Page 11 of Not the Bodyguard's Widow
“The wall murals will be worth a small fortune someday if anyone makes the connection between the house and six of the wealthiest couples in the world. Mrs. Ogilvie would never sell.” Alex flinched at the thought of someone dismantling the house for the walls.
“Did you catch the intruder, then?”
Alex smiled. “We had a bit of a standoff. She is apparently one of Mrs. Ogilvie’s former roommates and attempted to enter using an old key. I gather this wasn’t the first time she used the skylight as an entry point. I interrupted the Ogilvie’s vacation to ask permission for the intruder to stay.” Alex turned onto a dirt road and slowed so the scanner would read his car and open the electronic gate.
“What?”
“We have a new client—Kimberly Thompson, pregnant widow of Jeremy Thompson, son of Hawthorn Thompson of Thompson Investments. You’ve seen his commercials, right?”
“Wait, you are telling me a pregnant woman climbed in through the skylight in the middle of a thunderstorm?”
“Yup.”
“That’s—”
“Either desperate or crazy. Maybe a bit of both. She doesn’t think her husband’s death was accidental and believes her father-in-law is trying to kill her.”
“I vote for crazy.”
“At first I thought she might be delusional as well, except the father-in-law called Mrs. Ogilvie from Kimberly’s phone Tuesday. The problem is, Kimberly destroyed that phone on Monday.”
“This Kimberly must not have done a good job. And what is up with you not using her formal name? You are the last one to call clients by their first names.”
Alex stopped the car in front of a two-story caretaker’s house and ran his hand down his face. “It’s the best thing to call her. ‘Mrs. Thompson’ might stress her out more. Anyway, she removed the sim card and the battery and smashed the rest. Makes me think they cloned her phone.”
“Sounds reasonable. Anything else I need to know?”
“I need an Ogilvie phone for her, and everything is being charged to Mrs. Ogilvie.”
“I think there is a phone in the caretaker’s house or in the watch-room at the Crawford cottage.”
Alex switched the car feed to his phone. “I’m at the caretaker’s now. Let me know what you find on the Thompsons.”
“I will. Do you want me to do a background check on her?”
“My guess is that as one of Candace’s old roommates, there is already a file on Kimberly. Run a check for the last year. And put a media alert on her. Eventually her father-in-law will do more than call old friends.”
Hastings Security kept the caretaker’s house stocked with a variety of frozen foods and vegetables. Alex added milk, eggs, and bread to the grocery list. That would do until he decided if he needed a team down here, which would be a problem as few of the Hastings employees were available for an assignment. It would be easier to move Kimberly to Chicago.
And that might not be too easy.
* * *
The smell of chicken woke Kimberly. Was it dinnertime? She checked her phone to make sure it was on the correct time zone. Four hours. Kimberly sat up and brushed her hair out of her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept four hours straight. Definitely chicken. She followed the smell to the kitchen. Mr. Alexander wore one of the Christmas aprons Candace’s aunt had made for all the roommates one year.
“A bodyguard who cooks?”
Mr. Alexander looked up. “I like to eat, and cooking comes with the territory.”
“Oh, I guess it makes sense. Did you make enough for me?”
“I did. My mother taught us it was rude to eat in front of people. During our teen years, she amended that to ‘unless it’s your brothers in the kitchen.’”
Kimberly laughed. “I can only imagine. I was an only child, so I didn’t have any competition for food.”
Mr. Alexander checked a small pot. “Dinner should be ready in ten minutes.”
Someone had stacked the plates in the cupboard in rainbow order. Who in Art House would have organized the eclectic, hodgepodge dinnerware? Kimberly resisted the urge to rearrange them as she pulled down two plates from different places in the stack. She set her plate at the place where she had illustrated a ladybug picnic and set Mr. Alexander’s plate on a flower signed by Araceli. Kim had only met Araceli once, at Candace’s wedding. She added glasses of water to the table. There wasn’t anything left for her to do. Not wanting to watch Mr. Alexander cook, she checked the fridge. Fully stocked. He’d put away the groceries. No wonder Candace liked her bodyguards.
