Page 4 of Not the Bodyguard's Widow
Candace wrinkled her painted-on brows. “He said you left the hospital and that you’d had a miscarriage and might be suicidal.”
“Yes, I left the hospital, but I faked the miscarriage.” She moved the phone to show Candace her baby bump, stretching the T-shirt tight over her belly. “And I am not suicidal, but if he finds me, he will make it look like I took my life. Jeremy’s father wants me gone for good.”
“Kimberly!”
“Can I explain later?” Not in front of this Mr. Alexander. Candace was normally a good judge of character. She’d warned her Jeremy wasn’t the right man five years ago, but just because Candace trusted her bodyguard didn’t mean Kimberly had to.
Mr. Alexander listened to every word with his arms crossed, his presence filling the small loft.
“We’ll catch up when I am back in the States. Don’t run away. And trust Alex. He is the best.”
“Thanks, Candace.” She looked at the guard. He was definitely confident, but that didn’t equate to trustworthy.
“Oh, before we go, I want to see baby bump again. I am so glad you didn’t have another miscarriage.”
Kimberly held the phone out so she could fit her upper body on the screen.
“Oh, so cute! Do you know what flavor?”
“I asked them not to tell me.”
“How far along are you?”
“Twenty-five weeks.”
“Mandy has a doctor in Chicago she loves. She didn’t trust the ones down near the house. I’ll tell you all about her later.” Candace turned her head. “I gotta go. Trust Alex. He is as good as he looks!” The call ended.
Kimberly handed the phone back.
Mr. Alexander was a shade pinker around his ears. “Did you really come through the skylight?”
Kimberly nodded. “I took a chance it might not be alarmed or with the power outage it wouldn’t report. I guess it did.”
“Every twenty minutes since the power came back on. I think it reported initially, but because of the lightning strike at the substation, our local contractor missed it as their power went out too.” Mr. Alexander stood, crouching under the loft’s sloped ceiling, and inspected the skylight. He pulled out his phone. “I’m disabling this link for a few moments.” He opened the window and closed it again, then looked at his phone. “Was it raining when you came in last night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you reconnect the alarm ends?”
“Yes. It is similar to the system my father-in-law installed at our house.”
He looked at her for a moment before turning back to the alarm connector. “The connector must have gotten wet. There was enough humidity to cause it to signal an alarm every twenty minutes.”
“So if it hadn’t been raining, I wouldn’t have set it off?” A raindrop had given her away?
“You set it off when you came in. But with half the county without power, they missed the initial alarm. If it had only been the one time, I would have asked the locals to investigate. However, they can’t fix a broken alarm sensor. This system is proprietary, and we don’t give them parts to fix anything that breaks, so I came down assuming it needed a repair.”
“It must have been inconvenient to drive all the way from Chicago.”
“Not really. Never happened before. I need to let my brother Alan know about this. Rarely does a sensor get wet, but it could happen again.” He stepped back from the window and tapped his phone screen. “There, fixed. Let’s go downstairs, and you can tell me what you didn’t tell Candace.” He held out
a hand.
Kimberly rolled out of the beanbag chair and onto all fours, then stood without his help. Mr. Alexander dropped his hand, scooped up the guns, and descended the stairs.
She waited until he was out of sight, then rubbed her belly. “Candace trusts him. Can we?”
* * *
