“Oh, uh, thank you.” He took her offerings as she stared past him into his bedroom. “Uh, do you want to come inside?” he asked. It wasn’t like it was improper; the bedroom was the size of somebody’s apartment. There was a sitting area, for God’s sake.
“Yes, please, for a moment. That would be wonderful.”
He stepped back, gesturing with his glass for her to come inside. She made her way to one of the strangely shaped black chairs and sat. She wasn’t as young as he’d thought at first glance. Her face was a roadmap of wrinkles and she wore not a stitch of makeup. He could see that her once black hair had long since ceded to the silver, even with it caught up in a knot on her head.
He sat opposite her in the other black chair and took a huge bite of the sandwich, trying not to groan in pleasure at the combination of ham and spicy mustard. “This is great. Thank you,” he said around the bite.
She beamed at him for a moment before her face grew serious. “Did Mr. Monty send you to be the next babysitter for the boy?”
Linc frowned at her words. “He hired me to watch over him over the next few months, yes.”
She sat up straighter, her gaze eagle sharp. “What did he tell you about Mr. Wyatt?”
“That he’s been in several accidents. And that he’d been under the influence for the last one, which is how he ended up on house arrest. He said he was… impulsive, reckless. Spoiled.”
“The last two guards he sent were barely older than him and were easily manipulated—Wyatt’s specialty—but I don’t think you will be so easily led.”
“I’ll do my job,” he said.
“I hope so. He’s fragile. He’s wandering, always wandering”—she tapped her finger against her temple—“in here.”
Linc wasn’t sure what that meant. “Fragile?”
“Mr. Monty refuses to see Wyatt for who he is. He’s never given him what he needs.”
Linc contemplated her words as he ate another bite, before saying, “What do you think he needs?”
“Time. Attention.”
Linc snorted. “He’s a bit old to be acting out for attention, don’t you think?”
Her expression grew stormy. “That boy’s been raised by one nanny after another since the day they brought him home from the hospital. He has no life skills. But more than that, his parents have treated him like an afterthought. An inconvenience since day one. Nobody more so than his father.”
Linc had no idea why she was unloading all this on him, but he nodded, anyway. She wasn’t finished. “I come here, every day, and I pretend to vacuum that floor so that I know he’s okay. To make sure he hasn’t done the next stupid thing. I thought having those guards around would help, but they weren’t interested in seeing the truth.”
“The truth?”
“You just have to look beneath his words.”
“I don’t understand.”
She gave him a sad smile and stood. “I know you don’t, but you’re not the only one who signed a stupid paper. I cannot tell you what I know, but I’m hoping you’ll see it anyway. Enjoy your sandwich.”
With that, she left him to decrypt her message.
* * *
The sound of glass breaking in the distance had Linc on his feet and moving. He glanced at the clock. One-forty a.m. He’d been asleep less than an hour. He quietly slipped open his door and padded barefoot toward the noise somewhere in the vicinity of the living room. He studied the darkened room, but nothing seemed amiss. Then he noticed the doors to the balcony were open just enough to accommodate a body, but the only light was the light sparkling beneath the water of the swimming pool.
Linc pushed the doors open enough to fit through and started his process all over again, scanning the back porch for any signs of life. His gaze snagged on a wet rust-colored stain, growing larger, spreading like blood across the stark white travertine tiles. He crept closer, noting the chunks of glass scattered through the puddle and beyond, almost to the water. Not blood. Wine. The sound of breaking must have been a wine bottle.
“Hey, GI Joe! Just in time. Can you grab me another bottle? I broke mine and I’m a little stuck here,” he said on a giggle.
Linc’s heart stopped. Just beyond the broken bottle, Wyatt lay across the concrete railing of the balcony looking at Linc with glassy eyes.
“What are you doing up there?” Linc asked, keeping his voice calm.
“I’m sleeping. Well, I was trying to sleep, but my brain just was going around and around, so I came out here for some air. Doesn’t the moon look pretty tonight? Both of them.” He flailed his hands toward the sky on another sharp laugh.
