Lynn Patrick - A Forever Home

No sense in thinking about anyone, not when he was here to do a job.

He had to redirect his mind back to his mission.

Mowing the lawn was simply part of his cover, though he had carefully adjusted the mower higher as Heather had suggested. He didn’t want to be a grass destroyer. He snorted at the idea and remembered how Heather had glared at him when she’d made the accusation. Hmm, her narrow, makeup-free face had pulled into the cutest expression, and her blue eyes had gone all steely, when she’d been irritated with him...

There his mind went again, off in the wrong direction.

Raising the blades, he rode the lawnmower to the far side of the mansion, stopped and turned it off. Then he dismounted and walked along the flower garden that bordered the building. The task gave him the opportunity to covertly inspect the area where he’d found a man’s footprints early that morning. Though he hadn’t seen any signs of a break in, he was certain someone was sneaking around the grounds. If only he could figure out why. Whoever had left those tracks beneath the windows probably was up to no good, as Ben Phillips feared.

Strange things had been going on at the Flanagan estate for the past several weeks—a broken window, random diggings, tampered locks. Phillips had grown concerned, as he should have been, considering the family had quite a collection of century-old stained glass in the house, in addition to pricey antiques and a butler’s pantry filled with silver service. Also, there was the safety of the staff and the bed-and-breakfast guests to consider. With the tourist season about to heat up, Phillips had hired Rick to secure the estate and investigate the source of the trouble. And to stop it from going any farther, of course. Because Phillips had fired the last handyman/groundskeeper, he needed someone to do small repairs around the place—hence Rick’s cover.

But Rick had now been all around the mansion and the other buildings on the property, and he hadn’t seen anything more to clue him in as to what was going on. Figuring he needed to change tactics, he left the mower outside the coach house. Built to house carriages drawn by horses and walled with the same kind of fancy paneling as the house, it was now a combination garage for his employer and storage area for equipment. There was even a small shop area to make repairs. And upstairs, the second floor apartment that had been inhabited first by a carriage driver, then a chauffeur, was now Rick’s temporary digs. He’d only brought along some clothes and a bunch of books—the mysteries and thrillers that kept him company at night. The challenge of figuring out who did what and why had entertained him since he’d read the Hardy Boys as a kid. Undoubtedly the reason he’d been drawn to this particular job.

Rick was used to temporary digs. He’d never had a real home, not even when he was a kid. His dad had been military, and Rick, his brother, Joe, and their mom had moved from base to base all over the world with him. Their parents were retired now and living in Florida. And Joe had settled in to a job at the Pentagon.

Sometimes Rick wished he’d been smart enough to get out before the horrible attack that had turned his dreams into nightmares. When terrorists had attacked his team on a special mission in Afghanistan, two of his men had lost their lives. He and Keith Murphy had barely survived. He’d relegated to memory every detail of the event and the deaths of the men he’d called friends.

Afterward, he’d never felt the same about being a lifer. When his tour was over, he’d left the army. Still, Rick wasn’t settled, inside or out.

Guilt over his men’s deaths lingered, always just below the surface.

He hadn’t yet found any reason to want to remain in civilian life.

And he didn’t know if he would ever call any place home.

The only reason he’d come to Wisconsin had been to reconnect with Megan Anders, an old girlfriend, the daughter of a commissioned officer. He’d dated her off and on for a couple of years, and the last he’d heard, she’d settled in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, he’d had no clue she’d gotten married since he’d last seen her. Still, he liked the area, and having nowhere else to go, had stuck around, taking a job with Lake Shore Security, the company that had placed him in his current undercover job.

Getting to know the other employees on the estate was essential. It was day two and he’d barely met any of the help, so Rick decided to go inside the mansion and get cozy with them. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to any of the three full-time staff alone. Maybe he could get something out of one of them that would put him on the right track. The only person on the property who knew his real mission was the housekeeper, Cora, who’d been with the Phillips family for decades. He assumed that she was loyal and would keep his identity to herself, or the owner wouldn’t have told her who he was.

He entered through the huge kitchen, which still had an old-fashioned feel despite the new appliances. The large cabinets looked original to him, though they’d been painted white and sported new hardware. Gray-threaded white marble counters gave the cook several large preparation surfaces. Right now, however, she was busy at the stove, stirring something in a big pan. The smell made his mouth water.

He sized up the woman. Probably in her early forties, Kelly Bennett wore a white chef’s coat over gray trousers and had tied her red hair back from her face.

“Smells great,” he said.

She glanced at him. “Oh, Rick, good morning. I’m making carnitas, a southwestern pulled pork. You can try it later, at dinner.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that.”

Actually, he was looking forward to any meals he could catch here. He wasn’t a very good cook himself. And eating in a mess hall had never been much of a treat. So he was grateful for Phillips’s invitation to catch lunch and dinner with the other full-time employees on weekdays. On Saturday and Sunday, the cook only made brunch and only when there were guests.

“It’s pretty quiet here at this end of town,” he said. “Not much action.”

“Well, no, not now. There will be shortly. We have two guests arriving tomorrow. More on the weekend. We won’t be full seven days a week until mid-June, when school lets out. After that, all eight guest rooms are booked solid for most of the summer.”

Rick waited a beat, then said, “I thought I heard something last night.” If someone had been out in the garden as the fresh footprints indicated, the person must have made some kind of noise. Unfortunately, Rick hadn’t heard anything because he’d been too far away, sound asleep in the coach house.

“Heard something?” Kelly repeated. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. But it woke me.” A small fabrication.

“Maybe you had a bad dream.”

“I would have remembered. Well, usually I do.” He waited another beat. “So you didn’t hear anything?”

Phillips had told him that the cook, housekeeper and concierge all lived in the mansion.

“No. And I’m a light sleeper.” She went back to stirring her carnitas. “Nothing last night.”

“Another night, then?”

Keeping her back to him, she shrugged. “Old houses have strange noises sometimes. Is there something else you need?”

Rick wanted to ask her more, but he got the idea she wasn’t about to elaborate. At least not yet.

“Actually, I came in to see Cora.”

“She said she wanted to do some reorganizing in the library.”

“Thanks. See you when it’s chow time.”

He left the kitchen via a hallway that took him to the rotunda. The large, round multistory room in the middle of the building separated the two wings. An original mural of the heavens covered the domed ceiling and extended to the upper walls, where a balcony ran full circle, allowing guests to admire artwork on the walls or look down to view the activity on the first floor. The lower walls were enhanced with a rich wood wainscoting, and a carpeted stairway with hand-carved railings led to the second floor.