1
Tuesday, September 2
Wilton Residence
Giles Hollow Road
Fayetteville, Tennessee, 9:15 a.m.
Valeri Erwin waited on the broad, two-story porch, the doorbell she’d rung for the third time still echoing through the house. She checked her cell again. It was well past nine. Where was everyone?
She walked to the west end of the porch and glanced at the detached garage. All four doors were closed. At least one would be open if there was no one home.
Strange.
With a big breath, she walked back to the door and decided to use her key. Though she had been the owner’s personal assistant for many years, she still wasn’t a fan of entering the house like this. Not since Alicia, the second wife, came along, anyway. Generally if the door was locked, the housekeeper hurried to greet Valeri—overly apologetic for having forgotten to unlock it in anticipation of her arrival. The twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion sat on hundreds of acres, every inch of which was security fenced with only one entrance, which was gated and required an access code. There were cameras and all manner of security equipment at the gate and around the main house. Not to mention there were guns. Guns the owner and most members of staffknew how to use. It wasn’t like there was a safety issue. And still this happened on occasion.
Valeri heaved a sigh of impatience, but then she remembered the household staff had taken the rest of this week off. With the summer events over now that Labor Day had come and gone, all but Valeri were taking much-needed vacations.
She never took days off, much less vacations. Whatever would Thomas do without her?
The instant she unlocked the door and opened it, the alarm warned she had only a set number of seconds to disarm it. Frowning, she hurried to the keypad and entered the code. The heels of her shoes clicked on the shiny marble floor.
Was no one out of bed yet?
Unlikely.
Obviously there was no one at all here. Either that, or Thomas and Alicia were still in bed with massive hangovers from their weekend party.
This time Valeri practically gagged.Not nice, Val.But the truth was, Thomas Wilton was a very good man. This latest fiasco of a marriage (only six months old at this point) had turned him into an absentminded party boy, as if he were still in college rather than barreling toward fifty. Men could be so stupid—even one as utterly brilliant as Thomas Wilton.
Breathe. Be patient. You were here long before her, you’ll be here long after she’s gone.
After a walk-through of the first floor, Valeri had no choice but to go upstairs. The idea of finding her employer and Alicia in bed was less than appealing, but what else could she do? Thomas had a very important Zoom meeting in just over half an hour. There was no time to wait and see if he’d stumble out of bed on his own. Besides, after five years working for him, she shouldn’t have been embarrassed by anything at all. She had seen him naked during his grief period after his first wife’s death two years ago. She had celebrated with him when his professional life hit new, unparalleled heights just last year. She knew this man inside out. As for Alicia, the entire staff knew most every partof her—at least on the outside. She drifted around the house and the pool mostly naked much of the time. The woman lacked anything even remotely resembling modesty or manners.
Frustrated and a little angry now, Valeri tromped up the elegant staircase that wound above the grand entry hall. Who needed a house this huge? Only an eccentric billionaire who’d created and subsequently sold to the US government the most significant air defense system the world had ever seen. No wonder he’d retired eight years ago at forty-one. He had more money than he could spend in a couple of hundred lifetimes, and still it poured in. That was the other thing happening later this fall—the boss’s fiftieth birthday.
Alicia would expect Valeri to plan and orchestrate every detail while she took the credit.
Valeri paused at the double doors that led into the primary suite. Deep breath. She gave a firm knock, then opened the doors without waiting for a response. The expansive, luxuriously decorated and furnished room was ...vacant. Her anticipation seeped out of her like the air from a punctured balloon.
“What the devil is going on?” Valeri grumbled.
She left the room, putting through a call to Thomas’s cell once more as she moved from room to room over the entire floor and found no one. The call went to voicemail. This was beyond ridiculous. Time was running out. Her frustration and anger funneled into urgency.
Downstairs, she hurried out the back door and to where the utility terrain vehicles were stored. Sure enough, the one Thomas used was not there. The two had to be at the cabin still. He’d said that he and Alicia would be spending the weekend there. Which meant—Valeri smirked as she climbed into a UTV—they planned to drink excessively and party wildly. Thomas always went to the cabin he’d had built deep in the woods on his five-hundred-acre property to be a bad boy. Not that he had done so often. Not since emerging from the grief period, anyway.
Valeri shook her head, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel as she navigated her way through the woods. No matter that the leaveshadn’t actually started to turn and the temps were still hovering in the nineties on most days, a hint of fall was already in the air.
The drive to the cabin was a good fifteen minutes along narrow trails that cut through the thick woods. The fact that this land was untouched—never cleared, farmed, or used for pasture—was one of the reasons Thomas had chosen it eight years ago when he returned to Tennessee—after showing them how it was done in DC, he always said. The privacy this property allowed while only a fairly short drive from town was exactly what he’d wanted.
A glimpse of the cabin came into view, and Valeri braced for what was coming. Thomas was a consummate businessman. He could not tolerate incompetence or tardiness. She couldn’t help thinking that perhaps something had happened to cause him to be running behind this morning. But then why hadn’t he called her to reschedule his meeting? Or answered her calls?
Valeri’s nerves were jangling by the time she parked next to Thomas’s UTV and climbed out. It was possible he and Alicia had fought. Alicia was untrustworthy, in Valeri’s opinion. When he realized exactly what she’d been up to, he would send her packing. But Valeri wasn’t going to be the one to tell him—though she did drop hints. He would find out soon enough. Alicia wouldn’t be able to cover her tracks for long.
Maybe Alicia’s time had run out this very weekend.
The happy thought dissolved as she climbed out of the UTV. It was way too quiet. She shivered as she made her way along the rock path to the wraparound deck that skirted the enormous cabin.
