The Bodyguard (6 page)

Chapter Six

Caroline paused at the front door to the mansion. A sense of foreboding swept through her. She couldn’t shake the horror of Mitch being killed earlier today. She hadn’t really known the man, but he’d been there because of her. His death was her fault.

No. His death was
not
her fault. She had to stop blaming herself and putting herself down the way Richard had always done. The person to blame for Mitch’s death was whoever had stabbed him. She had to remember that. Richard had made her feel guilty for everything and had made her doubt her own sanity. No more. She was taking control of her own life, her own self-worth.

Still, she hesitated to go inside, in spite of the puzzled looks the security guards and Leslie were giving her. All she could picture in her mind was how strong and virile her husband had been. It was almost impossible to accept that he wasn’t going to greet her at the door. She could easily imagine his outrage over her being so late in coming home, over her trying to escape. Of course, in front of others, he’d pretend to be happy to see her. He’d likely kiss her and hold her close. But in private, once the bedroom doors shut, he’d be all too eager to teach her another “lesson.”

She shuddered and protectively wrapped her arms around her middle, although it wasn’t even slightly cold in the humid heat that engulfed the house.

Leslie put her hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”

Caroline stared at the woman she thought of as her friend, looking for some sign that she really
wasn’t
her friend, that she might have had something to do with Richard’s murder as Alex and Luke had theorized.

“Caroline?” Leslie’s brows drew together.

“No, I’m not in pain.” Caroline hated that she had these doubts about the woman who’d done so much to help her. “I was just...thinking.”

One of the security guards opened the door and stood back for them to enter.

She braced herself, then stepped into the foyer with Leslie at her side, only to be greeted by three maids and the cook. Or rather, they greeted Leslie and ignored Caroline. Which was just as well because she didn’t want to deal with their red-rimmed eyes and sniffles. Richard was beloved by the staff, and it looked as if they were taking his death hard.

The security guards locked the door and melted into the house as they always did, somewhere out of sight but ready to help when needed—except, of course, when Caroline had really needed help, when Richard was around.

The household staff gathered around Leslie, whom they’d all met on numerous occasions, and offered her their condolences, completely ignoring their employer’s widow, who just so happened to now be their
employer.

Suddenly it was all too much. The miscarriage, two severe beatings in two days, finally escaping Richard only to find him murdered, winding up in the hospital with sepsis and having emergency surgery, and then for young, innocent Mitch Brody to be killed at the cemetery—all of it had her nerves stretched to the snapping point.

Someone was either trying to kill her or pin her for murder. And after everything she’d been through, it was so unfair. Well, she wasn’t putting up with “unfair” anymore. She’d taken a huge step escaping Richard. Now it was time to take another huge step, to set her house in order. Because now this house was
hers.
Not Richard’s. Not the staff’s. And it was high time they treated her with the same respect they treated everyone else—starting now.

“Karen, Missy, Natasha, Betsy,” she said, enjoying the startled looks on the other women’s faces. They weren’t used to being addressed by her directly. They probably didn’t even think she knew their names. “I appreciate your condolences and that you all miss my husband, but life must go on. Your time is best spent performing your duties. Betsy, will you please arrange for my belongings to be moved out of the master suite into the main guest bedroom?”

Betsy looked from Leslie to Caroline. “I, um... Ma’am, why would you want me to do that?”

Caroline fisted her hands at her sides. She shouldn’t have to explain to this woman who’d treated her as if she didn’t exist for the past five years that her husband had repeatedly beaten and raped her in the master bedroom and she would never, ever step foot in that hated room again.

“If you have a problem following my orders, then I suggest you look for employment elsewhere.” She looked in turn at all four women, who were huddled together as if they thought she was crazy. “That goes for all of you. Things are going to change, starting today. I refuse to be invisible in my own home any longer. I’m your employer. If you can’t live with that, you are welcome to leave.”

She brushed past the women, her shoulders straight and her head held high, pretending a confidence she was far from feeling. She stepped through the nearest doorway, then abruptly stopped and pressed her hand to her throat. The enormous wood-paneled room at the front of the house looked out over the circular driveway. The view was unfamiliar because she’d only caught glimpses of it before. This was Richard’s office, a room he’d forbidden her to enter. She could look through the doorway, on those occasions when her husband needed to speak to her, but she could never step inside. She turned around, intending to leave, but Leslie and the others were in the foyer staring at her.

She straightened her spine. “Leslie, are you coming or not?”

“Um, yes, of course.” She clutched her purse and followed Caroline into the room.

Caroline raised a brow at the women in the foyer.

They scurried away, like chickens running from a fox. She grinned, pleased with the image. It was nice to be the fox for a change, instead of the chicken. She shut the door with a decisive click.

Her smile died when she saw the look on Leslie’s face. “What? Did I do something wrong?”

Leslie set her purse on a decorative table and sat on the couch in the grouping at one end of the room. A massive walnut desk sat on the other side, next to the wall of windows. Caroline steered clear of the desk and sat in one of the leather wing chairs beside the couch.

“Not wrong, exactly,” Leslie said. “I just don’t think you should bait the staff and talk about changes so quickly after Richard was killed. You’re still on the potential-suspect list. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the idea you were glad Richard is dead.”

“Is that what you think? That I’m glad he’s dead?”

“Aren’t you?”

She thought back to Alex’s warning to keep everything the same as much as possible, to flush out anyone who might act out of the ordinary. But in spite of his recommendations, she couldn’t pretend to be sorry. She was tired of being invisible in her own house.

“I’m glad I don’t have to be afraid anymore. That’s what I’m glad about. But I would never take comfort in someone’s death, not even Richard’s.”

“Admirable of you, my dear. Just be careful not to give anyone the wrong impression.”

Caroline bit her lip. “I suppose I did come on a bit strong.” She shook her head. “No. I’m not sorry I took charge. I’ve been living like a turtle afraid of its own shell for too long. I’m determined not to live that way anymore. I’ve been given a second chance. I’m not going to waste a single minute of it.”

She crossed to Richard’s most prized possession, his sacred desk. She plopped down in the leather chair that practically swallowed her up and crossed her arms on top of the meticulously polished surface. Unable to suppress a childish urge, she pressed her palm against the dark wood, leaving a smeared print.

Leslie’s brows rose and she crossed to sit in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. “This sounds ominous. What do you intend to do, exactly?”

Caroline laughed, and because it felt so good, she laughed again. “I don’t know. I suppose, to start, I just might fire the security firm that Richard hired. Yes, I think I will.”

Leslie’s eyes widened. “Why would you do that?”

She clasped her hands tightly together on the desk, her mood plummeting as the recent past pressed down upon her.

“I haven’t told you half of what I went through living here with Richard. And I have no intention of sharing those details. But suffice it to say, I was a prisoner, and the security company was my jailer. They reported every movement I made.”

“I understand your resentment, but again, I don’t recommend that you be hasty. There are a great many Ashton properties the security company takes care of, and numerous businesses.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Of course not. You aren’t used to the world of finance and business. There’s a lot to consider.” Leslie took some stapled papers out of the side pocket of her purse and set them on the desk. “If you’ll sign the first and last page, I can take care of the details for you, and all you’ll have to worry about is what kind of clothes you’d like to go shopping for or what kind of vacation you might want to take.” She smiled brightly and set a pen on top of the papers.

Caroline picked up the pen and read the heading on the first page. “‘Power of attorney’? I don’t understand. Why do you need this?”

“Just a formality. It allows me to continue to conduct business for Ashton Enterprises without you having to sign papers every week.”

The doubts that Alex and Luke had planted in her mind about Leslie suddenly became too glaring to ignore. Something wasn’t right.

“But Richard signed papers every week. He didn’t give you one of these forms, did he?”

Leslie waved her hand. “No, but we both know how controlling he was. It was entirely unnecessary for him to sign papers all the time when I could have done it for him. You can avoid all that by simply endorsing this one. I’ll have Linda put her notary stamp on it back at the office to save you a trip.”

Had this been Leslie’s goal all along? While Caroline couldn’t see her friend as a murderer, she wasn’t blind to the ambition and greed the lawyer never bothered to conceal. Had Leslie planned to get Caroline to sign over control of a billion-dollar enterprise? Had she planned on Caroline being in jail and desperate at the time, so that she wouldn’t think twice about signing?

Caroline set the pen down. She glanced past Leslie to the closed door, every muscle in her body going tense. She forced the safe, blank look onto her face that she’d used so many times when trying to hide her feelings from her husband.

“This is all new to me, like you said. And I want to make sure I get everything right. Will you bring me up to date on all of the Ashton holdings so I know what’s what?”

Leslie frowned. “Why on earth would you want me to bore you with those details? I’ll take care of everything for you.”

Caroline clenched her hand beneath the desk and glanced at the door again. She forced a smile. “Have I done something to annoy you, Leslie? You sound...aggravated.”

Leslie’s frown smoothed out and her lips curved into an answering smile. “Of course not. I’m just worried about you. If you want to dig into the boring details of the businesses, then by all means. I’ll gather the necessary reports to bring you up to speed.”

“That would be nice, of course. But I’d like to start with something smaller, just the household accounts. I want to know what expenses we have and how to pay the bills. After all, that’s something I need to take care of, right? And I’ll have to get the banks to put me on Richard’s checking accounts, savings accounts, things like that. The monthly allowance he gave me in my own account won’t be sufficient to pay the costs of running this place, like the staff’s payroll.”

“Again, that’s something I can take care of. If you’ll sign—”

“Leslie. I’m not going to argue about this. It’s important to me. I want to learn what I need to know to run my own life, without someone else running it for me.”

Leslie pursed her lips. “Of course. I wasn’t considering everything you’ve gone through, and that having control over such mundane things might be important to you.” She reached for the papers.

Caroline pulled the papers away and slid them into the top desk drawer. “I’ll keep the papers here and think about signing. Okay?”

Leslie glanced toward the drawer, not looking at all pleased. For a moment, Caroline wondered if she was going to lunge over the desk and try to grab the papers. But finally Leslie snapped her purse shut.

“I’ll get what you need from the bank as well as the house account information. It will take a day or two. With it being Sunday, the bank’s not open, of course. I can come back on Wednesday. I should have everything together by then.”

Caroline shoved out of the chair and walked Leslie to the door. “Wednesday sounds perfect. We can have lunch out back by the pool. Wear something casual. It will be fun.”

“Fun.” Leslie frowned again. “I’ve never seen this side of you, Caroline. I must say, it’s going to take a bit of getting used to.”

When the front door closed behind Leslie, Caroline slumped against the wall. She ran a shaking hand through her hair and stood for several minutes until she felt calm enough to go back into Richard’s office.

No,
her
office. She went inside and stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the glass. The energy she’d had earlier seemed to desert her now. She was tired, so tired, and the day was only half over. She had so much to do, like telling Alex and Luke about the documents Leslie had tried to get her to sign.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Ashton?”

She turned at the sound of the head maid’s voice. “Hello, Natasha. I’m sorry if I was a bit...abrupt earlier.”

The maid gave her an uncertain look, as if she wasn’t sure Caroline was going to run shrieking from the room tearing at her hair.

Caroline sighed. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” She held out a small stack of envelopes. “The mail. I usually place it on Mr. Ashton’s desk, but I...wasn’t sure where you might want it.”

Progress already. The maid had actually asked her preference rather than ignoring her and going about her business.

Caroline smiled and took the mail. “Thank you. I feel as if I’ve been sleepwalking around here for quite some time. I haven’t really been aware of the routines you and the others go through. I apologize for not paying attention. As clean and well run as this household is, it’s obvious the staff does an amazing job.”