Page 19 of Guarded By the Phantom

Her words, not mine.

It was now eight, and Barbara was in her dance studio, working out, while I sat here, listening intently to the natural rhythm of the house so I could detect anomalies later.

The Ashford-Kingsleys lived in style. Their household staff counted six people, including the main housekeeper, personal grooming assistants for the Mister and Missus, a cook, and two housemaids. The staff all lived in the house for better availability.

I supposed it made sense. What use was generational wealth if you couldn’t get hot cocoa delivered to your bed by a devoted servant at three a.m.?

Done with my steak, I wiped my bloody fingers on a pristine, white linen napkin and got myself a fifth cup of the insanely good coffee they had here. I had to do some more research on the family. The kosher info was in my official files, but I wanted to dig deeper, and what better sources than trashy press and social media?

Ten minutes of searching later, I managed to dig out an article that was now taken down but still lurked as a series of crappy screenshots in the depths of Reddit.

A few years ago, Mr. Kingsley’s PR team decided it was a good idea to run a piece on how great an employer he was, which included interviews with his household staff. The piece backfired horribly, because it’s impossible to boast about employing a personal groomer and come across as a nice guy.

I snorted into my coffee, reading the gushing praises the housemaids heaped on their employer for the article. He was apparently “generous”, “understanding”, and “supportive”, and it all sounded so fake. With articles like this in the press, who needed a mind manipulator to destroy the man’s career? He did a great job himself.

But judging my employer wasn’t a part of the job, so I closed the article and got up for one more cup of coffee. I knew the deadly dose for a human was somewhere around eighty-two cups, but for abominations, that limit was much higher. I indulged with a clean conscience.

Sipping on my double espresso, I scrolled some more, clicking on a few images of Barbara. She smiled in every one, either walking somewhere and waving, standing behind her father when he spoke, or dancing ballet, all graceful and innocent in pristine white.

Between those aesthetic shoots were stills from the viral video. Barbara laughing, gorging herself on food, showing the middle finger when she spoke about her father.

It was like looking at two different people. I kind of liked the mind-manipulated one better. She seemed to enjoy herself, at least. The clean, pristine Barbara looked more like a doll than a girl. She was still gorgeous, though.

Realizing I was staring at a picture of her smiling intimately into the camera as she posed in a café, I huffed at myself and put my phone away.

Bad Phantom. Don’t stare at your principal. Focus!

From my files, I knew the estate employed three gardeners and a small security team, whose resources were mainly spent on manning the gatehouse in shifts. There was an alarm system on the property, but it wasn’t in use. Overall, the security here was shitty, and it was a wonder no one had exploited it until now.

The security team should patch up the holes soon enough. I’d handed them my recommendations in the morning, pointing out all the blind spots I’d noticed. If that fucker came in again to finish the job, I’d know.

A door banged somewhere in the house, classical music mashed with a heavy beat turning up louder and louder until it boomed through the walls. Unable to resist the call of chaos in the respectable dwelling, I drained my cup and followed the music through a maze of plush-carpeted corridors and old-money wainscoting.

The door to Barbara’s studio was closed, and I had too much self-respect to peep through the keyhole, so I went outside and climbed a tree to look at her through the wall of windows. I justified this by wanting to make sure she wasn’t a danger to herself, though I kind of knew it was a bullshit excuse.

I just wanted to see her dance, especially if she did it to such rebellious, blaring music that was so unlike the feeble piano plonking I associated with ballet.

In the large, well-lit room, she was a whirlwind of graceful, explosive movements. Her lithe body clad in leggings and a black top twirled in tight, dazzling pirouettes only to stop and burst up in a violent jump or drop to the floor, her legs stretched open, her spine bent in a graceful arch.

She followed the harsh beat of the music that boomed out through the open windows, growing faster and heavier even as the classical notes became shriller. I watched, mesmerized, the beat reverberating in my ribs. She flung some hair that escaped her bun away from her cheek and rolled, coming into a seamless split, then jumped up to her feet in an acrobatic display that made me want to clap.

Sweat poured down her neck, soaking her top, and still, she twirled faster, her legs coming high, arms working gracefully, before she twisted her entire body and contorted into a shape more eerie than graceful, her fingers splayed wide, face dark and angry. As the tune grew faster, her movements lost their grace, becoming violent and sharp as she attacked shadows and turned in a dizzy whirl, madness in her eyes.

It was beautiful.

When the music stopped, so did she, her shape a dark slash in the middle of the bright, airy room. She stood there, her chest heaving, face glowing from exertion.

I should have looked away then. I really should have.

When she raised her top without a hint of self-consciousness, I jerked. I saw her lean stomach and the undersides of her breasts. A small beauty mark dotted the left one. She didn’t wear a bra.

She wiped her face with her top, flashing me with a clear view of her tight nipples. I fell off the tree.

My fall made a horrible racket, impossible not to notice. I crushed right into a huge, pedantically manicured bush that, as it turned out, had thorns.

“Who’s there?” came her panicked shout.

I groaned, disentangling myself from the thorny bush that, thankfully, didn’t even scratch me. The door flew open, and Barbara shot out of the house. I just managed to roll out onto the grass, landing flat on my back, when she stood over me, her eyes dark, face red.

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