone else. As it was now, he was alone. Not that he didn’t have people he could talk to. But he didn’t have anyone he could count on, someone who would watch his back.
Thoughtful, he entered the kitchen. “Smells good,” he told Kelly, who was placing a pot on the center island where she set up the buffet so the employees could help themselves to lunch.
“It’s just chili.”
“One of my favorites. Let me help you set up.”
“That’s nice of you. You could get the bowls and spoons while I cut up the cornbread.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge.”
“Where is everyone?”
“Looks like it’s just us for now.”
“Okay with me. When everyone eats at the same time, the noise in here makes my head spin.”
Kelly laughed as she cut a pan of cornbread into squares. “Probably because you’re the only guy right now.”
“Did my predecessor like being the only guy?”
“Sam?” Kelly’s smile faded. “Truthfully, I don’t know that Sam liked much of anything.”
“Not the friendly type, I take it.”
“Well...sometimes he was too friendly, if you know what I mean. But he certainly wasn’t congenial.”
“I know he was fired because of some argument with a guest.”
Kelly sighed as she set the cornbread on the buffet. “That time the guest complained.”
He set the pitcher of iced tea next to the glasses on the island. “So there were other times?”
“Not that I witnessed. But so I heard from various staff members. You know you don’t want to think badly of people, so you just put it off as gossip. Only this time it wasn’t, and Ben said Sam had to go.”
“Did he give Ben a hard time about it?”
“It wasn’t Ben who gave him the bad news. Cora had to do the actual firing, and Sam didn’t take it well.”
“He threatened her?”
“He said she would be sorry. And that Ben would be sorry. The usual threat.”
As he ladled chili into a bowl, Rick wondered if it was a bluff or if there was something to this lead.
He picked up his bowl and said, “I think I’ll get some air.”
Rather than going directly to the coach house, he headed for the terrace, where he quickly demolished his food.
He looked around and saw Heather in the distance, working on that retaining wall. Seeing her reminded him of the video. The one he’d promised himself to delete.
Stopping in the shade of an old growth maple, he pulled out his phone. He couldn’t resist. He wanted to watch the playful moment he’d captured one more time before deleting the footage as he’d intended all along. It showed such a different side to Heather and he was truly intrigued. She was simply charming. He was watching her play with her hair and make all those faces when the skin crawling along his neck made him realize someone was behind him. He shut down the phone and slid it into his pocket as he turned to see a wide-eyed Tyrone staring at him. Uh-oh. Rick feared Tyrone had seen and only hoped that, if he had, he would keep his lips locked.
“Tyrone, did you need something?” Rick asked.
“Um, that lady who runs this place, the young one, wants me to move the bags of stone we stored over there, next to the terrace. She says it’ll be an eyesore for the guests.”
Young one. Gina. Not that she ran the place, which was Cora’s job. Gina merely serviced the guests. But she did have a point. And although David Guildfren was the only guest at the moment, more were scheduled to check in on Friday or Saturday.
“Gina does have a point if the area isn’t cleared by the weekend.”
“Any suggestions about where I should move the bags?”
The coach house was the logical place, but if Tyrone stacked all those bags inside, they might interfere with Rick’s search for the hidden tunnel entrance.
So he said, “How about at the side of the coach house?”
“On the plants? That’s a nice little garden. Stacking bags of rock would kill them.”
“How about in back of the building then?” Rick amended. “On the asphalt pad. There’s some room opposite the garbage containers.”
“Okay,
I’ll go get the cart.” Tyrone nodded and gave him one last odd look before heading off.
About to delete the footage as he’d meant to do, Rick stopped when he saw Cora coming from the mansion.
“Oh, Rick, there you are. I need you. One of the window blinds is stuck all the way up. And there’s a loose baluster on the staircase that needs to be secured.”
“Sure. I can take care of that right now.”
Though being a handyman was only a cover, he had to make it look real. And because part of the job was to make the small repairs required around the estate, he picked up his bowl to drop off in the kitchen and followed Cora back inside.
Deleting the footage of Heather could wait until he was finished with his chores.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT HAD BEEN a long, hard but rewarding work day. Thankfully, Brian had volunteered to take care of Kirby until she got home. Dog, she reminded herself. She had to stop personalizing. Had to stop thinking of him as if he could be part of her family. Heather was grateful that she hadn’t had to deal with the dog at work today, no matter how cute he was. Her brother had promised to put up signs for her around town this morning, and hopefully the dog’s real owner would see one of them and call her this evening.
And if not? What then? She didn’t want to think about it. How long would it take before there was room at the local shelter? Either way—owner or shelter—Taylor’s little heart would be broken when she had to give up the dog. Having a pet would give her girls a sense of responsibility and a deeper appreciation for animals, but Heather simply couldn’t afford to take care of an animal right now. Licenses and shots and other vet bills, food and toys—all that would bust her budget.
If EPI offered her a full-time job after this internship, she could rethink the pet situation. Considering no one was home all day, though, a cat probably would be easier to deal with than a dog.
She shook away the problem and stood back from the completed retaining walls for the two rain gardens so that she could take in the whole picture with the mansion as the backdrop. The retaining walls not only looked great, but they also appeared to have been there forever thanks to the stone she’d chosen.
Tomorrow the plan was to cut a path from house to gardens through the grass and tunnel into the soil. That way, they could bury the extensions they’d attach to two of the house’s downspouts. Rain would come down the slope on its own, and the extensions would further divert it from the area around the building itself. Then they would create the pathway from the house, snaking it between the rain gardens and ending at the start of the beach. They had to remove more sod, pour sand as a base, then install stone that matched the retaining walls.
Next week, they would begin planting the rain gardens and then the dunes area, all of which needed to be completed before moving on to another stage of the landscape renovation.
Things were starting off quite nicely, and it was only the first week. Heather couldn’t be more pleased.
“Looks great already, doesn’t it?” she said to Tyrone as he stopped to stand beside her.
Tyrone cleared his throat and grinned. However, something in his tone made Heather think he was uncomfortable when he remarked, “Lots of things around here look great—some kind of unexpected.”
An odd reply. And he was staring at her oddly, too.
“Unexpected?” Heather frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Loosening up. Showing the real person inside.”
“All right, Tyrone, stop dancing around whatever it is you want to say and just tell me.”
His expression conflicted, he said, “Look, I didn’t mean to see it or anything. It was an accident.”
“Tyrone!”
“Okay, okay. Rick was watching this video of you earlier, and I, um, happened to get a glimpse of it. I didn’t realize you two had something going on.”
“Something going on?” Heather asked, at a loss. Then she reacted to the rest of his statement. “Video? Of me?” Warmth crept up her neck.
“Uh-huh. In the boathouse.”
Though she’d had a feeling that’s what he’d meant, Heather still gaped at him. Rick had a video of her and had been entertaining himself watching it? What in the world had he seen?
“It’s okay. I won’t gossip or anything.”
“Well, I should hope not because there’s nothing going on!” she nearly shouted.
Tyrone seemed even more uncomfortable. He took a step back. “Well, sure. Sorry I brought it up.”
Heather could only sputter, “And I don’t know why he...how...”
Without another word, she stalked away from Tyrone and headed for the mansion. She’d seen Rick go inside with Cora a while ago, and he hadn’t yet come out.
“Heather, wait a minute!” Tyrone called, but she ignored him and swept past Amber, who was just returning to help clean up.
“Hey, Heather, do you...” Amber started, but her voice faded off when Heather kept going without looking back.
Her face heated, Heather knew she was probably beet-red. She was focused on one thing—giving Rick a piece of her mind. She wondered how she could have been so wrong about him as she opened the back door and entered the kitchen. She’d thought he was such a nice guy. She could hardly believe he would secretly record someone. Her.
Kelly was standing at the island, chopping vegetables. “Hi. Can I help you?”
Heather took a deep breath to get herself under control and sweetly said, “I need to find Rick.”
Kelly pointed to a doorway. “Through the hall and into the rotunda. He’s working on the staircase.”
“Thanks.”
Heather swept by her and zigzagged into the round, central, two-story room. She barely saw the details as she looked around. The rotunda was empty, but she followed the sound of wood being hammered and found herself at the bottom of the staircase. Rick was at the top, adjusting one of the wooden rails. Heather wanted to yell at him, but the breath caught in her throat. She was still trying to find her voice when he looked down and saw her standing there.
“Hey, looking for me?”
“Who else?” she asked stiffly.
“Give me a minute. I’m done here.” Rick dropped something inside his toolbox, then fastened it.
He took the stairs down to her two at a time, and her pulse picked up with each step. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, and she took the opportunity to lock onto his gaze.
“You have some explaining to do,” she said when he reached ground level.
His eyes flicked with something like guilt, and his mouth tightened. “About?”
Holding Rick’s gaze, she didn’t let him off the hook. “I just had an interesting chat with Tyrone about you, and it wasn’t about your being The Terminator.”
“What did Tyrone tell you?”
“What do you think he told me?” Even though no one was in sight, she lowered her voice but still kept her tone rightfully indignant. “That you were watching a video of me in the boathouse!”
He kept his voice low, too. “Look, I wasn’t trying to get footage of you. It was an accident. Let’s get away from here, and I’ll explain.”
“If you think explaining is going to—”
“Please.”
She swallowed her anger for the moment and managed to nod.
He led the way to the kitchen, empty for the moment, then set his toolbox down, out of the way, before continuing outside.
Heather’s adrenaline was crashing. She tried to remember she was angry as she followed Rick to the terrace, where they took seats on cushioned chairs.
Rick immediately said, “Look, I’m sorry you got caught, but part of my job was to install cameras around the property for security. They all have motion and light sensors, and they are wirelessly rigge
d to digitally record anything they catch. That camera would have gone off no matter who went inside the boathouse.”
Wondering what might have been going on at the estate to warrant increased security, Heather realized everything he said sounded reasonable. But...
“I was in the boathouse yesterday,” she said, still wondering exactly what he’d seen of her. “You were watching the footage today.”
He sighed. “I meant to delete it. I shouldn’t have watched it again. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to infringe on your privacy. And then, when I realized Tyrone was there, I put the phone away, hoping he hadn’t seen anything.”
“Okay, what is ‘anything’?” she asked.
His lips quivered but he kept a straight face. “You messing with your hair, making faces at your mirror.”
“That’s all?” she asked.
“I couldn’t actually see you until you turned on the light.”
Even though she said, “I’m not sure I believe that,” her pulse steadied.
“Then let me show you.”
He pulled out his phone and played the file for her from the beginning, when she first entered the boathouse. All she could see was a blur of movement through the room. Then when she’d left the main room, the recording stopped and only started again when she re-entered it. Rick had been truthful about not seeing anything clearly until after she’d turned on the light. Warmth crept up her neck as she watched herself playing with her hair and puckering into the mirror after putting on her lipstick.
Still, she said, “I look like an idiot!”
“I don’t know, those faces you make are kind of cute...”
Her face grew hot. “I demand that you delete it.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m at a loss as to why you still have the footage.” Why in the world would he have wanted to watch such silliness more than once?
“Well, um...” Rick had the good grace to appear uncomfortable. “I’ve been busy. I kind of forgot.”
Heather narrowed her gaze.
Still seeming uncomfortable, he said, “Look, I’m going to do it right now.”