The Last Housekeeper

by Kari Shuey

  Lori raised her eyebrows. Understanding flooding her expression. “Abby,” she whispered, “you’re not falling for this guy, are you? Do I have to remind you about the guy I dated during my internship? Men who run in his kind of circles are pigs.”

  Abby shook her head. “He’s different, Lori. He’s sweet and genuine and he cares about those around him. Oh. My. Gosh. Lori! I wish you had been here sooner. I needed you to be the voice of reason. This is so absolutely crazy. I don’t know what I am doing!”

  “I can tell.” Her sarcastic tone of voice wasn’t what Abby had hoped for, but was somewhat predictable. “So, are you together then?” Lori asked quietly.

  “No. It turns out there are a few things we can’t see eye-to-eye on. He has a past he doesn’t want to share with me, and I can’t be in a relationship with someone who isn’t willing to open up to me. We’ve put a pin in it for now… but the possibility is still there…”

  Lori became very quiet. For a reporter, this was very uncommon, and as for being her best friend… it was unheard of.

  “Lori? What’s wrong? Did I say something?” Abby looked over at her friend. “I know you’ve warned me not to get involved with someone like him, but as it turns out you were right for the wrong reasons. If he can open up to me then a relationship with a guy like him is exactly what I have wanted.”

  “Abby, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I wouldn’t be so trusting if I were you.” Lori pulled out her phone. “I have contacts. I can check this guy out for you. He might still be involved in that murder… there might be something even deeper here than you realize. I would definitely stay as far away from him as possible if I were you. But if you want to keep your job, I don’t have any arguments besides his unknown character.”

  “Lori don’t be ridiculous. He had an alibi and he says he cares about me.” Abby tried to convince her friend everything was fine. Where was her friend who told her to dive into new experiences? She needed that friend right now, not the cautious level headed one.

  Lori shook her head. “No one really knows what another person is capable of.” Lori typed in a few numbers, wrote a message, and clicked send. “There, I asked my guy to do a little digging. He’ll get back to me before you drop me off. Anything else new? What about that landscaper you mentioned? Tell me about him”

  “Oh, him? There’s nothing there. He’s just an average guy who worked on the yard until he got fired… he wanted to take me on a date but I turned him down. Otherwise nothing else is new. But Lori, I thought that you would have been excited about this. You tell me all the time I need to get out there and have some fun. Where is my crazy friend right now?” Abby was mostly teasing, but part of her meant what she said.

  “Sorry, Abby. I just want you to be safe. When I fell for that guy, he took everything and gave nothing. This is a little too real, even for me.”

  Abby could see Lori skirting the subject, so she changed it. “Well, on a brighter note, we are going to lunch. It has been far too long since we were able to have a good girls’ day. Then we have to go shopping for a new outfit.” Even Lori’s sour attitude about Abby’s love life wouldn’t get her down.

  Lori’s interest peaked as expected. “Ooh, shopping trip? What’s the occasion?”

  “It’s actually kind of a funny story. A couple nights ago Gav- Mr. Saxe and I were eating dinner and he started this food fight…” She trailed off, realizing that Lori didn’t want to hear about Gavin. She didn’t trust him… yet. But Abby was determined all of them would end up good friends.

  They chose a bistro-style lunch and Lori filled Abby in on all of the fun stories she was working on. The one that took the longest was a wild goose chase. She went from one source to another trying to figure out the truth and still came up empty. It was one of those fear-mongering stories about something online that was harming children. Whoever made up the hoax must have had some kind of imagination and a means to hide the true nature of the story. Lori insisted she’d still report on what she found out, because people need to be aware that not everything you read about in the papers or hear about on social media is accurate.

  Abby listened with great interest. Lori was pretty good at what she did. She could be obsessive at times, but she always figured out the truth… and she wasn’t afraid to tell you if you were wrong. Maybe that’s why what she said rubbed Abby the wrong way. Lori was usually right about these things… and if she thought something was wrong with Gavin – Abby would soon be eating her words.

  They made their way to the mall, as Abby didn’t like the high-end styles that the boutique stores carried. She didn’t have a use for them, especially in her line of work. Money would go further at the stores she preferred to shop at anyway. They wandered through the mall, enjoying catching up on Lori’s love life - or lack thereof, laughing about how different their lives had turned out. When they were both in college, Abby wanted to be a business owner, but stuck with house cleaning. Lori, on the other hand, had always loved digging up dirt on other people. It got her into trouble frequently, but now she could do it and not suffer any consequences.

  Abby ultimately chose an outfit from a local boutique store. The clothing was affordable and cute, but it wouldn’t hurt her wallet if they got dirty on the job. Lori helped her pick out the top, insisting that the blue color of the blouse made her red hair stand out. Abby reminded her friend that her red hair was not something she considered one of her finer features but got the shirt anyway.

  On their way out of the mall, Lori got a phone call. She held up a finger to Abby and walked a few steps away. Abby couldn’t hear anything Lori was saying, but it looked pretty important. She waited patiently for her friend to finish her conversation. Lori nodded and thanked the person she was speaking to. Then she returned to Abby’s side.

  “Abby, that was the guy I was telling you about. He couldn’t give me much in the way of details, but he said that Mr. Saxe has a strange background. He moved here from California. He doesn’t have a big personal paper trail, but his business is on the up and up. The thing that makes his history strange is his affinity for keeping his life so private. That, and in the last four years he has had four housekeepers – that’s including the one he has now. I guess you are the fourth in as many years, Abby. Remind me, did the news mention whether the housekeeper before you was the one he’s had since moving to the area?”

  Abby could only nod.

  “So, he moved here three years ago. That means the two housekeepers in California worked for him for a year or less. Doesn’t that seem a bit strange to you? Don’t you think a private guy like Mr. Saxe would try to find people who could work for him for the long haul?”

  Abby nodded again. Her mouth had become dry. He had gone through housekeepers like a kid with candy. Why had he kept Amara for so long? Could it be that Gavin knew about Amara’s love affair and didn’t let on? The conspiracies about Gavin’s motives started flowing again. He could have found out about the relationship and didn’t want to hurt his best friend, so he had someone else kill her. Did he have a thing for killing off his housekeepers? Or was it more of an obsessive-compulsive need for privacy and cleanliness that drove him to get rid of them. Maybe they didn’t clean something right and he wanted them gone… or maybe the first two didn’t follow the rule about staying out of his office. Amara was killed in there.

  Abby’s chest tightened. She needed to get control of her thoughts before they made her do something stupid. Wasn’t she just telling Lori to give Gavin the benefit of the doubt? Now she was being the hypocrite.

  “Abby, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Lori was waving her hand in front of Abby’s face.

  Blinking rapidly, Abby nodded and forced a smile. “Um, yeah. I’m sure it’s nothing. But maybe I will try to figure out why he’s been through so many housekeepers. It could be that they didn’t do the job they were hired to do.”

  “Abby be realistic. Even that scenario seems farfetched. Any person who hires
a live-in housekeeper will vet them. They will do background checks and get references. You can’t just walk into some rich guys home and start cleaning. I’m sure he knew who he was hiring. Going through two in a year is pretty bad.”

  Abby knew Lori had a point, but she didn’t like it. “You’re making me nervous, Lori.”

  “Good. I’d investigate it for you – you know I would, but I have a lot on my plate right now. I’ve been gone so long and now I have deadlines to meet.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Abby wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ll take you home if you want, now. And I’ll let you know if I find out anything about the other housekeepers.”

  Lori reached over and gave Abby a hug. “You’re probably right, it’s nothing. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  Abby nodded again. Wasn’t this just how her life was going? She had been constantly on a rollercoaster since meeting Gavin. With the murder suspicions, Windsor’s near arrest, the budding romance, the secret past… and now this. To be fair the secret past and this new tidbit of information could be linked.

  And to make it all worse, how on earth would she hide this new feeling of doubt from Gavin? He’d see through her in a second. She was not looking forward to that conversation.

  Chapter 30

  After Abby dropped Lori off at home, she struggled with a desire to take the easy way out and quit. The other option was sticking it out and looking into the other housekeepers. Was it even her business? He’d been cleared of Amara’s murder, after all. But that didn’t mean that he was one hundred percent innocent.

  Abby drove home. Where would she find such information anyway? It’s not like she was privy to his bookkeeping records. He probably had a file stashed somewhere that had information like that. Who was she kidding? Files like that would more than likely be at his office with the HR stuff. Then again, the housekeepers were personal hires. So those files wouldn’t be at his main office… but at his office at home.

  She’d broken his trust once already by going into that room before. This time it would be a complete invasion of privacy. Abby would be entering with the sole purpose of looking through his things. Could she do it without getting caught? A better question would be, could she do it without letting Gavin know she was guilty of something?

  Normally Gavin didn’t work on the weekend. He’d hole up in his office, spend time with her, or occasionally go golfing. Today was a rare instance when he said he’d be gone most of the day. It probably had to do with the issues he was working through with Windsor. The clock on the dashboard was telling her she’d have about four hours max before Gavin would get home. Less than that if he came home early. There was no rhyme or reason to when he chose to make it an early day, so Abby would be risking a lot if she chose to look through his filing cabinets. And there was a better chance he’d be home early today with it being a Saturday.

  Abby weighed the pros and cons to sleuthing around today or letting it wait until next week. If she could just find out their names, she might be able to use her online stalker skills to find out where they were. She could ask them why they were no longer working for Mr. Saxe besides the obvious relocation to another state. Maybe they would even know why his name was different… unless that change happened quite a bit earlier in Gavin’s life.

  Time wasn’t really a factor in this issue. If these housekeepers were able to be found, they would still be available on Monday. Abby should play it safe. If something were really going on and she wasn’t as safe as she thought she was, snooping today would be unwise – considering the variables.

  Abby arrived back home and put her shopping bags into her bedroom. She’d noticed that Gavin only put security cameras in the main living areas. All bedrooms and even his office didn’t have a camera. And of course, the bathrooms maintained their privacy. So he wouldn’t be clued into her spying right away. She walked down the hall, her fingers dragging against the wall. Stopping right in front of his office, she thought about what she might find in there. She knew she would need more time to find what she was looking for, but it might be smart to go in just to see if his file cabinets had labels in them. Judging from the way Gavin liked to keep his home orderly, Abby hoped he also liked to keep detailed records of his staff.

  Abby went back into the kitchen and looked out the window to the guest house. Windsor wasn’t visible, but he rarely came to the house unless he needed to talk to Gavin about something important. Glancing at the clock, Abby estimated Gavin wouldn’t be home within the next hour, and though that didn’t give her enough time to go through everything in his office, it would be enough time to get the lay of the land so to speak.

  As the cameras in the kitchen and living space were on her, she didn’t want to appear suspicious going directly toward the part of the house she normally only went when she was cleaning, so instead she went to the laundry room. Abby pulled the clothes out of the dryer she’d put in before she left for her outing with Lori. She folded a few items that would need to go to Gavin’s room – a room that was farther into the house than the study.

  She walked past the study and put the clothing away in Gavin’s room and then tripped quickly back to the forbidden room. Abby turned the knob slowly, almost cautiously as if Gavin would be coming into the front door at any moment and she would be caught red-handed.

  Leaving the door open a crack, Abby slipped in and stealthily crept to the cabinets against the wall. Pulling open a few drawers, she was pleasantly surprised she had guessed right. There were files upon files stored just the way she’d expect Gavin to do it. The drawers weren’t labeled by type, but she figured she could thumb through a few of them to get the gist of what he put there.

  She pulled out a few files and didn’t see anything she recognized. The files she looked at must have been work-related. Abby pulled open another cabinet and continued to come up empty. She dug through at least six more drawers before she finally found a label that she had been looking for. Staff.

  Abby was filled with a combination of relief and anxiety all at once. She now knew where to start her search on Monday when Gavin was out. She would be able to find everyone he hired as his staff – at least those he kept records for. Tempted to try to find the names now, Abby restrained herself and shut the cabinet closed. It wasn’t going anywhere. She would be able to get a better look at things in just a few days.

  Abby snuck out of the study and back to the laundry room. She completed her task of folding and sorting and put the rest away. She felt confident if anyone was watching her go about her chores today, they wouldn’t think anything was off. If someone compared her ability to put away clothes and come back into view of the camera, they might realize the discrepancy of how much time it usually took her to put things away. Abby was able to remain calm, even with this thought, because she knew that she did not draw suspicion on her worst day. No one would think she was involved in espionage.

  Relief filled her when only 30 minutes later Gavin came home – relief she’d left the study before his arrival. He appeared to have had a pretty good day, despite the stresses he was dealing with. They chatted about their day, he asked her about the outfit she picked out and about the time she spent with her friend. Abby remained focused on having a laid-back attitude so he wouldn’t suspect the new information she was currently shouldering. There were moments when he would take pause and look at her closely. But then he got back into the conversation without missing a beat. She hoped his scrutiny was due to his interest in restarting their relationship and not that she was nervous about the unknown.

  Monday couldn’t come soon enough as far as she was concerned. If something was off about Gavin – more than she had already stumbled on – she needed to get out of there and let Mr. Perkins know she wasn’t going to work for Gavin anymore. But if she was right, and jumping to conclusions was a waste of time, you could bet she would give Lori a piece of her mind. Her heart and mind couldn’t handle all of these new revelations that were causing her grief and
stress.

  ***

  After Gavin left for work on Monday morning, Abby feigned nonchalance for the cameras as she bustled around the house. She started wiping down baseboards and made her way to the study. Once inside the room, Abby made a beeline for the cabinet that had the staff records.

  Abby spent around 30 minutes pulling out individual files, looking for details of his housekeepers. It looked like Gavin had a touch of OCD, because each folder was alphabetized by name. Then within the file there was a form that Gavin filled out notating things about each staff member during their interview process. None of the paperwork gave details, only length of service. Abby was disappointed that he didn’t include photos of the people who worked for him. It would help to narrow down the search significantly, but unfortunately, she would have to go by basic information. She found her folder and pulled it out, but the only information was what Mr. Perkins sent over. It looked like he informed Gavin of her background check and credentials and that was it. As Abby pulled out file after file, she saw that the records dated back to when Gavin was still in California. She finally opened a folder with the name Janice Hall.

  The document was labeled housekeeper, and she was a housekeeper for about a year. This one left a gap of about six months for a second housekeeper. Abby continued to flip through the next 20 or so files, finding records for landscapers, chefs, maintenance, security officers, painters, and other types of employees. She finally found a file with the name Mallory Tye. She was only hired for the six-month period between Janice and Amara. There were additional files that Abby could go through to see if older housekeepers were on staff for a longer period than a year or six months… but so far the longest time Gavin kept a live-in housekeeper was Amara. And Abby knew exactly what had happened to her.

  Abby wrote down the names of the women he’d hired going back five years and the city their resume stated they were living in at the time of being hired. She could get on her computer and try to find these women and what happened to them. If she couldn’t find anything, maybe Lori wouldn’t mind sharing her detective contacts with her. She visited California often and would likely know the best people to talk to. Call in some favors maybe? Abby was determined to get to the bottom of this and verify that Gavin wasn’t as bad as others were trying to convince her.