Chapter 2

Sitting in the limo, I knew my face was as red as the material covering the ground.  If I were lucky, Hodge wouldn’t bring up the fact that my feet were still bare, showing off the pink polish I was forced to paint onto my nails.  Dorothy had taste, that was for sure, and she liked each part of her body in pristine condition, which meant I had to keep mine the same.

The divider, which had been closed on my ride to the large house, dropped down to revel Hodge’s smiling face in the rear view mirror.  “Guess we’ll just take a ride around the block,” he said with a chuckle.  “Seeing as you can’t leave the car, Miss.”

“You can drop the Miss,” I mumbled, burrowing further back into the leather seats.  Closing my eyes, I briefly let the cushions behind my back relax me before opening them once more.  “You’re my contact?”

“At your service,” he said, tipping his cap. 

The action made me smile.  “We’re you going to tell me, or let me figure it out on my own.”

“You seemed to know who I was pretty quick,” he said, pulling the limo out of the driveway.  “With the way Mitch spoke of you, I would have been disappointed to find that you needed to ask which person was on your side.”

Before the words even left his mouth, I was shaking my head at him.  “Did you forget the first rule of our business?”

“Trust no one,” he answered, his smile dropping from its place.  “If you cannot put trust in a few people, you cannot live your life.”

“There are two people in this world that I trust,” I told him, breaking eye contact in the mirror to watch the trees flash by outside.

“Mitch.”

“And myself,” I finished with a nod. 

“And if Mitch is one of the men determined to kill Dorothy?”

Hearing the pure curiosity in his voice, I knew I would have to answer the question honestly.  This man had been in the business longer than I have.  He had most likely worked for the government even before I was alive.  “He trained me.  I would do what he told me to do to people who pretend to defend our country while they stab us in the back.”

“Kill them.”

“No,” I mumbled, turning my eyes back to him, “destroy them.  Sometimes, death is what they are looking for.”

Hodge mumbled something under his breath, too low for me to hear.  Before I could ask him what he was saying, he began talking once more.  “We have five minutes before you need to be back home.  You’re head of security will call to verify the hair appointment, and when he finds out that there was none, he will expect you back.”

“You could have put me in danger.”  I kept all emotion out of my voice.  His lying could put us all in danger, but the man knew more about Dorothy than any of us.  If I remembered correctly, he had been working with the Herrings for six years, plenty of time to pick up on the everyday activities of the household.

“Dorothy often schedules appointments on Wednesdays, which is today.  The head of security will think nothing of you forgetting that you did not have one today.”

His words reassured me a little, but I needed to keep my eye out for this head of security.  The man would know the whereabouts of all the Herrings, he would know a lot of their secrets, and he could very well be the final piece of this case’s puzzle.  As soon as I could, I was getting my hands on this man.  “If we only have five minutes,” I said, dropping all other thoughts from my mind, “start talking.”

“Yes, Miss,” he replied in an amused tone.  “Never call Lisa mother.  The two of them haven’t even had a conversation with each other for years.  The blame is Dorothy’s, if you were wondering.  The woman set her parents against each other, made it to where Mr. Herring thinks poorly of her.”

“What a bitch,” I mumbled under my breath.  What type of person would do that to their own parents? 

Hodge nodded.  “Exactly.  Roger, her father, and Dorothy the two of them are still close.  While he is around, Dorothy attempts to drop the coldness that is truly her and show a little affection, which is why the man was allowed to shake your hand.”

Shaking my head at the description of the woman I now was, I let the questions flow from my mouth.  “My siblings, I have two brothers.  How is their relationship with me?”

“How is Dorothy’s relationship with them, you mean?”

“No, I am Dorothy,” I told him, total conviction in my voice.  “Tell me how I usually treat them.”

“Yes, Miss.  Your two brothers, one older than you, he knows how you are and has forsaken you for it.” He paused as if he were looking for his next words.  “He’s quite, ah, how do you say it…handsome.  I would watch out for that one if I were you.”

“I’m his sister.”

“Step-siblings, dear.  Why do you think that you never call Lisa mother?  The woman might have raised you, but you are not related to her.  When you were a child, your mother died, leaving you with only your father.  You were two, and your father had trouble keeping up with you and running his business.  Your father’s secretary was in the same situation except her boy was four.  Do you understand it?”

“Yes, it would explain why I'm the heiress to the company and not the older brother. Why wasn’t this in the file?”

He shrugged at me.  “They never speak of it.  Lisa tried to raise you as her own, but you pushed her away.  Even as a child, you were not very affectionate.”

“The younger one?” I asked.

“Adopted,” Hodge said with a chuckle.  “The boy is only eleven; he had a hard time of it in the system, but while Lisa was doing her volunteer work, she fell in love with the boy.  Next thing you know, he’s living with all of you.”

“The system can be harsh.”  Remembering the past would get me nowhere.  I wasn’t there any longer.  Mitch had gotten me out before I was too bad off.  “Tell me about the man in the bathroom.”

Hodge let out a laugh.  “You will love this one,” he gasped while pulling in the drive.  “The man is hired for your, um, needs.”

“My needs,” I repeated, knowing that the disbelief I was feeling was clearly in my voice.

“Ah, yes, Miss.  It seems that Dorothy may be beautiful, but the woman does not pay him for the pleasure, she pays him to leave.  Do you understand?”

The car stopped outside of the house, and I decided to leave Hodge’s question unanswered.  I understood though.  Dorothy was exactly what I had thought of Lisa earlier, what the man had called me in the bathroom, cold.  The limo door opened, reveling the cement walkway that led to the house.  A hand came into view, and without thinking, I grabbed it and let the person pull me to my feet. 

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness outside, I realized that the hand in mine didn’t have the wrinkles that Hodge’s did.  Whoever this person was, it wasn’t my driver.  Pulling my hand back, I readied myself for whatever attack was about to come.

“What’s with the stance?”

Recognizing the voice from earlier, I wanted to groan in frustration.  Why was my luck so harsh?  Why was I stuck seeing this man twice in one day?  I thought that Dorothy paid him to leave?  So, what was he doing here, now?

“I thought you were someone else,” I said with a shrug.

His brown eyes narrowed at me.  “Funny, I could say the same thing about you.”

The shock I felt didn’t make it onto my face.  There was no way that this man knew I wasn’t who I claimed to be.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

He leaned forward, his lips brushing my ear.  “What’s my occupation?”

My eyes flickered towards where Hodge was standing.  I knew whoever this man was; he wouldn’t be able to see the driver mouth his occupation.  “You’re the gardener, and you’re obviously a horrible one,” I sneered, stepping away from him with a disgusted look. “If you knew how to do your job, those rose bushes would be trimmed.” I pointed at the bushes that lined the walkway, making his eyes turn towards them also. 

With his eyes off me, I quickly made my retreat.  But before I entered the house, I flipped my hair over my shoulder and turned cold blue eyes on him.  “By the way, your services will not be needed for some time.  I’ve found something else to occupy my time.”

From the distance we were standing, I couldn’t see the emotions that flashed through his eyes, but if the smile on his face was anything to go by, then the man didn’t think it was over.  Turning my back on him, I stepped into the already open door and ran right into the chest of a very well built man.

Raising my hands, I pushed off him with an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

The man looked down at me, total disbelief on his face.  “Father is not around,” he said with narrowed eyes, anger overtaking the disbelief.  “You have no reason to play nice.”

Tilting my chin up, I sneered at him.  “Not your father, remember?”

“This again?” the man asked, and I had to flip through the files in my mind to pick up his name.

“Yes, Cole, this again.”

He took a step closer to me, and I had to admit to myself that if I were in a different situation, I might have been intimidated by the way he stood over me.  “We may not be related by blood,” he snapped, “but he is my father.”

“Blood is thicker than water.”

Cole shook his head at me, an almost sad expression on his face.  “I’ll be leaving.  Tell Mother to call me when you leave the house.  I’d prefer to speak with them when you aren’t around.”

He pushed past me, not making a move as I stumbled back.  Watching his back, I took a deep breath and let it out.  This job was going to be harder than I thought it was.  How was I going to be mean to these people when they had done nothing to me?  My jobs before had never been this personal, had never involved a family. 

My feet settled back onto the ground, and my thoughts cleared.  I had to do this.  I had to do this to save this family.  I just hope that I didn’t become too attached, because once I did, I knew there was going to be no way to come back from that.